E3 Reactions: Microsoft

Dean Bowman: OK, so quickly – do you have any big predictions for the Microsoft press conference, which is about to start.

Adam Gulliver: I honestly have no idea what to expect. I mean, an awful lot has already been rumoured (new Gears and that Rare collection). I would love to see a new Viva Piñata but I think that’s just wishful thinking. One thing I do predict though is there’ll not be a single mention of Kinect. I feel that piece of hardware is dead and buried.

Dean: I can’t remember the last time they mentioned it… Maybe it was when they said: “now you can buy an Xbox without Kinect!” I’m going into this fresh – I haven’t even been keeping up on the leaks!

Adam: I’m going to guess there’ll be a lot of Tomb Raider footage. All I want from this (or any!) of the press conferences is Yu Suzuki coming on stage driving a forklift. I would not be that surprised though if there’s a Shenmue HD after all of Yu’s Twitter teases.

Dean: They had Sweet Tooth come on stage in an ice-cream truck before, so they can certainly accommodate vehicles! It would be so funny if someone unpacking some crates backstage accidentally drove their forklift on stage… imagine the disappointment!

haloguardians

In which Halo 5 Guardians kicks things off

Dean: It’s starting, cue marketing keywords and pictures of marines fondling fire arms! “The greatest games lineup in Xbox history.” Do they say that every year? OK, first up we have Halo 5 Guardians, and they are talking up the moral ambiguity angle, as expected. Wait, was that Nathan Drake? Is he a playable character in this?

Adam: That was Nathan Fillion. Reprising his role from Halo 3: ODST. And Keith David is voicing the Arbiter again from Halo 2.

Dean: I appreciate the factual info – I’m shit with names. Tell you what, you do the facts and I’ll handle jokes?

Adam: Deal!

Dean: Looks a lot like the Citadel in Destiny so far. How do you think it looks? I’ve never been much of a Halo guy.

Adam: It looks like a Halo game… Which is still a good thing! I really hope the plots a lot more coherent than Halo 4 though

Shaun Greenhaff: I love Bungie Halo, I am underwhelmed by 343 halo thus far. Here’s hoping 5 changes that.

Dean: 24 player multiplayer with maps 4 times the size of any other Halo Map – considering some of those maps, that sounds massive! The new mode is called Warzone.

 

In which Recore is announced

Dean: World premier? By Keiji Inafune? I feel like I should know what this is…

Adam: Keiji Inafune. Love that guy. Thought he would have his hands full with Mighty Number 9.

Dean: It’s a colourful looking game about a girl and her robo dog. Oh no the robo dog got it! But it’s ok, she’s recovered his power core and now he’s a robo gorilla! That was Recore – looks like a cross between Wall-E and Metroid. Being done with Armature Studios.

 

In which Xbox embraces the past

Adam: Xbox 360 games work on Xbox One! Holy shit

Dean: Oh sheeeeeeet! They got there before PlayStation!

Adam: Not all though. And you have to….download them? Is that right?

Dean: It’s so weird that we’re at the point where backwards compatibility is a headline announcement! Looks like it’s a digital thing. But you can trigger the download by owning the copy of the game. Interesting. “We won’t charge you to play the games you already own.” Opening salvo fired at Sony! Now they’re showing the fabled new controller. Those metal paddles on the back look very odd and I’m not sure about the D-pad.

fallout4

In which Fallout 4 is proven to be better than Wet

Dean: Hello Todd Howard [Waves] They’re going to talk about Fallout 4 here are they?

Adam: If Bethesda really want to win me over then they should make Wet 2!

Dean: I’m not even going to respond to that! Love how rinky-dink the guns look – reminds me of Metro… They’ve still got VATS, hope that doesn’t mean the shooting’s not up to snuff. To be fair, it looks like it’s a lot better. Game does look good, whilst still maintaining that wasteland dinginess. Brand new engine you think? And Mods from PC can be downloaded and played on Xbox, that’s pretty insane!

Adam: I don’t know if it’s brand new, but I think it’s definitely been enhanced.

