So over a week after the fact now, I'm finally getting around to finishing this series. I'd had plans to complete it earlier, but some personal illness got in the way of that. Finally getting around to watching the last of the press conference footage and I've got to say that I'm significantly more enthused than I thought I'd be. Roll up those sleeves. Bring down the cage. It's time for the Sony Smackdown.
Showing posts with label E3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label E3. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Friday, June 21, 2013
E3: Abridged - Part III
So here we are at the one-week mark from E3 and I still haven't finished my write-ups. You can blame The Last of Us and, by association, @Tsaikotyk for getting me on that train. Expect to see Part IV tomorrow, as I should finish this series off before it becomes too irrelevant.
Electronic Arts (EA):
Chief Operations Officer Peter Moore kicked off "The Download", EA's press conference segment. He stated that everything we'd get to see would be for the upcoming generation's Xbox One and Playstation 4 consoles. He got things rolling with a "beloved franchise that, over the years, has captivated millions of fans worldwide".
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare - With a trailer opening that looked like it would be EA's cash cow Battlefield 4, we instead received a 4-player-cooperative-third-person-shooter variation on the PvZ franchise. Goodie! Just what every tower-defense player wanted! Yet another bland, generic horde-mode shooter. Dear PopCap, fuck you. Nobody wanted this. Your idea to take "everything we love about action games and blend it with everything our fans love about PvZ" (Brian Lindley, Producer) is a piss-poor excuse to pander to the OTHER masses. The ones playing Call of Duty and Battlefield, and give them something. Well guess what? IT WON'T WORK. Hardcore gamers already have their realistic shooters, 4-player-coop-shooter fans already have their Borderlands 2, and casual gamers already have the ACTUAL Plants vs. Zombies. This is the kind of blind developmental stupidity that is causing so many studios to go belly-up. When you try to cater to every demographic, your game loses vision, flavor, and becomes the bland forgettable first/third-person shooter #3234273 that nobody talks about.
Oh well, at least you announced Peggle 2, and that will keep you afloat for another 7-10 years.
Titanfall - Two games made their debut on stage during Microsoft's conference, and were later reshown during EA's own conference. One of which was Titanfall (and the other being Battlefield 4, but who cares). Having already shown us the semi-cinematic trailer, and some quality gameplay footage during Microsoft's stage time, Respawn gave us a little behind-the-scenes look at the game with some of the developers. These people were working to create a fun game that blended the scale between the pilots and their mechs. An attempt at creating a multiplayer game that still gave you the feeling of a single player experience. And of course, redefining those giant robots. Titanfall still looks awesome, and I can't wait to play it on the PC. =)
There was a short blurb between presentations about EA's two new engines for the upcoming generation. In-house you had the EA Sports division working with EA Sports Ignite, and you had DICE (developers of Battlefield and Mirror's Edge) using the new Frostbite 3 engine. An engine that they'd be using in the upcoming game: STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT 3. YES IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING.
Need For Speed: Rivals - Coming on stage after Ubisoft gave EA a huge disadvantage for their racing game. The Crew already promised to blend single and multiplayer experiences together in a living open-world racing game. So when EA showed us NFS: Rivals, it was pretty underwhelming. Through "AllDrive", they'd blend single, coop, and multiplayer modes together into one fluid experience. The game also has some level of tablet support.
Then star of Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul walked on stage and got to talk a little about his role in the Need For Speed movie. Fucking why? We've already got 6 Fast and Furious films. Why make another branded by EA? The director Scott Waugh commented that "Need for Speed is accurate and authentic to real car racing culture". This quote was immediately followed by footage of a police SUV being flipped off the side of the road, so I'm not entirely sure he knew what he was talking about. The movie will be hitting theaters in 2014 and I plan to ignore it. I will probably be too busy playing The Crew to notice.
Dragon Age: Inquisition - EA didn't give us a lot of details on Bioware's new RPG heading to next-gen, except that you get to lead an inquisition. The trailer showed us the sky tearing open and all hell raining down, and that we'd see the game sometime in 2014.
EA SPORTS: "IT'S IN THE GAME"
Now, I'm not a fan of sports games. I consider myself to be an actual gamer, and if you do too, then you also probably ignored this section of the conference. Well, to bring you some of the best out-of-context quotes from EA's press conference, I actually watched the damn thing. Here you go:
"It's always lacked the depth of true ball handling." - Sean O'Brien, Executive Producer - NBA Live '14
"Through major gameplay innovation, we've given players the ability to think intelligently and move more like elite NFL athletes." - Cam Weber, VP and GM of American Football - Madden 25
"For the first time players can now make intelligent decisions." - Matt Bilbey, Group GM - FIFA '14
"Lets fighters organically alter their strategies throughout the fight. This is a huge part of fighting and it takes a unique level of intelligence." - Andrew Wilson, Executive Vice President - EA Sports UFC
Battlefield 4 - Yes! The moment everyone who is not me has been waiting for! Modern military shooter madness! EA showed off the newest installment in the Battlefield franchise yet again. With "levolution", players can now "experience destruction and dynamic environments that react to your every move" (Patrick Bach, Executive Producer). Yeah, we had the start of that back in 2001 with Red Faction, where were you? Though to be completely honest, Battlefield actually surprised me, because it's one thing to spew words like "dynamic", which doesn't mean shit in the game industry. It's just a filler word that execs use to sound more important. I was impressed during their gameplay demo when their 64 person skirmish ended with the collapse of a skyscraper, destroyed by human player gunfire. That was impressive.
Mirror's Edge - EA closed it out by showing us Mirror's Edge, a poorly marketed, visually stunning and elegant first-person parkour platformer for the last generation. It's getting rebooted for next generation, and it looks even more stunning this time around. Let's just hope they don't fuck it up this time.
