E3 2014 – Electronic Arts Press Conference

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Next up is EA’s Press Conference. Expecting a lot of sports titles here, but hopefully we’ll get an update on Star Wars Battlefront.

EAPress

So, immediately starting things off we hear the famous Star Wars music and we get a developer documentary from DICE showcasing the research that has gone into making Star Wars Battlefront, and we get some footage of the in-engine visuals, but no gameplay. So just a small glimpse of what’s to come, wetting the appetite further.

We get a bigger insight into Dragon Age Inquisition. Switching between our parties characters. The art and design looks amazing, such detail in the environments. The opening trailer bat this conference is actually presented with a live chelloist up front. A nice touch.

Next up we get a brief blurb about Mass Effect 4 stating that EA’s Montreal studio is working on it, new setting is confirmed but we get some brief glimpses of some familiar races. Original ME team is working on a new IP. Also announced is that the original ME trilogy is coming to the PS4 as a complete package.

Sims 4 is up next. Its a thing, it’s getting released to the world.

EA Canada’s UFC game is on the docket, showcasing their audacity of putting Bruce Lee in a UFC game. We get to see Bruce Lee vs. BJ Penn in the octagon. Standing, striking and some ground submissions are shown. Very different style ground gameplay than previously seen with THQ’s fighting/wrestling games. Fighters show real damage as the fight progresses through the rounds. Get some glimpse of the how the fighters can utilize the cage for leverage.

NHL 15 is the 2nd of what I’m assuming is many sports franchises to be discussed. Finally a next-gen hockey game utilizing EA’s new shared code base structure. All 12 players have their own physics, as well as the puck. Player’s uniforms have mesh physics. Cool stuff. More detailed arenas, players and game presentation. Only a quick montage video. #wantmoar!

Criterion is up next. First words out their British mouths is “we’re moving beyond cars”. WHAT! Don’t do that. Their next game focuses on more than cars: Helicopters, Boats, ATVs, Jet Skis, Parachuting. Only conceptual footage shown, inspired by Youtube’s extreme sport’s nuts. Not really a lot shown, but essentially saying “hey, we’re working on stuff”. I wouldn’t be surprised if this game got called: Redbull Presents: GoPro – The Game. GUH!

Next sports title: PGA Tour 2015. It’s utilizing the Frostbite 3 engine, their tag: Golf Without Limits. Real courses and Fantasy Courses. No loading. Sending things off with a clip of a guy golfing off a tall cliff while a huge military battleship crashes into the islands. Pretty nuts.

More Sports – Madden 15. Making football defense fun again. They focused specifically on the defense half of the game. New context tackles, new camera angles to make it more exciting. Finishes off with a quick montage trailer. Only NBA (maybe) and def FIFA for the remaining sports titles. Whats next though?

Dawngate. Another MOBA game. With the popularity of League, this makes sense, from a financial perspective. Next.

DICE studio is up next with Mirror’s Edge! Is this a reboot or a sequel though? Focuses on Faith. Focused on fluidity of movement, seamless, and stylized. They want to focus on the story of the messengers. We get to see some conceptual footage, not true gameplay, but they reiterate with a quick developer diary of how focused and stylized the game will be, and how it’ll be a little more open for navigation, for different player skill sets. Loved the first title, excited for this new model. #dont_mess_with_faith

Nearing the end here…Quick montage of FIFA 15. Highlighting agility and control of the player, new player physics, and ball physics. The stadium is more alive, the pitch takes damage from wear and tear. New push and agility mechanics for the players. Football fans rejoice!

Last but not least: Battlefield: Hardline. EA and Visceral (DeadSpace) are out to showcase Hardline multiplayer. Its Battlefield Cops and Robbers, might as well be directed by Michael Bay. Added destruction, but its scripted. Level-ution is what COD called it in Ghosts. In this showcase the robbers take out an armored van, and need to escape from the cops. Tons of collateral damage. Looks very pretty, very much Battlefield’s engine. Highlight was the end of the fight where they blow up a crane which takes out the sides of two skyscrapers and acts as a bridge between the two. Definitely seems like a large map.

Hardline small beta announced today for PC and PS4. Available to play.