 

In which a car is winched onto stage

Dean: They’ve just winched a Ford GT on stage… Strange that Henry Ford III wasn’t sitting in it. He chose to walk on stage instead.

Adam: I like racing games. I like Forza. I really dislike their overly dramatic trailers.

Dean: It looks like a car advert

Adam: It kind of is. I mean, Forza 6 was first announced at a Ford event.

Shaun: I’m on board with the weather stuff, loved that in Drive Club

 

In which Dean takes off his shirt

Dean: Oh YES!!!!!!! This is where I lose my shit. From Software can only mean one thing… I’ve already taken off my shirt! A Dark Souls that looks as good as a Bloodborne! That’s exactly what I want!

Shaun: Dark Souls is a series I never cared for. Demons Souls yes, Bloodborne yes. But if the name starts with Dark for whatever reason I just don’t like it, but I really want to.

thedivision

In which the spirit of Tom Clancy is evoked

Shaun: Now this is MY jam. If it has a Clancy logo I am all in there.

Dean: The Division right? I’m actually quite curious about this. I’m hoping it will be the Destiny that Destiny should have been… So this game is about sleeper survivalist agents trying to save the apocalypse?

Shaun: As long as it has more than 7 missions it’ll already be more interesting

Dean: Imagine a Destiny style MMO shooter taking place in a huge open world city – could be very cool.

Adam: And imagine Destiny with an actual story 😉

Dean: Rainbow Siege looks pretty good too – it’s kind of exactly the opposite of The Division in terms of scale. Interesting that they should both exist at the same time.

tacoma

In which we indulge in Indie time

Dean: And, here comes the obligatory indie game montage. Good to see more Oddworld in there.

Shaun: Did I just see something that looked like army men from back in the day? Please tell me that’s what I just saw.

Adam: Haha! Army Men? Oh dear.

Dean: Hello Chris Charla [Waves], he’s here to introduce the ID @ XBOX

Adam: Hey. It’s Idle Thumb’s Steve Gaynor!

Dean: He’s talking about Tacoma. This looks freaking brilliant. I totally want a Gone Home in Space!

Shaun: I bloody love the look of Cuphead

Dean: They totally nailed the vintage Felix the Cat aesthetic. Love it.

 

In which Early Access is revealed to be broken

Shaun: Define “popular” when talking about early access…

Dean: “Not broken”?

Adam: I’ve heard so many bad things about early access I really don’t want it on consoles.

Dean: Yeah, this doesn’t appeal to me. But those are big titles coming – Elite Dangerous and Day Z among them.

Shaun: I will admit it can be good at times. I recently picked up Dirt on steam in early access, and it’s exactly how early access should be. Not finished, but not broken. A work in progress you can actually play, and comment on to get stuff right. Better than a big patch month one.

Dean: Hello Dean Hall, creator of Day Z [waves] OK, Dean Hall has been working on a space game since leaving Day Z. It’s called ION.

tombraider

In which Tomb Raider is revealed to have tombs

Dean: Hello Brian Horton from Crystal Dynamics [waves] I hope Rise of the Tomb Raider isn’t a timed exclusive for too long – I loved the reboot. Yep – that’s how the pros climb mountains – throw yourself into the void and swing an ice pick. Anyone else getting vertigo watching this footage?

Adam: Crystal Dynamics should make a Cliffhanger game.

Dean: Oh man! That would be awesome

Shaun: It would appear that Lara has managed to once again to piss off an angry weather god

Dean: She should really read the weather forecast before going on expeditions!

Adam: There doesn’t appear to be much interactivity in this demo?

Dean: Don’t you see those sick QTEs? It is very scripted and cinematic looking – very different to what we’ve seen of the latest Uncharted, which looks phenomenal.

Adam: TOMBS!

Dean: Man, I hope there are tombs that are bigger than sheds! That’s the big thing the old games have over the new one – otherwise I generally love new Lara.

Shaun: I swear that some of these set pieces are exact copies of ones from the first game. I would complain but I very much did enjoy those set pieces.

