Microsoft E3 Press Conference 2016: Not-so-live Impressions

Damn it, Nintendo! Look what you've reduced me to! :D So, with no Digital Event this year, "oh sod it", I thought, "why not go back and cover Microsoft's conference again". Well, so many reasons, BUT, hopefully those won't come to pass. Hopefully Phil Spencer will blow my mind with the cornucopia of gaming delights the Xbone has to offer. Then again, maybe I'll be marking off the entirety of my Microsoft E3 Bingo card:

Admittedly some of these are more likely than others. I recommend taking a drink for every one you mark off. Many physicians wouldn't.

Okay then. Bingo pens/a half-drunk bottle of Baileys at the ready? Let's get this shit show going!!!

• 00:00:00 - So I'm going for the Gamespot video on this one. It's the only one I see that'll probablly still be up in a few years if I embed it here. Let's skip to the start of the actual show though. (Sorry, Danny).

 

• 00:39:18 - Straight away, the Xbox One Slim. I like the white, not big into the very visible ventilation area though - along with the white, it makes this look a lot like a kitchen extractor fan. I am kind of in the market for Xbox One though. If this one hits the right price and the Scorpio is still a while off, I might jump on it.
• 00:39:31 - Sleeker? I don't know, Microsoft. The original XBone seemed huge, but it had a good look. This is very HTPC case. A slightly more upmarket one maybe, but still.

 

• 00:39:40 - IR Baster! The dream of TV is still alive!
• 00:39:58 - So I guess we're definitely getting Gears 4 and Scalebound then. Drink!
• 00:40:03 - Huh. 4K Video and Blu-ray. That reads to me like no UHD. If the want to keep this thing cheap, it'd make sense.
• 00:40:04 - House of Cards is your selling point for 4K video? Well, I'm sure Keven Spacey does look glorious in it.

 

• 00:40:10 - The new controller. Boy, give that textured grip a couple of years and you know it's going to be funky as hell with dead skin goop. :D
• 00:40:18 - Can't see any other major changes design-wise though.
• 00:40:22 - Oh, just realised that that starting with this means that we're not starting off with a shooter for once. Microsoft really flipping the script this year.

 

• 00:40:51 - Good morning, Phil. So, the Xbox One S starting at $299. That'll be €300 here then, at least.
• 00:41:03 - I guess it's not going to be the greatest line-up in Xbox history this year, you guys. Hold that drink! Also, Phil rocking an original Xbox logo t-shirt. At least for the moment. OG Xbox backwards compatibility coming to the Xbox One? :D Man, that'd be crazy.

 

• 00:42:44 - Gears 4. Looks like it'll be a sort of cross-buy deal between the Xbox One and Windows 10. That's cool. It'd be cooler if was with Steam, or you know, if I cared about Gears in any way, but I digress.
• 00:44:26 - Damn! How did I forget to put "Cutting back to the stage to show that we're playin' it live" on the bingo card!?

 

• 00:45:30 - Yeah, the storm effect and the lighting here looks great, as do the graphics in general, but this is totally still just more freakin' Gears.
• 00:48:18 - With the amount they're showing it off, I guess this blade-launching gun is supposed to this crazy awesome new thing. I'm pretty sure the ripper in Unreal Tournament beat this to the punch by a few years though.

 

• 00:49:56 - Way too late for a giant enemy crab joke? Or has it been long enough now that it's swung back around to being funny. Hmm.
• 00:50:37 - Gears 4. Yep.

 

• 00:50:49 - Wait, you guys, it's not over yet. Captain Do-rag is back *slash* not dead! (Yeah, I've only played through the first one. :D)

 

• 00:51:18 - Oh, you thought they were done with trailers for Xbox One controllers? Think again.