Part IV should show up tomorrow when I praise Sony for kicking in Microsoft's door and laughing in their face.
Electronic Arts (EA):
Chief Operations Officer Peter Moore kicked off "The Download", EA's press conference segment. He stated that everything we'd get to see would be for the upcoming generation's Xbox One and Playstation 4 consoles. He got things rolling with a "beloved franchise that, over the years, has captivated millions of fans worldwide".
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare - With a trailer opening that looked like it would be EA's cash cow Battlefield 4, we instead received a 4-player-cooperative-third-person-shooter variation on the PvZ franchise. Goodie! Just what every tower-defense player wanted! Yet another bland, generic horde-mode shooter. Dear PopCap, fuck you. Nobody wanted this. Your idea to take "everything we love about action games and blend it with everything our fans love about PvZ" (Brian Lindley, Producer) is a piss-poor excuse to pander to the OTHER masses. The ones playing Call of Duty and Battlefield, and give them something. Well guess what? IT WON'T WORK. Hardcore gamers already have their realistic shooters, 4-player-coop-shooter fans already have their Borderlands 2, and casual gamers already have the ACTUAL Plants vs. Zombies. This is the kind of blind developmental stupidity that is causing so many studios to go belly-up. When you try to cater to every demographic, your game loses vision, flavor, and becomes the bland forgettable first/third-person shooter #3234273 that nobody talks about.
Oh well, at least you announced Peggle 2, and that will keep you afloat for another 7-10 years.
Titanfall - Two games made their debut on stage during Microsoft's conference, and were later reshown during EA's own conference. One of which was Titanfall (and the other being Battlefield 4, but who cares). Having already shown us the semi-cinematic trailer, and some quality gameplay footage during Microsoft's stage time, Respawn gave us a little behind-the-scenes look at the game with some of the developers. These people were working to create a fun game that blended the scale between the pilots and their mechs. An attempt at creating a multiplayer game that still gave you the feeling of a single player experience. And of course, redefining those giant robots. Titanfall still looks awesome, and I can't wait to play it on the PC. =)
There was a short blurb between presentations about EA's two new engines for the upcoming generation. In-house you had the EA Sports division working with EA Sports Ignite, and you had DICE (developers of Battlefield and Mirror's Edge) using the new Frostbite 3 engine. An engine that they'd be using in the upcoming game: STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT 3. YES IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING.
Need For Speed: Rivals - Coming on stage after Ubisoft gave EA a huge disadvantage for their racing game. The Crew already promised to blend single and multiplayer experiences together in a living open-world racing game. So when EA showed us NFS: Rivals, it was pretty underwhelming. Through "AllDrive", they'd blend single, coop, and multiplayer modes together into one fluid experience. The game also has some level of tablet support.
Then star of Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul walked on stage and got to talk a little about his role in the Need For Speed movie. Fucking why? We've already got 6 Fast and Furious films. Why make another branded by EA? The director Scott Waugh commented that "Need for Speed is accurate and authentic to real car racing culture". This quote was immediately followed by footage of a police SUV being flipped off the side of the road, so I'm not entirely sure he knew what he was talking about. The movie will be hitting theaters in 2014 and I plan to ignore it. I will probably be too busy playing The Crew to notice.
Dragon Age: Inquisition - EA didn't give us a lot of details on Bioware's new RPG heading to next-gen, except that you get to lead an inquisition. The trailer showed us the sky tearing open and all hell raining down, and that we'd see the game sometime in 2014.
EA SPORTS: "IT'S IN THE GAME"
Now, I'm not a fan of sports games. I consider myself to be an actual gamer, and if you do too, then you also probably ignored this section of the conference. Well, to bring you some of the best out-of-context quotes from EA's press conference, I actually watched the damn thing. Here you go:
"It's always lacked the depth of true ball handling." - Sean O'Brien, Executive Producer - NBA Live '14
"Through major gameplay innovation, we've given players the ability to think intelligently and move more like elite NFL athletes." - Cam Weber, VP and GM of American Football - Madden 25
"For the first time players can now make intelligent decisions." - Matt Bilbey, Group GM - FIFA '14
"Lets fighters organically alter their strategies throughout the fight. This is a huge part of fighting and it takes a unique level of intelligence." - Andrew Wilson, Executive Vice President - EA Sports UFC
Battlefield 4 - Yes! The moment everyone who is not me has been waiting for! Modern military shooter madness! EA showed off the newest installment in the Battlefield franchise yet again. With "levolution", players can now "experience destruction and dynamic environments that react to your every move" (Patrick Bach, Executive Producer). Yeah, we had the start of that back in 2001 with Red Faction, where were you? Though to be completely honest, Battlefield actually surprised me, because it's one thing to spew words like "dynamic", which doesn't mean shit in the game industry. It's just a filler word that execs use to sound more important. I was impressed during their gameplay demo when their 64 person skirmish ended with the collapse of a skyscraper, destroyed by human player gunfire. That was impressive.
Mirror's Edge - EA closed it out by showing us Mirror's Edge, a poorly marketed, visually stunning and elegant first-person parkour platformer for the last generation. It's getting rebooted for next generation, and it looks even more stunning this time around. Let's just hope they don't fuck it up this time.
Part IV should show up tomorrow when I praise Sony for kicking in Microsoft's door and laughing in their face.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Why Microsoft Needs to Lose Mattrick
It's one thing to alienate and disenfranchise your current customers. It's another thing entirely to do it 3 times in one week. And that thing is called "A Day in the Life of Don Mattrick". I'm sure behavior like this was acceptable, perhaps even encouraged, when he was the President of Worldwide Studios for Electronic Arts, but Microsoft needs to put their foot down and tell him that this is not alright, if they wish to still have a console division.
