Generally, E3 starts the day before the doors actually open on the convention center. This year, we had Bethesda do a press conference two whole days before, but the show really starts on Monday. And the first press conference on the big day is Microsoft. Continue reading
It’s been a bit of a roller coaster week for my Xenoblade Chronicles X play-through. Although I’m still really enjoying the game, a lot of it’s problems are becoming much more apparent. But as I was preparing to write a largely negative blog post this week, I got to a story section that really surprised me and made me excited all over again. I know I gave this warning last week, but just to be clear, there will be spoilers in these posts, so read at your own risk.
Like I did with last week, let’s start with some numbers. I have 22 hours of play time, I’m level 23, and I just finished chapter 5. This means I played for about ten hours this week, but I’ve only completed one story mission. So, what was I doing the rest of the time? Continue reading
Earlier today, investigative journalist/blogger Emily Rogers posted some rumors about the upcoming Legend of Zelda Wii U game. None of it is confirmed, but she’s been right in the past, most recently when she stated that a Paper Mario game was in development for Wii U before Color Splash’s announcement. So while we can’t treat these as fact, there’s good reason to at least think about them seriously. Continue reading
2015 was a really exciting year for E3, and it started off with a bang. Bethesda Softworks had their very first E3 press conference, and it happened shortly after announcing Fallout 4. This was kind of a crazy move, you would think that kind of announcement would be saved for the press conference. But getting that out of the way beforehand only made it more exciting to think about what was in store.
The conference starts with a montage of game developers from Bethesda’s various studios. This is pretty cool, putting a human face on the company. It’s also a good reminder that Bethesda is a lot bigger than just the team that makes Fallout and Elder Scrolls. There are members of id, Arkane Studios, and Zenimax Online Studios all featured.
Next, Pete Hines, the VP of PR at Bethesda, takes the stage. He gives the typical “welcome to E3” speech that we’ve all come to expect from these things. Then he mentions a little game called Doom. Now, Doom was already announced, so this wasn’t exactly huge, but no one outside of those who attended Quakecon earlier had seen any of it. Pete Hines calls Marty Stratton, executive producer at id out on stage to present gameplay footage.
Even a year later, Doom is still stunning. The characters and environments are all impressively detailed. Character movement is noticeably higher than most modern FPS games, making it seem closer to the first few Doom games. The way the enemies just fall to pieces when hit with powerful weapons is incredibly satisfying, even if it is a little silly.
Next up, we get a quick multiplayer trailer. It looks totally fine, but nothing particularly new or exciting. But then we’re introduced to Snapmap, Doom’s user-generated content system. It seems really flexible, allowing players to make new levels or even entirely new modes. I think it looks a little complicated, but Marty Stratton claims that it’s simple enough for anyone to be able to use it. I guess we’ll find out for sure in a little over a month.
Battlecry is next up, and honestly, I had completely forgotten this game existed. It’s a team-based multiplayer game, that seems to have an emphasis on melee combat, although there were some classes shown that use guns. It didn’t look particularly interesting and some of the footage looked janky at best. But, it sounds like they’re still early in development, so maybe they’ll turn things around.And for all I know, maybe it plays really well. That can be hard to judge from just watching a video.
After Battlecry wrapped up, Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio from Arkane Studios take the stage. They announce Dishonored 2 with a CG trailer. It’s unfortunate that we don’t get to see actual gameplay, but a lot of games are announced this way so it’s not too surprising. Unfortunately, I’ve never played Dishonored, so a lot of the context was kind of lost on me. We’re introduced to one of the games main characters, a woman named Emily Kaldwin. We see her jump around a steampunk-like world using special powers that seem to let her teleport. She gets to the office of some guy, kills two robot guards, and then attacks the guy. Yeah, that’s a pretty vague description, but like I said, I have no context for this game. Looks cool though. I have a copy of the first game, just never played it. Might have to check it out before this one comes out.
Next is a trailer for The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited. We get to see a bunch of new zones and it all looks pretty cool. I just wish it was for a new single player Elder Scrolls game. I’m not the biggest of fan on MMORPGs and have never played ESO, so there’s not a lot I can say about this, but it does look good. I’m sure people who like those sorts of games were very excited.
Finally, Todd Howard is brought out to talk about Fallout. I find it easy to forget just how exciting this was at the time. It seems like people fall into two camps with Fallout 4, either it was the next masterpiece from Bethesda, or it was a giant disappointment. Unfortunately, even though I do like the game, I fall into the latter camp. But at the time, this was all very exciting. We had just gotten a Fallout 4 trailer a little while earlier, and now we were going to see some gameplay.
Even though the game came out months ago, and even though I was ultimately pretty disappointed in it, Fallout 4 still looks really cool. They start with a montage of concept art, which is great to see now that I have actual context for it. We also get to see the character creator, some of the early story set up, and some combat.
