Welcome to the games! Microsoft held true to their promise and delivered quite a few exclusives and other exciting titles. Lots of shooting and explosions, but this is what we have come to expect. Here is a rundown of everything shown today.
The show started off with Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain. It looked good, but there was some of their standard silliness. Namely, calling leaning over in the saddle “A New Breed of Stealth.” If I looked over and saw a saddled horse with a person’s leg hanging over, I would have no trouble realizing that there was a person there.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iil5sppPvM[/pro-player]
Next, there were a couple of 360 announcements. As of today, there is a smaller console available that is styled more like the Xbox One. Nice!
In addition, Live Gold members with start receiving two free game downloads per month, the first two being Assassin’s Creed 2 and Halo 3. This will be a nice benefit to had to the gold service, providing the price doesn’t increase. Again.
Fans of World of Tanks, and probably a lot of other people, will be glad to see this popular free-to-play title get an Xbox 360 Edition. It’s good to see that it will remain free for Gold members!
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OmijQgc6o0[/pro-player]
And now begins the main event, the Xbox One gaming presentation. ‘Max: Curse of Brotherhood,’ ‘Dark Souls 2,’ ‘Ryse: Soldier of Rome,’ ‘Killer Instinct’ and ‘Sunset Drive.’
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMplTIaf3B0[/pro-player]
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcjlrp5urB0[/pro-player]
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSgJpW3VhKg[/pro-player]
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs8f17L6EHI[/pro-player]
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgEpbeNM97I[/pro-player]
Forza 5 shows off a bit of their new “Drivetar” cloud technology. Your personal Drivetar learns how you drive and, in time, will drive the same way that you do, to race in offline games. I’m not sure why you would want the game to play for you, but hey, it’s available.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzRyCAIu0ws[/pro-player]
Xbox One is getting it’s own version of Minecraft. I still haven’t played the PC or 360 versions, but the trailer tells me that it is very popular! ‘Quantum Break’ and ‘D4’ are also shown.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMW5EcvDlyk[/pro-player]
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHpRSiZ7lqQ[/pro-player]
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v99ZEwXhGUY[/pro-player]
This next bit was one of the more exciting and interesting parts of the presentation. Project Spark is a game building title that seems to be very intuitive when it comes to populating your world and programming behaviors into your creations. There is heavy SmartGlass integration, which will be nice for designing. I can see this becoming huge!
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFgBULaPGKI[/pro-player]
Ryse makes a return to show off how SmartGlass can be used by developers to enrich your gaming experience.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewg5pMtkj7o[/pro-player]
Killer Instinct is being used to show off the Upload Studio and Twitch apps. Upload Studio allows you to edit and share your clips from the game DVR function. Twitch allows live streaming of your game. Very cool tech and software has been built into the Xbox One. I may never personally use those apps, but I absolutely love the idea.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHE0CQK1sZo[/pro-player]
There were a couple of news bits here about Microsoft points being dropped in favor of real currency and the Live Gold sharing. I am a big fan of being able to use the show’s account or my guest accounts as an authorized user on my Xbox. Hopefully this is a function of Live and not exclusive to the Xbox One.
The people behind Panzer Dragoon and Phantom Dust bring you Crimson Dragon, a flight-based shooter. I was never a fan, but I know the Panzer game had a huge following.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlnnqnyXDSg[/pro-player]
‘Dead Rising 3’ looks great and also has SmartGlass integration. The feature shown was using SmartGlass to call in an air strike on a particularly heavily populated area.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUvrGaNW5tM[/pro-player]
‘Witcher 3’ goes open world and non-linear. This should make for an even better gameplay experience. The video was pretty exciting.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QDUrRE78cc[/pro-player]
The crowd at the briefing and the people following on Twitter got really excited about ‘Battlefield 4’ and for good reason. The gameplay footage looked great!
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NraEp4q210c[/pro-player]
‘Below’ seems to be mostly a top down adventure title. “It looks very Indie.”
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKABNLQez2E[/pro-player]
There was a short bit of in-engine footage from an unnamed title, but there wasn’t much excitement there. Then came the Halo. People seem to like the Halo. I can’t come up with a single reason to wear a ratty cloak over your armor, but people like the Halo. Halo at 60fps and with some sort of cloud processing.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhMU_FCjFs4[/pro-player]
Price reveal! $499.99! Daaaaang! Seems a little high, but then I have not been anticipating a day one purchase. But if you are ready to jump in, use this link. This is for the Day One Console, which includes “a limited edition controller, token code to unlock Day One achievement, premium packaging, and decal.”
To wrap up the show, Respawn shows off their exclusive title Titanfall with some multi-player footage. Titanfall is a war title with a blend of infantry and player-controlled mechs in urban combat. It is visually stunning and the multi-player almost seemed like campaign footage. People must have been on their best behavior that day!
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t11klyI91g[/pro-player]
So, what did everyone think of the presentation? Chime in below!
Was there anything here that screamed out be an early adopter? $500 is a considerable investment and although I am not getting one for a while, even if I was I would think I would wait a year on this. Let them work out their hardware bugs, give devs more time to learn to take advantage of the hardware, see a price drop and the first batch of reduced greatest hits games.
What here, outside of the passion to get new hardware which I fully understand, made you say wow I need this right away? I thought the titles were weak outside of TitanFall.
What was that lame trailer for MGS.? When they started showing the characters as ‘the old one’, ‘the young one’, and ‘the big breasted mercenary in a bikini top’ I laughed my way through the rest. That was pretty bad.
Still I love gaming and cannot wait to see the Sony event later.
There was nothing that would get me to buy in early. I love the technology updates, but my 360 does everything I need it to.
Geoff,
One thing I failed to mention was what a great write up this was. It is nice to see the PGL continue to have a heartbeat. Thanks to all those who carry the torch!
Thank you!
I was pretty excited abut Killer Instinct. I’ve been waiting for that for years. But, apparently it’s not made by RARE. Crazy.
I pre-ordered my Xbox One. I agree with every concern but at least this is an upgraded console. Unlike the PS4 which in all honestly is a PS3.5 at best. $399 is crazy expensive for a minor upgrade.
I got a chance to play with the new controller for a bit on Monday night. It feels really good. It is a tiny bit lighter than the current controller, but not too light. The triggers and bumpers feel really good.
I also got to demo the new rumble features. The rumble is now directional (?). They can place the rumble in at least 4 or 5 different places. The rumble can be placed in either trigger, or either bottom part of the controller, or the entire controller. It seems to be a really cool feature and I’m excited to see how developers use it.
I thought this was a good article about the DRM: http://www.wpcentral.com/lets-talk-xbox-drm?fb_source=ticker&fb_action_ids=10151523935078026&fb_action_types=og.likes
That’s a great article Dmiller! Thanks for the link. Definitely explains it more than MS has done. It is still strange to me how Microsoft hasn’t come out and cleared up so much of the confusion.