Being anti-consumer whilst working at a publisher is par for the course, especially one that produces the same 4 sports franchises year after year after year, often with little incentive for current owners to upgrade, and rapidly plummeting second-hand value on the previous year's release, but for a console manufacturer, it's far less appropriate. To have their President of Interactive Entertainment Business* spout things like "If you don't like our policies for next gen, buy our current gen system!" with a smile on his face not only harms the potential install base of people who don't currently have an X360, but also hurts the likelihood of current owners sticking with Microsoft into the next generation. This will not only damage Microsoft, but also the bottom line of any studio already contracted into making a 3rd party exclusive.
To follow that up with "we're over-delivering value" upon being called out for charging $100 more than your competitor just shows how anti-consumer this man really is. He is awash in a sea of his own ego and hubris, when his accomplishments at Microsoft are akin to scratching an author's name off the cover of a book, and replacing it with your own. The 360 released two years before his arrival at Microsoft, had an entire year where it was the only 7th generation console, and came in under the release price of the PS3, yet nearly all the credit for the success of the 360 is given to Mattrick.
According to Wikipedia, with a citation to an xbox.com piece on how 2010 went for the 360, in the 3 years that he oversaw the console division, the number of installed units went from 10 million to over 50 million, and XBL membership increased from 6 million to over 30 million. Now, these numbers certainly sound impressive and look like a vast improvement, but the installed base to XBL membership ratio stayed at a consistent 60%. In the 3 years he oversaw the division, they apparently could not find a way to increase their sell-through rates on subscriptions. More importantly is how much of that install base increase was due to price drops, expansion into new markets, increased supply, purchases of replacement consoles, and purchases of additional consoles by people who already had one. I have had a friend who had 3 X360s die in the span of a year, and another who had no issues but had one in his living room, bedroom, and his kid's room. I've also known event organizers and gaming cafes with 20-30 each, with the ones owned by event organizers spending much of the year in storage. If these are typical stories, then the increase in your install base is not nearly as impressive as the numbers would seem.
He's also widely credited for the success of the Kinect, one of the fastest selling terrible peripherals in history. It brought in a large amount of money to Microsoft, and allowed them to fill the marketplace with shovelware so bad that it made Wii Sports look like a solid game by comparison.
And then there's the matter of the Xbox One. The X1 has been getting slammed left and right on forums, twitter, reddit, and even in the commercial-shill laden press. Instead of reassuring people that this product is, in fact, for you, instead of catering to those who have had week long or longer power and internet outages after a hurricane, winter storm, tornado, earthquake, etc, he reestablishes those points in such a way that it seems as though he wants you, the end user, to feel bad for even questioning their practices and price point. That's terrible marketing, and a stain on the company as a whole at this point.
While it may not placate everyone, I feel like MS could earn back at least a small amount of trust from the public, fans or not, if they just removed Mattrick, and had the interim executive announce that they are going to review and reconsider their announced policies regardless of whether or not they actually do or plan to. Mattrick has been a PR disaster for the past month, and if they really want to sell 10+ million X1s, this is the easiest way to go about it. Fire him, get him to resign, it doesn't matter how you do it, what matters is that you get it done. Your move, Microsoft.
*As an aside, this is possibly the most falsified sounding title I've heard in the industry. More terrifying than that is that it is his actual title. Did they let him name his position? It sounds absolutely absurd.
Being anti-consumer whilst working at a publisher is par for the course, especially one that produces the same 4 sports franchises year after year after year, often with little incentive for current owners to upgrade, and rapidly plummeting second-hand value on the previous year's release, but for a console manufacturer, it's far less appropriate. To have their President of Interactive Entertainment Business* spout things like "If you don't like our policies for next gen, buy our current gen system!" with a smile on his face not only harms the potential install base of people who don't currently have an X360, but also hurts the likelihood of current owners sticking with Microsoft into the next generation. This will not only damage Microsoft, but also the bottom line of any studio already contracted into making a 3rd party exclusive.
To follow that up with "we're over-delivering value" upon being called out for charging $100 more than your competitor just shows how anti-consumer this man really is. He is awash in a sea of his own ego and hubris, when his accomplishments at Microsoft are akin to scratching an author's name off the cover of a book, and replacing it with your own. The 360 released two years before his arrival at Microsoft, had an entire year where it was the only 7th generation console, and came in under the release price of the PS3, yet nearly all the credit for the success of the 360 is given to Mattrick.
According to Wikipedia, with a citation to an xbox.com piece on how 2010 went for the 360, in the 3 years that he oversaw the console division, the number of installed units went from 10 million to over 50 million, and XBL membership increased from 6 million to over 30 million. Now, these numbers certainly sound impressive and look like a vast improvement, but the installed base to XBL membership ratio stayed at a consistent 60%. In the 3 years he oversaw the division, they apparently could not find a way to increase their sell-through rates on subscriptions. More importantly is how much of that install base increase was due to price drops, expansion into new markets, increased supply, purchases of replacement consoles, and purchases of additional consoles by people who already had one. I have had a friend who had 3 X360s die in the span of a year, and another who had no issues but had one in his living room, bedroom, and his kid's room. I've also known event organizers and gaming cafes with 20-30 each, with the ones owned by event organizers spending much of the year in storage. If these are typical stories, then the increase in your install base is not nearly as impressive as the numbers would seem.
He's also widely credited for the success of the Kinect, one of the fastest selling terrible peripherals in history. It brought in a large amount of money to Microsoft, and allowed them to fill the marketplace with shovelware so bad that it made Wii Sports look like a solid game by comparison.
