Microsoft slithered like a “snake” onto their show floor this morning with a stunning trailer for Metal Gear 5: The Phantom Pain with hero Snake riding along with friend into dusty, sandy, and hot Afghanistan and his friend saying, “Go, and let the legend come back to life. From that point the action gets classic and familiar again as Snake crouches, slithers, shoots, knocks out, and uses stealth in a way only Snake can do. In addition to that, Snake can ride a horse, lean over side saddle, and shoot the enemies plus drive a tank like a bad ass. The trailer then closed as Don Mattrick from Microsoft and producer Hideo Kojima came out to welcome the crowd.
Mattrick mentioned how Microsoft was all about the games and that there will be 13 next generation titles on Xbox One. Yusif Medhi, also from Microsoft, came out to say that the Xbox 360 had been given a face lift and that it is available today. He also mentioned that Xbox Live Gold members from July 1st until launch in November would receive two free Xbox game downloads starting with Assassin’s Creed 2 and Halo 3.
Next up was Viktor Kisly, CEO of Wargaming, to show off upcoming game War Tanks which will be free-to-play this summer for Xbox Live Gold members and will feature 15-on-15 matches of blasting, crashing, and smashing tank carnage. The next game shown was a follow up to the game Max and and the Magic Marker from developers Press Play. This time around things are a little darker, Max’s powers aren’t as discoverable as before, and the graphic style is very stop motion shiny clay like. Max: The Curse of Brotherhood for the Xbox 360 arrives in Spring.
Probably the biggest surprise was the trailer and game play for Crytek’s Ryse: Son of Rome which features protagonist Marius Titus leading his fellow Roman soldiers against a hoard of enemy soldiers trying to overtake a tower. Along the way Titus fights brutally hacking and slashing through the enemies’ throats, bashing them with his shield, and yelling orders to his men.
The battlefield scenes are gorgeous, bloody, and the looks on both Titus’ face and those of his fellow soldiers are dramatic and engaging. Everything ends with battle among ships, more fighting atop the tower, and a huge explosion as the screen faded to black. Marius Titus saying, “Brave men taste death once, cowards a thousand times over” rounded out the experience as being a great presentation from Crytek. Ryse: Son of Rome will launch at launch for Xbox One in November 2013.
Following that it was announced fighting game Killer Instinct was coming for Xbox One and the game Sunset Overdrive. That was followed up with the announcement of Forza Motorsport 5 and the integration of Xbox One’s ‘drivatar’ or human less driver AI.
“ Its all about the details that make our world human. This is air you can taste and texture you can feel. Using the limitless power of cloud processing producers are able to shatter your expectations. In Forza 5 this means the end of AI. Now you have a learning agent in cloud–a drivatar,” explained Don Greenawalt from developer Turn 10.
Greenawalt went on to explain that the game can record your style of driving, when you speed, when you play dirty, how you drive in traffic and can even drive for you while your at school!
A Minecraft: Xbox One edition was announced and that it would have more multi-player and more maps.
A time stopped, fantasy, and science fiction type game was then shown called Quantum Break. In the trailer a woman is shown being hurled through the air by an explosion, glass is flying everywhere, she gets cut by one of the shards, and then some strange man enters the scene. The man grabs her by the arm, saves her, and then asks her what is causing it to happen just as the explosion kicks back into gear. Sam Lake, from developer Remedy Entertainment, said, “We set out to revolutionize entertainment—combining an explosive action game with a television show. This interplay changes your entertainment experience into a new type of storytelling. And that’s my passion.”
Things then moved to displaying sand box game called Project Spark. In Project Spark, the player can create rivers, mountains, textures, woodlands, the artics, set the mood, change the time from night to day, and much more. A demonstration was made by creating a small town, a base or house, a hero with a sword, a rock pet that could move by using the game’s brain ability, and goblins to attack and fight off.
Another demo was shown of how SmartGlass can be used with the Xbox One to use software while another is being downloaded or to be able to play a single player game while the game is searching for a match of someone to fight against. While playing a single player game you can look up a friend’s achievements, stats, game highlights, hints, or even look at DVR clips he or she has made. You can also make your own DVR clips of gameplay, make commentary on the clips, and create a skin to show off online.
It was mentioned that Twitch will be built into Xbox One and that Microsoft Points will be done away with and replaced by using real world money. The flying dragon fighting adventure Crimson Dragon was announced and that was followed up with a presentation from Josh Bridge and Mike Jones from Capcom Vancouver. They showed some gameplay and footage from upcoming zombie survival horror game Dead Rising 3 which is an Xbox One exclusive.
Dead Rising 3 follows Nick Ramos who is the sole survivor in the town of Los Perdidos and its his goal to make it through town and survive. Game play shown had Nick fighting off a small gang of zombies eating a victim on to Nick climbing onto a roof and into a building. He then manufactured a type of saw weapon and sawed through more zombies as he reached a machine run and mowed down some more hideous flesh eaters. The gory and very intense demo ended with an explosion. Dead Rising 3 was announced for a holiday 2013 release.
Then toward the end of the presentation some classic military shooter action was shown for the upcoming Battlefield 4 which will run at 60 fps and features close quarter, vehicular, sea, and land combat. It was announced that Xbox Live Gold members will receive Battlefield 4 map pack 2 assault before anyone else.
Finally, to round at the presentation a new Halo was announced for 2014, the Xbox One console price, and that was the end. What did you think of the Microsoft E3 press conference? Feel free to leave a rant, a cheer, or even if you feel neutral in the comments below.
Source: {Computer and Video Games}
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