Looking at: Xbox E3 2015

#XboxE3 recap: Mods for console Minecraft goes Tupac The sister in Gone Home eloped into space Ambition everywhere Ceiling car

— Gav (@miracleofsound) June 15, 2015

I'll give Microft one thing, they didn't skimp on the games this year. I don't think the mentioned the streaming capabilites of the X1 once, save for a mention that 360 games will be able to be streamed. Good on you Microsoft, glad you remembered your audience this year. Alright, let's take a look. This will probably be more rapid fire, as it was a longer show, and the EA conference starts in a few hours.

Halo 5

Of course MS would start the show with Halo 5. It looks largely unchanged from Halo 4, which wasn't that different, oh you get it. What was nice was the cast of returning characters, like Buck from ODST. It looks like the story this time concerns hunting down Master Chief and the Arbiter was mentioned so he might make a return to. As for the shooting, it's Halo, they managed to get the shooting right the first time around, although there were a few new weapons teased.

There was also a short preview of Halo Warzone, which sounds like Halo meets Battlefield. That sounds pretty neat, and the Halo franchise would probably work very well in that setting.

Recore

One of the new announced games. This was only a pre-render, so there's not many details yet. It's being made by the director of the Metroid Prime games, and involves a young girl and a robot core that can activate different machines.

Xbox 360 backwards compatibility and new controller

Those fucking liars. Ok, this is a good thing, sure, since it puts the X1 way aheadof the PS4 in my, and a lot of people's books. This also might stymie the flood of HD remakes, but unlikely. What I hate about this is they fucking lied this whole time, and only did this because the X1 is selling like shit. Whatever, good for them I guess.

They also announced the Xbox Elite controller, which might be the douchiest peripheral ever made.

Fallout 4

The new details on Fallout 4 weren't that much more then what we saw last night, in fact the begining of Todd Howard's speech was almost word-for-word. What we did see was pretty neat, including some more Power Armor footage and shooting. The shooting looks much tighter then Fallout 3, and I still can't say how very excited I am for this game.

It seems like there might actually be a reason to buy a Bethesda game on X1, thanks to the promise of PC mods being available on the X1. I'm skeptical since this sounds like a prelude to mod DRM policies, since on PC we have a variety of different mod services. We'll see.

EA

EA talked about EA Access, a service I had forgotten existed. They're adding Titanfall to it, probably because no one plays Titanfall, and Dragon Age Inquisition because people do play that, but don't use EA Access.

They also announced Plants VS Zombies Garden Warfare 2. Again, another pre-render so no details.

Forza 6 and Dark Souls 3

Forza 6 hit the stage with an actual Ford car being lowered down, and the president of Ford Motors speaking. The game looks pretty nice, being a high class racer, but the footage was likely pre-rendered.

Dark Souls 3 was actually announced a few days ago, although it's great to get a confirmation. Again, I'm uneasy at the idea of more Dark Souls, but this one will have the original director back, so I'm willing to wait and see.

The Division and Rainbow 6 Siege

The Division made another showing, but didn't really show any gameplay. They did announce a beta in December, so this game at least still exists.

R6 Siege did show some gameplay, although it was poorly edited into a trailer. It looks like a much more tactical version of Counter Strike, and I'm interested to see how it works in practice. It'll also ship with R6 Vegas 1 and 2 for the X1, so that's nice.

Gigantic and Indie games

There's a game called Gigantic in development, and it involves characters and monsters. That's all I got from the trailer.

Last year Sony touted their indie developers, so it makes sense that X1 would retaliate this year. There was a lot of games talked about, but the most interesting ones are listed below:

Tacoma - Gone Home in Space. Hopefully they remember that a game needs things happening, and the trailer already made it look better then Gone Home.

Ashen - some sort of DayZ clone, minus faces and zombies. There were weird tree creatures though.

Beyond Eyes - an exploration puzzle game about a blind girl. This actually sounds awesome, and I've always wanted to play a game where you're blind, since I feel like it challenges the designer to be creative.

