The Friday Wrap-Up 6/19/2015

Sure, they official press shows had some excellent announcements this year, but there was a host of spectacular videos and news that got overshadowed by the hypetrain.  Don't miss out on the best of these.

VGR 410

Early for Halloween, but we're rolling out the spooky playlist this week for your enjoyment.  Trey and Guy give us their first impressions of Civilization: Beyond Earth, price drops and system updates are happening, and we can't help indulging in the deluge of info released for the new Marvel movies.  Lucky for us, Colleen knows a thing or two about the comic books, so there's lots of info to be had.

-=Download 4.10=-

Staying on topic is for whimps

Weekend hangouts continue for the Fall!  What started out talking about upcoming first person shooters progresses into talks about PC's vs. consoles, nerfing lore, and a bunch of other lines of thought tagentially connected in some form.  All and all, and entertaining watch or listen with DJ, Kevin, Ryan, Miguel and Trey, so come hangout with us for a bit!

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Today IGN got an exclusive look at some footage from Techland's new game Dying Light. Techland is famous for game franchises such as Chrome, Call of Juarez and Dead Island. The game itself looks like an interesting mix of Mirrors Edge and survival horror. The trailer shows the main character using the environment to his advantage by leaping off of buildings, railings and telephone poles to escape the horde. Put the one aspect of this game that intrigues me the most is how radically the game changes from day to night. During the day it appears that the zombies are tame, slow and generally easy to get away from provided you don't get surrounded a la Walking Dead/ Left 4 Dead. However, come nightfall something changes and the slow shuffling zombies become the 28 Days Later/ I am Legend zombies. This presents some interesting dynamics that can take place in the game setup. People that have been itching for a survival horror game will get to experience it along with some free running action. This will also be one of the first zombie games that I can think of that will give the player free roam capabilities and to use the environment to actually escape the zombie hoard and not just for picking up gas cans and setting zombies on fire. At another point in the trailer, the character seems to be wielding some sort of shock blade. While this isn't confirmed I hope this means there will be a scavenging and crafting system present in the game. This wouldn't be surprising since this is the same company that developed Dead Island. Dying Light is expected to release in 2014 for current and next gen.

Microsoft backsteps on DRM & Always Online

Coming as a shock to some, and expected to others,  Microsoft is switching their stance on some major policies and decisions regarding their new console due out this November.  Microsoft's president of interactive entertainment Don Mattrick shared this on Xbox's news site:

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Last week at E3, the excitement, creativity and future of our industry was on display for a global audience.

For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future. 

Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One. 

You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world.

So, today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360. Here is what that means:

• An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games– After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.
  

• Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.
  

In addition to buying a disc from a retailer, you can also download games from Xbox Live on day of release. If you choose to download your games, you will be able to play them offline just like you do today. Xbox One games will be playable on any Xbox One console -- there will be no regional restrictions.

These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray.

We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity. While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds.

Thank you again for your candid feedback. Our team remains committed to listening, taking feedback and delivering a great product for you later this year.

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Widely regarded as the most caustic features of the console, the loss of a 24 hour check-in window and the ability to trade-in and share disc based games is a huge boon to consumers.  This does come with some caveats though: discs will once again be required to be in the tray in order to play disc based games again.  This also cuts out some of the functionality of always having access to those games based just on gamer profiles.  Also, this functionality is going to require a day 1 patch before it can be used offline.  On another plus side however, the loss of an always online connection is said to also remove region locking for the console, which I'm sure CDProjekt Red appreciates.

There are a lot of facets to this announcement worth considering.  First off, this speaks volumes of exactly what kind of beating Sony served to Microsoft last week at E3.  Most sites have been comparing it to some kind of boxing or MMA match with Sony delivering a TKO.  Indeed, everybody involved at the blog was amazed at what a direct attack Sony sent out to their main competitor.  In some ways, it takes a lot of guts for a company to go back on what before they believed to be major selling points of their new box.  In another,  it's extremely reactionary and makes you wonder who's bright idea it was in the first place.

