E3- Microsoft- Pretty Good.

E3- Microsoft- Pretty Good.

So the Microsoft conference just finished- it was good. Better than the EA, god a million times better, it lasted as long as it needed to, showed what it had then fucked off, had a lot of games and I could actually finish the show. But, what did they actually show? I'm getting to it, patience is a virtue mate.  

PS, I ate all that brownie and it fucked me right up. 

The show started with all the Microsoft employees, in the crowd cheering Phil Spencer, whilst the real Phil Spencer had a gun to their collective heads. He went on to talk about the XBOX One X (well done Microsoft you made your console sound like an amateur porn parody) he then threw around terms that meant nothing such as it having six teraflops- still not helping the porn parody accusation- and he also started the conference's obsession with 4K, still probably not true 4K but hey apparently it works with 1080p monitors and TVs. Wow, it'll only cost £4.99. Oh wait. 

In my notes I wrote, and I quote, "man has defined eyebrows" I can't remember this man. I am writing this the day after, cause college and tired and shit.  

Oh, also at this point Twitch chat, I was just watching it on XBOX's channel with my friend, started drawing pictures in the chat; for example, tits and shitting Mario. Thanks chat. 

Cars 'n shit 

At this point the crowd seemed to be very enthusiastic, I wasn't, some guy I've never heard of called Dan Greenawalt was talking about cars; there was a real car on stage and everything. To be honest, I wasn't listening; cars don't interest me but if you like them it's fine, absolutely, I'm just not bothered. One guy in the crowd kept yelling "aaayyyy" so he seemed to enjoy it; I'm happy for him. At this point, with the whole actual car and the audience looking like someone just sharted, I thought I was watching Top Gear. But why was there a random woman just holding an XBOX controller? We know she wasn't playing anything, so just why?  

Oh and a final word of advice for whomever wrote that section/named that car: When making something that's going to be put on the internet, especially if it's being live streamed on Twitch, don't call your thing 9/11. You should have seen the chat at that point.  

After that part that I had no interest in they moved swiftly on to a part I had quite a bit of interest in, no I'm not talking about the forty-two games; frankly I have no idea what point he was trying to make, was it that there will actually be games for the XBOX? However, there certainly wasn't forty-two at that conference- I counted.  

Metro 

No, the part I cared about was Metro: Subtitle that I forgot to write down in my notes so let's call it, Metro: World Exclusive.  

Metro: World Exclusive started of very strong by giving everyone a trailer that shows a very familiar setting with familiar equipment so that people who know the franchise know exactly what they're seeing. The trailer did look heavily scripted, but seems like actual gameplay so it's half and half really. Let's get nit-picky: In the trailer for Metro: World Exclusive, I'm going to keep this joke going as long as possible, the guy is wearing a gas mask- as standard in the radioactive waste that is metro- then he gets jumped and there is a notable chunk missing of his gas mask. I thought, that's fine it's probably not that radioactive down there. Then he went outside and just walked about with a hole in his mask. My problem is in the first two a massive part was finding filters for your gas mask because, when outside especially, if you didn't change filters every ten minutes or so then you'd die. So what does this mean? Has it been so long that the radiation has died down enough to breathe outside? So why have the gas mask at all? Or is it just bad continuity? Or am I just an idiot thinking too much about a heavily scripted trailer of a game that probably is barely in alpha yet? Who knows.  

What also put me off slightly is the crossbow. I thought after he's like Crysis 3 and Tomb Raider were the beginning and end of using completely out dated weaponry in he's but no. Also that crossbow ain't gonna do shit to a massive fuck-off radioactive bear is it, mate.  

Never actually finished Metro: Last Light but I think Metro: World Premiere looks cool and I'll be interested. The use of, what I believe to be, the 28 Days Later theme was kind of cliché. 

This is the moment I would like to make a public service announcement, just as a reminder of course. Microsoft does not have the same definition of the word "exclusive" as the rest of us, the majority of these games are neither exclusive nor will they ever be. End of public service announcement.  

https://twitter.com/MetroVideoGame/status/874029685402984449 

Assassin's Creed: Origins  

The next world premiere exclusive that was announced was a new ASSassin's Creed, subtle I know, this new AC game comes in the form of Assassin's Creed: Origins. A frankly overused subtitle- though in the actual conference it was said that it *will* explain the origins of the assassins. (I highlighted the word 'will' because I don't trust anything that comes out of Ubisoft's mouth. Because Ubisoft are liars). 

The new AC game will take place in Egypt. Nice idea right? Well the gameplay made it look like... Well, Assassin's Creed. Actually with a hint of the Watch Dogs 2 drone, which is now an eagle, wait how does the main character see what the eagle sees? It makes sense in Watch Dogs 2 because it's a drone. I hope they add a cat to be the RC car from Watch Dogs 2. Basically what I'm saying is; I've never cared for AC, unless it's a summer day. In all seriousness, I am interested in the beliefs and culture of ancient Egypt but honestly doubt AC will give me what I want. Should have called it Assassins Creed: Uplay. 

I want to make a point that the gameplay shown up to this point has been just that, gameplay, I very much approve of this- even if it is heavily scripted.  

Player Unknown Battlegrounds 

The next game is definitely not exclusive to XBOX and is no where near a world premiere. It was something about Player Unknown Battlegrounds, a game I'm not in the least bit interested in. My only other notes on this was, "I like his (the presenter of the game) accent." If you want info on this game look it up, it's been out around a year I think.   

