Welcome to my breakdown of E3. Sorry it took so long for me to get this out to you all. It was just announced that the Xbox One is now going to have no policies to keep you from trading games. You can now trade games, sell games, rent games, and gift games. Also, the system will be regen free. Which means any country on your system. Also, the 24 hour connected to the internet is now gone as well. You can play offline games, well offline. Basically what they have said is everything the Xbox 360 is, is going to be exactly how the Xbox One is now. 
On the down side we lose our cloud library and our 10 member family share program.
I had the chance to play both systems this week. 
Now I do have good to say about PS4 as well. Such as it seems they fixed the problem I had with their controller. It feels much more substantial now and doesn’t feel like cheap plastic, but with that said, I only played it for about 15 minutes and it froze up two times(much like their E3 conference). Now this may be due to the game I was playing (Blacklight: Retribution) but considering it did the same thing on two separate games on the conferance I think perhaps there is something more to it. Now I also noticed it didn’t take long for me to try out the PS4, people just didn’t play long and moved on to do something else. I’m not sure that’s a good sign. Maybe others had the same problem with it freezing on them and just gave up and left. Over all I wasn’t all that impressed with the PS4. It lacked decent games in my opinion. Killzone is alright, just not a game I would buy a PS4 over. Same with Infamous: Second Son. Both are most likely the best PS4 has to offer, but is it enough? The entire time I was there I overheard people saying they were mad about Microsoft’s shit, but they would still get an Xbox One due to the games it has. Granted I keep hearing it’s all over for Xbox and PS4 won, but I don’t think that’s even close to being true. Not to say yet that Xbox will beat Sony. Both booths were packed so full you could barely make it through, but in regards to the booths Microsoft had a much better presentation. Whereas Sony had their games on some very low-end looking tv’s. I know for a fact that ‘Last of Us’ is a much better looking game then how it looked at E3.
Now On to the Xbox One. I had a chance to play Project spark. First and foremost, incredible, the game ran flawless and does what it’s supposed to. It reminded me a bit of an old game called “Game Maker” that I used to love on PC and Playstation. Except for the fact that everything ran so great. I’ll get in more on this a bit later. For now let’s discuss the machine. One big complaint about the X1 is the fact that it’s “So Huge”. In all honesty it was about the same size as the PS4. I think perhaps the PS4 was slightly thinner but over all both machines even look-alike. The controller as stated in a previous article on the blog feels much better. The embedded battery makes a huge difference. I didn’t get a good chance to test the trigger vibrations due to the game that I was playing wasn’t the type of game to really use that feature much. It also seems that the type of system it is and the fact that the technology is far more advanced has brought in a lot of new people to the system. Not only was J.J. Abrams and Spielberg playing the new Xbox One and enjoying it, but they brought people in from the audience to put the new kinect through the ringer. It seemed that the crowd was loving it. It seemed to react instantly to each movement. Also reacting to how hard you punch and showing how much force was used and what parts of your muscles were used. Making excercise games much better and keying what parts of your bodies are being worked on.
The recent rumors that anonymously caught the Xbox One crashing to Windows 7 which means they must have been running them on PC’s and not the Xbox One aren’t entirely true. Turns out the original dev kits for the Xbox One had Windows 7 on them. The game devs show the games they created on the dev kits they have with them. This is why one of them crashed to Windows 7. So the rumors that Microsoft has no faith in their system and had none of the games running on them is really a bit of a stretch. I and numerous others have reported playing the Xbox. Seeing the on system and holding the controller.
I got a chance to play a lot of great games and some I wasn’t very impressed with. I’m going to post each one and what I thought about them because E3 is more about the games than anything else.
Project Sparks (xbox one/pc) (buy)
This was an incredible game that like mentioned earlier in the article seemed much more along the lines of maybe Fable crossed with “Game Maker” from back in the day, but it ran very smoothly. Each tool gives you the ability to change ‘your’ world. To the point simply with one to two button clicks you can change your tool from building mountains to rivers, or adding more trees. Even choosing the size of the trees. The game ran so fluently and perfect. It never slowed or glitched. It honestly didn’t even act like it needed to think about anything. I found zero load times on the game. It moved in and out of the sections flawlessly. I was honestly rather impressed with how it ran.
