Month: June 2015

E3 2015: EA Press Conference

Same deal as with Microsoft. Not a real recap. Very personal opinions that don’t reflect anyone elses but mine. – Dr. S
(Video of the conference as soon as it’s available)

EA starting with Johnny Cash and Mass Effect! Big opening.
Mass Effect: Andromeda, Holiday 2016

Need for Speed, yeah, we know. The Screenshots look good and it looks like the much beloved NFS: Underground series. Release November 3rd. It’s something for my EA Access vault probably, but something I look forward to.

Star Wars the Old Republic gets an expansion October 27th. Knights of the Fallen Empire will be free to subscribers and story focused. Don’t know. Tried out TOR, but didn’t really get much into it. Not big on the whole MMORPG thing.

Lots of thumb pressing going on now. Maybe he isn’t sure about the reaction the next game gets: Unravel.
Looks cute. The guy on stage now is super shaky and nervous. Makes it way more interesting than some EA business guy talking like he’s on sleeping pills.
Now some gameplay. 2D action platformer. You use yarn to swing and jump around places, or drag stuff around. Looks super adorable.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. The game will feature a couple new characters and cutscenes in the co-op. Not much else new. Characters can be transferred from GW1 to GW2. Free content updates are also promised.

NHL. Last year’s was shit on launch, so I don’t care. PGA Tour…next? Ultimate Team talk….next!
NBA Live…AHAHAHAHA. Well, who knows. Last year’s was decent, but still miles behind NBA 2k.

Mobile talk. I think I stop this until they get to Star Wars.
That was quick. A Star Wars CCG. Not what I wanted. And now a minions game. Just kill me.

FIFA 16. It’s supposed to be really good. Pelé talking stuff. Wait a second, last time he was involved with a football game, it was Academy of Champions: Soccer for the Wii by the people behind Uplay. It sucked. Not a good omen. Nah, it has nothing to do with me not liking Pelé. Pelé rambles on for about 10 minutes about women who touched his head. Boring stuff.
Defensive play is supposed to get a major overhaul. Really needed in my opinion. Messi is doing motion capturing. Little present for FIFA 15 Ultimate Team players: You get Messi and Pelé for free.

Mirror’s Edge. Looks nice. Again a very clean style and all. Bad guys are called Kruger. Of course, it’s a game dealing with futuristic fascism after all. Release: February 2016.

Back to sports with Madden. I care about FIFA, less so for Madden. So could we continue with something else? I want a Blitz: The League.

Now it’s time for Star Wars: Battlefront. PR talk. More PR talk. The Swedish accent makes it a bit more entertaining, though not exactly easier to understand. And I believed mine was bad.
Actual gameplay now. Finally!
Visuals look good. Gameplay…well, what we’ve seen is clearly scripted. But it could be amazing. Either way, I’m stoked for it.That’s it. Well, it was an EA conference. Too little Mass Effect info. Battlefront looks good. The rest? Not bad, but far from really interesting.

E3 2015: Microsoft Press Conference

You probably already watched the Microsoft press conference. If not, the video of it is linked above. This post will not offer pictures and will be more of a chronicle of my (Dr. S) experience than a full coverage of the press conference.
Microsoft starts with Halo 5.
I still remember MCC. NEEEEXT! Playable at E3 though.

New exclusive. Recore. Only a render trailer though. Looks cute.

Phil Spencer throwing buzzwords. PR speak, PR speak, PR speak. Oh, and btw Phil, one game does not make a franchise!
BOOM!!!
360 backwards compatibility. Available this holiday, for free, including a jab towards Sony.

Also a new Xbox One controller called Elite. Offers some customization and other features. More on that in the future

Fallout 4 is next, but we covered that already. Oh, one big news though: Mods created on the PC will be available on the Xbox One.
Microsoft is having a run. Can Sony mount a counter?

Mr. Moore talking EA Access. Titanfall and Dragon Age: Inquisition coming to the vault. Nice, if you don’t already have them.
People who own XBL Gold get 1 week of EA Access for free after E3.
And Garden Warfare 2 is coming next spring. Only a render trailer.

Forza 6, featuring the new Ford GT. No, Xbox is not the home of racing, that’s still the PC.
Forza will run at 1080p/60. And it’s a racing game. Coming September 15th.

Dark Souls 3 is having its “World Premiere”, funnily enough we already talked about it on the last Twinstiq Podcast.

The folks behind Uplay show The Division. Will we learn something new about it? No.

Gigantic. A Windows 10 and Xbox One exclusive. F2P, with a beta in August.

Now follows an Indie Showcase. Couple of games that are already out on the PC.
Tacoma gets shown, from Fullbright, the folks behind Gone Home. Looks of course nowhere near as good as the teaser trailer previously shown, but I'm still interested. Coming 2016.

Aurora 44 with their game Ashen. I get a certain Ico mixed with The Last Guardian mixed with Shadow of the Colossus vibe from it.

Beyond Eyes by tiger& squid. Can’t say much about it, besides: it was bright.

CUPHEAD! By Studio MDHR. Been looking forward to this one since it was first announced. It’s the game that looks like an old cartoon.

Xbox Game Preview, the Xbox version of Early Access. DayZ is joining Xbox Game Preview.. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Not the biggest fan of Early Access, although I can see the benefits. Microsoft hasn't said anything about refunds, so that could be an issue.“I want a game that is not a game. I want a game that is a universe” from the guy who is a grenade, Dean Hall. The game that is not a game is called "Ion" and it’s set in space. That’s all we know.