In the end, this is straight benefit to the consumer.  Old-school capitalism.  Making the Xbone more competitive to the PS4 means we should be seeing better deals vying for the public eye this holiday season.  The PS4 still holds a lot of cards with it's $100 cheaper price point and it's seemingly total devotion to indie developers.  Still, the gulf isn't nearly as wide as last week.

All of this while 4.45 firmware for the PS3 seems to be bricking consoles.  Good week for Microsoft it seems.

It is your Destiny

Bungie finally showed game play for their open world action title Destiny during Sony's E3 press conference yesterday. The video above is the entire game play demo for the conference. Overall I enjoyed what they showed. There was definitely a heavy Borderlands vibe coming from the game play and teamwork playing off the different classes. Unlike Borderlands however, at least during that point in the game or for demo purposes, it appears that the player will only be able to use 2 weapons along with having infinite ammo in reserve. Again this could possibly be a build specifically for the conference. Another interesting thing to note was that loot drops would come in the form of an all in one package. This could be used for allowing players to sort loot among themselves in a more organized fashion or that each player receives their own unique loot drop based on level and class. Guns will also appear to be a bit more unique in this universe as they can all individually be leveled up. We saw that  the Thunderlord has it's own set of skills, the final one being the ability to, "burn through enemies with thunderous rounds that will penetrate and detonate." Finally we also got to see a public event in action as a couple of squads take down a boss called the "Devil walker." I thought this was a great demonstration to show how alive this world can be and what you and your friends could do to fight back against the alien forces was awesome. It has yet to be shown how often or where events like this will take place in Destiny but the game has me excited none the less.

Destiny is set to release on the 360, Xbone, PS4, PS3 and PC sometime next year.

Microsoft Presentation Afterthoughts

"It's all about the games."
                  -Phil Spencer

I'm hard-pressed to remember another E3 press conference that was so densely packed with games.  Microsoft's conference was back-to-back game announcements, exclusives and indies all over.  Better yet, these were focused for core gamers, no sports games, no dancing games, just one racing game.  Starting out strong with Metal Gear Solid 5, Microsoft jumped to current 360 owners, rewarding gold members with free games up to the release on the One.  Next came lots of great shows of the One's processing prowess with Ryse and Forza.  Better yet was the revival of Rare's classic arcade fighter, Killer Instinct.  Plenty of new stuff was shown as well like Sunset Overdrive, Project Spark, and a better look at Quantum Break.  Classic franchises also got some screentime, like Dead Rising 3 and Witcher 3.  Finally, hell of a send-of with Respawn's Titanfall with a stellar gameplay showing.

Was it all good news though? Not quite, a few bits of info kept the Xbox One from being redeemed.  First off, $499 on launch in November, higher than I and a lot of gamers feel willing to pay.

Second was the redesign on the 360.  4 gig models for $199 (useless), a 250 gig model for $299, and a 4 gig with Kinect for $299 (once again, useless).  Essentially

Finally, no clarification at all from the terrible press drop last friday.

In the end, Microsoft has sort of clamored back onto the saddle, but it still seems like Sony could knock this out the park, we'll see tonight.

The Future of Used Games?

Hey everyone, I thought I would start off today by bringing up a topic that has gotten a lot of attention since the unveiling of the Xbox one, or as we've come to call it the Xbone. The topic I am talking about is of course the concern of the longevity that used games have. Buying used games has always been a nice alternative to people who own consoles to buy a game that they aren't sure about and play it at a discounted price. If the game isn't up to the gamer's particular standards they can trade it back in. It seems like a simple process however: the inclusion of online passes, retailer versus developer and publisher income, always online drm, day one dlc, pre-order bonuses etc. has made the process more tedious and more questionable as to what is and isn't acceptable from all ends of the business. Recently it was revealed that the Xbox one would, this rumor hasn't been confirmed or denied, put up a pay wall to actively block the ability to buy or rent used games. As a direct result many gamers have taken issue with Microsoft's new policy and currently there are petitions and tweets going toward Sony and it's employees from gamers pushing them to not go forward with their used game detection system on the PlayStation 4.

