Saturday 19 July 2014

E3 2014 Roundup: Microsoft

Now that all the main buzz of E3 is over, I think that it's time to roundup all of the conferences, sneak peeks, information and interviews into three posts. The third and last of these is on Microsoft. This post will contain information on the main conference followed by info on each of the games and finally rounded off with some opinions! Obviously, the following paragraphs contain spoilers.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare: it's the normal Call of Duty but this time with added drones, holographic HUDS, smart grenades, parkour, titans (?), better graphics and a genuinely saddening death. It's also the first one ever to get me even slightly excited (that's more impressive than it sounds). And, it now holds the record for one of the longest trailers ever! Release date: 4th November 2014

Forza Motorsport 5 (DLC): the Nürburgring has been added with apparently millimeter accuracy (no doubt that someone will check). Available now. And it's free.

Forza Horizon 2: open world game with over 200 of the world's greatest cars as well as a day/night cycle and dynamic weather. And it's in 1080p (which leads to some absolutely stunning graphics). Also, coupled with their no lobby, no waiting system, you can also create clubs of up to 1000 members on the online mode of the game which allow you to create your own communities. Release date: September 30, 2014 only on Xbox One.

EVOLVE: exclusive beta and DLC on Xbox. Fight epic monsters as a selection of classes that range from Assault, Trapper, Medic and Support or even be the monster itself.

Assassin's Creed: Unity: this installment is set-in the French Revolution of the 18th century and sets out to be a bit of a revolution itself by including four player multiplayer! As well as this, Ubisoft have promised that the game will be the biggest yet with a huge world and hundreds of quests and activities.

Dragon Age Inquisition: premiere content first on Xbox. Get ready to fight giant dragons and other monsters with spells and swords in what looks to be a brilliant RPG with a rather interesting story. Release Date: October 7th, 2014.

Sunset Overdrive: It's a typical dark shooter in which the main protagonist runs out of ammo and hides behind a crate and blah, blah, blah. Oh, wait. I'm only kidding. In this game, you have to protect Sunset City from energy drink crazy mutants as well as enjoy as many pokes at the gaming industry and fourth wall breaks as can be physically stuffed into a game. It's also an open world game with a customisable character and unconventional weapons and power ups (and as the guy from the trailer would say 'Because we haven't had enough of those.) And apparently not as this game looks great! There's also an 8-player co-op mode called Chaos mode. Release Date: October 28, 2014 only on Xbox One.

Super Ultra Deadrising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha (DLC): old school arcade adventure with Capcom Cosplay, up to 4-players online co-op, super moves, power ups, bonus stages and THE LONGEST NAME IN GAMING EVER!!!!! Available now.

Disney Fantasia Music Evolved: for Xbox 360 and Xbox One. You appear to be able to remix songs and perform magic using motion controls as a sorcerer's apprentice.

Dance Central Spotlight: exclusively for download on Xbox One. Sounds like a lot of songs will be in this iteration to the Dance Central franchise.

Fable Legends: multiplayer beta coming this holiday exclusively on Xbox One. You live in Brightlodge (which also serves as the multiplayer hub for the game as well as the place where you begin your quest) and play as a character from a choice of: Sterling (classic character), Winter (a hero of will), Rook (a hero of skill) and Ingar (a hero of strength). One player also plays as the villain and gets to set up and control all the traps, enemies and dangers in the dungeons. The graphics and animations are beautiful and the gameplay looks interesting. One to keep an eye on, I think.

Project Spark: coming this holiday on Xbox and PC. It's a game in which you make a game and then play a game that someone has made when playing the game. It's gameception! But seriously, it looks amazing. Also, announced in E3 are the addition of galaxies (no idea what that actually is, although it's probably a space map, but it's sure to be great). Oh, and Conker (from Conker's Bad Fur Day fame) is in it as well. Game on, indeed.

Ori and the Blind Forest: only on Xbox One. Beautiful 'Child of Light' like graphics, beautiful sound, beautiful story and an absolutely beautiful trailer. In a word: beautiful. Oh, and it appears to be a platformer with some possible RPG elements in which you play as something that resembles a cat made of light who fights a giant owl made of darkness whilst being adopted by a (now possibly dead) gorilla.

Halo 5 Guardians: this iteration has Master Chief questioning authority, his role and the truth that has been told to him. It also features someone else looking for him for answers.