Rise of the Tomb Raider, Holiday 2015. It looks good and I enjoyed the first one. Probably won’t buy it for the XBO, unless they announce 1080p/60 now. You can waste your money MS and I can wait. Game itself looks very much like the previous one, plus added tomb raiding. So that’s good!

Rare…reanimating the corpse?
Rare Replay, featuring 30 games. August 4th. Includes some Viva Pinata game. I’m sold.
Guy talks on stage about Rare evolving over time. I’m sure he meant devolving. But let’s see, he has something new from Rare. Looks like a Pirate multiplayer game. Could be cool. It’s called Sea of Thieves.

Fable: Legends. Love the soundtrack. The game itself will probably be fine, but I’m a huge fan of the Fable series, even enjoyed 3, and would rather see a real RPG from them.
Cross-platform multiplayer for Fable: Legends.

Microsoft not only supporting Oculus, but also the Vive from Valve/HTC. And then there is the Hololens.
The Hololens with Minecraft demo looks cool. Not because of Minecraft, but because Microsoft seems to have really figured out AR.

Back to Xbox One with Gears of War.
GoW Ultimate Edition. Multiplayer Beta starting today. Those servers will be toast.
Gameplay from a new Gears of War. Looks like Gears. Hardly any progress since the last one. The animations are stiff, the graphics underwhelming, the gore looks like on the 360. Gears of War 4 confirmed. Wow, this was bad. I really liked the first 3 Gears games, but this?

A new Xbox One UI is coming. More games during Gamescom.

And that’s it.

So, overall feelings: I highly doubt their “best exclusives” promise from the beginning. Halo 5 could be cool, Forza 6 was very light on information, Gears looked really bad. Rise of Tomb Raider looked really good, but that’s only a timed exclusive. Rare Replay was probably one of the best things when it comes to games.
On the not strictly games side however, Microsoft really shined. Backwards compatibility (although limited) and mod support for Fallout 4 is a HUGE deal. Hololens looked great. The new controller? We’ll see. Anyway, strong showing from Microsoft on that front. Sony won’t have it easy.

Yet Another VR Headset

Starbreeze, the studio behind Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, The Darkness, Payday 2 and Brothers, is also entering the VR market. Their headset called StarVR is offering a far wider field of view than the competition (210° versus around 100°), paired with a higher resolution.

They also announced VR support for their upcoming The Walking Dead game, although it is yet unknown if this is an exclusive feature for StarVR.
Before you get hyped for yet another VR headset, think about the following though.

The Oculus Rift needs a GTX 970 as minimum spec, and there is a reason for that: VR is highly intensive when it comes to the needed rendering power. You can’t expect a PC that runs Skyrim in 1920x1080/60fps with on a single monitor to run Skyrim VR in 2160x1200 split across 2 displays at a minimum of 90fps (resolution of the Oculus and 90fps is a minimum requirement to keep you from getting motion sickness). This step up in resolution and the 2 different rendering viewpoints needed for the VR experience, already has a huge impact in performance. The StarVR has a resolution of 2560x1440, and also more than doubles the FOV of the Oculus, which means that way more objects get rendered at the same time.

In short: expect to own 2x 980ti’s for anything that’s more demanding than Minecraft.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends Revealed

Another new IP from Bethesda was revealed tonight at their press conference.  This minute and a half long teaser trailer announces The Elder Scrolls: Legends, a new CCG themed as everyone but Notch's favorite series about Scrolls.Check out the teaser below:

Usually this is where I say, :"For more on this game, check out this webpage of theirs." Instead, here's a screen shot from they official youtube video of the link to their site:
Don't fret, I will update this page once the link is fixed, or I find it elsewhere.

End of the Bethesda Conference: Fallout 4

Last up, Fallout 4. This press conference was rather short and underwhelming so far. Let’s see what we see from Fallout 4, the main reason we got a Bethesda Conference in the first place.
Promises of showing a lot, sounds good.
First up: concept art.
The game will start in the past, you will be able to play as both male and female, the design choices will also affect the way your baby looks.
Your dog seems to play an important role, since he can play fetch. The VAT is also back. The Pip-Boy will feature retro arcade games you can play, and the collectors edition will include a Pip-Boy in which you can put your smartphone and run a Pip-Boy app that seems to work as a second screen for the game.
The crafting system got major enhancements, with very extensive weapon and armor customization, and even includes a Tower defense with base building mini-game.

AND WE HAVE A RELEASE DATE!
November 10th, 2015

A F2P mobile game also got announced, called Fallout Shelter. The game is a base building RPG, all very casual and available later today on iOS (and maybe Android)

UPDATE: Dishonored 2

UPDATE: Emily will feature a completely different moveset than Corvo and even though both will feature the same campaign, both will have different interactions with the people and environment. Switching characters during the campaign is not possible and there is a story reason for that.
Release will be Spring 2016Dishonored 2 just got announced. 2 different characters are available to play with: Corvo or Emily. You will be able to finish the game without killing anyone. Little else is know, besides it being available for current gen and PC.

Also, Dishonored Definitive Edition is coming this fall, with enhanced graphics.
Screens after the break

UPDATE: Doom (4)

UPDATE: Doom was just announced to be running in 1080p/60fps during the after show.Doom is first and my personal first impression: Meh. Second impression: Could be fun.
It looks very much like Rage on a spaceship/in Hell. Much faster than Doom 3, which I like, but nothing outstanding. Visuals are nice, but far from revolutionary like the previous ones. The killing animations are gory and fun, the shooting looks cool, but the overall art direction really isn’t matching my taste.
MP looks cool though, offering Co-op and Horde modes, fast arena action versus AND an easy to use map and game mode editor.
Screenshot gallery after the break.