 

• 00:51:50 - Killer Instinct now.
• 00:51:53 - That's right. It's "your passion" that makes KI the most played fighting game on Xbox One. Not the lack of Street Fighter V.
• 00:52:12 - Woo, Rash!
• 00:52:20 - Oh, more guest characters coming to KI. Here's hoping for some more Rare love.

 

• 00:52:57 - Nope. It's Killer Croc from Gears of War. Guessing General Raam is from Gears 2 or 3 [Edit: Nope. He's from Gears 1. With character design that memorable, I don't know how I forgot him] I actually just picked those up for €2 a pop. Really didn't enjoy the first one, but *sigh* I couldn't resist for that price. Hey, maybe I'll get really into the series at some point. The evidence presented so far would suggest otherwise, but who knows?
• 00:53:13 - Trying to think what other Rare characters I'd even want to see though. Not too many coming to mind TBH. I bet Conker would actually work fairly well. That'd be fun.

 

• 00:53:47 - Introducing.. Afrika 2: Second Time's the Charm.

 

• 00:53:57 - No, probably Forza. Pre-emptive drink!

 

• 00:54:48 - Hitting that big-ass ramp. I guess they're bringing off-road stuff to this year's Forza.(Again??? Big fan here.)

 

• 00:55:07 - Yep, Forza Horizon 3. Not Forza's fault, but holy crap, is it depressing to live in a world where this is the closest thing we've got to an arcade racer now.

 

• 00:57:27 - Looks really sharp. Now if only it played like Burnout.
• 00:58:09 - Hmm. This is Play Anywhere too. Maybe that PC support isn't as half-assed as I was expecting this time. Well, at least until Microsoft loose interest again. And they will.
• 00:59:15 - Ah, I guess this is ReCore. I'd recognise that not-quite-Metroid Prime font anywhere.

 

• 00:59:40 - Uh huh. Starring Joule.
• 01:00:29 - Jeez, Microsoft. How about lowering the volume on your generic trailer music just a smidge. I can barley think here!

 

• 01:00:36 - Yeah, looks like a mix of shooting, some platforming, some puzzle-solving stuff maybe. Definitely into this.

 

• 01:02:04 - Final Fantasy XV. I'm so behind on Final Fantasy that I'm not even thinking about this one at the moment. Still have to get through VIII, IX, XII and I'm guessing about a half dozen XII games, I stopped paying attention at some point there.
• 01:03:34 - I'm sure all this really natural banter won't get tiresome at all during battles.

 

• 01:05:00 - I don't know how this will actually be to play, but at least from this demo, the battle system here looks like a really sloppy compromise between turn-based and real-time combat.
• 01:05:43 - Certainly a big-ass boss though. So there's that.
• 01:06:05 - Ubisoft? Watch Dogs 2?

 

• 01:06:29 - Nah, this must be The Division: Something. Too many beanie hats to be anything else. :D
• 01:06:51 - The Division: Underground. "The fight never ends". Yeah, bet you feel better abut sinking hundreds of hours into the first one now.

 

• 01:07:01 - Battlefield 1. Drink? Oh, most assuredly. I am kind of interested in the single player of this though. Even if just to see how over the top they make World War I. #WEED
• 01:08:00 - Great! I love immersion!
  
• 01:08:09 - EA Access! Check.
• 01:08:30 - Really? Showing the Battlefield 1 trailer from last night again? Okay.

 

• 01:10:54 - Oh, I think this was the guy that unveiled backwards compatibility last year. I suspect he's mainly on this year to big up cross platform stuff between Xbox One and Windows 10 though. And Xbox Live apparently. But come on, how nuts would original Xbox BC be. Some of those BC games barley even worked on a 360!
• 01:11:20 - Oh shit. Background music. I know no one else uses this feature on the 360 any more, but I do all the time, so this is great.
• 01:13:29 - Eh, Xbox Live stuff. I'd like to compete, but I was racing my friend and I forgot to tie my shoelaces. You know how it is. (#WEEEEEEED)
• 01:13:44 - Oh yeah, EA Sports is all about competition. Just ask 2K.
  