EA’s conference is done. 14 games mentioned. No mention of NBA. No Battlefront Footage, but they’re working on it. Nothing from Crytek.

Ubisoft is up next.

E3 2014 – Microsoft Press Conference

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Alright, here we go. E3 2014 is here.

E3 Microsoft

We start today off with the Microsoft Press Conference, where they’re promising 90 minutes of games. And they delivered.

We started off with a huge gameplay reveal for Call of Duty Advanced Warfighter. The game looked incredible. Very futuristic, kind of sci-fi. Very good looking and cinematic.Truly next gen looking, but with the same gameplay that we can expect from the franchise.

Next up we have the Forza guys from Turn 10 announcing the Nurburbring for Forza 5, free DLC, and then they brought out Playground Games to do a full reveal of Forza Horizons 2. 200+ cars, dynamic/ dramatic weather, and the Forza Drivatar tech is coming over. More open-world and seamless multiplayer.

Next up is a quick trailer for Evolve. More info released for it – a 2nd monster revealed: Kraken, 2nd group of hunters too. The game comes out later this year with 3 monsters and 12 hunters, and over a dozen maps. Always liked L4D, so this has my attention. #Excited.

Ubisoft and Assassin’s Creed Unity showcasing the co-op function. 4 player co-op missions. Not much said about whether this is throughout the whole campaign, or is this separate multiplayer focused missions. Assassins Creed 3 killed a lot of my love for the franchise. Hopefully my play through of IV reinvigorates me for when Unity comes out. Showed large outside environments which seamlessly transition into indoor smaller compact environments.

Moving along at a quick pace. 90 Minutes goes by quick when its all games… Bioware up next with Dragon Age Inquisition. Look Co-op too? Looks similar to an Oblivion. If it is indeed co-op I’d be down. But it is most likely like KotOR, where you can switch between characters in your party.

Next up, Insomniac’s Sunset Overdrive which is incredible looking, and looks very fun to play. Very colourful. Breaking the 4th wall right off the bat. Insomniac knows what they’re doing, and what they’re good at. Starts off making fun of other games. Insomniac has always been known for their creative weapons, and we’ve seen a few to date: record launcher, dynamite teddy bear. Today we saw the Propane Tank launcher. Game showcases some very fast traversal, and announced an 8-player co-op mode. I believe separate from the actual campaign. Oct 28th, 2014 release. XBOX1 Exclusive.

Announcement of a 4 player arcade edition of Dead Rising 3, as DLC, $10. Looks crazy, super fast and competitive. Hyper stylized, and has a crazy name: Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha Prime.

Dance Central announce Spotlight and Disney Fantasia. Moving On.

Fable Legends is up next with a 4 player co-op D&D style game.  5th player can have a top down view and play as the villain, similar to a Dungeon Master. Unreal 4 Engine. Weird.

Microsoft’s creative game, Project Spark, looks.. creative. Announced a Conker pack, essentially saying we’re not gonna make another Conker game, go make one yourself.

Finally, past the mid point, wrapping up the announcements for 2014, getting ready for 2015, bring out Teh Halozz!.

Halo: Master Chief Collection announced Nov 11, 2014 release. Includes Halo 1-4. 100 Multiplayer maps, 4000 Gamerscore, all on one disc. Halo 2 gets the anniversary treatment with the original and classic engine, and all the original MP maps, with 6 re-created.

Also announced is Halo Nightfall, which is a digital series that leads up to Halo 5 Guardian. Halo 5 Beta multiplayer beta coming this Holiday. #RedvsBlue

From AAA to Indy. ID@2015, independent developers working hard with Xbox getting their games out. Ability to self publish. Lots of cool, quaint, stylized games coming our way. Ori and Blind Forrest stood out, and a Limbo-esq game called Inside. Quick montage showing lots of titles.

Next up, an actual genuine surprise, The Rise of the Tomb Raider. Just a quick trailer showing Lara in therapy discussing the events of the first game spliced with footage of her in the wilderness again, running from a bear and launching herself off a cliff wielding her rock climbing spike.

