NLSC Your source for basketball video games.
E3 is here. Almost. Well, just a day before E3, we have 4 big press conferences. Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft and Sony are going to present games and technologies to take us into the next generation of gaming. SpikeTV is the exclusive broadcasting partner of E3, with streams on GameTrailers as well. The internet is abuzz as all eyes are on E3, with live-blogs on most major tech news outlets. Speaking of major tech news outlets, the staff here at The NLSC is keeping a close eye on things. Discussion on Day 0 of E3 2013 has begun in the Forum, and we’ll be doing a series of daily hour-long podcasts with our reactions to each day and all news that come out of them. With EA promoting its upcoming showcase of NBA Live 14 and tweets from 2K Sports about more information about NBA 2K14 coming during E3, the whole community should be on the look-out.
First to hold a Press Conference was Microsoft. A packed hall was matched by a huge viewership on the live-stream. Microsoft hasn’t won a lot of people over with a lot of its choices around the Xbox One, and there’s certain matters that are still unclear around the console. However, its press conference today was not about the controversy around used games or the requirement to connect once a day; it was all about the games.
First things first. Before the press conference had even started, it was announced that the Xbox One would be coming in November. As I noted in one of the latest podcasts, an ad had shown up by mistake recently which said Call of Duty: Ghosts would be coming to Xbox One November 5, which after today seems accurate. First game to be showcased was Metal Gear Solid, followed by the announcement of a new version of Xbox 360. Xbox Live Gold memberships, starting today, will offer two pre-determined games for free as part of the subscription. The first two games this month are Assassin’s Creed II and Halo 3, which albeit old now, will make for a pleasant surprise for those that never had them in their collections. World of Tanks, a free-to-play MMO game is coming to Xbox 360 this summer, along with the Max: The Curse of Brotherhood platformer, and Dark Souls 2.
The presentation moved on to Xbox One, and its exclusives. First game to be showcased was RYSE: Son of Rome, a Third-Person Game focused on melee combat through Quick Time Events, made by CryTek. Killer Instinct, the ever-so-popular fighting game is making a comeback to Xbox One. Insomniac, a first-party developer, showcased Sunset Overdrive, an open-world game that will be “living”, with the developer having the ability to update it on a daily basis. Although no actual gameplay was shown, the game looked like a third-person action game with Pixar-like graphics.
Turn 10 Studios had their turn next (rimshot), promoting Forza Motorsport 5 while a real McLaren car appeared out from below the stage. Marking a highlight of the Press Conference, the developers of Turn 10 mentioned how the game made note of the user’s tendencies while driving, allowing them to create their own “Driveatar”, which can be then used to have the AI replace you as the driver, probably for events you’d rather not drive, but not skip. The “Driveatar” feature however has most of its importance in the cloud, where each user’s Driveatar will reside, allowing actual user-driven characters to replace the developer-programmed AI, making for a more realistic experience even on Single-Player, as opponents will act just like human opponents would. Hopefully this doesn’t mean crash-fests right after the starting line. It’s worth noting that NBA 2K13 already has the VIP Playback feature, which allows you to have the CPU use your own tendencies as the game has recorded them. Whether you could download other users’ VIP profiles to have them replace the AI in future iterations of the game, remains to be seen. Still, the possibility of having user-driven tendencies combined into a “super AI” which could then be downloaded and used to replace the default one is an exciting possibility for the future.
Minecraft will be coming to Xbox One exclusively, giving console users the map sizes that the Xbox 360 couldn’t handle. Quantum Break will play out like a TV show, with your choices affecting the experience. D4 was also announced as a episodic murder mystery with cel-shaded graphics. Project Spark is a game-creating platform similar to Little Big Planet, allowing users to create maps using Kinect and SmartGlass, add behavior to any object in the world going from basic pre-determined behaviors to user-specified “line by line”, and then allowing users to play in that world, as well as share it with other users. Even during playing the game, users can still dynamically affect the environment through terraforming as the action happens.
Showcased next was Twitch.TV integration, which will allow users to stream their gameplay live, as well as a replay editing feature that will apply to all games, allowing users to cut and upload their latest footage. Dead Rising 3 will feature a rich open world with no loading times, and as with previous Dead Rising games, pretty much everything can be used as a weapon. Collective excitement throughout the internet as the hero smashed and cut his way through zombies with a weapon made out of combining a hammer and a chainsaw. Witcher 3 will also be coming to the Xbox One, utilizing both Kinect and SmartGlass to allow the user alternative means to spellcasting, weapon-switching and inventory management. Battlefield 4 was then shown by EA in the form of a trailer followed by 3 minutes of gameplay out of the “Angry Sea” mission of the single-player campaign. Microsoft invested in 5 brand-new studios around the world to develop games exclusive for the Xbox One, including Black Tusk at Vancouver who will be making a AAA game. “Halo: 2014” was the next trailer to the applause from the crowd, as Halo: Spartan Assault for the Windows 8, Windows Phone and Surface platforms and Halo TV show were mentioned as well.
The console which is coming on November, 2013 and is already available for pre-order on Amazon, will cost, depending on where you live, $499, 499 euros or 429 pounds. Given that analysts were predicting the release price to be somewhere $100 lower than that, first reactions are mixed, although they’ll be heavily affected by the upcoming price announcement for the PS4, if there is any today.
TitanFall was the last game to be showcased, as a mixture of soldier FPS and mech FPS that allows you to climb in and out of mechs at will in the middle of combat. The release date for TitanFall is Spring, 2014.
What are your impressions from the conference? Which were your highlights, high points and low points? Did the exclusive games and features showcased get you more interested in the Xbox One? Share your thoughts in the comments section below, or in the Day 0 discussion thread in the Forum.
