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Geoff and Jordan discuss the Microsoft and Sony E3 Media Briefings and The Critics Choice Awards, as well as a good round of The Weekly Whatchas. The music in the audio program is “The Bottom Line” by Big Audio Dynamite.
Nintendo made their E3 announcements in a video this year. If you want to watch it, I have added it below. I’m not enough of a gamer to take Nintendo seriously anymore, but have at it!
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13D1I5s236o[/pro-player]
Okayloveyoubye!
I will go ahead and go through the motions here, but the biggest news is that Sony will have no DRM restricting the playing of used or rented games. Also, many customers won’t see the value of the Kinect sensor, so the PS4 coming in at $399.99 will look like a bargain. Sony really stuck it to the Xbox One today. Microsoft should count themselves lucky that they were able to do their briefing first. Following this Sony briefing would have been difficult, to put it mildly.
The show started with the standard Sony gaming montage that cycles through so fast that if you didn’t already know the titles in depth, you wouldn’t really know what you were watching. This has always struck me as an odd practice. After the video, Jack Tretton started talking about Vita. Sony has big plans for Vita, with 85 more titles releasing by the end of the year. The remote play functionality with the PS4 will secure the Vita’s position as the handheld to own.
Next up were some games for the PS3. There was a nice run of titles, including ‘The Last of Us,’ ‘Puppeteer,’ ‘Rain,’ ‘Beyond: Two Souls,’ ‘Gran Turismo 6,’ ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto V.’
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The console is now shown for the first time. It has a similar look to the Xbox One, a mix of gloss and matte black.
Sony launches into their media portion of the briefing, talking about how exclusive content from other Sony divisions will be making its way to the PS4 through the Video Unlimited and the Music Unlimited apps. Redbox Instant will also be arriving on PS3, PS4 and Vita.
Time for more games! This set includes ‘The Order: 1886,’ ‘Killzone: Shadow Fall,’ DriveClub,’ ‘Knack’ and ‘The Dark Sorcerer.’
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esdymuU6jKc[/pro-player]
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Sony is supporting indie games in a big way with the PS4, including giving developers the ability to self-publish. They show off a pile of games, including a new Oddworld title. This sequence is worth a watch.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYcae-PGC_c[/pro-player]
The PS3 and PS4 will get exclusive Diablo III content.
SquareEnix pops up to talk about Final Fantasy XV (previously FF Versus XIII) and Kingdom Hearts III.
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More games! ‘Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag,’ ‘Watch Dogs,’ ‘NBA2K14,’ ‘Elder Scrolls: Online’ and ‘Mad Max.’
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And this is where Sony sticks in the knife and twists it. There are a number of digs at the Xbox One’s authentication requirements and reassures gamers that they support used games and have no restrictions whatsoever. They also gloss over announcing that online multiplayer will now be a feature of Playstation Plus and will no longer be free. It’s less than $5/mo, so I don’t think this will be a huge problem for PS4 gamers.
Adding insult to injury, Bungie shows off a multi-player demo of ‘Destiny.’
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPwLeuiopHI[/pro-player]
With that, Sony announces the launch price of $399.99. Done and done!
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuFwqFCpgVA[/pro-player]
Sam, Geoff and Brick discuss Denver ComicCon, Man of Steel and Game of Thrones, along with other entertainment news. The music in the audio program is a remix of “Behind the Wheel” by Depeche Mode.
Welcome to the games! Microsoft held true to their promise and delivered quite a few exclusives and other exciting titles. Lots of shooting and explosions, but this is what we have come to expect. Here is a rundown of everything shown today.
The show started off with Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain. It looked good, but there was some of their standard silliness. Namely, calling leaning over in the saddle “A New Breed of Stealth.” If I looked over and saw a saddled horse with a person’s leg hanging over, I would have no trouble realizing that there was a person there.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iil5sppPvM[/pro-player]
Next, there were a couple of 360 announcements. As of today, there is a smaller console available that is styled more like the Xbox One. Nice!
