Sunday, 6pm I believe.
Looks like this is the closest we're getting to an E3 this year, but considering we all (?) own Xboxes that should be alright.
I am, of course, expecting Banjo Threeie, a Perfect Dark 3 drop on Game Pass, the news that Microsoft have bought Nintendo, Fable 4 gameplay and release date… just the realistic stuff.
Surely that Goldeneye remaster is getting shadowdropped, right? Right?!
New announcements
New Fallout/remake -I think Bethesda is too busy with other games, but Obsidian are slowly becoming the work horses of Microsoft studios imo. A lot consider New Vegas to be the best one too. With both studios under the same Microsoft umbrella, why not let them do another game. Don't think this will happen but Fallout New London would be insane. Most likey a remaster or remake if anything tho.
Hideo Kojima new horror game- kinda getting leaked all over the place at the moment. I can see this being a big partnership being announced. Only thing stopping this from happening is if it's getting announced at Geoff Keighley showcase on the 9th. Definitely see them disgusting it over brunch.
Banjo-kazooie Remake- would love for a new one, but think this will be quicker and safer. If it dose well then maybe down the line we'll see a third one in a few years. That or nuts and bolts 2 😂
Gameplay
Starfield- I know it's delayed, but we have to see this game this year before it becomes a meme. Hoping it's as big as people think it will be. 🤞
Redfall- announced last year with only a CGI trailer. I'm 50/50 on this. If it plays like Borderlands I'm all up for it. If it plays like Left 4 Dead I'm not unfortunately.
Forza Motorsport- It's announced as Series S/X only game. Be interesting to see what that will look like graphically.
Contraband- Again, CGI only trailer last year. Need gameplay though. If it's as good as Just Cause, could be a fun new IP for Xbox.
Avowed- My body is ready! Show me this game. This will be Obsidian time to shine. I really hope they knock it out the park. Big bonus if they push the release for this year, but I'm asking way too much haha.
Game Pass announcements
Golden Eye remaster- The achievements are all over the interwebs. Only a matter of time. Like Mart said. Shadow drop this.
Final Fantasy 7 remake Intergrade -If it is coming to Xbox I can't see it not going to game pass day one.
Gotham knights- Unlikely, but we need some big games for 2022. I'm hoping for this one.
Chucking this in here more because it's "not-E3" related than specifically Microsoft, but people are getting carried away thinking there's a Dragon's Dogma sequel on the way just because the game's director retweeted a Capcom tweet.
I'm not gonna lie, I'd be into that.
Surely that Goldeneye remaster is getting shadowdropped, right? Right?!
I hope so, if those achievements that were put up are right then it looks really good. Very excited for that. I shared some of the screens and news in a chat group with my mates that all used to play Goldeneye back on the N64 and one of them is now talking about getting an Xbox just to replay it if it's true.
Summer Games Fest(ering) was shit then. Good job, Geoff. Next!
we all (?) own Xboxes that should be alright.
Does the XBox application for Windows count? Need to re-up my game pass.
microsoft bought nintendo
Please be true please be true please be true
Not specifically Xbox-related, but there were a few interesting things that came out of the Summer Game Fest thing that happened this week.
In particular I'm liking the look of Marvel's Midnight Suns, which I'd not previously been aware of but appears to be a Marvel-themed strategy RPG from the XCOM guys, with card-based combat. Very much my sort of thing.
Lots of videos of all sorts of stuff here: https://www.eurogamer.net/everything-announced-during-summer-game-fest-2022
It's really dose look promising. I'm the same as you with this definitely being up my alley. There's a few preview out and about too if you want to more details.
For me the show wasn't too bad. Too many ads as per with Geoff Keighley shows but 4 day one game pass games as soon as next week (Ninja Turtles Revenge of Shredder!) With some later this year. Kinda makes me think what GP announcements they'll have for Sunday. Game of the show was the walkthrough of Callisto. Wow, this looks incredible. I honestly don't feel the need to play Dead Space Remake when you have Collisto coming this year.
