E3 2017: Super Mario Odyssey, Sony's Spider-Man game stand out

Nintendo's mascot Mario was shown possessing a dinosaur, a frog and inanimate city infrastructure during the new trailer for Super Mario Odyssey, as part of the company's E3 livestream.

In a new feature for the series, Mario throws his hat — now a sentient creature with eyes named Cappy — to creatures and objects in the universe. Mario then possesses the creature or item, taking their abilities and imbuing them with his trademark eyes and moustache.

The trailer showed Mario taking over his ubiquitous enemies, including Goombas and Koopa Troopas, but also a taxi cab (in a New York City-like environment) and a normal-looking human being.

Super Mario Odyssey is scheduled for release on Oct. 27, on Nintendo's newest platform: the Switch.

Nintendo's livestream followed three days of press conferences by Microsoft, Sony and other major games publishers as part of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the year's largest exhibition and marketing blitz for video games.

The company also revealed fresh trailers for previously announced games and unveiled new titles, including:

• New games starring Kirby and Yoshi, as well as a traditional Pokemon game for the Switch.
• Metroid Prime 4, a long-requested sequel to the 2007 sci-fi adventure series for the Switch, and Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3DS handheld.
• Rocket League, the popular soccer-with-sports-cars game currently on PC, PlayStation and Xbox. It is coming to the Switch later this year.

Ubisoft surprises with Rabbids

French publisher Ubisoft was full of surprises Monday, unveiling details about an upcoming team-up with Nintendo's Super Mario at its press conference.

Legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto joined Ubisoft chairman and CEO Yves Guillemot to unveil the long-rumoured Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. It pairs Super Mario and his supporting cast with the Rabbids, a collection of frantic, Minion-like rabbits seen in multiple Ubisoft games.

A short demonstration included Mario and several Rabbids roaming the Mushroom Kingdom, moving behind cover and firing cartoonish laser guns at enemies in a methodical turn-based strategy game.

It wasn't the only surprise Ubisoft has up its sleeve, as the company ended with a lavish CG cinematic unveiling Beyond Good and Evil 2, the sequel to the 2003 cult classic Beyond Good and Evil.

The trailer re-introduces a cyberpunk-like world with an aesthetic invoking Blade Runner and The Fifth Element, and where humans live alongside anthropomorphic, humanoid creatures such as a pig-man crime lord and a smack-talking monkey.

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The last teaser trailer for the game appeared on Ubisoft's E3 stage in 2008 and it has scarcely been heard about since. Beyond Good and Evil 2's director, Michel Ancel, emerged teary-eyed onstage to receive applause from the crowd after re-debuting the game he's been working on for the better part of a decade. 

There will still likely be a long time before gamers get to play it, however: no in-game action was shown and no release date was revealed.

Other games at Ubisoft's press conference included:

• Assassin's Creed Origins, the latest in the long-running historical fiction series, is set in ancient Egypt and set for a October 27 release.
• Transference, a bizarre, virtual reality-themed project starring Elijah Wood.
• Ubisoft Toronto's Starlink: Battle for Atlas, a toys-to-life space shooter featuring toy models of space ships players can attach to their controllers.

Sony puts spotlight on Spider-Man

Sony's press conference Monday evening held fewer surprises and announcements than rival events. Instead, the company revealed extended trailers for and demonstrations of games announced at E3 last year.

The presentation focused entirely on the PlayStation 4 console, of which Sony has sold more than 40 million units since 2013. Featured games included:

• Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, starring the female duo of Chloe and Nadine, who previously appeared in the series as supporting characters to the usual lead, Indiana Jones-like Nathan Drake.
• God of War, a radical re-imagining of the classic PlayStation anti-hero, casting him as a brooding father struggling to raise his pre-teen son while fighting off monsters inspired by Norse mythology.
• Shadow of the Colossus, a remastered version of the critically acclaimed 2005 classic, made by the same studio behind 2016's The Last Guardian.

Sony ended with an extended look at its upcoming Spider-Man game. The web-slinging hero is seen stalking low-level criminals at a construction site and later swings through New York City chasing after the crime boss Mr. Negative.

The end of the conference surprised many with a shot of Miles Morales, the new Spider-Man, in his civilian clothing. Fans immediately began to speculate whether the Spider-Man seen in the trailer was Peter Parker or Morales. But while he never takes off his mask while in action, however, he does refer to himself as "Pete" once during the trailer.