Wooh! E3 is just around the corner with its disgruntled face, and without commenting on the truckload of rumors about the blasted event that will undoubtedly disappoint and tire many a man , things obviously happened to get everybody revved up for the information I will undoubtedly try to summarize in one really, really, really long post. At least for June tenth and eleventh.
However, the first piece of news I fell over and fractured my noggin upon was that one of the creators of the Oculus Rift, that nifty VR headset that everyone things will be the next big thing, was killed by a speeding car. …Well, that sucks… Just use that on the bonfire of the earth being rubbish before realizing how there was never a set idea of fairness or good, as it was something humans made up.
Although, most people naturally shift towards being a decent person, with the defilers being a vocal minority. Yet that never stopped games from ever assuming players want to be an evil bastard, like the Fable series has for the most part. And will likely continue it because the first title in the series is being remade. As a planned Xbox 360 title with undoubtedly a winter or fall release in 2013, this just seems odd to me. Microsoft has not had many exclusives this year, and with the lack of backwards compatibility with the Xbox One toppled with the not entirely fond memories of Fable from many people, I can only wonder what is going on in their lumpy heads.
Still, I have more faith in them succeeding than I did in Shadow of the Eternals reaching its Kickstarter goal. And if the developer’s decision to bail out is any indication, they probably shouldn’t have tried this in the first place. I hate to be rude to the developers themselves, even though they have not shown the highest level of skill when they were SIlicon Knights, but most of their employees haven’t shipped a title in a decade. All headed by a man who still wants to fight Epic Games, even though they lost years worth of work and right to even use an engine again.
Yet, that does not seem as odd as the reveal of Deus Ex: The Fall. Now, I’m not sure what I was suppose to expect, seeing as how Eidos Montreal is still trying to get Thief 4 right, but I was not expecting an iOS title. Looking remarkably like Human Revolution, The Fall will be a $7 title for some reason, yet due to the complexities in Deus Ex’s gameplay, I am not sure if the streamlined nature will be very beneficial.
Not that it was the only pre-E3 reveal, with a Vita bound spin-off to the intriguing Dragon’s Dogma Dragon’s Dogma Quest. A free to play purely 2D title with an emphasis on forming parties of up to eight people. Diablo III is also coming to the 360, sans the always online features, but keeping the $60 price tag while sharing the release date with Rayman Legends. And even Respawn Entertainment (former key Call of Duty people) has something called Titanfall coming to the 360, PC, and Xbox One. Which would only interest me if it is basically Girls und Panzer, but with penises (no men, just their tool) and mechs. And of course the radical looking Lococycle is an Xbox One digital launch title, while still coming to the 360 in a move that makes me want to point and laugh at Microsoft even more.
Something I have often done with Konami, the house of absolutely insane fish people, who gave their pre-E3 conference that was boring enough to have to be crammed into a paragraph. But nobody cares about Konami’s mobile market, of the PES thing, we all wanted to know who would be voicing Snake. And it is… Kiefer Sutherland! Or if only the name sounds familiar, the guy from 24. I’m honestly confused as to why this actor was chosen, aside from how David Hayter allegedly hated voicing Old Snake and would need to give a similar performance. Yet, while hearing the voice would establish confidence in the choice made by Kojima, this is Konami. Instead, we got some footage about the “Epic conclusion of the Lord of Shadows saga”. Which looks pretty alright, but not worth the ten plus minutes spent on it during the thirty minute conference.
But Konami is hardly a blip compared to Microsoft, who brought with clarification that I’m just going to abridge. First off, your entire game library, from downloadables to disks, can be accessed by all members of your family, or just you and up to 9 other friends. You can play a disk at a friend’s house if your account is signed in, but if they want to play on their account you need to A, be Xbox friends for a month, and B, revoke your license to the game. A move that can only be done once from one “family” to another “family” (assuming the publisher allows it, the general and depressing notion that the whole statement is littered with). As for used titles, it is up to the publisher and “participating retailers”.
All of this is fairly fishy, supposedly because it is still being made, as the used game scenario is as solid as warm muck, and the family system could be exploited by a group of five fellas who decided to buy the system day one, but don’t want to buy games. And with the details implying a large download focus for its “half” Terabyte hard drive (1024GB = 1TB, it’s weird), I must wonder how the cloud and reduced downloadable prices will be addressed. At least knock $5 off and keep the prices on par with retailers. Seeing as how we are basically buying licenses to games nowadays. A move that could be related back to the cold depressing poo filled world, but I get yelled at for saying such things. Yes, this is the ear of Microsense, who actually do mandate the whole internet connection once every 24 hours. Something that is ideal for the longevity of a system in the coming decades. Let’s see if Sony is going to take the sheep that represent consumers away from the wild ranges of the PC that they are all slowly tapping toward and convince them that their farm is a nicer place to sheep about.
Or maybe Microsoft is injecting the ranch hand that represents Sony in this tortured metaphor with a bit of milk, as there is a claim that MIcrosoft is bribing third parties to not show PS4 titles. Something I normally place near the idea of paid off reviews, but their prior actions within the past week make this idea rather plausible. Which is the scary, yet overly exciting as I’ve been hyped up all week like I just discovered a carbonated beverage that doesn’t sit in my stomach minutes after drinking it. Either way, this is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to observe!
Yet what I didn’t find to be a qualifier of that overly long word word was Sonic Colors and now that we have more details on Sonic Lost World, I see it fitting to give my two cents. In short, I don’t have a lot of confidence from the gameplay. While going through what is ultimately a puzzle can be implemented well into a fast paced game, as Ms. ‘Splosion Man demonstrated in the 58,469th time I must compare a title to it, the levels need to be carefully constructed and worked directly into a course the player should attempt to master.
However, when multiple paths and secrets are thrown about in every level, the amount of detail that can be placed on the paths is undermined by how at the end of the day, you’re still being graded and harshly punished with the fear of losing all your rings, or unnecessarily added lives. That said, the levels are far more clearly presented, and the parkour system mixed with a freaking run button make the act of going through the levels seem far more enjoyable.
With the “reveal” of a Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, which sounds simply snipplers if you ask me and my term making ways, I’m going to shove this out before my series of E3 Rundown begins. Something done for my personal sake, although one could say this entire blog is, but I will be overly excited to do. I mean, I’m one guy who is starting up school during E3, a single community college class on Microeconomics, so I’ll just be giving one obese post and call it quits for the day before watching some more Girls Und Panzer.