 

• 01:14:37 - Minecraft. Snooze time!
• 01:15:28 - Noticed that that cross-platform play didn't include the Wii U version. :D
• 01:16:04 - Oh good. I was afraid that we weren't going to any great multiplayer banter this year.
• 01:16:07 - Ugggggghhhhh.

 
 

• 01:16:35 - A wild John Carmack appears! Plus, VR. (Drink!) Mr. Oculus Rift at a Microsoft press conference though? I guess HoloLens is dead in the water then.
• 01:17:33 - I can't argue with John Carmack vision for VR though. Exploring big, living worlds is what I'm hoping for too. Not that I have the cash to spend on VR at the current going rate, but the super-limited VR "experiences" out at the moment aren't getting me excited for the prospect of owning any headset.
• 01:17:36 - All platforms. Except the Wii U.
• 01:19:02 - Red stone and TNT. I know, right?

 
 

• 01:20:08 - The Xbox controller trailers will not. Stop. Coming.
• 01:20:44 - Oh, this is for custom ones. That's kind of neat. Microsoft's musical choices continue to be the worst though. :D

 
 

• 01:21:31 - A new game from the makers of Limbo? Yeah. Limbo was pretty cool.
• 01:21:58 - Inside. One of the best games Chris Charla has ever played. I guess we'll just have to take his word for it, because there wasn't a single detail about it divulged there! :D Free Limbo on Xbox One though.

 
 

• 01:23:05 - Cuphead! You know what to do.
• 01:23:53 - And Below. Some interesting-looking indie games. I look forward to getting them on GOG/Humble/Steam, unless Microsoft force me to do otherwise. :D
• 01:24:14 - Yeah, Yooka:Laylee! Already have that one paid for though. (On GOG, of course. DRM Free, dawg!)

 
 

• 01:27:06 - This must be We Happy Few. That looked good and weird last year. Hmm, Joy pills - not a bad idea for some of these E3 conferences, I think.

 
 

• 01:28:20 - Who else was expecting Horstachio? Just me?

 

• 01:29:28 - Gross.
• 01:30:54 - A CD Project Red game. Is this finally the cyberpunk thing?

 
 

• 01:30:58 - No, looks like it's that Gwent game.
• 01:32:12 - Phew! For a second there, I thought they were actually going to play a round of it;  maybe get that Minecraft duo back out for some more classic banter.

 
 

• 01:35:23 - Tekken 7. Already had this one spoiled. Thanks, Youtube.

 
 

• 01:37:10 - Good to see Harada made the effort. :D
• 01:38:40 - Christmas music. It's June. Wait, is Shane Black making a game?

 
 

• 01:39:07 - Oh, it's Dead Rising 4. I might have figured it out earlier if you STOPPED SHOWING ME THE STAGE, Microsoft. It's not like someone was playing the trailer with an Xbox controller. Or is that a feature of another upcoming Xbox One controller to be announced in trailer form?
• 01:39:57 - Yeah! That looks great. Good and silly, and set during the Holidays. Gimme!

 

• 01:42:27 - "Hello. You are all blocked." *drops mic*
• 01:44:05 - Huh. Scalebound is coming to Windows 10 too? I'll admit it, at least for now, Microsoft are throwing some decent support behind the PC.

 
 

• 01:44:34 - Love that this guy is wearing the headphones.

 
 

• 01:47:42 - Hmm, I don't know. Maybe it was just the fact that it was mostly ranged combat, but that boss fight didn't really blow me away. Still interested to see more though.
• 01:48:12 - I guess this is Sea of Thieves. Really hope that they've added a single player of some sort to this. It's been too long since a proper Rare game and team-based online multiplayer is just not my thing.