Dean: Higher res than the first game though Shaun!

 

In which Rare becomes… less rare

Shaun: Excuse me a second, I am going to go squee.

Adam: DAY ONE! BLAST CORPS!

Scott Cameron: So, all the leaks were right.

Dean: 30 games for $30, that was Rare Replay. And there’s a new game from Rare too! It looks pretty. Sea of Thieves, a kind of open world pirate themed story generator. There are a lot more colourful games this year… People got fed up with brown I guess.

 

In which VR is pitted against AR

Scott: Huh. Throwing in with Valve against Morpheus.

Dean: Kind of interesting they are packaging the Xbox controller with Valve’s VR. I wonder if it’s going to be one of the new ones, or they just need to clear the warehouses of old controllers.

Adam: I have zero interest in VR. Sorry.

Dean: It’s pretty cool, but I don’t see it replacing everything. Now they’re talking about HoloLens – and poor Kinect is barely in the ground. How could you Microsoft? You cad!

Shaun: I wish I could say I wouldn’t buy a HoloLens, but I am almost certainly going to buy a HoloLens. I love terrible gimmicky stuff.

Dean: Holographic Minecraft – this is a live demo apparently – they have a bloke with a special camera to pick it up.

Adam: This can’t be real.

Dean: OK that’s some funky shit! I wonder if you need a special Microsoft sanctioned table… Minecraft does seem like the perfect thing to realise an AR system like this. Adam they said it was real. I always listen to things people tell me on stage in front of 1000s of people.

Adam: LIES! It was witchcraft!

gears

In which the team starts seeing Nathan Fillion everywhere

Dean: It’s Gears of War time!

Shaun: 10 years ago I was all up in this shit. Four games later, I just can’t care about Gears anymore, especially not just a remaster.

Dean: It took me ages to get around to Gears, then I played them all co-op back to back, and against all expectations really enjoyed them.

Scott: I prefer RE4 to Gears, personally, but they’re different beasts, despite the former being a mechanic inspiration for the latter (and Kill.switch)

Adam: Is that Nathan Fillion again?!?!?

Dean: Is Nathan Fillion the new Troy Baker who is the new Nolan North?

Adam: Okay. It’s not Nathan Fillion.

Dean: I just checked IMDB too:( They totally need to do a Firefly videogame.

Adam: It actually sounds a bit like Nolan North now. With a bit of Troy Baker in there?

Dean: Maybe they found a way to merge them and make the ultimate voice over artist?

Shaun: Maybe it just happened by accident after Shadow or Mordor. They couldn’t get the spirit of North out of Baker.

Scott:  Fuuuuusion! HA! Presenting: Troy Northion

Dean: Sorry, we totally should be commenting on the game on the screen. That’s a monstrous alien dog thing (what are the enemies called again?) Gene stealers? Xenomorphs?

Shaun: Locust?

banjokazooie

In which we review

Dean: “If you’ve been waiting to move from your Xbox 360 [cough… Playstation 4] now is the time” says Phil Spencer. They had an impressive line up though, and there were things they didn’t even talk about – Scalebound, Quantum Break. Xbox seems to have fully shaken off its slow start into the generation. Highlight?

Adam: RARE! Everything Rare related was glorious!

Dean: Dark Souls 3 for me, though that’s not an exclusive (is it? Please tell me it isn’t)

Jason Potter: I’m all over the Rare collection! Was I the only person who thought Gears 4 didn’t look much like Gears? Reminded me of early The Order trailers.

Adam: It looked like Gears. But darker. Ridiculously darker in fact.


Posted

in

, ,

by

Tags:

Comments

2 responses to “E3 Reactions: Microsoft”

  1. Adam Gulliver avatar
    Adam Gulliver

    Totally nailed it with my Kinect prediction!

    And also Yu Suzuki! Though it was the wrong conference and he didn’t come on stage driving a forklift.

    1. waywardcloud avatar
      waywardcloud

      Sorry Adam, If there wasn’t a forklift involved the prediction is void!

Leave a Reply