CupHead - a platformer announced a few years ago, based on 1930's cartoons like Popeye. The older build for this game looked like a brawler, but now it looks more like a shooterm which I'm cool with too.

DayZ - DayZ is coming to X1. Hopefully this will kickstart production on it, since right now it's floundering.

Dean Hall - Dean Hall is up to something, and it's an MMO, and it's going to be on X1 and W10.

Xbox 1 early access - taking a cue from Steam, X1 will now feature a version of Early Access, allowing players to play beta builds of games. It's launching today, so we'll see how it fares.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

I hate that name still. No shooting was shown off, and it looks to be very similar in gameplay to TR14. We'll see if they can manage to make a game worth playing, or if this will be another decline for Lara Croft.

One thing we do know is, like TR14, Lara is far from sacred, as it looks like she's going to get beat to hell all over again.

Rare

A collection of Rare classics, and also Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts for some reason, all on the X1.

Even better is an actual, honest to god new Rare game, some sort of pirate based MMO called Sea of Thieves. Even if it's just a multiplayer version of Pirates! it still looks cool.

Fable Legends

I gotta be honest, I figured out it was Fable then took a piss break. Sorry, but the Fable games have been shit lately, so I don't have the highest hopes for this.

VR and Hololense

They kept talking about VR headset technology and touted their partnerships with Valve and Oculus Rift, but the big show-stopper was the Hololense.

Using a special camera, they showed a player creating a holographic image of a Minecraft world and interacting with it. I'm very, VERY skeptical about this especially after everything that went wrong with the Kinect, and at best this technology is in early beta. We'll have to wait and see if this really is another step in the gaming world, or just more flailing arms in the living room.

Gears of War 

First, they announced a Gears of War HD collection, or at least I think it's a collection. At the very least it's the first GoW game in HD, running at 60fps.

The final announcement of the show was Gears 4. From what I could see, it looks very similar to the old games, but with a new protagonist and new enemies. I say "from what I could see" because the gamma was turned so fucking low I really couldn't make anything out.

That's all for Microsoft. I need some lunch, so join me again at 4pm for the EA conference.

Looking at: Bethesda E3 2015

For their first year at the show, I think it's safe to say Bethesda killed it. plenty of announcements, gameplay for most of their upcoming projects, and just enough details to keep me hooked. They did their research and it payed off perfectly. Let's brake it down. 

Doom

While I wish they would change the name back to Doom 4, what's clear is that the gamplay is definitely a return to form for the shooter franchise. It was fast, brutal as hell, and looked fucking awesome. It's a bit to early to tell how the actual game will look in comparison to this demo, but nothing shown looks out of the scope of possibility for Id Tech, whos previous games were Rage and the Wolfenstien games. 

It's all about the gameplay with the Doom games, and this was Doom at it's finest. Between the two levels shown, we got to see the absolutely brutal melee finishers, tonnes of demons, the new Chainsaw, and honest to god power-ups. The game looked great, and if it just plays like a modern version of Brutal Doom I'll be totally down. 

Then there's the extras, in this case a full multiplayer suite and the SnapMap function, allowing you to crate game mods and maps with ease. I always appreciate anything that lengthens a game's shelf life, and Bethesda is acutely aware of the power of a modding community. 

They also announced something called Bethesda.net, which just sounds like a third part system for Bethesda games. There weren't any details about it, so here's hoping it's not another GFWL or U-Play. 

Battlecry

I wasn't really all that interested in Battlecry before the show, and I still don't really have that much interest. At best, it kinda looked like every other multiplayer arena game available, like Chivalry or TF2. I didn't manage to grab any screenshots of this one. 

Dishonored 2

It's unfortunate that this was a pre-rendered trailer, so details are sketchy. What is confirmed is that it's a direct sequel, the Outsider will play some part, and Emily Caldwin is now a playable character. While he wasn't shown in the trailer, Corvo is returning as well, and they'll each have different abilities. I loved the hell out of the first game, so I'm very excited for this one. 