And then there's the matter of the Xbox One. The X1 has been getting slammed left and right on forums, twitter, reddit, and even in the commercial-shill laden press. Instead of reassuring people that this product is, in fact, for you, instead of catering to those who have had week long or longer power and internet outages after a hurricane, winter storm, tornado, earthquake, etc, he reestablishes those points in such a way that it seems as though he wants you, the end user, to feel bad for even questioning their practices and price point. That's terrible marketing, and a stain on the company as a whole at this point.
While it may not placate everyone, I feel like MS could earn back at least a small amount of trust from the public, fans or not, if they just removed Mattrick, and had the interim executive announce that they are going to review and reconsider their announced policies regardless of whether or not they actually do or plan to. Mattrick has been a PR disaster for the past month, and if they really want to sell 10+ million X1s, this is the easiest way to go about it. Fire him, get him to resign, it doesn't matter how you do it, what matters is that you get it done. Your move, Microsoft.
*As an aside, this is possibly the most falsified sounding title I've heard in the industry. More terrifying than that is that it is his actual title. Did they let him name his position? It sounds absolutely absurd.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
E3: Abridged - Part II
So, first of all, pardon me for the late upping of part 2 of E3 Abridged. Part 1 went up on Thursday. Then Friday happened and with the release of The Last of Us, I haven't had much time to eat, sleep, breathe, or think, let alone work on another write-up. It's been handed more perfect 10's than any game of note in my lifetime (GTA IV was not a game of note to me), and with the exception of a few mechanical glitches that I've encountered, it's deserved them.
I'll gush about it in a future post. Right now it's time to dissect:
Ubisoft
Rocksmith 2014 - Ubisoft tried to grab our attention by bringing in washed-up grunge guitarist Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains on stage to play the solo from Man in the Box (featured in Rock Band 2 for those of you who were under a rock while the Fake Plastic Instruments genre was at its high point), and then introduce us to session mode, where you can jam on your guitar, while the game simulates the rest of the band for you. Unfortunately, this is where having had friends that are drummers fucks with me, because the automated drums on Rocksmith are GOD AWFUL. They wouldn't know how to keep a tempo if you did it for them.
We're then joined by Aisha Tyler wearing the most ridiculous shirt I've ever seen. #girlwood *snrk*
Good for Ubisoft though. They realized that their CEO's and lead developers don't exactly have stage presence and someone that's a professional actor/comedian is significantly better at sounding interesting. With phrases like "Done a lot of dirty deeds to Alice in Chains" and "belly first, ass out". Way to grab my attention. Moving on.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist - Now I'm not really one to judge here because as previously mentioned, I'm not a big fan of stealth games. However, I can comment that we got to see about 10 seconds of actual gameplay mixed in amongst a lot of pretty cutscenes. Some vague concept of story was revealed with talk about a terrorist group called "The Engineers" and their attacks being labeled "The Blacklist", but that's about it.
Rayman Legends - Now I find it rather unfortunate that I still haven't gotten around to playing Rayman Origins, which I'm told is the "happiest most fun-filled game ever made". So, logically, if the first one was good, the second will be better, right? Well that's what we're hoping happens here. Lots of more of the same.
Mighty Quest for Epic Loot - Didn't see much of this game besides it's rather humorous trailer. It looks like a diablo-clone. Just what this world needs. Another diablo-clone. As if I didn't already have Diablo III, Torchlight II and Path of Exile.
South Park: The Stick of Truth - An RPG for people who enjoy South Park. Which isn't me. Though I do have to give them credit for being able to poke fun at game delays and launch dates.
The Crew - I'm going to take a second to gush about this segment. The Crew looks FANTASTIC, and not in the way that Forza Motorsport does. Ubisoft didn't bring a two-of-a-kind McLaren P1 to the stage. They didn't give us Driveatars. What they did show us was a trailer of all kinds of illegal vehicular activity. Street racing, off-roading, running from the cops. To be honest, the debut trailer made the game look like The Fast and The Furious: The (good) Videogame. They talked a little bit about how the whole US was your playground in The Crew. Open-world racing where the end goal is to take down (or more likely usurp) this criminal organization. They've created this online persistent world that blends single and multiplayer together. You and your friends can band together at any time to form a Crew and take on cooperative missions. Singularly, you can engage in all sorts of challenges. One of the ones that interested me the most was where you had to race a single car in a point-to-point challenge. The player was currently driving a high-powered street car, and his computer opponent was in a vehicle more suited to off-roading. There was no "out-of-bounds". Each vehicle applied it's strength in the point to point challenge. The road course was longer, but the player had faster car. However, the off-road was shorter, but required a different set up. Ubisoft bragged about the level of customization you can apply to your car, and being able to completely take apart the engine and rebuild it from the ground up. This is so much a part of the game, that they have designed an app for your tablet or smartphone that allows you to completely customize your car from these devices, and have it available as soon as you return to your console. Overall, this game blew me away and I'm really excited to see it in the next generation.
Watch_Dogs - Watch_Dogs is back this year with absolutely no gameplay footage. Just a fancy trailer. They did unveil to us that Aiden Pierce (the game's protagonist) is effectively a superhacker, whose obsession with surveillance has turned him into a vigilante. And that sounds badass. Who doesn't want to be cyber-punk Batman?
Just Dance 2014 - I had to talk about Rocksmith, so I've gotta talk about this too. Let's see, it's finally coming out as multiplatform. We got to see a list of pop stars likely to be on the soundtrack, including PSY. It will support 6-player dances, which is more than the number of controllers that can be connected to any system at a single time, so I guess that's impressive. There's some weird system where you can supposedly DJ and remix the music by dancing. It's the next generation of "your favorite party game". They might need to re-evaluate that statement, because last time I checked, my favorite party game was Cards Against Humanity.
