Posted in: Games, Movies, Recent Updates, Video Games | Tagged: e3, entertainment, gaming, Gears of War, microsoft, video games

The Future Is Now – Microsoft At E3

By Phil Harris

Following a gentle video introduction, giving us a taste of what was to come, Microsoft's Press Conference kicked off strongly with Bonnie Ross, Head of 343 Industries showing off Halo 5: Guardians, due for release on the 27^th October. Twisting the plot, Master Chief AWOL and Spartan Locke seemingly hunting him down the four player story co-op, which you can drop in and out of, looked incredibly smooth and was beautifully rendered showing enough to whet the appetite of any diehard Halo fan.

However Bonnie moved on quickly, showing us Warzone Multiplayer, part of the Halo 5: Guardians experience and with the tag line, "Everything is Possible" as scenes with groups of Spartans engaging with a vast selection of the Halo gallery of enemies, vehicles and environments, there seemed to be no end of possibilities – unless you wanted your Spartan squad to bake some bread.

Bonnie was gone all too quickly though and the press event continued in Microsoft's usual style, short vignettes interjected with the slightly more tech based demos of which Microsoft Hololens was simply the pick of the bunch, allowing us to marvel at Minecraft in a completely new and drool inducing way. Using some excellent camera techniques we were able to see the virtual world the Hololens created, allowing a totally new form of gaming in and around the Minecraft world. Technology you could see quickly being adapted to even greater strengths as companies developed around this exceptional new piece of technology.

Earlier in the show, and to rapturous applause, Mike Ybarra, Head of Platform Engineering was brought on to show us how Xbox One backwards compatibility would work, a rather odd display given that the term is well known in the industry. However, to give him a break, he showed that much of the Xbox One functionality worked with the backwards compatible titles and this is certainly a place where Microsoft have caught Sony out, identifying a chink in Sony's armour and being able to comfortably admit that they would have the largest game library on the most recent consoles, with no additional costs for those who own the game.

The impact of this cannot be understated as this type of thing sells consoles; gamers seeing the opportunity to ensure they do not lose valuable time spent learning a game only to find it is obsolete in the current generation. We're interested if Sony has any response to this?

Back to the games however and a solid look at Fallout 4, yeah Bethesda's own press show beat you solid there, led onto a brief engagement with EA who offered no real surprises bar the announcement of Plants Versus Zombies Garden Warfare 2, itself followed by live footage of Forza Motorsport 6; what can we say, you race cars and each version has been a very accomplished affair which should excite the drivers amongst you.

Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's The Division looked much as it did last year, well it had a longer trailer but less of the actual game play we had seen previously, potentially a concern; yet with the gravitas set to high you couldn't help be interested in what the game would bring. Although one reason they possibly didn't show too much of the game was this was followed up directly with Rainbow Six: Siege, another team based combat experience which may have many similar play styles.

Rise of the Tomb Raider live play looked wonderful. Reminding us about the dangers of mountain climbing to find ancient lost cities, whilst also looking strongly like we may actually be doing some tomb raiding again, a fact that was oft missing from the previous game. Also we got other CGI teasers for games like Dark Souls III – it looked like a Dark Souls game (insert Praise the Sun comment here), the beautiful CGI teaser for Recore, a game about a girl and her droids, each showing slightly different personalities from the brief scenes we experienced and a whole slew of attractive indie titles to titillate the taste buds, rounded off with a taste of Xbox Game Preview.

Game Preview itself allows gamers a chance to play titles in development and choose whether to back them for early access or simply wait until further developments were made. A level of support which will be essential for developers to gather information on the popularity of their titles and hopefully one which will allow adequate feedback from the player base to help development.

The show ended with the announcement of Gears of War Ultimate Edition, guess what, it's a HD upgrade of the original – we may get sick of hearing that – but was followed by footage of Gears 4 which simply looked immense, with a nice split between action, excitement and terror and nary a stupidly thick neck to be seen.

Yet again Microsoft have hit the floor with a strong line up they can be proud of and it will be later today where we watch if Sony can maintain momentum over their fierce competitor or may be left holding the baby.

Phil Harris (@PhilipGHarris) is a games developer and writer currently working with One Thumb Mobile on their MMORPG Celtic Heroes. He also created Zentorii, helped design Nevistech's Pet Roulette for Android devices and is the story writer for Blazing Griffin's new space strategy game Distant Star: Revenant Fleet. To read more about Phil check out his profile on Indie Teamup.

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