There was also an announcement for Dishonored: HD for the next-gen consoles, but no footage shown. 

Elder Scrolls online

ESO is coming to the consoles, and to celebrate that it's also getting some hefty new content. ESO has been struggling to find a foothold on PC, so this might be it's last hope. 

First up is a return to the Imperial City of Oblivion, and oblivion seems apt, as it looked filled with monsters and terrible things. 

There was also the reveal of the Orsinuim, a completely new location never before seen in one of the 3d games. Orsinium is the home of the Orcs in Tamriel, so it's likely to be a fairly barbaric place to hang out. 

Elder Scrolls legends

World of Warcraft has it's own card game, so why shouldn't ESO?

Fallout Shelter

I don't often play mobile games, but I might have to get this when it hits Android. It looks very similar to This War of Mine, and I like Todd Howard's own admission that it's not pay-to-win. I should have some thoughts on this soon, since it's literally available right now for IOS. Release a game during your show? That's how you win over the crowd. 

It should be noted, there's no way in hell Fallout Shelter can be considered cannon. Here's why.

Fallout 4

The reason the show was even put on, and the reason so many people were watching. Todd Howard is the fucking man when it comes to talking about his own games, and it shows. There's so many things that I'm excited about, I'm just going to go through my notes:

Character Creation - few things here, like the confirmation of playable female characters, despite rumors to the contrary. The new face-gen system looks more intuitive then the old games, and I can't wait to play around with it to generate a monstrosity. The SPECIAL system is also confirmed, although the skills and leveling were not shown. 

Story - early rumors did say Fallout 4 was going to be largely story based, and it shows. The Fallout games always have had a stronger focus on story, and this one seems to be going whole hog. The main PC now speaks, adding a new level of depth, although I'm not sure I like the limited dialogue options, I do like how dialogue is much more dynamic, and less creepy staring at each other. 

Audio and Visual - the trailer released a week ago did the game no justice, Fallout 4 looks amazing. I really liked the dynamic lighting, and the texture work was awesome. Audio wise the game sounded great too, from the blowing wind, to the voice work. I especially appreciate that the Robot used the character's real name, and I'm interested to see how far that goes. 

Weapons and Combat - I'll talk about the new crafting systems in a second, but combat itself looked much more refined. It looks as though Fallout 4 is leaning harder towards shooter, and that's probably not a bad thing. Shooting looks tighter, and more responsive, and the dozens of weapons shown off looked brutal as hell. VATS is also returning, although it no longer pauses time, instead opting for a slow-down. 

Crafting - Holy shit, this might be the coolest feature shown off. I'll start small, with the item crafting system. Apparently you can break down any item to it's base components and use those to create new items, something I like the idea of. Weapons can be modded to hell, turning a pistol into a carbine, or a laser rifle into a shotgun, and there's a proposed 700 combinations, outclassing all the previous Fallout games combined several times over. It's unclear how deep this system goes, but what was shown was pretty expansive. Finally, you can craft your own settlement, including a power infrastructure and attract citizens to live with you, while defending against raider attacks. I always appreciate dynamic side content like this, and the idea has been present in mods for Fallout 3 and New Vegas already. 

Power armor and Vertibird - The power armor seems like it's much more... power-ey then before, with it's own HUD and upgrade options. Jetpacks make an appearance at one point, and it's unknown how deep this goes. There's also the option to call in a vertibird, although the context isn't yet known. 

Pipboy - Not only does the in-game pip-boy look awesome, like a real pip-boy, but now there is a real pip-boy, with a companion app. If there really is an app that lets me manage my inventory from my phone instead of in-game I might finally have to praise a companion app. There's also a arm mount for your phone to let you feel like you're really wearing a pip-boy, but that's a little to nerdy for me. 

Release date - probably the most exciting thing is the release date, mostly because it means the final game will probably look very similar to what was show. November isn't that far off, and the game has been in development since 2009, meaning it's probably very close to being done. 

That's all for Bethesda. Tune in tomorrow for my reviews of Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft and Sony.