I'm a little late to the party on this one because by the time the replay hit I had to watch Sony. Damn you work!
But finally I'm here to talk a little bit about the Microsoft Press Conference from Gamescom 2014. Did they succeed? Find out here.
We start with Ubisoft and their new Assassin's Creed game, Assassin's Creed Unity. After a slow build-up, we see our hero running and platforming around the city, while we get a pretty cool piano track. It is coming on the 28th of October.
I can't understand a word of what this guy is saying but there's scrolling text on the bottom of the screen instead of a translator, then we get Phil Spencer. Hey Phil.
After the normal corporate spiel about how Xbox and gaming is awesome, we are told that they are going to bring the Xbox to 29 new markets on September 2.
He mentions Grand Theft Auto 5, and you can carry your character over. He then mentions Destiny, FIFA 15, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Sunset Overdrive, Forza Horizon 2, Ori And The Blind Forest and the Master Chief Collection.
Phil then announces that there are some new bundles coming.
We move onto FIFA 15, and it will have exclusive content for the Xbox. With the new EA Access, you can play it before anyone else on Xbox One. People in Europe will be able to get a FIFA 15 bundle. They bring out a legend to create a FIFA Ultimate Team. I actually enjoy FIFA despite not loving soccer/football, and I guess why Microsoft chose to talk so much about this while they're in Germany but is this really the best way to basically start the press conference (I mean after the opening speech)? This is way too long and not very exciting. As a rule I don't think spending a lot of time on an annual sports title is a good idea. I mean, gamers know what to expect, and because of being bored it's giving me a lot of time to complain.
ah good, we're moving on.
Chris Charla struts onto the stage, and talks about how they have a lot of indie games in the works. Then we get a quick preview. Yay montages of games: Blues and Bullets, Cuphead, Dungeon of the Endless, Fruit Ninja Kinect 2, Funk of Titans, Ghost of a Tale, Goat Simulator, Gunscape, Massive Chalice, Inside, Knight Squad, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, #IDARB, No Time to Explain, Plague Inc: Evolved, Rivals of Aether, Smite, SlashDash, Space Engineers, Spectra, Pneuma: Breath of Life, Threes!, The Escapists, Volgarr the Viking, SpeedRunners, Superhot.
I'm already really high on a lot of these, like #IDARB, and Goat Simulator is already awesome. I won't talk about all of these but the future is bright on the indie game side of Xbox.
He talks about Space Engineers a bit and we see a video. On console, it will arrive first on Xbox One. I saw it on Steam and it looked interesting there so good for Xbox One. I would call this a victory.
Then, first to console on Xbox One, we got Superhot. I've never actually seen it but time only moves when you do which is neat. The trailer is really annoying because it keeps repeating SUPER... HOT. I get it. Outside of that, I dig the style and idea of this. I wonder if it's super hot though?
Then we get a preview of The Escapists, and I got into this game when I did my feature of new games releasing that week. It's already in Alpha on PC, but it's also coming to Xbox first when it hits consoles. This is a game worth checking out for sure.
Then we get to see Smite, another first to console on Xbox One. It's a MOBA that apparently will be fun to play with a controller. You get to play as a God. I like playing as Gods. I am a God. On the Godly. Okay I'm done, I just don't have a lot to do while I watch this footage. In all seriousness this is shaping up to be a good MOBA.
Chris leaves the stage and we see more of Below. There's no way around it, and I've seen saying it since I saw it the first time (before we even knew much about it): this game is going to be awesome. This new footage adds a lot of intrigue to the whole thing, not that it didn't already have its mysteries.
Hey Phil is back! And he's talking about Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare! Sony focuses on Destiny and Microsoft focuses on CoD... I think Sony wins that. Maybe not financially, but artistically. Anyway, I hope the two co-founders of Sledgehammer Games don't just razz each other awkwardly like they did yesterday during the multiplayer reveal.At least they brought new footage, this time the single-player.
The new footage shows player actually driving a vehicle and then once it crashes they proceed on foot. Looks like CoD, smells like CoD. There is an Advanced Warfare bundle that you can pre-order today. Of note; the add-on content is available first on Xbox One. Now, moving on.