Then they showed off the actual physical pipboy that came with the collector’s edition. It’s a neat little thing that let’s you wear your phone and access menus in the game, and the audience goes nuts for it. Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone using it to actually play the game, but hey, it looks cool. Continuing to talk about phones, Todd Howard announces Fallout Shelter. I never played Fallout Shelter, being a Windows Phone owner prevented me from getting most of the big mobile games, but I’ve heard pretty mixed things about the game. It looks like a fairly typical free-to-play phone game, but with a Fallout flavor.
Now back to Fallout 4 to show off the building system. Admittedly, it looks pretty cool. However, having actually played the game, the building system is one of my least favorite thing about it. Thankfully, it can largely be ignored. But hey, it looks cool, and got people excited, and that’s really what E3 press conferences are all about.
And that’s the show. Overall, this was a really good press conference. Most publisher specific press conferences tend to be pretty boring, but this one wasn’t. Bethesda’s already announced that they will have another press conference this year, so let’s hope it’s just as good.
If you know me in real life, you know that I’m absolutely obsessed with E3. So even though this year’s show is still a few months off (78 days, according to the countdown on my phone) I’m already super excited. So, that got me thinking… what can I do in the meantime?
Presenting, my second weekly series, “Reviewing E3 2015”. Every Tuesday, I’m going to rewatch and review one of 2015’s press conferences in the order that they actually happened. And this isn’t starting next week, the first entry will be in just a few hours.
Who benefits from this? Probably no one, I don’t know. But I really like E3 and want to talk about it. And it’s my blog, don’t judge me! I hope you have as much fun reading as I do writing.
Welcome to the first entry in my new weekly series, Xenoblade Chronices X Check In. If you missed the announcement post I made, the basic gist of it is that I’m playing through Xenoblade Chronicles X and every week I’ll write about how I feel about it. Honestly, it’s rare for me to get through games of this scale do to lack of time (I do work full time) and wanting to play many games. But, by doing this series, I’m incentivizing myself to keep going with it, as it’ll help me put up regular content on the blog. Plus, a friend of mine has been bugging me to play it, so this’ll finally get him off my back. It’s wins all around!
I’m going to start each week with some numbers, just to give you an idea of how much I’ve played. I’m currently sitting at twelve hours and forty minutes of play time. My main character is level 17. Finally, I’ve currently played through chapter 4 of the story.
I should probably warn you that there will be spoilers ahead. Although the game does not seem to be particularly plot-heavy, I’m not going to hold back when talking about anything story-specific.
Still with me? The game opens with the Earth caught in the middle of an unrelated war between two advanced alien races. Earth is caught in the crossfire and destroyed. I actually really like this setup. So often in sci-fi, humanity is put on a pedestal. I love the idea that we were simply caught in the middle of something much bigger than us. Anyway, humans attempt to escape the planet in ships, but most are destroyed. One ship ends up crashing onto a planet called Mira.
Your first action as the player is to create your character. This is a huge departure from the previous Xenoblade Chronicles game. The editor is fairly robust and let’s you make a wide variety of different characters. I made a grizzled old dude, because that’s just what I always do. Don’t ask me why! Because the main character is a create-a-character, he or she doesn’t have a whole lot of personality. That’s ok though, as it’s easier to imprint yourself on a charter that’s a bit of a blank slate.
Your character is found in a lifepod and woken up by a woman named Elma. You tell Elma that you don’t remember anything, which is kind of frustrating. Amnesia is a pretty common trope in RPGs, and it’s a fairly lazy way to explain to a character the rules of the world they’re inhabiting when they should already know them. But it is what is. Elma explains how the Earth was destroyed and how you’ve come to live on planet Mira. Part of the ship you arrived on, the White Whale, has been converted into the first human city on Mira, New Las Angeles.
Elma hands you a weapon and tells you that you need to get back to New LA. And thus begins the prologue of the game. It’s very straight forward, but is mostly there to teach you the basics of combat. If you played the first Xenoblade Chronicles, you have a pretty good idea of how the combat will work. You move around in real time, doing auto-attacks every few seconds. You also have moves called “arts” which run on cool down timers. Some arts are more effective if you meet certain conditions, such as attacking the enemy from the side or while they’re suffering a status effect. It’s a fast paced and very active combat system, which makes it stand out from other Japanese RPGs.
When you arrive in New Las Angeles, you begin chapter 1 of the story. It’s basically just a bunch of tutorials and can get pretty long-winded, but the information is very useful. You learn that Elma is what’s called a Blade, which are basically the people who explore and map out Mira as well as defend what’s left of humanity. By the end of the chapter, you’re being asked to become a Blade. I kind of wish I had selected “no” just to see what would happen, but I said “yes” and progressed the game.