Ryse: Son of Rome (Xbox One) (buy)
So Ryse: Son of Rome, a game I more so got to watch and finally got tired of waiting so moved on, but the game looked beautiful. There was so much going on at all times I was surprised to find no lag at all. The abilities and cut scenes were so bloody and graphic and gameplay I’ve seen in a while. The story seems pretty cool of what I could see. I’m hoping to have a bit more on the gameplay later
Dragon’s Crown (PSN) (Rent)
Alright then. Dragon’s Crown is a side scroller 4 player game that was very much like the Simpsons or TMNT arcade games feel to it. You can choose between 5 different champions who run along hacking and slashing and trying to finish the level. This game looked like a lot of fun. The graphics had a very strange anime feel to them without actually being anime. Some of the characters seemed a bit more blocky than others, but that didn’t seem to effect the game itself. This is one I’d take a look at if you enjoy that style of gameplay.
Payday 2 (xbox 360, pc, ps3) (Rent)
Payday 2 is a game much like the first game. You play as a team who goes around robbing banks. The original game was amazing, as well as a lot of fun. This one they added better graphics and more options for gameplay. I sadly was not able to play this game, but I wanted to mention it because it is a big deal this year. I guess the original had a larger following then I had thought.
Battlefield 4 (pc, 360, x1, ps3, ps4)(buy)
There is so much to say about this game. First off 64 players in a single map. Along with commander mode which gives you the ability to send players to certain places so your team has a bit more of a tactical advantage. It also allows you to call in strikes. The graphics looked incredible and the destruction was on a much larger scale this time around. Entire sky scrapers can be taken down. They also added ships. So now you can control the sky, land and sea. This might be one of the games I’m most looking forward to.
A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XV (PC, PS3, PS4)(buy buy buy)
I believe this game is actually the MMO Final Fantasy 14, but has been remade and re-branded as Final Fantasy 15. This looked incredible. I’m told they changed a lot of the controls. Although I haven’t played 14 so this review will be a little lacking. I apologize and hope it’s a huge improvement for all the fans. It looked pretty good at E3, but didn’t have a lot of people playing it. So I’m not sure what the deal is with that. Perhaps just the fact that it was an old game with a new game. Like Halo 2….3…..4 well like all the Halos.
Assassins Creed IV Black Flag (Most likely buy)
Although I didn’t have the chance to play the single player side of it, I did have a chance to play the multiplayer. Which when played correctly was a lot of fun. It was a game that you played as an assassin who made his way through a map with someone you were supposed to kill. Once you find him you have to take him out at which point other assassins can off your target or even you for extra points. The points adding up to who is in the lead. No teams just all out warfare.
TitanFall (XBOX ONE, PC)(Definite Buy)
Quite possibly my game of the year. This game is a fast pace first person shooter game. Where you can climb in and out of mechs that seem to move just as fluent;y and fast as the humans. It seems that a lot of what I heard people wanted to play this game and thought it was worth it to even buy the evil, evil x1 for it. Sadly just to watch a presentation for this game was about a 3 hour wait and I ran out of time and wasn’t able to see it, but I’m greatly looking forward to it. Also, by the sounds of it Titanfall is going to be a progressive online game. Which is their way of saying it’s pretty much going to be an MMO. Me being an MMO fan, it makes me want to head out and buy it now.
Mad Max (PS4)(buy)
Despite the 3-4 minute load screens in this game it looked like a lot of fun. The customization of the cars was really nice and it seemed as though the shooting mechanics were great. The game looked incredible visually. Especially when Max drew the sniper gun. They really pushed us to focus on the suspension of the cars as they drove over different parts of the terrain. I think this may be one game to keep your sights on. Especially anyone who loves the movie.
Diablo 3 (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One)
I think there isn’t much to tell on this one. Obviously everyone has heard of the release of this game on consoles. Well they had it there to play and check out. Looked good and personally would rather play it on console.
Forza 5 (Xbox One)
Visually stunning, The game ran smooth and added features where your friends who have done the same races can have bots in your games with the same style of racing that they do. It constantly learns from you and them. This opens up a lot of wonderful possibilities in terms of racing.
World Of Tanks (Xbox One)
Anyone who has had the privilege of playing this game on PC will be excited to see it on Xbox One. It ran flawlessly and I’m excited for it’s release. Let’s hope it’s one of those free games that you still buy stuff in game with.
Well everyone this is my review. There were more games there but I was unable to check them all out. If there is a game you’d like to know more about comment in this blog and I’ll tell you everything I know about it. I did play and watch a lot of the games there. I hope you enjoyed this and tell me if you liked it.
Jeff -aka Mysteriohunter
Anorak's OASIS Podcast Blog 