It’s hard to capture the experience of being at E3 in words. Video gaming’s own annual Lollapalooza aims to deliver a single message to a variety of parties, from gamers to retailers: Buy our stuff.
And to that end, the event is designed around spectacle. The most popular games go big, loud, and pretty, and their individual appearances at E3 are meant to capture that spirit in a way that can be writ large across a number of different mediums. Words alone don’t convey all of the sights and sounds of such an event.
With that in mind, we’ve commissioned artist Joshua Mongeau to bring you a slightly different take on E3. Each day, we’ll be sharing pieces of original artwork that reflect in some way on the popular games and talking points of the show, as seen through the eyes of a creative-minded observer. For more beautiful eye candy, check out Part II, Part III and Part IV of this week’s Art of Gaming series.
In this piece, we see some of Josh’s love for Star Wars peeking through. Inspired by EA’s revelations about what’s to come in Mirror’s Edge 2, he created this striking image of series protagonist Faith floating in a Bacta tank. In the same way that Luke Skywalker heals from wounds sustained after The Empire Strikes Back‘s Battle of Hoth, so too does Faith recuperate while DICE preps a new take on the parkour-driven series.
Josh found the inspiration for this piece in Ubisoft’s reveal of Assassin’s Creed: Unity. While he appreciated the beauty of the open world and the play, it was the moment when protagonist Arno Dorian drove his hidden blade into the executioner’s neck that struck him the most. Here, Josh captures the emotion and the intensity of that moment.
The inspiration for this piece comes from Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky, which gives players a first-person perspective on its gorgeous, procedurally generated universe. Josh tells us that he was struck when watching Sony’s press conference trailer by the idea of the unseen, unknown protagonist in so many first-person games.
For this final piece of the day, Josh draws inspiration from the Rise of the Tomb Raider trailer that debuted during Microsoft’s press conference. There wasn’t any gameplay to speak of, but Lara’s grip on a gun in one hand and a human head in the other speaks to her continued journey from young, starry-eyed history lover to hardened treasure hunter.
Joshua Mongeau is an accomplished artist in a variety of mediums. In addition to his work on branding, logos, illustrations, and advertising, he’s also created art for children’s books, film/video games (including work for Lucasfilm), and the graphic novel, M.E.N.D. You can check out more of Josh’s work on his portfolio website right here.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.