Now that you’re a full-fledged Blade, you can start running missions. This seems to be the bulk of what you’re doing in Xenoblade Chronicles X. All story missions have prerequisites, such as being a certain level, having done certain side quests, and having a certain amount of Mira probed. Most of these tasks you’ll complete from just running missions that you get from the mission counter.
I mentioned probing Mira just a bit ago. This is very important task that you need to do. It’s only been two months since the White Whale crashed on Mira, and that means most of the planet is still largely unknown. But, you can find points out in the world where you can plant a probe. This serves multiple functions. In the story, it’s helping to get data on the planet. As a gameplay function, it serves as a means of collecting money since you get paid from the probes periodically, and also as your fast travel system.
The side quests you pick up all seem to be variations on just a couple different themes. You’re either gathering items or slaying monsters. Sometimes the monsters will be a group of small monsters or they’ll be one large monster with special properties, referred to as a “tyrant”. The gathering quests are kind of annoying, as they don’t tend to do a very good job of explaining where you can find the items you’re looking for. A lot of times though, you’ll luck out and already have the items from your previous quests.
Eventually, you’ll reach a story mission where you meet another alien race called the Ganglion. It turns out the Ganglion are one of the races that was responsible for destroying the Earth. They view humanity as a cancer on the universe and are trying to wipe it out. This frustrates me, because it’s suddenly putting humanity on a pedestal again. It’s a real bummer, but what are you going to do?
And that’s about where I am in the game so far. The game is definitely not perfect, however I’m really enjoying my time with it. It’s been a long time since a large scale, open world RPG was really able to hold my attention like this. Fallout 4 was close, but that game, while still good, was too buggy and too similar to it’s predecessors to keep me going. But Xenoblade Chronicles X is taking up all of my spare time, and when I’m not playing it, I’m thinking about it.
Yesterday, Nintendo released its first mobile app, Miitomo. The game itself is pretty rudimentary, but the fact that it released on non-Nintendo platforms makes it pretty significant.
When you start the game, you have to make your Mii. You’re presented with a Mii maker that’s very similar to the ones found on the Wii, 3DS, and Wii U. You can also use a QR code to transfer the your Mii from a previous system over to it or use the Mii associated with your My Nintendo account.
Miitomo is a game about answering questions. That’s kind of it. Basically, the game asks you some questions, and then you answer them. Then, you’ll start getting questions from other players Miis, but to be clear, not ones that those players came up with. Soon, you’ll be answering questions about your friends and yourself as well as hearing their answers.
As you answer questions and add friends to your friends list, you earn coins. You can use those coins to buy new clothing items for your Mii. When you change your clothes, your fashion level increases, although honestly, I haven’t really figured out what that does for you.
If you haven’t already figured this out, Miitomo is an exceptionally casual game. Honestly, calling it a “game” is a bit of a stretch. It’s more like a weird social experiment. But for whatever reason, I’ve been playing it quite a bit in the last two days. It’s strangely addicting, and getting into weird conversations is a lot of fun.
I think Nintendo made the right decision in making Miitomo and putting it out on mobile platforms. Nintendo had huge success with the casual audience on the Wii, but really struggled to keep that momentum going with the Wii U. I think Nintendo recognized that the audience they once catered to on the Wii simply doesn’t care about game consoles anymore and has largely moved onto phones and tablets. While I’d be excited to see them put something closer to a real game out on a phone, I think it makes a lot of sense to put more casual experiences on phones and more hardcore games on consoles.
All in all, I’m definitely enjoying Miitomo, but I’m not sure how long I’m going to stick with it. Maybe I’ll check back in with updated impressions later, but for now, I think everyone should check it out, but keep their expectations in check.
Late last night, Square-Enix surprised us (or, tried to, but it got leaked ahead of time) with a release date for the long awaited Final Fantasy XV and a new demo. The demo, titled Platinum Demo- Final Fantasy XV, features content that will not be available in the actual retail game and is intended to introduce players to game’s style. Upon completion, you unlock the Carbuncle summon in the full game, so it is encouraged that you check it out.
The demo takes place in the dreams of Notcis, Final Fantasy XV’s main character. At this point, Noctis is still a child and it seems like he has been knocked out by some kind of daemon. Noctis is greeted by Carbuncle, a small fox-like creature from the Final Fantasy series, who gives him a smart phone. Using the phone, Carbuncle is able to guide Noctis through his dream so that he can wake back up.
The first thing you’ll probably notice is that Final Fantasy XV is gorgeous. You’ll start in a cave but eventually find your way to a city, and it all looks great. The art direction looks great with tons of little details everywhere. One place in particular that really stood out to me was in the city. There’s a really detailed building with a fountain in front. In the fountain is a sculpture of what appears to be the classic Final Fantasy summon, Bismarck.
