EA Press Conference – The Download

• Plants v Zombies: Garden Warfare looks like a ton of run.  It is running on the Frostbite 3 engine, overkill perhaps but there should be plenty of grunt.  That game looks like lots of fun, it has nice throws into Battlefield into it, but the popcorn was funny as well as the little homage to Battlefield with the garlic chopper.  I might actually get this one.
• Peggle 2 announcement – mmm, OK.  Yes fun but did it require that enthusiasm before he left stage.
• Titanfall – more information is coming for it, these look like interviews with the developers.  Describing the usual fair, we wanted to created an immersive world, living breathing, caring for the characters and so on.
• Star Wars Battlefront on Frostbite 3 – Oh yes, this is going to be a game I will be getting.  Seeing that Snowspeeder crashing and then the foot of the AT-AT walker, my mouth was open in awe.  The one thing I can say is, it will look fantastic running on the Frostbite 3 engine.
• Need for Speed: Rivals had a nice integration with the tablet and the look for it was quite good.  The way the two games of single player and came into the multiplayer aspect of the game.  Will like to see more of this, they also mentioned an online opponent when you are offline like in Forza.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition – It is an open world game, different to the original games.  It is released next year, 2014 and they are showing a trailer.  There is not much that I can tell from the trailer
• EA Sports, I would like it if they announced a new baseball title but I do love my MLB The Show games.  But I feel they should branch out in more sports, they do have primary populated sports, Soccer, NFL, NHL, NBA, but it would be good is all as the NBA.  They got someone on stage a and a Baseketballer talking about the Ignite engine for their sports games.
• Talking about NBA Live – lots of stats coming to the game.  They are also including a new technology to allow the ball to be dictated by the physics of the ball and remove it from the hand as a separate object, but not 100% sure if this means you need to control things with the ball or not.
• Madden NFL 25 more talking about how realistic it is and the gameplay footage.  So they are pushing more into the Ignite engine, and expanding the way the animations are enable to change very quickly in order to accommodate the way a player moves and make the momentum look realistic.  They have made the facial scans look really good, a long way has come from the old days when they first introduced it.  They showed “gameplay” footage but no one was playing it and it was a lot of close up shots.  The quality made it look like it was in game engine but until you can see someone with a controller in their hand, like the Plants V Zombies game you can never ever be certain.
• FIFA 14, some soccer player talking about the feelings of the game and kicking goals and playing.  So far nothing really knew in the front from this as they were showing what was label Alpha footage.  Drake comes out and stage and talking about FIFA and the game he plays and he spoken about about how so many people play it in Europe.  More “gameplay” but still no one playing it though they did announce it is playable on the floor.
• UFC 14 , a ring side announcer and some UFC players and the head of UFC.  OK, talking about fighting being the first sport, when one person throws another punch at another person and there is a sport when someone runs over and watches.  And mentions it is in out DNA to fight.  Mmmm, not sure about that, but I won’t go off and dispute any of this.  They are talking about full body deformation, and interesting concept, in the trailer they showed some of it.  But not sure how this will make me feel it.
• Battlefield 4 some nice integration features into tablets to enable commanding from there.  Need to see more of this and impressive they have wheeled out what looks like 64 players to take part in this game live in the multiplayer.  That is very impressive to see this live and I hope it works, city scape settings looks nice.   They took out support pillar underground and that bought down the road and down come a tank.  That was a nice feature.  Lots of vehicles in this game, a main aspect of the Battlefield games but this does look good for that.  The jumping from the building and it falling down.
• They then teased from Dice, Mirrors Edge 2 by the look of it. Which will make some fans happy I have not played the first but I did hear good things from it.  But when it said, Coming, when its ready.  nice jibe so they are not making promises on these games.

There was nothing on anything else from BioWare and nothing with regards to SWTOR.

Opinion

I was expectant for this conference excited about the Battlefront announcement and the Dragon Age one as well.  Plants v Zombies: Garden Warfare looks like a ton of fun and I would love to get into that.  The 64 player multiplayer in Battlefield 4 looked good and epic as well.  No SWTOR which disappoints me, but in many ways they are focusing on their roots with much of their sporting line up and some of their core as well.

The Microsoft Press Conference

• Rare and a Kinect game, Kinect Sports Rivals, another Kinect game, and another Rare game.  There is no real surprise there that they were going to release another Kinect game.
• Metal Gear Solid 5 on XBOX One.  This would have been teased with the Revengence game as they were really testing the waters. When they were developing the Fox Engine and then also showing that at GDC did look like they were pushing this towards the One as well, but since the architecture are similar it isn’t that much of a leap.