Rabbids Invasion - This is a kid's show with Kinect support built in. Based on the fact that it is an actual TELEVISION show, with motion-tracking camera interactivity, I'm assuming (and will be pleasantly surprised if) this will remain exclusive to the Xbone. Because honestly, who doesn't enjoy screaming with their kids at the TV? Not me. I'd rather just scream at the kids.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Ah yes, the pirate simulator that everyone's been talking about. I've tried to involve myself in the Assassin's Creed franchise, but I've never seemed to be able to care. The social stealth made sense when Altair's costume looked incredibly similar to the monks in the first game. However, Ezio didn't blend in with a single goddamn Italian. Being surrounded by 5 or 6 people while wearing an extremely unique outfit does not make you just "disappear". Try again. Sorry, off-topic. AC4 was another game where we saw a lot of shiny trailerness, and not a lot of gameplay. And the trailer didn't even contain a spot of blood. There were people getting shot, stabbed, and bashed over the head with bottles, and yet no one seemed to bleed. This seemed a little out of character for a franchise about ASSASSINATION, but more to the point, isn't that why most people play this game? For the violence? Anyways, Ubisoft brags that it's done it's homework on this one and created a realistic pirate experience. I doubt that being a rapist and spreading untold amounts of venereal disease is part of the core game mechanics.
Trials Fusion/Frontier - The Trials franchise is back with better graphics and a mobile counterpart. So you can eat shit and break your neck while indulging in impossible motocross feats in a whole new generation.
The Division - Yves Guillemot (Ubisoft's CEO) unexpectedly ran out on stage and interrupted Aisha to present this. Yet another franchise with Tom Clancy's name slapped on the front of it. Think of a post-apocalyptic world where a flu epidemic has caused pandemonium across the nation. No, this isn't The Last of Us, it's The Division, an open-world MMORPG cover-based shooter. Now, while I'm getting kind of sick of the chest-high-wall-shooter genre, this game's unique HUD, interactive environment and MMORPG mechanics make me rather curious.
Part III will cover the EA conference. If I can drag myself away from The Last of Us long enough to write the damn thing.
I'll gush about it in a future post. Right now it's time to dissect:
Ubisoft
Rocksmith 2014 - Ubisoft tried to grab our attention by bringing in washed-up grunge guitarist Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains on stage to play the solo from Man in the Box (featured in Rock Band 2 for those of you who were under a rock while the Fake Plastic Instruments genre was at its high point), and then introduce us to session mode, where you can jam on your guitar, while the game simulates the rest of the band for you. Unfortunately, this is where having had friends that are drummers fucks with me, because the automated drums on Rocksmith are GOD AWFUL. They wouldn't know how to keep a tempo if you did it for them.
We're then joined by Aisha Tyler wearing the most ridiculous shirt I've ever seen. #girlwood *snrk*
Good for Ubisoft though. They realized that their CEO's and lead developers don't exactly have stage presence and someone that's a professional actor/comedian is significantly better at sounding interesting. With phrases like "Done a lot of dirty deeds to Alice in Chains" and "belly first, ass out". Way to grab my attention. Moving on.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist - Now I'm not really one to judge here because as previously mentioned, I'm not a big fan of stealth games. However, I can comment that we got to see about 10 seconds of actual gameplay mixed in amongst a lot of pretty cutscenes. Some vague concept of story was revealed with talk about a terrorist group called "The Engineers" and their attacks being labeled "The Blacklist", but that's about it.
Rayman Legends - Now I find it rather unfortunate that I still haven't gotten around to playing Rayman Origins, which I'm told is the "happiest most fun-filled game ever made". So, logically, if the first one was good, the second will be better, right? Well that's what we're hoping happens here. Lots of more of the same.
Mighty Quest for Epic Loot - Didn't see much of this game besides it's rather humorous trailer. It looks like a diablo-clone. Just what this world needs. Another diablo-clone. As if I didn't already have Diablo III, Torchlight II and Path of Exile.
South Park: The Stick of Truth - An RPG for people who enjoy South Park. Which isn't me. Though I do have to give them credit for being able to poke fun at game delays and launch dates.
The Crew - I'm going to take a second to gush about this segment. The Crew looks FANTASTIC, and not in the way that Forza Motorsport does. Ubisoft didn't bring a two-of-a-kind McLaren P1 to the stage. They didn't give us Driveatars. What they did show us was a trailer of all kinds of illegal vehicular activity. Street racing, off-roading, running from the cops. To be honest, the debut trailer made the game look like The Fast and The Furious: The (good) Videogame. They talked a little bit about how the whole US was your playground in The Crew. Open-world racing where the end goal is to take down (or more likely usurp) this criminal organization. They've created this online persistent world that blends single and multiplayer together. You and your friends can band together at any time to form a Crew and take on cooperative missions. Singularly, you can engage in all sorts of challenges. One of the ones that interested me the most was where you had to race a single car in a point-to-point challenge. The player was currently driving a high-powered street car, and his computer opponent was in a vehicle more suited to off-roading. There was no "out-of-bounds". Each vehicle applied it's strength in the point to point challenge. The road course was longer, but the player had faster car. However, the off-road was shorter, but required a different set up. Ubisoft bragged about the level of customization you can apply to your car, and being able to completely take apart the engine and rebuild it from the ground up. This is so much a part of the game, that they have designed an app for your tablet or smartphone that allows you to completely customize your car from these devices, and have it available as soon as you return to your console. Overall, this game blew me away and I'm really excited to see it in the next generation.
Watch_Dogs - Watch_Dogs is back this year with absolutely no gameplay footage. Just a fancy trailer. They did unveil to us that Aiden Pierce (the game's protagonist) is effectively a superhacker, whose obsession with surveillance has turned him into a vigilante. And that sounds badass. Who doesn't want to be cyber-punk Batman?