This seemed like 90 minutes of solidly 7/10 games to me. We’ll certainly have lots to play on Game Pass in 2022 and 2023, but I’m not sure much of it has me hugely excited at this stage. Too much grey and brown for my tastes.
Starfield looks both spectacular and Bethesda-janky at the same time. And Persona 5 on Xbox? I’ll take that.
No Goldeneye, no Banjo, no Fable. Boooo.
I'm taken aback by just how hard I've bought into the Starfield hype, even if the size of the thing – over a thousand planets! – sounds more exhausting than exciting.
Spaceship customization and combat are looking better than I expected, though I have one important question: can I disable an enemy ship's engine, dock with and board them, and make off with all their stuff?
For anyone who's not seen it and can't be arsed looking it up, here's the Starfield footage:
Initial impressions: it looks like a desaturated Mass Effect by way of No Man's Sky, with too much combat.
Exclusively showing games that are coming in the next 12 months was obviously an attempt to combat all the “where are the games..?” questions. But it meant we had no Holy Fuck moments, which is sort of what these shows are all about.
Redfall and Starfield could be exceptional. The rest, as Gar said, looked nice. Wouldn’t buy it, but I’ll play it on Game Pass levels of nice.
No Man’s Skyrim
They're still going for the invasion-of-personal-space mode of conversation, too, I see.
Okay, the ship-building stuff is potentially quite cool, depending on how it weighs up looking good vs. mechanical requirements.
Initial impressions: it looks like a desaturated Mass Effect by way of No Man's Sky, with too much combat.
There's always too much combat in the trailers for these things. Fallout was mostly crawling through barren wasteland, though you'd never know that from the explosive trailer. The base-building elements here do worry me that this is going to be more in the mould of Fallout 4 than 3 or New Vegas, though.
Not only Persona 3, but Persona 3 Portable, which has visual novel style menu navigation as opposed to manual walking in the living simulator parts and more notably, a fully fleshed out female MC route for the entire game, S links and all. As a Persona 3 'The Answer' enjoyer I sympathise with anyone who wanted Persona 3 FES edition but imo pulling P3P out of the PSP mines was the best choice.
Persona 4 gets all the acclaim these days in my experienceand it's an amazing game, but imo Persona 5 Royal is up there with Dragon Quest XII, one of theb est RPG experiences I've ever had honestly. It's extrremely long, maybe even 'too long' but I will let it slide for Persona 5 Royal.
The idea of a 12 month window was limiting on what to show, but overall I liked it. The highlights were Redfall and starfield. The best takeaway for me though was the Game Pass roadmap. Ninja Turtles, Hollow knight Sliksong and High on Life looks great and coming this year day one on game pass. No Allowed was disappointing… :(
Why is everything set in space now
Because the world has gone to shit.
Why is everything set in space now
It's the final frontier!
The PC showcase had some lovely games, much more interesting than Microsoft and Sony's efforts. My top 3:
A Blade Runner-esque slice of life called Nivalis. The Blade Runner aesthetic has always been pretty cosy, so I'm surprised no-one has done this before.
A tibetan city builder called Laysara. This one seems to have a genius mechanic whereby you're literally building towards something - the summit.
And this cracking Half Life Alyx mod.
Nivalis
This is set in the same city as Cloudpunk, which I've not played (yet) but have heard very good things about. Not entirely sold on the idea of manually shuffling chairs around in first-person, but I've added it to my wishlist nonetheless.
Laysara
I'm an absolute sucker for these kinds of games, going back to Caesar III, even though they never seem to have any staying power with me. It looks much more focused than others in the genre, though, so hopefully it won't be totally overwhelming in action.
Anyone watching Xbox first direct? They already said it's focusing on Redfall, Forza motorsport and the new RPG Minecraft game. After the last interview with Arkane, I'm starting to get hyped for Redfall now. They made it clear it's not a Back 4 Blood or Left 4 Dead kinda game. Playing like a open world RPG with co-op which is great for me because I'm not too big on them horde of zombie type of games.