The applauding in the XBOX Conference seems forced and that they are waiting for it on stage, so it could be like the XBOX One reveal they have Microsoft XBOX employees in the audience.

• New form factor for the XBOX 360.  Not really sure why.
• World of Tanks for XBOX 360 – This will make it a little more fun, but can you play with the PC gamers as well or only 360 gamers.  The spokesman for the World of Tanks, doesn’t make me excited for it, it has gone from tanks shooting and blowing things up which is what makes this game appealing, but he has ruined it a little.
  It is Free to download for gold members, but it is a free download for PC without a paid membership. 

This is a good addition and it brings it almost inline with Playstation Plus but 2 games and the first games for free Assassin’s Creed 2 and Halo 3, meh.  Nothing I am wanting to get and take up my hard disk space.

• Max looks interesting, Kinect, unsure, but there are elements that look like you need Kinect.  But it is a nice platform gamer, looks good too.
• Dark Souls 2 for the 360 also looks good but I am sure this will also be on the PS4.  But not much other than a teaser trailer was shown.
• Ryse: Son of Rome for XBOX One – New franchise, it depends on how well it will do.  This was touted as a Kinect core game, but this will be interesting to see if it is.  In the gameplay footage there are quick time events flashing up, so it looks like it is not for Kinect, or Kinect only which is one of the things that they were talking about last year, core Kinect title. 
  Looks impressive as well, the CryEngine  3 looks well implemented on the the One.  Lot of Quick Time events.  The blood effects on the ground look good, the sheen of blood is captured well.  No Kinect as it has been confirmed, so there is no Kinect core games, it might have some gestures etc… or voices but certainly when they were talking about it being a Kinect title and now it is not.  This is also going to be a launch game.
• Killer Instinct from Rare, nice to see them them return to their roots.  But was this really a surprise, it is good but not that much a surprise.  Is it a new game or a remake.
• Interesting, Insomniac Games has a 360 exclusive Sunset Overdrive , will be interesting to see what they will have for the PS4.  Nice surprise, certainly, Microsoft is throwing some money at these people.  Though to claim it is only capable on XBOX One is a bit of a stretch.  Mutants/Zombies shooter with Orange jelly in them.  They look like they have some interesting weapons and it certainly looks fun, but it is an MMO.
• Forza Motorsport 5, McLaren P1 in the game, nice.  “Drivetar”, what wank is this.  Lots of cloud talk which means that the shadow replays are loaded into the internet to enable the you to get your friends, though only XBOX Live friends I am thinking though I am curious to know if they will open it up for all people who play the game.  The trailer, stated as in-game footage, but there is very little that shows the actual gameplay of the Forza 5.
  They are enabling cloud computing to upload telemetry from your driving and process it into an AI profile, this then can be downloaded to used to race against.  This is a good reason for using the cloud computing since then the AI doesn’t need to be processes in real-time since typically they are often complex decision trees, but if it based on real information then it doesn’t need to be processes other than told, do this and this and this.  Promising, and I would like to see more about this.
• Minecraft for XBOX One, is this included in the exclusive count for XBOX One titles? 
• Quantum Break.  Live Action v Game included in one, and thing change to make a personalised version of the TV show, interesting, but it isn’t truly personal as it has to be all filmed so there is only a limited number of choices. This looks very nice and very interesting, would be curious to see more of this.

So far there was another announcement of in-engine, but no one has a controller in hand yet. 

• D4 looks like an independent Kinect title though not really sure what is meant to be for, but the hand prints on the screen do show that it is meant for the Kinect.
• Project Spark, has interesting creativity game.  It looks like a game creator and usable with SmartGlass and it also seems like it uses Windows Phone as well.  We are now seeing proper gameplay.  Expanding on what has gone before it is a nice touch providing it doesn’t overwrite what is there.  So it is showing building the game world to play the game is it.  So they were playing it while building it live.  They mentioned Windows 8.  The genre changes are really good and different and it all looks very accessible for the moment.

SmartGlass integration and it looks like they are going to include this for all games and I am sure this will be required.  Though the seamless integration of playing Ryse and then switching to Killer Instinct.  A new Mad Catz fight stick for the XBOX one.

Twitch is now included to broadcast games live.  But voice is included in it.  I am hoping that this is an option that can be turned off since I am sure that I don’t like that.  Because I might want to broadcast the game but not include my voice as my little boy tells me “Dad, is he bad?” or having both of my boys

No more MS Points and only hard money which is good.  One gold account can allow any one in the house to play multiplayer games on the XBOX One without the account holder to be logged on.  Good that they are using just cash, MS points meant you lost money or had the potential to lose money.

