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Gamescom 2015 - Microsoft Presser

It’s the one you were waiting for after E3, Microsoft’s Gamescom presser that will have all the goodies missed at E3! Here are my highlights.

Quantum Break - Still looks like remedy doing what remedy does best. That said the 2016 release block is a tough bill to swallow... I mean this was a launch title for XBONE. The game itself looks great, there are still many questions to be answered (does the player control time dilation? How exactly does the show roll into it?

Crackdown 3 - Funny impressive action with good verticality in a sandbox? Sounds like fun. Destructible buildings are awesome - but is it every building or just some? Certainly worth a look - even if you weren't a fan of the first two.

Scalebound - Action RPG with dragons. Looks really pretty (Actually all the games shown so far have looked pretty great) and seems to have a good sense of humor. Especially those beats by Dreagon.4 Player co-op looks fun. Holiday 2016.

On the tech side - PVR systems for over the air HD TV. That will be both fun and useful if it comes out here.

XBone Chat pad - looks useful. Though I worry its most useful function will be inputting XBL codes.

Backward Compatibility - XBOX 360 Games with Gold will become backward compliable at launch. This means more games on your Xbone for free! Apparently launches in November.

Back to the games!

Killer Instinct - PC compatibility with fight sticks. Season 3 in March 2016 and battle toads kicking ass.

Bloodstained - Cross play between Win 10 and XBone, It will be ready when its ready.

Cities Skylines, Train Sim 2015, and so many more Indie Games will be making their way to console. More worms from Team 17 and Thimbleweed Park. Ark is on its way, as well as Rivals of Aether, Starbound and We Happy Few.

They followed up their indie game segment with a segment about Direct X 12 and Windows 10... You know they are talking about Win 10 a LOT at this Xbox conference. Cross-buy and Cross-save are neat though. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Cobalt - Its Mojang building something that isn’t Minecraft and it looks like a lot of fun! Snow Levels! Consumerism! Combat rolls! Bringing some fun back to a game-world full of dystopian futures. Drops this October.

Dark Souls III - ITS TIME FOR SOULS! If you liked Dark Souls and Bloodborne, well then hold on to your butts because its souls time again. 2016.

Homefront: The Revolution - USA! USA! USA! Launch that IED app on your phone and start that revolution. Time to show those North Korean’s who is boss! There will be co-op and a MP beta this winter. This beta will be Xbone only. 2016.

FIFA 16 - The beautiful game returns. Now with more-er footballing! Women’s national teams are in the game which is good. More FIFA legends is on its way... Also the FIFA team wants you to know that EA access still exists! All this can be yours this September. There will also be a FIFA bundle with EA Access.

Halo 5: Guardians - It’s Happening! Oct 27 2015. Something, Something E-Sports - Something Something special edition.

Just Cause 3 - Have you missed parachuting and blowing up everything? Well do we have a game for you! Looking just as you hoped it would look, and hopefully playing just the way you want. December 1st.

Forza 6 - Beautiful as ever, lots of cars, great narration. New water and physics and it sounds like a new race system. Looks like another great Forza! September 2015.

Rainbow Six: Siege - GIGN! SAS! It’s all the European SF units you know and love. Oct 13 2015.

Rise of the Tomb Raider - Its more Tomb Raider, and man is it pretty! If nothing else this game is going took phenomenal. That said game play looks a lot like the previous game. Hopefully it’s narratively strong. November 13, 2015.

Halo Wars 2 – The sequel you didn’t know you wanted! Fall 2016. I assume we will hear a lot more next E3.

That’s a wrap for Microsoft at Gamescom 2015. They are certainly not short of games over the next 18-24 months.

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Thoughts on E3 2015

With E3 well behind us I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the state of the show and some of the announcements made. I’ve broken this one out by press conferences:

PART 1 - BETHESDA

This was the conference I was most excited by. I’m a long time lover of Fallout and cannot wait to get my hands on F4. That said we all expected Fallout 4,so what else was in store?

Doom - Its DOOM. Bad Demons, chainsaws and gore. All that was missing was the E1M1 music which will hopefully appear in the final game. Some people felt that the game was over the top when it came to gore - but so was the original Doom. Kill an Imp? See some exposed bone. Same with the pinkies and so on. While I doubt it’ll make a lasting impression on FPS games. That said I’ll be picking up Doom without hesitation on release.

The real question for me is Multiplayer. I wonder what more it will bring to the genre and if we will se some new game modes... Maybe something like evolve considering the Revenant segment shown. Beyond that their mod support is promising but it certainly felt like the flop of paid mods through steam left a gap in that segment.

Battlecry- Development continues in what seems like a more and more crowded segment. This type of game isn’t really my thing.

Dishonored 2 / Dishonored HD  -  More stealth. More Fun. More Dishonored. Not much to say here other than “damn, looks like fun”.

Elder Scrolls Online  - Looks like more ESO. Maybe I didn’t give it a long enough shake but the intro at least is incredibly boring.

Elder Scrolls Legends  - Hey, Hearthstone is super popular right? They keep saying the Inn was full so we thought we would throw our own version at you. Here is hoping its not the RC cola to Heathstone’s Coke.

Fallout 4  - Everything anyone wanted in a teaser was there. As long as they keep on evolving the formula created in F3, carried on in NV and don't stray too far from the established narrative of F1 and F2 they can’t go wrong.

Fallout Shelter - A fun free game in the style of F2P builders. Its totally free but still feels oddly F2P even though it doesn’t follow the model. A good pickup-putdown kind of mobile game.

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