Halo the Master Chief Collection: on November 11th 2014, you can play all four Master Chief Halo games (Halo Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo 4) on one disk and one console (the Xbox One) with everything unlocked from the start. This let's 343 Studios create playlists which lets you play great parts of the Halo series at the same time. Halo 2 has also had a big graphics boost but you can switch back to the classic graphics if you want to. But that's not all for Halo 2 as it also contains the exact same multiplayer (as do the other three games) as was released 10 years ago, as well as 6 of the most famous maps benefiting from the Xbox One's greater graphics and power while the other maps (and there are over 100 over the four games) running at 1080p and 60fps on their original engine. It also launches with 4000 Gamerscore. Finally, the game comes with the new series 'Halo Nightfall' which leads on to Halo 5 and the Halo 5 beta (which includes even more, this time new, multiplayer arena maps and new Spartan abilities).  

Inside: can you get any more tense? Inside appears to be an almost completely black and white (the protagonist wears red) 2.5D platformer. During the trailer the player swims, jumps, runs away and pulls switches in order to escape from some zombie/robot/brainwashed humans.

Aztez: it appears to be a brawler in which you fight black and white enemies that spill red blood when hit with black and white weapons. Colour (get it?) me interested.

Knight Squad: a 2D birdseye view fighting adventure (multiplayer?) game in which players vie for the golden trophy and fight skeletons.

Plague.Inc Evolved: an updated version of the original game on mobile devices. Check out my review of the original for more info.

White Night: another black and white adventuring game. Where did all the colours go?

Earthlock Festival of Magic: apparently, they've all gone into this colourful RPG.

Cuphead: or perhaps this even more colourful and cartoony platforming adventure.

Hyper Light Drifter: an 8-bit shooter adventure game with robots.

Lifeless Planet: it appears to be an adventure game in which you are an astronaut stranded on a lifeless (duh!) planet.

Slash Dash: guess. Well, I'll tell you anyway. It appears to be a two-player game in which you go around slashing each other whilst dashing.

Fru: a platformer in which you can use the backgrounds (which are people, who appear to be dancing) in order to traverse the landscape as well as the usual platforms.

Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time: a shooter that's set in space in which you control a circular ship while shooting monsters (or being eaten by them).

Mighty No. 9: a platformer in the same vein as Mega Man.

GraVe: a survival horror in which your only weapon is a torch/match.

Threes: a game that appears to be quite similar to the mobile game 2048 only, this time, you score points by getting tiles that are multiples of threes.

Fenix Rage: a platformer in which you control a ball of fire/an eye thing as you run away from big enemies and destroy the world around you by smashing into it.

Woolfe: a creepy platforming game that appears to feature Little Red Riding Hood, something that resembles the Nutcracker and everyone's favorite: a haunted doll.

#IDARB: from the frantic trailer the game is about rectangles trying to get a football to the centre of the screen for some reason. It also looks like it's multiplayer.

hellraid (yes, there's no capital letter): a game that looks like a mix between Dark Souls and Skyrim. One to watch.

Below: an adventure game that looks like it's (or at least part of it is) set in a cavern below the ground.

Rise of the Tomb Raider: the graphics, voice acting and story all look brilliant. This is set to be another interesting look into the past of everyone's favourite Tomb Raider, Lara Croft. But will have to wait a while as the release date is set at the holidays 2015.s

The Witcher III Wild Hunt: an open world game with some very interesting tracking and combat mechanics as well as some great Witcher powers including enhanced senses and bursts of fire. And what can only be described as a lot (and for once, almost necessary amount of) gore.

Phantom Dust: a man sits down on a bench. The city around him is destroyed. He fights a woman surrounded in pink energy with his own, blue energy. The music is amazing. A building falls over. Oh, yeah, and it's a remake of the original (which I hear has a bit of a cult following). Anyone hyped yet? Only on Xbox One.

Tom Clancy's The Division: new content first on Xbox One. A game that has to have some of the best graphics, characters, voice actors and the best HUD ever! Most definitely one to keep watch on (unless you hate the colour orange). Release date: 2015.

Scalebound: a little human runs from a big monster and runs into another big monster. The big monsters fight and the little human fires an arrow at the first big monster. Just as said big monster is about to attack the human, the other big monster attacks it. The human then stabs the monster with his sword and gains his powers. The monster then proceeds to get eaten by a bigger monster with many heads just as a load of the second monster (which happen to be dragons) appear to fight off the bigger monster... Where can I sign up? Only on Xbox One.

Crackdown: only on Xbox One. A whole new campaign has been added (fully playable in co-op) as well as a whole new multiplayer experience. There's also snipers, cars and more explosions than... well... there are a lot of explosions anyway.

Well that's all from me on E3 (hey, it rhymed!). Please comment your thoughts on Microsoft's conference and anything else about E3 below. Until next time.

Goodbye for now, Harry

No comments:

Post a Comment