Call of Duty: Ghosts was the biggest (and one of the only) gaming pitches Microsoft made at its Xbox One announcement. Activision has once again thrown its lot in with Microsoft for exclusive content, and Activision Publishing head Eric Hirshberg has talked about how it plans to leverage some of the console's features.
Read more: 'You're going to see voice integration, voice commands via Kinect' »
Oh, live-action trailers! They're how publishers try to convince us that their games have deep, meaningful stories, and that our parents will definitely respect us now because look, these are actual human beings shooting men in the face and the face-shooting isn't the part we enjoy, honest! So here's a new trailer for Bungie's FPS-RPG Destiny, directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man; Iron Man 2), which mixes live-action footage with that other hollow trailer medium, CG.
Like the rest of the gaming world, the eyes of the Shacknews community was on Tuesday's Xbox One reveal event. Some enjoyed the hardware and entertainment features, others are taking a wait-and-see approach until E3, but many others left the event disappointed. To help gauge our community's reaction, I reached out to some of the longer-tenured members of the Shacknews Chatty community for their thoughts.
Microsoft's Xbox One presentation lasted just under an hour, and a significant chunk of that time was spent on entertainment, including a video highlighting its partnership with the NFL. So why so much time devoted to football? Well, if you had committed to a multimillion dollar contract, you'd probably want to show it off too.
Electronic Arts has announced Need for Speed Rivals, coming from Criterion Games and EA's newest studio Ghost Games. The popular racing franchise is set to come to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 19, as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One later this year. EA had hinted mentioned a new game in the series was coming earlier this month.
Zombies are still in vogue, but it's surprising to see Dead Island developer Techland move onto an entirely different first-person zombie game. While Dead Island could be described as an undead take on The Elder Scrolls, their new game, Dying Light, could be quickly summed as Mirror's Edge with walkers.
Like in DICE's first-person running game, you'll very quickly run through the environment, leaping and vaulting over obstacles, and jumping onto poles, quite easily. However, you'll have a greater repertoire of moves than Faith ever did. While we didn't see any gunplay, we did see quite an impressive array of martial arts moves, with your character able to kick, jump kick, dodge to the side, and even perform a sweeping circular kick--all while remaining in first-person.
Battlefield 4 looks to continue leading the charge on Electronic Arts' FPS offerings, and producer Patrick Bach has opened up a bit about the single-player campaign. Most significantly, he talked about the desire to give players more agency instead of relying on scripted events--one of the common criticisms of the series' chief competitor, Call of Duty.
Read more: 'Picking your tactics, much like you do in multiplayer' »
A chunk of the indie gaming sector observed the Xbox One presentation (either live or secondhand, via channels like Twitter) with a sense of disappointment. Given that Sony's PlayStation 4 unveiling put game development at the forefront to the point that indie darling Jonathan Blow was given a forum to speak, some indie developers had hoped for more from the Xbox One event.
With a new console generation came hopes that Microsoft would relax their strict standards for indie developers, who currently must have a publisher in order to see their product on a Microsoft console. That does not appear to be the case.
Infinity Ward has been working on an all new engine for Call of Duty: Ghosts, and while we discussed it our our first preview of the game, a picture--or trailer--is worth a thousand words. Activision has released a new video comparing the current graphics to Modern Warfare 3.
Given that the PlayStation 4 won't run PlayStation 3 games natively, and the Xbox 360's rocky history with emulating Xbox games, it didn't come as much surprise that the Xbox One isn't backward compatible. You'll have to keep your 360 hooked up to play the last eight years of games. Don Mattrick, president of the interactive entertainment division at Microsoft, says the demand for the feature just isn't there.
Yesterday at a special presentation, Microsoft formally announced the Xbox One. Now that the company has finally produced a clearer impression of the console, we can look back at the rumors that had been following it for the last several months. Here's a list of what came true, what didn't, and what we still don't know.
Microsoft pulled the plug on 1 vs. 100 back in 2010, but fans of the defunct online game show hybrid have been vocal about missing it. Phil Spencer hasn't promised to bring it back specifically, but says that type of game is something they'd like to explore more in the future with Xbox One.
Read more: 'That's a category that lends itself to our community' »
The original Kinect always felt like a beta. It was the first implementation of something we collectively imagined should be much better. Our vision of Kinect had it be more precise, less laggy, and more natural to use. And that's precisely what Kinect for Xbox One is.
Following its Xbox One reveal event, Microsoft invited us to get "hands on" time with a few tech demos--the ones that you can see here. Because none of these demos represent actual gameplay, it's difficult to gauge how well this tech can be implemented. However, the potential is very real--and our excitement for Kinect has been rekindled.
Gosh, wasn't the big reveal trailer for EA Sport's new next-gen engine Ignite exciting? To think, that's how sports games will be on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4! Ah. Well. Not quite. As you may have guessed, that wasn't in-game footage. No, EA says, that was pre-rendered footage which did at least use in-game assets and is supposedly "in line with" how the games actually are.
Who knew something as gimmicky-sounding as "impulse triggers" would prove to be so fun to use? The addition of rumble motors on the shoulder triggers may sound like an insignificant change at first, but it really does significantly enhance the immersion that vibrating controllers can offer.
The impulse triggers are quite possibly the most significant upgrade made to the Xbox One controller. Microsoft PR likes to say there are over 40 improvements made, resulting in all new thumbsticks that have better grip and take 25% less force to move. There's also an entirely new D-Pad, quite possibly the weakest aspect of the original Xbox 360 controller. And there's magnetic sensors in the triggers for "added precision."
"...and how exactly is that? It's probably still all scripted."
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