This is going to be a lot of information, and I'm certainly going to have to place it out over several blog posts. Despite the obvious issues this entails, especially with my master craft of organizational skills, hence my sarcastic tone in the last sentence, I'm going to split these up by what I saw, not the particular order of the said convention, which, quite frankly has been expanded to take up a good chunk of the week. So for this particular post, I'll be going over the Bethesda Press Confereence, although it was more of a sneak-peek party, and i will also take note of Xbox's Press Conference, which I assure you, will be reviewed with the same discrimination as any other press conference.
Firstly, let's get to the team in Bethesda, doing their first press release, and showing that Ubisoft and Square Enix are not the only third-party developers that can host a snow. For me, I've always found Ubisoft's Press Conferences to be rather dull, never mind the fact that most people do not play them often in the sates, with the exception of Assassin's Creed III. Still, Ubisoft is a major player overseas, and the European market cannot get enough of Assassin's Creed. Bethesda is very much a world-renounced studio, with Softworks as their great development house, but one thing I take for granted is Elder Scrolls. I'm not much a fan (blasphemy!!!) of Elder Scrolls, I find it to be rather opposite of my tastes. Yet, I absolutely adore Fallout, as it really represents one of my favorite cult films: A Boy and his dog, and pretty much every other Science Fiction classic ever created.
Bethesda showed off some interesting ideas, and some that basically made me yawn. However, their overall presentation was one of the best I've seen from any company at E3 in the past several years. I've not been this excited for an E3 since it was shown in it's entirety on G4 TechTV. Granted, I think Skyrim is a gorgeous game, probably one of the best games ever created, and it has enough to fit the needs of most gamers. However, I've always cared more for Fallout, being that it is a game entrenched in a long-running story,mshich always seemed of engross me more. Yes, you could say that the Wasteland itself is rather boring, treking through sand and dirt, destroyed society all-around. However, that was the exact reason I was so entranced by the game. Not-so-much the sameness, but rather, the actual points if interest that showed the last remnants of life. Fallout 4 is the main course for this conference,mbut let us start with some of what I found. It's interesting, and some I didn't, of the big reveals.
Firstly, we all know Elder Scrolls Online....it's dumb, people rather have Elder Scrolls VI, and although I'm not necessarily jumping for joy over that personally,mi can concur with the fans, stop with DLC and nonsense, and get back to the game everyone else wants to play! Then there's something completely different, in-that it's a ree hashed gimmick that nearly made me lose my respect for Bethesda: an online card-based battle game with the Elder Scrolls franchise smacked right in top. Sure, the fanboys of all ages will go Gaga, but even I would be sickened if they did this to Fallout, and really, the only other game that should ever be a card game, other than Pokemon and a magic, is of course, Warhammer. Still, from what I saw, and granted, it wasn't much, I even felt nauseous enought I skip overrated it, I mean, it's not rocket science, they're going to nickel and dime you for every card, every deck, etc. and that's why we are slowly seeing the death rattle of the console game, as taken serious in the eyes if the hardcore gamer.
Still, the landscape of gaming has changed a great deal, and with the trashiest of the trash out of the way, let's get to so ething that actually excited me,,and wasn't Fallout: I'm talking about Doom. For a Publisher/developer, Bethesda has been playing the same game Legendary Pictures has been doing the past several years: working on major franchise titles that were relevant years ago, and are now becoming almost reimagined anew today.
When I saw the first bit of playthrough for Doom today, (yes, I'm a bit behind, but I'm catching up quickly) my jaw didn't drop, it sagged. At first I thought the graphics looked terrible, but on closer inspection of the tablet I was watching on, I sW thwt not only were they decent "next-gen" graphics, I was almost intrigued at how well it played! Seeing Doom 3, this was a nice change of oace, and it almost reinstalled my fate in the franchise. Granted,mi was never an obsessed Doom fan, but it always admired the Wolfensteien/Doom aspect to FPS, and now they both pioneered a to f of the greatest, and worst games ever.
