The first of the Big Three are here with their presser. This one is an interesting one as they have a new console to showcase.
XBOX ONE X
Project Scorpio has an official name: Xbox One X… WHAT!? That a terrible name. This is about as confusing as the Wii U’s name. The system is still boasting its 6 TeraFLOPS (Floating Point Operations Per Second) and 12GB of GDDR5 RAM. The system is to have a minimum of a 1TB hard drive for storage and the system is smaller than the currently available Xbox One S (see how confusing this can be). It will be the first console to come with a type of liquid cooling in the form of a vapor chamber, very similar to the Surface Pro that Microsoft also sells. It’s priced at 499.99USD and will be available on November 7th this year. Overall this system is going to be a hard sell with the confusion it will cause with average consumer who don’t know the difference between the S and the X models. Another concern is whether or not older games will run at higher frame rates instead of just high resolutions. I’m certain that this system will have the ability to run games at 4K, but highly doubt many developers will do that as more and more games become resource intensive. I believe that using Supersampling anti-aliasing for games running on 1080p displays is a giant waste of system resources as the game is still rendering the game at a higher resolution just shrunk down. You could easily give us the option to run games at high frame rates while sacrificing resolution, but you won’t give us that will you.
FORZA MOTORSPORT 7
I, like a lot of people, have forgotten where exactly we are with the Forza games. There are two sets of them and there seems to be one release every year now. I no doubt believe these are good games, but maybe slowing down on these releases would be more beneficial, but you know, Microsoft is hurting for exclusives these days. The game is to feature the latest Porsche 911, and this is such a big deal that they had it on stage before the big national car show which I don’t even know what the name of it is. There was eSports. 😡 Two actual racers demoed the game which is alright. The words immersive and dynamic were used in some capacity along with epic and grand. It’s a racing sim.
METRO: EXODUS
A bit of surprise with this one. There isn’t much in terms of details for the latest game in the Metro series, but it sure does look nice. Even if it was very scripted.
ASSASSIN’S CREED: ORIGINS
It was nice to see Ubisoft take a year to get their act together with this series after the disaster that was Unity. The latest game in the franchise is set to take place in Egypt at the creation of the creed. You play as a sort of “sheriff” that goes around killing certain targets like any of the other games. This game features an eagle friend that lets you survey the landscape and spot enemies and landmarks before entering a potentially dangerous area. There is also a leveling up system which may or may not turn people away from the game, and a loot system that featured Legendary equipment which could mean: Microtransactions. The demo also featured frame drops. Let’s just let that sink in.
PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS
If you already have it on Steam, no reason to bother.
DEEP ROCK GALACTIC
From the studio behind Goat Simulator is a game like Minecraft but in space and with just the mining and killing.
STATE OF DECAY 2
Based on what they showed us, you can already play this game. It’s called State of Decay.
THE DARWIN PROJECT
You already have Battlegrounds. Why do you need another battle royal game with eSports.
MINECRAFT
Of course this was going to show up. The biggest update to this was cross-platform play for every version of the game. There is also a Hires Graphics Pack coming soon. Because the last thing I needed was better graphics for Minecraft.
DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ
Best looking game of the show. By Arc System Works with the same guys behind Guilty Gear Xrd. 3v3 battles. Did I mention the game looks beautiful.
BLACK DESERT ONLINE
Another blasted port.
THE LAST NIGHT
A pixel art cyberpunk game that is likely an adventure game. Looks great.
Oh and Zoe Quinn ? (she’s not involve, but wants to invoke a “witch hunt” on the lead dev).
THE ARTFUL ESCAPE
A nerdy looking dude with a guitar going on an adventure. Sounds like me. “Coming when it’s damn ready.”
CODE VEIN
Weeb Souls the Anime.
SEA OF THIEVES
A co-op pirate game that looks like a lot of fun. You get board other player ships the old fasion way or by blasting yourself out of a cannon. You can look for treasure in sunken ships or in caves. There are also Legendary treasures…microtransactions…………….
TACOMA
Walking Simulator 2: The Reckoning
SUPER LUCKY’S TALE
Cause no one bought an Oculus Rift to play a 3RD PERSON PLATFORMER.
CUPHEAD
Finally, September 29th. Microsoft Exclusive. DAMMIT!!!!! It’s going to be on the Windows Store.
CORRECTION: It will be on Steam.
CRACKDOWN 3
Terry Crews and explosions. That is all.
Addendum Joke: Old Spice the Video Game
ASHEN
Not to be confused with YouTuber and star of Ashens and the Quest for the Gamechild, Stuart Ashen aka Ashens.
LIFE IS STRANGE: BEFORE THE STORM
Hello Fellow Kids: The Prequel starring the worst character from the last one.
MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR
One of the best Lord of Rings games in recent memories has a sequel that looks to improve on the Nemesis system with more involved stories like not actually killing an orc only to have them come back to seek revenge. You can actually recruit orcs to help take over strongholds as you wage war through Mordor. This might lead to large-scale battles, but not much was said about it during the presentation. If you liked the last game, keep a close eye on this one.
ORI AND THE WILL OF THE WISPS
Should be renamed to Ori and the Infinite Sadness. I haven’t even played the first game and this made me sad. Also, Gareth Coker provided live music for the trailer.
ORIGINAL XBOX BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY
They said they want to better preserve their game library by adding this feature to all Xbox Ones. This shouldn’t be a problem as both the Xbox One and Original Xbox have x86 processors and run on modified versions of Windows. It will be launching later this year.
ANTHEM
Well, we now know where all the budget for the facial animation went. This is Bioware’s latest game that seems awfully a lot like Destiny. Which in turn could be a good or bad thing. You get to put on an Exosuit and fly around different parts of a planet with your friends. Looks interesting but after Mass Effect 3, Andromeda and even Destiny, it going to take a lot of convincing.
OTHER TOMFOOLERY
- Audience sounded like it was filled with the same people from the Xbox One’s reveal in 2013.
- One guy accidentally referred to the system as the Xbone.
- Phil Spencer pretending like he’s embarrassed with the cheering going on.
- Scalebound is still cancelled.
- Less talking and more games. Wow, that’s a first.
- Xbox One X does not come with Kinect 3.0.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, it was a pretty good showing of games. It was mostly no nonsense. Good Job.