• Crimson Dragon, a dragon flight game, mmmm, the crowd sounds during the conference as there were no audio for this game were bizzare, which made me think that there were XBOX employees in the audience.  Though it looks like Dragon Lair from the PS3, but I know that the developer has made dragon flight games before.
• Dead Rising 3 – They said that XBOX One is the only platform able to fulfil their visiion.  How are they trying to kid, the media, themselves.  Another Zombie game, I am not sure what I can say about it, it looks like a zombie game, anther one.  I know there are people who can’t get enough of zombies but since I don’t like them.  Open world with no loading, other than the initital load I am sure.    It does look good as far as graphics go.  So many zombies so many of them.  They can’t seem to climb onto cars as they stood there waiting for him to get down.  I like them bringing the concept from the other Dead Rising games by fixing up the weapons to make your own.  Thankfully our rating board has introduced an R rating into games as what I saw would be banned under the old system.  Driving and knocking down Zombies looks fun.
• Witcher 3 is only one XBOX One, but no announcement on exclusive which means it might be coming to PS4. But best will be on PC without a doubt.  SmartGlass use of inventory management, this can be very handy and I really like the idea of it.  I do like the Witcher games the world created by the author is very deep, though Geralt looks very different.  People didn’t like the changes to Cole in Infamous 2 and they changed him back how will they go with the audience for the Witcher.
• Battlefield 4, they talked about Frostbite 3 engine.  This is known to be coming to PS4 so they have a new engine to go with the new consoles.  There seems to be a problem, is it running on the hardware.   It seems to be a little bit more of a problem, but is has started.  Once again the crowd reaction just don’t seem to be right.  I talking about jumping down in the Call of Duty post, well they did this, they jumped, rolled and the weapon couldn’t be used properly as their other hand was off the weapon and they needed to use it as they rolled on the desk of the carrier.  WOW, exclusive DLC map packs, right, what a crock that is when they come up.
  This looks and sounds better than the footage of saw of Call of Duty: Ghosts.  But there is no Dog, well I am sure it will be the success without a dog.  I love dogs and my dog, but it will not make me get a game over another.
• Below seems a nice little game, but it looks like a Dungeon Crawler but I am not sure what it is meant to be.

New Studio announcement, Black Tusk, new IP, so Microsoft are creating new first party titles.  The trailer, is nothing much to go on.  There is no title for this either.

• Halo (this will be 5 since it is from 343 studios) this is not a launch game by the look of it.  This was from 343 studios but they are going on about the TV show and the recently announced windows game.

US$499, €499 or £429 in November, pricey and I am sure that in Australia it will be AU$699.  They are also talking about a day one edition.  Butlooking at what people are saying on twitter it seems to be that people do no like the fact that it is so expensive.  For a rough translation, €499 is about US$661 and £429 is US$668 so considering these amounts 699 wouldn’t be out of the question here and once again, Australia will get screwed over.

• Respawn game, Titanfall another first person shooter looks interesting the use of mechs in it makes it look fun.  But has the sound and feel of so many other shooters but it still looks interesting at the very least.  The mechs name is a Titan, but you can eject from the mech and continue on foot at any time.  It might be worth a look.  This is not a launch title.

So in all of that we saw games, but there was nothing on DRM, nothing on security or privacy with Kinect or the always on.  They didn’t show much actual gameplay footage.

Opinion

So now that the conference is over I am excited but disappointed as well.  There is a couple of new games that I want to see more.  The Witcher 3, but this will be a PC game I will most like will get.  Titanfall I would like to see more as well as Quantum Break from Remedy.  Project Spark also look interesting.  There is enough there that might make me want to get the XBOX One.  Also, more integration into SmartGlass, the Witcher 3 announced it with the inventory management which seems like a perfect way to use it, have the inventory on the tablet and the maps and then free up the screen real estate for just the game.

So no information on the DRM, why, do they know, don’t know, will they be giving more information later, closer to the date.  Also no information on the Kinect camera and it being on all the time and the data it collects.  I know they talked about having the ability to turn it off, but just what information is being collected and with the recent leak of information from the NSA advisor regarding the government collection policy are they now going to collect data on people playing violent video games and record and keep it and monitor these people.  Sounds extreme but anything is possible.

So in all of that, we see some progress which MS seemed to miss to a point with the 360 as they were relying on Fan Boys and those who seem to buy Kinect games.  But just what Kinect integration and SmartGlass integration are they wanting to include or make the developers use.  This has improved the look of the XBOX One in my opinion but I still need to know more about the questions I have and I know, or hope they will be answered over the months till November.

There will be more to come when I find out more information regarding anything.  But I think it is time for some more coffee.