Just like last year, this year’s E3 began with a press conference from EA, one that technically isn’t a part of E3, but everyone just kind of lumps it in anyway. Also, like last year, that press conference was boring, but with one or two nice surprises. It’s really a shame because if EA really wanted to, they absolutely could put on a killer show.

I guess we’ll talk about the positives first. Two indie titles were shown off, because EA has to remind us every year that they do care about smaller games. The first was Unraveled Two, which looked really cute. The first game was a puzzle-platformer where you controlled a little dude made of yarn and could only move as far as his yarn would let him. This time around, there’s a second yarn dude, and the two of them are connected to each other. This means that puzzles have to be solved in tandem with one enough, whether playing by yourself or in co-op. It looks pretty cool, and it’s also out today!

The second indie game is called Sea of Solitude. The game seems to be an adventure style game, where you are on a boat. The story revolves around a young woman who is very lonely, and that loneliness has transformed her into a monster. I’m not sure how I feel about that premise, but it looks like it’s a game that’s trying to say something, and that’s potentially a good thing.

As I’m sure most people expected, Anthem was the game they really wanted to showcase today. Remember last year when everybody assumed that it was basically a Destiny clone? That still seems accurate. However, it looks like there might be an opportunity for better storytelling. When you’re not out in the field, you’re in an instanced town where you can interact with NPCs and get story. And it’s from BioWare, those guys know story, so I’ve got a lot of hope for this one.

Moving into the less positive, but not really bad, Battlefield V looks to be exactly the game you think it is. You ever play Battlefield? You know how you take part in multiplayer battles, capturing points and lower your opponents tickets? That seems to be this, but as expected, it’s prettier. There’s also a battle royale mode that’s been announced, which is fine, but we kind of have enough of those already. Battlefield V seems fine, but not surprising in the least.

Okay, so now for the actual bad stuff. Remember how Respawn, the makers of Titanfall, are working on a new Star Wars game? Were you hoping to see it? Well, too bad. All we got instead was a pretty sloppy interview with Vince Zampella where he confirmed the title of the game, Fallen Order, and that it takes place between episodes III and IV. And that’s it. Not even a logo reveal or anything. This sucks. Hopefully the game itself will be good though.

And then there’s Command and Conquer. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a new game in this long running series, and it would be real cool to get a new one. Unfortunately, Command and Conquer: Rivals seems to just be a clone of mobile giant Clash Royale. Was anybody asking for this? I might still check it out, just to see, but I can’t imagine this being at all what I’d want from the series.

As for the presentation itself, it was sloppy and boring. The presentations for each game were way to long-winded, yet somehow didn’t say enough. The Andrea Rene, while far from being the worst E3 press conference host, was obnoxiously upbeat at all times no matter what she was introducing. Multiple times, they cycled the same clips on repeat while talking about a game. This was just a bad show all around.

So yeah, some cool looking indies, a couple big games that look like what we expected them to be, and a couple bummers. Not really a great start to E3, but this is EA we’re talking about. I don’t remember the last time I enjoyed a press conference of theirs, so this was not a surprise. I still have faith that we’re going to see big things in the next few days!

Finally, let’s talk about my Predictions. Battlefield V was confirmed before the show, but after I made the predictions so I’m counting that as a win. No Skate 4 or Dead Space 4 though, so I’ve currently got one out of three predictions correct.