Just Dance 2014 - I had to talk about Rocksmith, so I've gotta talk about this too. Let's see, it's finally coming out as multiplatform. We got to see a list of pop stars likely to be on the soundtrack, including PSY. It will support 6-player dances, which is more than the number of controllers that can be connected to any system at a single time, so I guess that's impressive. There's some weird system where you can supposedly DJ and remix the music by dancing. It's the next generation of "your favorite party game". They might need to re-evaluate that statement, because last time I checked, my favorite party game was Cards Against Humanity.
Rabbids Invasion - This is a kid's show with Kinect support built in. Based on the fact that it is an actual TELEVISION show, with motion-tracking camera interactivity, I'm assuming (and will be pleasantly surprised if) this will remain exclusive to the Xbone. Because honestly, who doesn't enjoy screaming with their kids at the TV? Not me. I'd rather just scream at the kids.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Ah yes, the pirate simulator that everyone's been talking about. I've tried to involve myself in the Assassin's Creed franchise, but I've never seemed to be able to care. The social stealth made sense when Altair's costume looked incredibly similar to the monks in the first game. However, Ezio didn't blend in with a single goddamn Italian. Being surrounded by 5 or 6 people while wearing an extremely unique outfit does not make you just "disappear". Try again. Sorry, off-topic. AC4 was another game where we saw a lot of shiny trailerness, and not a lot of gameplay. And the trailer didn't even contain a spot of blood. There were people getting shot, stabbed, and bashed over the head with bottles, and yet no one seemed to bleed. This seemed a little out of character for a franchise about ASSASSINATION, but more to the point, isn't that why most people play this game? For the violence? Anyways, Ubisoft brags that it's done it's homework on this one and created a realistic pirate experience. I doubt that being a rapist and spreading untold amounts of venereal disease is part of the core game mechanics.
Trials Fusion/Frontier - The Trials franchise is back with better graphics and a mobile counterpart. So you can eat shit and break your neck while indulging in impossible motocross feats in a whole new generation.
The Division - Yves Guillemot (Ubisoft's CEO) unexpectedly ran out on stage and interrupted Aisha to present this. Yet another franchise with Tom Clancy's name slapped on the front of it. Think of a post-apocalyptic world where a flu epidemic has caused pandemonium across the nation. No, this isn't The Last of Us, it's The Division, an open-world MMORPG cover-based shooter. Now, while I'm getting kind of sick of the chest-high-wall-shooter genre, this game's unique HUD, interactive environment and MMORPG mechanics make me rather curious.
Part III will cover the EA conference. If I can drag myself away from The Last of Us long enough to write the damn thing.
Friday, June 14, 2013
E3: Abridged - Part I
Ah, E3. Once a year we get a chance to watch the console gaming industry and its major players publicly humiliate themselves, while trying to convince us to buy whatever it is they'll be pedaling to us in the upcoming year. I've tried to stay atop the news as it unfolded during the long week and with so much to talk about, I decided it was best to break my write-up into pieces.
Microsoft:
After the reveal of the Xbox One, which could only be described as a press disaster, Microsoft decided that it was best to spend their E3 press conference being "all about the games". You would think this would be a good thing, seeing as how their reveal wasn't about the games at all. There were no games. Give me games. For the game console.
Speaking of game consoles, MS also showed us an "updated" Xbox 360 which looked exactly like the Xbone, and would cost the same as the existing X360. This was a push for us to purchase their soon-to-be-outdated console before the new one hits this November. We were also informed that Xbox Live will be passing out 2 free titles a month for Gold (paying) members until the launch of the Xbone. Something Playstation Plus has been doing since last year. Thanks for joining us Microsoft.
On to the games they announced for the X360:
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain - MS kicked things off with a trailer for Metal Gear Solid 5. Either the game comes with an optional slow-down/speed-up time function, or the trailer was a rather poor representation of actual gameplay. I'm not a fan of the series, but I don't really hate on it. All I really know is that MGS4 was more interactive cutscene and less video game.
Then we were shown a console specific version of World of Tanks, an online multiplayer game where tanks blow the shit out of each other. Now, as it stands, I don't know a single person that plays or has played World of Tanks on the PC. Frankly speaking, this just sounds like an online patch for Battletanx on the N64. Whatever.
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood. An indie title that seemed to combine the drawing elements of Okami with your standard 2D platformer. Now indie games have surprised me in the past. I'm a huge fan of Bastion and, in fact, most of my favorite games in my steam library are indie titles. However, we'll have to see how the little X360 title does when it hits later this year.
Dark Souls II - Everyone's favorite ragemaker! Little more than a fancy trailer was shown for this one. Though I imagine it's comprised entirely of death and frustration, like it's predecessor.
After telling us all about what we could expect to see on the X360, MS moved into their Xbox One segment.
Ryse: Son of Rome - A game about Roman warfare that seemed rather uninterested in letting you play it. Almost all of the footage from the press conference consisted of quick-time events and cutscenes. It was, however, pretty.
Killer Instinct - Look Microsoft, if we should have learned anything from Squarenix's whole Tomb Raider debacle, it's that we should let franchises from 1996 FUCKING DIE.
Sunset Overdrive - A stylized open-world shooter. Insomniac Games tells us that it's going to be a living world with user-generated content. Sounds like Little Big Planet with guns and free running/parkour. Nifty, but not enough to convince me to shell out the $500 for an Xbone.
Forza Motorsport 5 - These guys actually opened with an ad for McLaren. Appropriate since they brought on stage with them one of two existing McLaren P1's in the world. That's right, Turn 10 Studios brought a CAR. Good for you. Next time, maybe you can bring a gameplay video and impress me with that. What I enjoyed most about the Forza segment wasn't any of the shiny car footage they'd brought with them, but the word "Driveatar". A portmanteau of the words "Drive" and "Avatar". The game learns how you race as you race, then when you're away, creates an AI based on your driving "style". Interesting. But realistic racers will be realistic racers, and for that I'd need a driving wheel, which I have yet to acquire. So I, personally, will stick with my arcade racers.