 
 

• 01:51:35 - Compelling Sea of Thieves gameplay. At least the multiplayer talk feels less staged than you usually see at E3. Yeah, any excitment I had for this has pretty much just vanished. At least there's still Yooka-Laylee.
• 01:52:27 - Oof. This is like watching some horrible Twitch streamer crossover video.

 
 

• 01:53:44 - No Rare Replay 2 either. *sigh* Anyway, what's this?
• 01:53:57 - Looks like there are zombies. For a change.
• 01:55:18 - State of Decay 2. No idea what that franchise consists of to be honest. Zombie stuff, I'm guessing

 
 

• 01:55:43 - Something else! The walls being smashed up here make me think of Red Faction: Guerilla. If only.

 
 

• 01:56:30 - That looks like a Halo man. This must be Halo Wars 2. (That, or this is a sequel to Darkest of Days.) Hey, I finally played through some of the first Halo since I did one of these Microsoft conferences last. It was good - so much so that I've been picking up some of the sequels on the cheap here and there (but not so much that I went back and played through the rest of the game apparently :D). Not sure I enjoyed it enough to get into a Halo RTS though.
• 01:59:35 - Phil's back! T-shirt change?

 
 

• 01:59:52 - No. Still rocking that original Xbox shirt.
• 02:02:02 - Oh? Beyond generations? Scorpio incoming? Have to say that that's kind of a gross way to market a move to phone-style upgrades though. Maybe it's just that I need to get "beyond" forking out full price for a new console every couple of years.
• 02:02:18 - A VR mention. Maybe the rumours about an Oculus team-up were true.
• 02:03:01 - Oh good. The Scorpio has "no limitations". Good news everyone, you'll never have to upgrade again after this. That's a relief. Truly "beyond generations", Microsoft.
• 02:04:25 - Yeah! Fallout 4 in VR. That's what I'm talking about.

 
 

• 02:04:35 - It's the "oh god we're dying; the PS4 is slaughtering us" console.
• 02:05:35 - Six teraflops of power, but does it have blast processing?
• 02:06:13 - You know, really, if the Scorpio is such a step up from the Xbox One, they should probably be getting away from still-kind-of-toxic Xbox One brand with it and selling it as the next Xbox. Sure, keep backwards compatibility with the XBone, but don't shackle the Scorpio to it, because you know the games on that are going to be held back by still needing to run in a playable state on the current console.

 
 

• 02:08:37 - That's it, huh? No Crackdown. Man, I have a baaad feeling about that game. I really hope I'm wrong though though. I freakin' loved the first two games and it's really one of the very few things that would make me grab a current gen console in the near future (Wii U aside, of course). If that's not coming and Mass Effect: Andromeda is still a ways off (which it seems to be, judging by what they showed at EA last night), I might well hold off to see how the Scorpio shakes out now, barring a fire-sale deal on the old model Xbox One maybe. (Sorry, PS4, I know you're "for the players" (yuck), but your exclusives so far have somehow done even less for me than the XBone's. I guess Uncharted 4 is the first game they've had to slightly buck that trend, but I want to see how I feel about that series after playing through 2 and 3 before splashing out €350 on a PS4. I'm most of the way through the first one right now, and boy, it's.. pretty rough going a lot of the time.) 

Overall thoughts on Microsoft though? They had games, unlike EA. (Jeez, that was almost depressing to watch last night.) It was pretty well put together, a few questionable cuts back to the stage aside. As for the games, most of them weren't for me, as I expected, but ReCore looks cool, We Happy Few seems rad and Dead Rising at Christmastime? Fuck. Yes.

So, how did I do with that bingo card?

11 out of 25 and probably only about half-tanked. :D Microsoft: maybe not as predictable as I was expecting this year.

No predictions this year for Nintendo though, it's Zelda and a bit of Pokemon. I'm still disappointed and, frankly, baffled that they're not showing NX stuff this E3, given that it's supposed to be releasing next March, but Zelda, I am super excited to see more of. Next stop: Nintendo Treehouse Live!