 I am against the banning and blocking of used game sales but two of my favorite game journalists have directly opposing views on the matter. Totalbiscuit has recently made two videos explaining and arguing his viewpoint that used games are something that hurts publishers, their developers and need to be done away with. On the other hand Jimquisition has also put out a video recently, although he has addressed this issue many times in the past, stating how killing the used game market would ultimately carry negative repercussions to game industry and how it is wrong to block used games. I was curious what people think about this situation. Both videos are right here, Biscuit first and Jim second.

Summercast - 5/28/13

The first in what will hopefully be a summer podcast series.  On the couch is myself, DJ and Trey, as we go to town on the Xbox One.  Music is "Days of Summer V2" from the Thieves of Fate OC Remix Album

-=Download Podcast=-

Angry Joe's Xbox One rant

One of the funnier opinions about the upcoming console the Xbox one. They don't call him Angry Joe for nothing.

Xbox One: presentation afterthoughts

It’s been roughly two days since the unveiling of the Xbox One, just enough time to let the announcement be processed and consumed by most around the net.  Interpretations by most have not been favorable to say the least.  While some may claim it to be a typical case of the gaming media being in an echo chamber of negativity, it all keeps coming back around to a very simple truth of the press conference itself:

The announcement was not for gamers.

In some ways this isn’t surprising.  We’ve seen the Xbox 360 shift its intended usage from blade-swapping game machine to blocky ad-delivery Netflix box.  The Xbox One continues Microsoft’s grand plan to dominate and control every facet of media in the living room, hoping that one day all consumers will have open floor space for their cameras whilst you integrate your surface to whatever smartglass app happens to coincide with the program on the screen.  It’s an ambitious goal for sure.  But for hardcore gamers and even mild gamer aficionados alike, this isn’t what we want to hear.

Hard to think I’d quote John Riccitiello, but his recent article at Kotaku says it best:

“The first and most obvious of these pitfalls is if Sony or Microsoft forgets who brought them to the dance in the first place. Gamers.”

At this time, the only attractive features gamers have seen about this console is the console specs, which end up being largely in line with Sony’s PS4 and dwarfing the WiiU, all standard stuff like an 8 core cpu with a 64-bit architecture, 8 gigs of ram, an AMD gpu, 500 gigs of onboard storage, etc.  This and an actual look at the box and controller all are positives in the books for gamers, but thats about it when it comes to the presentation.  Everything else being shown off if you go back and look at the conference are exclusive deals for TV content and Kinect functionality.  

What’s been worse has been almost all the info being presented after the conference that Microsoft of course would not present up front.  Always Online isn’t as bad as was speculated, like kicking you out of a game if the connection drops, but the Xbox One does need to check in online, what’s being speculated at least once every 24 hours.  Used games are somewhere between a small licensing fee and having to rebuy the entire game every time.  Live accounts still have a premium feature, which does share over the One and 360, but will no doubt be required for online gaming and probably other online services like Netflix.  Kinect is bundled with every system and is required to use the console, and will always be on, even if the console isn’t in use.

All of these “features” just serve to fragment the consumer base for a new console.  Gamers would rather see software.  Software is what sells a system, and Forza, Call of Duty and Quantum Break aren’t nearly enough to sell this monolith on its own.  The onus is now on Microsoft to make a phenomenal presentation at E3 in terms.  Comparatively,  Sony is still riding a wave of goodwill of presenting first, as well as advertise the ease of publishing for third-party devs and indie publishers.  Rest assured,  E3 this year will be very interesting, as we haven’t seen a true presentation for a new console generation for years now.

If I had to make a choice now though, Sony is looking far more attractive than Microsoft.