Minecraft: Xbox One Edition - Okay, the people who like Minecraft are already playing Minecraft on the PC. A small handful might have the Xbox and mobile edition, but I really don't think that adding Minecraft is going to sell you any consoles, Microsoft.
Quantum Break - Promising to combine both television and gaming, I have little to no hope for this game. Defiance already tried that, and it fell flat on it's face. Aside from a shiny trailer with no game footage, we don't have the slightest idea what the story is, who the characters are, why we can stop time apparently... bleh.
D4 - A cel-shaded game about a murder mystery by Swery65. I actually had to look the guy up to find out that he is NOT Suda51, even though the game trailer makes it look and sound like he is.
Project Spark - This title looks like what would happen if Lionhead Studios, the developers of Fable, made their own version of RPG Maker, or a console release of a Blizzard game's map editor. After dicking around a bit, they showed us some clips of what the tiny little in-house (I'm assuming) "community" has created. While some things might have been legitimate games, or just a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon, I did recognize blatant Limbo and Geometry Wars rip-offs amongst the clips.
Crimson Dragon - A little bummed that this was a Xbone exclusive honestly. From the team that brought us Phantom Dust and more importantly Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crimson Dragon basically looks like a 3D "on-rails" shoot'em up, similar to StarFox. It looked like a spiritual successor to Panzer Dragoon, and as someone who owns Panzer Dragoon, I'm kinda jealous of the Xbone. But not enough to make me buy it.
Dead Rising 3 - Capcom brought open-world zombies to the table, yet again. They also brought a lot of gameplay footage with them, which was something that actually made me happy. It's easy for publishers to forget that those of us who aren't in attendance at E3 won't get to see how these games play, and it's important to make gameplay trailers so that we know what we'll actually be getting our hands on. Otherwise you end up with things like D4 and Quantum Break that I mentioned earlier, which is the high-budget equivalent of showing us the box art. Sure it looks great, but what does it play like?
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - I haven't followed The Witcher franchise, but it's supposed to be some hot-shit fantasy RPG. There was almost as much talking done by the dev as there was trailer time. It promised a "multi-region open world", "dynamic and tactical combat" and to be the "defining achievement of the RPG genre". Frankly speaking, these are all things I've already heard said about Skyrim.
Battlefield 4 - No E3 would be complete without EA waving their modern military shooter dick in everyone's face, and MS got to show off Battlefield 4 during their conference. Now playing at an astounding 60 FRAMES PER SECOND. I'm pretty sure this is something that the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race already had. The highlight of the BF4 segment was watching them fire up the trailer without sound. Now this happened to Crimson Dragon as well, but they just rolled with it. BF4's presenter stopped the trailer and restarted it. When the video lagged out and took forever to load, the guy nearly left the stage! Oops! Sorry! Technical difficulties! Just, uh... go check it out at our booth. It'll be great!
Once the trailer did finally load, it was chock-full of gameplay. Unfortunately, it's the same kind of gameplay we've seen from every other modern military shooter so, UNIMPRESSED.
This was followed by a trailer for a new indie cave-crawler, and some random trailer for an as-of-yet unnamed "triple A" franchise.
Halo - What Xbox would be complete without Halo? The trailer really seemed to rip off Journey pretty hardcore and didn't feature anything besides Master Chief in a ripped cloak and some giant robot. Well, at least MS knows who they're trying to pander to.
Titanfall - Lastly, we got a look at Titanfall, a new game by Respawn Studios (former Infinity Ward employees that didn't get along too well with Activision). It's a sci-fi shooter that actually intrigued me. For starters, it's a sci-fi shooter that isn't Halo. Second, giant fucking robots. It looks as if everyone gets their own "Titan", which is a giant mech suit that you get to pilot the same way you moved around as a foot solider. Just from watching the trailer, the game felt really solid. Standard FPS mechanics, implemented in a sci-fi universe with giant robots and jet-packs. I honestly wouldn't care if this game didn't come with a singleplayer mode. The multiplayer looks awesome enough.
That wraps up the Microsoft conference and my opinions on just about everything. Next up, I'll be tackling Ubisoft and how Jerry Cantrell is NOT a McLaren P1.
Microsoft:
After the reveal of the Xbox One, which could only be described as a press disaster, Microsoft decided that it was best to spend their E3 press conference being "all about the games". You would think this would be a good thing, seeing as how their reveal wasn't about the games at all. There were no games. Give me games. For the game console.
Speaking of game consoles, MS also showed us an "updated" Xbox 360 which looked exactly like the Xbone, and would cost the same as the existing X360. This was a push for us to purchase their soon-to-be-outdated console before the new one hits this November. We were also informed that Xbox Live will be passing out 2 free titles a month for Gold (paying) members until the launch of the Xbone. Something Playstation Plus has been doing since last year. Thanks for joining us Microsoft.
On to the games they announced for the X360:
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain - MS kicked things off with a trailer for Metal Gear Solid 5. Either the game comes with an optional slow-down/speed-up time function, or the trailer was a rather poor representation of actual gameplay. I'm not a fan of the series, but I don't really hate on it. All I really know is that MGS4 was more interactive cutscene and less video game.
Then we were shown a console specific version of World of Tanks, an online multiplayer game where tanks blow the shit out of each other. Now, as it stands, I don't know a single person that plays or has played World of Tanks on the PC. Frankly speaking, this just sounds like an online patch for Battletanx on the N64. Whatever.
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood. An indie title that seemed to combine the drawing elements of Okami with your standard 2D platformer. Now indie games have surprised me in the past. I'm a huge fan of Bastion and, in fact, most of my favorite games in my steam library are indie titles. However, we'll have to see how the little X360 title does when it hits later this year.