Here we go... Evolve. We get to see a new map called The Distillery. Evolve is going to be a lot of fun and the idea of the 4 vs 1 multiplayer is awesome. I like it being described as "boss battles where a player controls the boss." I just don't know how much replay value it will have and that scares me a bit.
There is an open beta in January only on Xbox One. It will be out February 10, 2015.
Next we have Rise of the Tomb Raider and it is now an Xbox exclusive. It will be coming in "Holiday 2015." It's a new month that Microsoft is creating.
From now on, every game here is exclusive.
We get a world premiere demo of Quantum Break, and it looks cool. In the video we see the main character walk around a bit, but we get to see some of the time manipulation when he runs during a gunfight and they lose track of him. He can also freeze time or even catch bullets and throw them back at the enemies. I don't think this game is going to be completely mind-blowing, but I have faith in Remedy that they will give us a great game. Or at the very least solid. Quantum Break looks to be that right now.
Next on the agenda is Fable Legends. I'm still not sold on this. I like the co-op idea and being able to play as a villain but it didn't grab me at E3 and it isn't doing it now either. Sign up for the beta October 16 if you are interested.
Now whatcha gonna show me? It turns out that they partnered with Frontier and in Spring of next year we are going to have a new game where you make roller coasters, titled Screamride.
Next we have Forza 5. We get new cars... today! For free!
Forza Horizon 2 is up in our grill next. It has an open-world, lots of events and a shit-ton of cars. They're encouraging you to play with friends, and there are driveatars. You can join a car club and earn Forza Fuel and unlock stuff.
Ori and the Blind Forest is a pretty game. I enjoyed it at E3 and nothing has changed. It's a gorgeous platformer and the footage they showed (with the character being chased by water) was pretty intense, with some neat platforming mechanics. I imagine this will get a lot of praise when it drops because it looks to be critic bait: amazing visuals, fun jumping and a lot of intrigue. I'm not saying "critic bait" as an insult because I'm ridiculously excited to. Pick it up on Xbox One and PC this holiday season.
Ted Price, the President of Insomniac Games, rocks onto the stage knowing he's about to talk about something we're all already crazy for. I don't even need to know more about Sunset Overdrive to know I need it. And neither do you, but we get more info and footage anyway.
The big news is that there's a special edition Sunset Overdrive bundle. You can pre-order it today, and you get Day One weapons and stuff.
Hey, that attractive girl from 343 Industries is back. What's better than an attractive girl if you're a straight male or a gay girl? Or a bi? An attractive girl who wants to talk about Halo. On December 29th, there's a Halo 5 multiplayer beta. Along with the Master Chief collection, there will be a Halo channel. It's like the WWE Network but with Halo! Or not. But it does seem really cool. Immerse yourself in that shit because there seems to be a lot of content and different things to watch.
You can watch things like Halo: Nightfall, explore the universe or join friends across any game in the Halo universe. There's also Twitch integration.
I know it's been said before, but damn the Master Chief Collection has a lot of content. They showed off part of the campaign in Halo 2... first they start off in classic mode and then they switch to the updated graphics.
Next we get to hear about the ranking system. Fans were vocal about liking the ranking system in Halo 2 so the ranking system in this is identical to that. People there can play some of the game on the floor. I can't because I suck, but have fun if you're there!
Next we got Halo 5. The focus on the beta will be 4 vs 4 arena combat. They have seven maps, three modes, eleven weapons and some armor customization. They will have small maps and no different loadouts. It will be sixty frames per-second. You can unlock some things in the beta that will carry over to the full game.
You will be able to pre-order and pre-download games too.
Microsoft definitely had more of a focus on AAA titles than Sony, and they definitely have some really interesting indie games that are going to show up on their system. I don't know how many of those are exclusive, though, so it may not matter that much in terms of competition. However, the new Tomb Raider being an Xbone exclusive is definitely big news. So after a really slow start, they kicked it up and did a good job.
No comments:
Post a Comment