From a technical standpoint, the demo is also a success. I’ve been a little worried about how well Final Fantasy XV will run ever since last year’s demo, Episode Duscae, came out. Episode Duscae played well, but suffered from an extremely poor frame rate. Thankfully, Platinum Demo runs much better. I didn’t notice any frame rate drops during the entire demo. To be fair though, the scope of the demo is much smaller than Episode Duscae, with a much more directed path and only a few enemies on screen at a time. So, my worries aren’t entirely gone, but I do feel better about the game now.
Combat is fast paced and fun, but also pretty simple. When you encounter your first enemy, Carbuncle presents you with a toy hammer and sword. You can equip them to directions on the d-pad. Then, you can swap between weapons by tapping directions on the d-pad, and attacking is as simple as hitting the B button. Holding down the X button let’s you automatically dodge attacks, although it doesn’t work for everything. The combat is very easy to pick up and learn, but I hope that the full game offers more depth.
Platinum Demo is very short. I ended up finishing it in about twenty-four minutes. But, it’s free, and gives you a good idea of what to expect from the full game. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in the full game.
There’s a new Star Fox game due out next month and I’m worried about it. I have no doubt that the game will be great, but that’s not what’s getting to me. The thing about Star Fox is that standards have changed in the last twenty-three years, and I just don’t know if Star Fox makes sense in 2016.
When the original Star Fox released back in 1993 on the Super Nintendo, it was kind of revolutionary. The majority of Super Nintendo games were, for lack of a better term, very video gamey. They were primarily 2D games with little story. Just move from right to left and rescue the princess. Obviously there’s some exceptions to this, like SquareSoft’s RPGs, but generally, if you popped in a random SNES cartridge, this is what you could expect. And then along comes Star Fox.
Star Fox was fully polygonal. It’s not particularly impressive by today’s standards, it mostly just looks like flying triangles, but at the time it was a revelation. Suddenly, cinematic camera angles in cutscenes were possible. Characters would chatter with each other during gameplay. Console games could now feel more like an interactive movie.
Another one of the traits of games from this era is that they are often very short. If you know what you’re doing, the original Star Fox can be beaten in less than an hour. This is the kind of the thing that would be viewed as a problem today, but back then, it was par for the course. Many games, Star Fox included, were meant to be finished in a single sitting. The longevity came from the challenge the game presented and alternate paths and secrets. Repeating the same game over and over just to get better at it and find all the secrets is something players used to do all the time, but it simply isn’t the way people play games in 2016.
However, I think Nintendo is aware of this. They know that the core gameplay of Star Fox is great, but also simple by today’s standards. Star Fox 64, the first sequel to Star Fox, was built on largely the same ideas, but added multiplayer to help give the game more legs. Star Fox Assault on the GameCube added missions where you were on foot, turning the game into more of a third-person shooter. Star Fox Command on the DS was more of turn based strategy game that would turn into mini Star Fox levels when units interacted. Every Star Fox game since the original added something to try and make the game a little more complicated.
Now, Star Fox Zero isn’t out yet, so I might be jumping to conclusions, but everything we’ve seen points to it just being Star Fox. I love Star Fox, but the idea of putting out a game that is just more of that at full price just seems insane. Nowadays, games come out for less than twenty dollars that have more complicated gameplay and last longer. A good example would be Stardew Valley. Stardew Valley is $15, offers tons of content to do, and takes players over seventy hours to see and do everything. I know that the actual style of game is quite a bit different, but it’s hard to see the value in something that’s most likely to be so much shorter, so much simpler, and so much more expensive.
All of this really bums me out. A new Star Fox coming out should be reason to celebrate, and I’m still willing to bet that it’s going to be a lot of fun. But putting Star Fox out in it’s most basic form at full price on a console that has a very small user base sounds like a recipe for disaster. But this is all speculative, and I hope to be proven wrong next month.
Oh, and you probably noticed that I didn’t mention Star Fox Adventures when I was going over the previous games. Adventures is such a different game and didn’t even start as a Star Fox game, so it didn’t really make sense to bring it up. However, I do really like that game and hope to talk about in much more detail later on. So, hey, look forward to that.
A friend of mine has been bothering me to play through a certain video game for a long time. It’s a big game, and one that’ll take a decent commitment for me to get through. But, it is one that I want to play and one that I now own. So, I’m going to start playing through Xenoblade Chronicles X.
Starting next week, you can expect check-in posts from me talking about my progress in the game and how I’m currently feeling about it. Think of it as a really long review that you get a section of every week. I imagine the first week will be a pretty long post, but depending on how much happens and how much opinions change over time, future posts might be much shorter.
Anyway, I hope to have fun playing this game and I hope you have fun seeing how I feel about it. Check back next week for the first installment.
Quarter Circle Forward 