Witcher 3 is next up. Showing gameplay of an actual hunt. Our hero tracking a Griffon and the skills that are needed for tracking. Gameplay shows combat and how organic story elements get can be integrated, as the protagonist Geralt comes across a camp of baddies harassing a female herbalist. We’re shown some pretty gory gameplay. Tracking the Griffon shows some of the terrain and we’re told that any view-able location is traversable.

Microsoft has been blazing through this conference, no breaks, no breathers. No dancing in front of the Kinect, no stats, no hardware announcements, no Apps.

Tom Clancy’s the Division is up, nearing the end of the conference. The game is gorgeous, showing some of the new HUD overlays, GPS maps and highlighting enemies behind cover. Level design is so heavily detailed as we see the characters traverse the New York tunnel system. Game looks very much like The Last Of Us, as in we get the real impression this is post apocalyptic survival. Gun play gameplay shows some fantastic damage. Really impressed, but the game is still a ways out.

Almost last up, Scalebound. a Monster Hunter style game by the guys who made Vanquish. Very Japanese. Character can armor up as he’s in the middle of a monster battle. Puts his headphones on to rock out! Probably Presented by Beats By Dre.

Last but not least. Crackdown 3! Or Crackdown rebooted? Agency Co-op returns as we seen a couple agents trying to take down a baddie who is barricaded up at the top of his fortress tower. We see some new interesting destruction. Utilizing explosive to take down a couple buildings in domino effect as another agent drives a tanker truck wrapped in explosives up the side of the felled building into the fortress headquarters. Very cool, would be awesome if this turns out to be true gameplay possibilities.

That’s it, that’s all. Final montage shows what we’ve seen, whats to come. No big shocking closer, no Halo 5 cinematic, or news on Destiny, or Gears. But everything that we saw is next-gen, and looks great.

EA Press conference is up next. Stay Tuned

Procrastinate Reviews: Max, The Curse of Brotherhood (and of Loading Screens)

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Have you ever had a brother? Ever wished for him to disappear? If this indeed happened, would you rejoice? Or chase after him?

This is how Max: The Curse of Brotherhood starts. What follows is a 2.5D platforming, physics based adventure across a strange land where we see our protagonist, Max, climb, run, jump, and swing (in that order) his way to saving his brother, Felix. I still haven’t decided yet if this is for the better.

Conveniently Spaced Pillars to jump on you seeÉ

Conveniently Spaced Pillars to jump on you see?

The Story:

Max returns home to find his younger brother messing with his s***. Understandably PO’d, Max Google’s a curse to make his brother disappear. Seems reasonable. The curse, however, comes true and Felix gets warped away to another land. Max, immediately regretting his decision, jumps in the portal and chases after his brother.

In short order, we learn that a cranky old man is stealing kids, and it’s up to us, with the assistance of a cranky old lady, to defeat him. We’re gifted a magical marker that allows us to lift earth pillars, draw branches, vines, and water streams to help us navigate this 2.5D side-scroller.

The GamePlay:

The gameplay is more than a typical side-scroller too, as we are empowered with the ability to shape the land around us through the handy marker. As we progress through the levels, we unlock new abilities, starting out with the ability raise little pillars of land. Next we get the ability to draw and cut branches and vines, with vines granting us the ability to swing ourselves or physics objects from branches to the next landing, and lastly we get the ability to draw powerful water streams.

The best parts of the game are when all the powers come together for the physics based puzzles. You may find yourself sliding down a hill or jumping from a crumbling stone stair case and suddenly propelled into the air with water streams and having to draw some handy vines to swing yourself to safety. The highlight of the mechanic would definitely be the intense final puzzle.

The Technical:

“The game is good looking” is somewhat understated. The lighting is especially mention-worthy on a couple of levels that involve deadly fireflies, and a very dark cave sequence where all you have is the magic marker to light your path.

The Issues:

Max the Curse of Brotherhood is a quaint little game that has a lot of heart. It’s very pretty, and has a lot of cool, epic moments and some neat puzzles. For all intents and purposes, it is short, but there are plenty of collectibles to search for.

Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven

There’s nothing actually wrong with the game that’s offered, but with the things that are missing. The capacity to draw the branches and vines is great, but becomes very restrained in scope as to how much you can draw and where. Secondly, considering this is an Xbox title, Kinect functionality for the drawing mechanic would be fun to use. Don’t get me wrong, don’t force it, that would be brutal, but an option to play with would have been nice.

