Madness? This is Spartan Assault!

Recently Microsoft has announced that Halo would be making its way to windows 8 via windows tablet. The name of the new game is called Halo: Spartan Assault. Halo:SA is a top down, twin stick shooter set between Halo 3 and 4 and is currently being developed by 343 industries and Vanguard games. It is hard to tell how much of the game is being developed by either company but my guess is that it is mainly in the hands of Vanguard games while 343 is providing oversight and story direction. The game's story follows Sarah Palmer who had a small part to play in Halo 4's story but did however have a large part in Halo 4's spartan ops mode. Over the course of 25 missions in the games campaign the player will reenact famous battles fought by the U.N.S.C. via the war games room on the star ship Infinity. The game will be available in July for around $7 on Microsoft tablets, phones and the PC.

Such as the new trend calls for in gaming, this title will feature micro-transaction unlockables to encourage players to spend extra cash. While I am not necessarily against the idea of micro-transactions, I can't say that I enjoy the idea of micro-transactions being the only way to access locked content. It seems like a cheap way for Microsoft to dig into your pocket after you have already purchased a $7 game. I do however like the idea of something new coming from Halo. I wasn't that impressed by Halo 4 so a new type of game could give the series a boost. A twin stick shooter wasn't my first choice but what bothers me is that, for the time being, this game will not be available for the Xbox 360 arcade. People have criticized Microsoft saying that this is just a ploy to try and get people to buy a Microsoft tablet or to push Windows 8 to the forefront. Tell us what you think!

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

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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.