So E3 is happening right now in LA, Nintendo did their Digital Event yesterday morning (9am Pacific, which for those of us on the east coast means either waking up stupid early or watching it on lunch break with headphones in), and I had every intention of actually paying attention to it this week. Star Fox Zero, the new Xenoblade, whatever Nintendo was going to do with amiibo next. I had tabs open. I had a notepad going.
Instead I have spent the better part of three days managing a fictional fallout shelter and I regret nothing.
Bethesda dropped Fallout Shelter for free on iOS right at the end of their press conference on Sunday, and I think that was actually a smarter move than anything Nintendo or Sony did with their stage time. You didn't have to wait for a trailer to cut together or a release date six months out. It was just there, on the App Store, immediately, while everyone's attention was already locked on E3. I downloaded it before the conference had even finished and by Monday night I had a 43-dweller vault that I was borderline emotionally invested in.
If you haven't played it: you build out a vault, room by room, and assign your dwellers to work based on their SPECIAL stats (yes, the same system from the main games, which is a nice touch if you've played Fallout 3 or New Vegas). You send people out to wander the wasteland for loot. You occasionally get attacked by raiders or, once you're unlucky enough, a deathclaw that walks in and just wrecks three rooms of your carefully optimized power plant. It's basically a Tamagotchi crossed with SimTower with a Fallout skin on it, and I mean that as a genuine compliment.
My one real complaint, and it's a small one but it's mine: the lunchbox pop-ups. You don't need to buy them, the game is very clearly playable and even generous without spending a cent, but the little "get a lunchbox!" nag shows up constantly enough that it started to feel like the app was hovering over my shoulder. I get why it's there. I still don't love it. A buddy of mine who's on Android has been asking me daily when it's coming to his phone and I keep having to tell him there's no date yet, which, if you're reading this and you work at Bethesda, please hurry.
Anyway. The actual E3 stuff. Nintendo's event yesterday was fine — a little Iwata stop-motion segment at the top since he's been dealing with health issues and couldn't be there in person, which was a strange choice tonally but kind of charming in a very Nintendo way. Star Fox Zero looks like it's leaning hard on the Wii U gamepad's second screen for cockpit view, which is either going to be brilliant or going to give me a headache, no middle ground. Show floor opens today, so I assume the next few days are going to be wall-to-wall hands-on impressions from everyone who actually has a badge and is standing in the South Hall instead of me, sitting on my couch, feeding virtual sandwiches to a dweller named Chad Ramith II (I name a lot of them after myself for reasons I can't fully defend).
What's stuck with me more than any single announcement is how weirdly good a promotional stunt Fallout Shelter turned out to be. It's not really about Fallout 4 at all (there's barely any connective tissue beyond the aesthetic and the SPECIAL system), but it's kept me thinking about that universe nonstop for three straight days in a way no trailer would have managed on its own. Marketing people are going to be writing case studies about this one.
I need to actually go watch some of the recorded press conferences at some point this week instead of just reading recaps between vault-management sessions. Right now, though, I've got a raider situation in my dining room and Chad Ramith II is the only one with the stimpak, so priorities.