E3 from my couch: Microsoft
by djn3811
At the opening Phil Spencer said this presentation would only be about games and he wasn’t kidding. There was no 20 minute chunk in the middle with talk of social apps or new TV features; this was the type of press conference everyone always asks for. They had 90 minutes of straight game announcements, trailers, and game play demos, many of which seemed to be either Xbox exclusive or have Xbox...
At the opening Phil Spencer said this presentation would only be about games and he wasn’t kidding. There was no 20 minute chunk in the middle with talk of social apps or new TV features; this was the type of press conference everyone always asks for. They had 90 minutes of straight game announcements, trailers, and game play demos, many of which seemed to be either Xbox exclusive or have Xbox exclusive content.
Call of Duty opened the show this year with the standard game play demo including, “in the interest of time” to move past a chunk they didn’t want to show. Xbox is going to continue to receiving dlc first for Advanced Warfare, smart move considering how much COD still sells. Next was Turn 10 announcing the
Nürburgring announced as free dlc for Forza 5 availible now, trailers for Forza Horizon 2 (which looks like another Horizon game), Evolve (4 player coop from the Left 4 Dead creators), and Dragon Age Inquisition. Assassin’s Creed Unity got a game play demo showed that you can play up to four players cooperatively in the French Revolution setting people have been talking about for years.Looks like more Assassin's Creed, hopefully that's a good thing
Next, the Sunset Overdrive trailer really stood out, while the game play didn’t look too exciting, but could be a lot more fun to play than just watch. The trailer was pretty humorous and made me laugh at least once. Capcom poked fun at their own Street Fighter naming conventions with the announcement of Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha Prime dlc for Dead Rising 3. It appears to be 4 player coop and seemed like a game show style arcade shooter and is now available.
Harmonix seemed to be an afterthought with just a few minutes to remind people of Disney Fantasia Music Evolved and to announce Dance Central Spotlight, a downloadable game in which they say they will be able to add new music to quicker than before so you can dance to the current music hits as they are released. With the Kinect no longer required it seems like Harmonix got the raw end of the deal having 2 Kinect games in developement. You have to wonder where they go from here. Fable Legends, another 4 player coop game, with a possible 5th player being the evil villain in an RTS style overhead camera where you can control the enemy spawns, traps, etc. to try to defeat the other players. Project Spark, now contains Conker from Conker’s Bad Fur Day, and a game called Oni and the Blind Forest were given trailers next.
343 and Halo were given the most time on stage to talk a little about Halo 5 and detail Halo Master Chief Collection. It includes Halo 1-4 (no Reach or ODST) and multiplayer from each game with Halo 2 getting the anniversary treatment this time around. It seems like a good way for people to play the games if they haven’t already, but I don’t know if this is going to be a huge success like I think Microsoft wants it to be. It does include Halo 5 beta access, so that may convince people to pick it up. During the Halo 2 multiplayer demo there was awkward silence with the presenter trying to fill with some commentary while trying to play, it seemed like they should have had someone else talk about the game while showing this part to make it feel a little bit more fluid.
That was the end of the 2014 releases section (Halo 5 is 2015) and next was a bunch of 2015 and beyond games. First was a trailer from the guys who did Limbo with a new game called Inside that seems to be very inspired by Limbo. After Phil Spencer stated that 100+ indie games were coming to Xbox One, there was a trailer showcasing a few games with images of many more. The next Lara Croft adventure, Rise of the Tomb Raider, was shown with a trailer cutting back and forth between her sitting in a Psychologists office and her out on an adventure. The Witcher III got a game demo of the main character hunting a Griffin, followed by another demo from The Division, and finally a trailer for Platinum Games’ Scalebound and Microsoft’s Crackdown 3.
Overall I think Microsoft did a good job. They showed only games, which is what we always wish for at these press conferences and it seemed like they spanned a wide variety of genres to try to appeal to everyone. I would really like to see more of Sunset Overdrive and find out how it plays, and I’m still really interested in the Division and hope that it turns out well. Fable legends was the game I am least interested in, I thought the demo was boring and it didn’t seem to offer anything really outside of the box. If they are going to call it Fable, I would prefer a proper RPG style follow up to Fable 3. I'll be interested to see if the Ubisoft can put out another great Assassin's Creed this year or if the continued annualization of the franchise will diminish Unity.
Something I Noticed: Seems like there are a lot of 4 player coop games this year and we are only one press conference in.