In conclusion, the game is a unique little platformer with some fun ideas. It doesn’t have the same level of polished mechanics that its brethren may share, but given its artistic style, it is a nice addition to the library.

It’s also a good thing that Max is a better brother than I. If left up to me, at that age, this story would have ended prematurely.

Notable Achievements:

He is The One (Huh, time really DOES slow down when you’re in danger.) – 10G
Ludicrous Speed (Reached the old lady in under 5 minutes.) – 50G

Procrastinated Reviews: The Last of Us (PS3 title GASP)

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My Procrastinated, Comparative Review: The Last of Us

The Last of Us, for me, is going to be a difficult game to review. On one hand, it’s a Naughty Dog game, through and through, which by default adds a certain level of expectation, but on the other hand, they’re not making Uncharted here. To top it off, this is a PS3 game, which I tend to not play; it’s just not my go-to console.

In between long periods of unconsciousness, I managed to take 2 months to complete this game. How long do you think it’ll take to complete this review?

The Last of Us

The Last of Us

The Last of Us is a real attempt at a story game. Naughty Dog has taken Uncharted and stripped it down to its fantastic essentials: the combat, the characters, the visuals and level design, and added a deep emotional story to the mix.

Due to the stylistic choices that Naughty Dog has made, it can really only be played in one manner: large blocks at a time, then breathe when the story transitions to a slow part. Picking it up again somehow feels like a chore because the story is slow and methodical, but has events that heed a sense of urgency.

The Story:

20 years ago, the world got infected, and now the country lives in a policed post-apocalyptic state. Joel and Ellie are our protagonists. Both are survivors who have lost their loved ones. Joel, the father figure, who lost his 12 year old daughter, and Ellie, the orphaned, immune-but-infected 14 year old he’s been tasked with transporting and protecting. The game spans a full year as the player treks the country in the search of a survivor resistance group called The Fireflies who we’re told can render a cure from Ellie.

Be forewarned, the game is dark. It tells a tale of tragic times, catches people at their worst, shows them at their most animalistic. Joel has survived this pandemic for 20 years, in this policed environment, and it’s taken its toll. There’s no length he won’t go to, to survive. Ellie was born into this world, and has lost friends while she has remained immune to the infections.

The Gameplay:

As I mentioned above, Naughty Dogs has stripped away the epic action pieces and plat-forming of its Uncharted series and focused more on a closed, stealth focused survival horror game. Fundamentally, it’s still a 3rd person shooter, you’ll have to manage ammunition and craft defensive weapons to stay alive. You carry a backpack which allows you to switch out different weapons to handle different scenarios and enemies. As a result this is a slower game to tackle, and if you’re already not in love with the scenario and characters, you may stress out and stop playing.

The Technical:

Built on the already incredible Naughty Dog engine, the game is expectedly gorgeous; character animation is mo-capped, smooth and intelligent, and the enemy AI is smart and resourceful, calling for help when necessary, and finding ways the flank the player, and the partner AI is very alert and agile. The cut scenes are brilliantly mo-capped as well, and evoke true emotion, sometimes truly touching, others cringe worthy.

The Issues:

DON'T say anything negative!

DON’T say anything negative!

Now, after a long list of niceties, the negatives are almost unwanted. The game is thoroughly fantastic, and the only real gripe is the slower, methodical pace. The game is broken up into hectic shoot-out sections with human survivalists, and then followed by tense, stealth survival sections against the infected, finally concluded with the slow paced story and unique puzzle sequences. Rinse, reorder, and then repeat.

It’s a long game, and as we travel further and further west, the situation becomes dire and more urgent. At times it’s hard not to put the game down, at others, due to the stressful urgency of the sequences, you’ll need a breather. The problem is getting the timing down, as you’ll ruin the pace when you break at the wrong time.

Do yourself a favour, play the game. Just don’t, like me, spread this masterpiece over two months.

Notable Achievements Trophies:
I Want to Talk About It (Engage in all optional conversations)
That’s all I got (Survive all of Ellie’s jokes)