Deep Rock, State of Decay 2, something else 

The next three games I didn't really pay that much attention to, they're not my style so I'll just give a quick mention: Deep Rock, it's basically mechcraft, State of Decay 2, it's a management survival zombie game; none of those things appeal to me and finally a game I didn't write own the name of, I wrote that it looks like Disney but I didn't write the name; basically it looked like another competitive game, this assumption was strengthened by the middle aged man shouting a pre-written script, like what esports people do. I want say what he was saying was totally cringe and awful however I have no idea what he actually said. 

You know how I said I watched on Twitch and the chat was awful, well they got one thing right. They predicted:  

Minecraft 

Microsoft presents Minecraft. 

It's in 4K though  

It has "more graphics" 

Can you tell how exasperated I am? 

4-ASS-FUCK-K ISN'T GOING TO CHANGE FUCKING MINECRAFT. 

Moving on. 

Dragon Ball 

Swiftly after that shit show, a new fighting game that reminds me a lot of the more retro 2D style of fighting game. But, it was Dragon Ball. It looked neat and like it would be very fun for a fan of the show but personally I don't know anything about it really; all I know is that it's a very mathematical show that teaches children all the way up to, and past the, the number nine thousand. 

Black Desert 

The next exclusive was Black Dessert MMO. It looks like a very tasty game with lots of sweet loot. I don't actually know anything about it apart from the fact that it's an MMO, I don't like MMOs, and it's been out for PC for a very long time. Also one of the armour sets looks quite like the Dark Soul's elite knight armour set. I actually wrote that in my notes. 

The next games I'll just list and maybe give a brief description (I don't have much to say). 

The Last Night: I was a very big fan of the art style but nothing apart from that was really given away. 

Artful Escape: Reminded me of Double Fine but again we didn't get much explaining what it actually was. 

Code Vein: I was very interested in this Bandi Namco title, it looks anime as fuck, weebsouls if you will. I'm into it, I'm definitely keeping an eye out for this one. 

Sea of Thieves: From what I saw it was a exploration game but with pirates and multiplayer, it's a cool idea but I don't know, I'm wary after No Man's Sky. You can fire yourself out a cannon, I'm into it; or even possibly out of it- depends if you've fired or not. 

Tacoma: It looked like a space VR game. That's all could gather; it made me fondly think of Event[0] which is nice. 

Super Lucky Tales: A very dumb name for a game I have no interest in and made me think it was Conker's 

Bad Furday. It wasn't, it was just rule 34 furry bait. 

Cuphead: 'Mammy they talked about Cuphead again' said the small child with no friends. 'Don't worry son; it'll never come' Said the tall uninterested mother. 

Crackdown 3 

The next game that actually caught my attention was Crackdown 3. I really liked Crackdown, it was the first game I remember playing on the XBOX 360 and I still enjoy it to this day. Second, not so good. I have to say I'm impressed at myself for being able to tell exactly what game it was just from seeing the city even though I had not thought about that game for a while, until that point. What I saw from the trailer was that it seems like it's more multiplayer focused, which I'm not a fan of, and the visual style kind of reminds me more of Saint's Row than Crackdown, which I am not a fan of; I think I honestly prefer the look of the first game. That's a good first impression for a game I used to like. 

Afterward they started playing a bunch of trailers too quick for me to note down the names. They did have a Hearthstone clone, apparently it was Fable as well. That's sad, not as sad as Peter Molyneux's LIES. I actually liked Fable 2 and 3. They went on to say XBOX has over five hundred games- I don't believe it. 

Ashen 

The next game looked quite interesting though we didn't get too much, all I wrote down was that people don't have faces. Looks cool though. 

Life is Strange 2 

I never actually finished Life is Strange but from what I played I was intrigued just never really had much motivation to finish it, I know I'm in a minority here that was made more evident from the reaction for Life is Strange 2; both on social media and in the crowd. What we know about the game is Chole, I think it was, has different hair and she was a smoker. It's also only three episodes long and I think that might be because if it's a prequel she won't have her time powers, right? Unless they pull something out their ass. I might get this when it comes out and play through them both.  

Shadow of War 

Another game that I didn't finish, even though I was enjoying it, is Shadow of Mordor. Again, I just didn't have the motivation and again just like Life is Strange 2, Shadow of War looks very similar to the first. Although, I have to say Bruz (or Bruce as I will call him from now till the end of time) is my favourite thing from this entire show. That's all I got about this, it looks like Shadow of Mordor + Bruce. 

  

Ori 

I never even played Ori and the Blind Forest but damn it looked beautiful, and so does the new one. Piano helped too.  

What I thought was; why not make a game that's like typing on the dead but with a piano? Instead of words you have to play a scale or arpeggio, it'd be great. 

One of the biggest things, in my opinion, is that XBOX one will now have backwards compatibility which is huge especially when PlayStation won't even go back one generation. Shame I don't have an XBOX one. 

Anthem 

The last thing I am going to write about is Anthem. I don't have much to say about it apart that it looks very beautiful and wholly; un-Bioware, which I'm very happy about that after all the Mass Effect and Bioware games that are just so formulaic, I hope this is something good and unique from Bioware. 

So, that was Microsoft an overall enjoyable conference that was competent and did what E3 should do; show games, show soulless robots and show more games. Enjoyable. 

World Exclusive Premier/10 

PS whilst I'm writing Intel is on and I'm not doing that one but they just said they want VR esports, which, I think, is a terrible idea. That's all