That was a great first direct. Can't believe they they just announced a new game "Hi-fi Rush" and shadow dropped it today!! From the makers from Evil Within and it looks so different from what they normally make. It looks like a Jet Set Radio mixed with DMC. 😂 I'll be playing this tonight for sure. Redfall looks amazing to me too. I just hope the "single player" really is legit and the co-op isn't forced.
Record scratch.
Freeze frame.
Yep, that's me.
Back playing Hi-Fi Rush. Really annoyed that there's a latency check, but no actual configuration - it just tells me to fix my TV, which is stupid. Let me change it in-game, you idiots, don't force me to adjust my setup in a way I don't know.
I'm pretty sure there was an adjustment option when I looked at it…
No, there isn't. Just a test to tell you your TV is out, not correct for it. And you need it rock solid or the game is unplayable. No TV has adjustable latency beyond a "game mode" or equivalent. It's fucking stupid.
So for the second time in less than a week mart and I agree on something.
I'm fairly sure my TV has adjustable latency… Is that not what AV Sync Adjustment is? I use it on Apple TV because the audio doesn't lip sync.
I've never had a TV with latency adjustment, I'm clearly too working class.
My TV has a Game Enhancer setting, so I'll tinker with that. The latency probably isn't helped by the fact I use a sound bar, but fuck having to change the settings there every time I want to play one game.
I looked. My TV not only has a Game Enhancer that has a Low Latency option (fuck knows what that does, it doesn't let you turn it off), but also has a Match Screen and Audio setting which delays the sound to match the picture. It starts at 0 and goes up to 60… and every step just makes the delay worse, not better. Great. Thanks.
Turning off the sound bar and going back to speakers does nothing either, so Hi-Fi Rush is officially borked until they actually let you change the latency in-game. You know, just like all other rhythm action games do. Stupid.
Dunno if anybody watched the State of Play this evening (State of That, more like); I caught just enough of it live to see the Suicide Squad deep dive, which was… pretty fuckin' awful.
It looks like someone took Crackdown 3 and bolted a live service game onto it before they read a market forecast and hurriedly removed the live service bits. The characters witticisms seem to be almost as exhausting as the hyperactive, unreadable movement and numbers-go-up gear sets.
It didn't even look particularly impressive. I'm sure the YouTube streaming compression wasn't doing it a lot of favours, but the design of everything seems really dated, and the characters land in that Marvel's Avengers place where they want to remind you of the famous people you've seen in the movies without paying for a likeness or risking a lawsuit.
I've long given up getting excited or interested in anything vaguely considered AAA now because ultimately, it ends up being shit at worst, mediocre at best. The endless stream of media bullshit doesn't help, especially when the coverage is basically 'LOOK AT THIS LOOK AT THIS LOOK AT THIS LOOK AT THIS oh it's shit'. See also: all the hype around that stupid Winnie the Pooh horror movie that went on for months with 'exclusive' interviews and clips, only for it to be a monumental stinker that everyone slagged off. The rush for clicks and likes negates any kind of editorial filtering for quality these days, so fuck 'em all.
New trailer (and a new release date?) for Starfield – it's now due on September 6th.
Love that they keep bringing out the few games I am interested in day 1, as soon as I have just had 6 weeks off work!
I'm really surprised by the outrage of the delay I see online. I understand that it was supposed to came out in the first half of the year, but it's less than 3 months out the release window they promised. Even if you go back to the original release date (11/11/22) it's only 10 months delay in total. I was annoyed last year with the delays only because they had nothing to replace them with, and because of that Xbox 2022 was awful for first party output. This year the first half has Hi-Fi Rush, Minecraft Legends, and Redfall. With the second half having so far Forza and Starfield. Its a strong lineup even outside the third party day one titles coming to game pass. Starfield needs to hit like GOW and Zelda so I'm all up for the delay.