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With another Electronic Entertainment Expo in the books, gamers are now left with that horrible, interminable wait for all the amazing new titles announced at the show. This year’s show was heavier in that department than most, with the next-generation Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles providing the perfect opportunity for trying new things. Here are the 10 most-impressive, entirely new games I saw at the show.

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Tom Clancy’s The Division – The Division focuses on New York City after the outbreak of a man-made pandemic. Players will take on the roles of government sleeper agents who are awakened by “Directive 51,” a creepy-sounding-yet-real presidential order meant to prevent societal breakdown in the event of such major events. The game itself will be an open-world, third-person massive online role-playing shooter for next-generation consoles. So yup, it’s ambitious. Based on early looks, it should be worth it. (Publisher: Ubisoft, Developer: Ubisoft Massive, Release: 2014)

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The Evil Within – Famed Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami is returning to the survival horror genre that he essentially created with this new thriller, for both next-generation and current-generation consoles. To say that it’s horrifying would be an understatement. In a 20-minute demo at E3, Mikami took observers through a veritable charnel house, where our protagonist Detective Sebastian was being kept prisoner by a giant, chainsaw-wielding lunatic. With no weapons at the ready, Sebastian’s only option was to sneak through the Saw- and Hostel-inspired hellscape without the big brute noticing. It was terrifying to watch, let alone play. (Publisher: Bethesda Softworks, Developer: Tango Gameworks, Release: 2014)

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Destiny – Bungie finally gave E3 attendees a look at the gameplay of Destiny, the title the studio has been working on ever since it finished up on Halo and split from Microsoft in 2007. There are definite Halo elements to this sci-fi shooter, with a variety of spacey weapons and vehicles available for players to choose from. The game – for next- and current-generation Xbox and PlayStation consoles – will also be an open-world online multiplayer shooter, with some parts reserved for private play and others ready for teams. In demos at the show, Bungie developers showed off how “seamless” the transitions between these two modes will be, with players in and out of them without the need to go through any menus or extra steps. Many games are headed this way, with Destiny leading the way. (Publisher: Activision, Developer: Bungie, Release: 2014)

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South Park: The Stick of Truth – If you’re a South Park fan – and who isn’t? – this is the one you’ve been waiting for. The Stick of Truth sees players put into the role of “New Kid,” who must choose sides in a big fantasy battle between Cartman and Kyle, as they struggle to acquire the eponymous twig. The action is both side-scrolling puzzle solving, which in the demo looked to involve various types of fart-related abilities, to turn-based combat where the characters throw turds at each other. Juvenile? Oh yes. Hilarious? Most definitely. (Publisher: Ubisoft, Developer: Obsidian Entertainment, Release: Late 2013)

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Project Spark – If there was one title that stood out as different at Microsoft’s E3 press conference, it was Project Spark, which at this point looks more like a game development tool than a game itself. Similar to Sony’s LittleBigPlanet, Project Spark lets users design their own game worlds, except that it also allows this to be done with Kinect voice commands or via a touch screen on a tablet running Microsoft’s Smartglass (developers say this is limited to Windows tablets for now, but it’s a smart bet it’’ll be expanded to Apple and Android at some point). The creation process is very slick and simple and allows for behaviours to be assigned to objects and creators. What kind of game will be attached to this tool, or even what kinds of games players can make and share online are still open questions, but for the now the 3D world-making tool looks impressive. (Publisher: Microsoft Studios, Developer: Microsoft Studios, Release: Early 2014)

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Murdered: Soul Suspect – With the tagline stating that “the hardest murder to solve is your own,” it should be obvious that the main protagonist in this current-generation console game will be a ghost. Indeed, players take on the role of a detective who must figure out how he was killed. He does so with a range of ghostly powers, including possession and the ability to walk through walls. Most of the 20-minute E3 demo focused on crime-solving – similar to Rock Star’s acclaimed L.A. Noire, players must put together clues in order to piece together past events. But there’s also action – the detective hero must also avoid other demonic ghosts, which believe they can become human again by eating regular spirits. The action didn’t look terribly exciting in the demo but the crime solving was intriguing. (Publisher: Square Enix, Developer: Airtight Games, Release: Early 2014)

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Titanfall – One of the more hotly awaited titles this year, Titanfall is the upcoming first game from Respawn Entertainment, a new studio started by refugees from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare creator Infinity Ward. Rather than dealing with simple soldiers, Titanfall introduces giant robot mechs to the equation, giving players the option to shoot it out on foot or with several tons of metal strapped around them. The term “seamless” also creeps up with this game, with the flow of action between the two play modes being very fast and slick. The game is exclusive to Xbox One and Xbox 360 and it will certainly be a huge hit on both. (Publisher: Electronic Arts, Developer: Respawn Entertainment, Release: Early 2014)

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Beyond: Two Souls – Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls keeps looking better and better, with some new action scenes shown off at E3. We already know the game is going to pack the studio’s trademark emotional wallop, with players following the relationship between young Jodie Holmes and her ghostly sidekick Aiden over a span of 15 years. Featuring some terrific acting from Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, the PlayStation 3 exclusive is also going to boast some of the most amazingly realistic performance capture yet. It’s great to see there’s also going to be a lively game to go with the story and technology. (Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment, Developer: Quantic Dream, Release: Oct. 8, 2013)

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Watch_Dogs – Like Beyond, the more we see of Ubisoft’s upcoming Watch_Dogs – for current- and next-generation consoles – the more impressive it looks. Protagonist Aiden Pearce is set loose on open-world Chicago with a gun and a smartphone, which he can use to hack just about everything. It’s looking like one part crime saga, one part Assassin’s Creed, one part Far Cry, one part third-person shooter, one part racing game and one part techno-thriller. That’s a lot of parts that, once added up, amount to what’s looking like a tremendously varied game. Will Ubisoft Montreal be able to pull them all together into a cohesive whole? (Publisher: Ubisoft, Developer: Ubisoft Montreal, Release: Nov. 19, 2013)

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Fantasia: Music Evolved – If anyone would have said before E3 that a Disney game would steal the show, the proper response from a core gamer would probably have been a snicker. To suggest that it would also be a Kinect game would prompt outright derisive laughter. Yet, here we are. Fantasia: Music Evolved is the only game I saw at the show that actually touched my imagination and brought me into a state of child-like wonder. I’m pretty sure I was smiling as I watched the demo, which involved a girl waving her arms around frantically, in time with the on-screen prompts, as she “conducted” Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Indeed, the core concept of the game is to replicate those parts of Fantasia, the movie, where a wand-waving Mickey Mouse “conducts” various household objects in a sort of magical orchestra. As Harmonix developers describe it, Fantasia the game is simultaneously music conducting, dance and “spell casting.” It also combines the two things the studio has mastered – music rhythm games through Guitar Hero and Rock Band and Kinect motion recognition through Dance Central. Topping it all off is Fantasia’s central interface, an undersea vista that is increasingly illuminated with colour and life as you progress through the game. I can’t wait to play this game (it’s coming for both Xbox One and 360) – I’m going to have to start lifting weights to get my arms in shape for it. (Publisher: Disney Interactive, Developer: Harmonix, Release: 2014)

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