In addition, Live Gold members with start receiving two free game downloads per month, the first two being Assassin’s Creed 2 and Halo 3. This will be a nice benefit to had to the gold service, providing the price doesn’t increase. Again.
Fans of World of Tanks, and probably a lot of other people, will be glad to see this popular free-to-play title get an Xbox 360 Edition. It’s good to see that it will remain free for Gold members!
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OmijQgc6o0[/pro-player]
And now begins the main event, the Xbox One gaming presentation. ‘Max: Curse of Brotherhood,’ ‘Dark Souls 2,’ ‘Ryse: Soldier of Rome,’ ‘Killer Instinct’ and ‘Sunset Drive.’
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Forza 5 shows off a bit of their new “Drivetar” cloud technology. Your personal Drivetar learns how you drive and, in time, will drive the same way that you do, to race in offline games. I’m not sure why you would want the game to play for you, but hey, it’s available.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzRyCAIu0ws[/pro-player]
Xbox One is getting it’s own version of Minecraft. I still haven’t played the PC or 360 versions, but the trailer tells me that it is very popular! ‘Quantum Break’ and ‘D4’ are also shown.
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This next bit was one of the more exciting and interesting parts of the presentation. Project Spark is a game building title that seems to be very intuitive when it comes to populating your world and programming behaviors into your creations. There is heavy SmartGlass integration, which will be nice for designing. I can see this becoming huge!
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFgBULaPGKI[/pro-player]
Ryse makes a return to show off how SmartGlass can be used by developers to enrich your gaming experience.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewg5pMtkj7o[/pro-player]
Killer Instinct is being used to show off the Upload Studio and Twitch apps. Upload Studio allows you to edit and share your clips from the game DVR function. Twitch allows live streaming of your game. Very cool tech and software has been built into the Xbox One. I may never personally use those apps, but I absolutely love the idea.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHE0CQK1sZo[/pro-player]
There were a couple of news bits here about Microsoft points being dropped in favor of real currency and the Live Gold sharing. I am a big fan of being able to use the show’s account or my guest accounts as an authorized user on my Xbox. Hopefully this is a function of Live and not exclusive to the Xbox One.
The people behind Panzer Dragoon and Phantom Dust bring you Crimson Dragon, a flight-based shooter. I was never a fan, but I know the Panzer game had a huge following.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlnnqnyXDSg[/pro-player]
‘Dead Rising 3’ looks great and also has SmartGlass integration. The feature shown was using SmartGlass to call in an air strike on a particularly heavily populated area.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUvrGaNW5tM[/pro-player]
‘Witcher 3’ goes open world and non-linear. This should make for an even better gameplay experience. The video was pretty exciting.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QDUrRE78cc[/pro-player]
The crowd at the briefing and the people following on Twitter got really excited about ‘Battlefield 4’ and for good reason. The gameplay footage looked great!
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NraEp4q210c[/pro-player]
‘Below’ seems to be mostly a top down adventure title. “It looks very Indie.”
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKABNLQez2E[/pro-player]
There was a short bit of in-engine footage from an unnamed title, but there wasn’t much excitement there. Then came the Halo. People seem to like the Halo. I can’t come up with a single reason to wear a ratty cloak over your armor, but people like the Halo. Halo at 60fps and with some sort of cloud processing.
[pro-player type=’video’]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhMU_FCjFs4[/pro-player]
Price reveal! $499.99! Daaaaang! Seems a little high, but then I have not been anticipating a day one purchase. But if you are ready to jump in, use this link. This is for the Day One Console, which includes “a limited edition controller, token code to unlock Day One achievement, premium packaging, and decal.”
To wrap up the show, Respawn shows off their exclusive title Titanfall with some multi-player footage. Titanfall is a war title with a blend of infantry and player-controlled mechs in urban combat. It is visually stunning and the multi-player almost seemed like campaign footage. People must have been on their best behavior that day!
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So, what did everyone think of the presentation? Chime in below!