Limited Run Games Conference 2019: A-
Funny enough, Limited Run Games might actually win E3 this years. Whether or not you want to count their conference considering it wasn't really a conference, or that they aren't one of the big players in the video game industry is fine, however their conference was good enough where I felt it mattered in the grand scheme of E3, especially this year which has been incredibly underwhelming so far.
So it's no surprise that LRG is just publishing physical copies of digital only titles and retro games on modern consoles, however what was surprising to me was the quality of those games they're planning on publishing over the next year. I was genuinely excited to see games like Corpse Killer, Turok 1 and 2 remastered, Red Faction, and all those classic Lucasarts Star Wars games get announced for physical release. LRG has really come a long way since I first heard of them back around 2016 when they were mostly publishing throw away indie titles. Now, they are getting seriously large IPs and allowing them to be purchased physically for modern audiences which definitely is a huge win in my book. Of course there is their business model that's still problematic, however I appreciate them leaving more games up for preorder rather than printing them in limited batches. The reason they didn't get a perfect score is because they still do publish quite a bit of mediocre crap, however there were enough great looking games, both ones I mentioned and several others that really have my attention!
And to top it off, a Shenmue III Limited Edition is being printed exclusively for them. I know there is some controversy around this given another Limited Edition is being distributed via the Kickstarter, which hasn't even been revealed yet as to what this will look like, however from the details of both it's clear that this is it's own separate thing. And being the huge Shenmue fan I am, I need this! I have been refreshing LRG's Twitter and their page all day trying to find details of when I can grab this. I am determined to get it, and I imagine it'll be one of the fastest selling items they've released to date. I will be ultra pissed if I miss it. But anyhow, this announcement only made me enjoy their conference even more, and it will be a tough act to follow given we're down to only two more conferences at the time of me writing this.