Dark Souls II - Everyone's favorite ragemaker! Little more than a fancy trailer was shown for this one. Though I imagine it's comprised entirely of death and frustration, like it's predecessor.
After telling us all about what we could expect to see on the X360, MS moved into their Xbox One segment.
Ryse: Son of Rome - A game about Roman warfare that seemed rather uninterested in letting you play it. Almost all of the footage from the press conference consisted of quick-time events and cutscenes. It was, however, pretty.
Killer Instinct - Look Microsoft, if we should have learned anything from Squarenix's whole Tomb Raider debacle, it's that we should let franchises from 1996 FUCKING DIE.
Sunset Overdrive - A stylized open-world shooter. Insomniac Games tells us that it's going to be a living world with user-generated content. Sounds like Little Big Planet with guns and free running/parkour. Nifty, but not enough to convince me to shell out the $500 for an Xbone.
Forza Motorsport 5 - These guys actually opened with an ad for McLaren. Appropriate since they brought on stage with them one of two existing McLaren P1's in the world. That's right, Turn 10 Studios brought a CAR. Good for you. Next time, maybe you can bring a gameplay video and impress me with that. What I enjoyed most about the Forza segment wasn't any of the shiny car footage they'd brought with them, but the word "Driveatar". A portmanteau of the words "Drive" and "Avatar". The game learns how you race as you race, then when you're away, creates an AI based on your driving "style". Interesting. But realistic racers will be realistic racers, and for that I'd need a driving wheel, which I have yet to acquire. So I, personally, will stick with my arcade racers.
Minecraft: Xbox One Edition - Okay, the people who like Minecraft are already playing Minecraft on the PC. A small handful might have the Xbox and mobile edition, but I really don't think that adding Minecraft is going to sell you any consoles, Microsoft.
Quantum Break - Promising to combine both television and gaming, I have little to no hope for this game. Defiance already tried that, and it fell flat on it's face. Aside from a shiny trailer with no game footage, we don't have the slightest idea what the story is, who the characters are, why we can stop time apparently... bleh.
D4 - A cel-shaded game about a murder mystery by Swery65. I actually had to look the guy up to find out that he is NOT Suda51, even though the game trailer makes it look and sound like he is.
Project Spark - This title looks like what would happen if Lionhead Studios, the developers of Fable, made their own version of RPG Maker, or a console release of a Blizzard game's map editor. After dicking around a bit, they showed us some clips of what the tiny little in-house (I'm assuming) "community" has created. While some things might have been legitimate games, or just a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon, I did recognize blatant Limbo and Geometry Wars rip-offs amongst the clips.
Crimson Dragon - A little bummed that this was a Xbone exclusive honestly. From the team that brought us Phantom Dust and more importantly Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crimson Dragon basically looks like a 3D "on-rails" shoot'em up, similar to StarFox. It looked like a spiritual successor to Panzer Dragoon, and as someone who owns Panzer Dragoon, I'm kinda jealous of the Xbone. But not enough to make me buy it.
Dead Rising 3 - Capcom brought open-world zombies to the table, yet again. They also brought a lot of gameplay footage with them, which was something that actually made me happy. It's easy for publishers to forget that those of us who aren't in attendance at E3 won't get to see how these games play, and it's important to make gameplay trailers so that we know what we'll actually be getting our hands on. Otherwise you end up with things like D4 and Quantum Break that I mentioned earlier, which is the high-budget equivalent of showing us the box art. Sure it looks great, but what does it play like?
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - I haven't followed The Witcher franchise, but it's supposed to be some hot-shit fantasy RPG. There was almost as much talking done by the dev as there was trailer time. It promised a "multi-region open world", "dynamic and tactical combat" and to be the "defining achievement of the RPG genre". Frankly speaking, these are all things I've already heard said about Skyrim.
Battlefield 4 - No E3 would be complete without EA waving their modern military shooter dick in everyone's face, and MS got to show off Battlefield 4 during their conference. Now playing at an astounding 60 FRAMES PER SECOND. I'm pretty sure this is something that the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race already had. The highlight of the BF4 segment was watching them fire up the trailer without sound. Now this happened to Crimson Dragon as well, but they just rolled with it. BF4's presenter stopped the trailer and restarted it. When the video lagged out and took forever to load, the guy nearly left the stage! Oops! Sorry! Technical difficulties! Just, uh... go check it out at our booth. It'll be great!
Once the trailer did finally load, it was chock-full of gameplay. Unfortunately, it's the same kind of gameplay we've seen from every other modern military shooter so, UNIMPRESSED.
This was followed by a trailer for a new indie cave-crawler, and some random trailer for an as-of-yet unnamed "triple A" franchise.
Halo - What Xbox would be complete without Halo? The trailer really seemed to rip off Journey pretty hardcore and didn't feature anything besides Master Chief in a ripped cloak and some giant robot. Well, at least MS knows who they're trying to pander to.
Titanfall - Lastly, we got a look at Titanfall, a new game by Respawn Studios (former Infinity Ward employees that didn't get along too well with Activision). It's a sci-fi shooter that actually intrigued me. For starters, it's a sci-fi shooter that isn't Halo. Second, giant fucking robots. It looks as if everyone gets their own "Titan", which is a giant mech suit that you get to pilot the same way you moved around as a foot solider. Just from watching the trailer, the game felt really solid. Standard FPS mechanics, implemented in a sci-fi universe with giant robots and jet-packs. I honestly wouldn't care if this game didn't come with a singleplayer mode. The multiplayer looks awesome enough.
That wraps up the Microsoft conference and my opinions on just about everything. Next up, I'll be tackling Ubisoft and how Jerry Cantrell is NOT a McLaren P1.
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