Doom is a dark and gritty game, and although the color scheme of red on red, with a nice hint of dark red is common to the series, the beauty of it was that it still pays homage to the original,,and yet, it barely looks anything like the original I respects to the sixteen-bit era. Doom looks good, but not over-the-top, and that may be a good thing for the series, which hasn't been the greatest in the past several years. Still, Doom ah be a game that puts other FPS games to shame come 2016, however, it doesn't look nearly as innovative as other games out there. Still, Bethesda did a good job trying to make this game look as respectful as the series once was to fans, and we may actually get a Doom game we've been wanting for years. The only problem I saw with the game demo was that it wasn't necessarily too short, nor too long,mbut it almost seemed the single player is going to be. Backseat to yet another hack multiplayer,,which we all know is going to take away from the legitimate gameplay, and shorten the length of the game decently, whereas the multiplayer looks about as boring as most multi players do. Let's be honest, I don't see a to. Of multiplayer doom tournaments coming up in the future,and even so, I don't see this as something I'd like to participate in. Still,if you really want multiplayer in Doom, well you got your wish.
Ext, I want to talk about a sequel that many people have been waiting for, and one in which will cause some controversy: Dishonored 2. Now Dishonored is a game I've actually played, and found to be pitifully boring, with terrible character design, and even more horrific story. The only thing the game did right was blend steals with first person perspective. I also found the semi open-world style of the game to be rather a breath of era hair, making it nearly a sandbox game,mbut it fel too short, and I didn't like the pacing that you find so many other first person style games. Although you can choose when to leave a level, and you can even venture off I to places not nessarily attached to the main missions, it still felt way too confining. Dishonored 2 has the look of a true sequel, one that could envelop the original,mansn probably be the best in the series. We all know the sequel rule of video games: the second and fourth are great, but then it's every other after the fifth title in the series
I didn't see too much of Dishonored 2, frankly I wasn't all that excited for it, but properly, I paid enough attention to know that you're switching out characters where you can actually play as the female protagonist of the first game. Let than that, I know about as much as you do, probably less on the subject.
Okay, so I put it off until now, here is the meat of it all: Fallout 4:
If you've happened to have read my first post about the predictions I've made of Fallout 4, I was quite surprised to be nearly right on the head about. Out of what to expect. With some pleasant surprises thrown in at the last. I ute. The game starts off in pre-war Boston, however, I'm sure they're will be a flashback that leads into that,rather than just starting there. Also, you can choose to okay make or female. The character creation is pretty much like Playstation Home, except if has more of no drag and drop process. I'd like to see if you could utilize that Playstation controller touch pad for the game. Knowing Bethesda, they probably implemented it into the game already. The game is very choice-driven, and yes, the fault dweller talks now, and you can name him/her and yes, people will speak his/her name,mor so they said. I'd like to see if they would call the character numb Nuts by name. Still, the amount of detail makes up for the controversially last-gen graphics. I also don't believe this game will run at sixty frames per second,then again, which game that supposedly does run at that speed, ever actually at ayes constant at the frame rate?
After you leave your nose, and run to the vault....well, they don't show you, because it's a big story spoiler....which is probably that you're not really the original vault dweller, but an android of sorts, and you need to go out and do stuff. Still, even if you're not an android,the story is but the background to a game that is bigger than the actual world many of us have actually wales around in! I loved Fallout 3, was the first game I bought for the PS3, and I love it even still today. This game looks far more complicated,mbut equally rewarding as the third game,mas with many new sequels,there may very well be. A learning curb.
Still, V.A.T.S. makes a return, as does the dog companion, but he's not named Dog Meat. The dog looks far. One far-more realistic than Dog Meat ever did, and although it seems a heavy focus on this random dog you meet, I'm wondering why the major focus? Why give up such a demo that quite frankly feels years older than the rest of the gameplay footage shown. The rest of the footage is of course: Fallout:Minecraft. Now I was giggiling like a school girl during a farting contest, but I never quite believed the purpose of the whole tower defense concepts shown in the gameplay.
The idea of building inside a game that is relevantly similar in idea as the end if the world, it seems to me like it is kinda trying to hide the fact that it wants to be a survival builder, but it doesn't hide it well at all. Still, I'm finding it extremely satisfying thwt I can choose up to a number of places to build my camp. I also think I nailed it when I expected to see a gun crafting system similar to Borderlands, or even Dead Space 3, as it seems to craft more off of that idea, than Borederlands' style.
Building aside, it seems you also have the ability to craft turrets. Which means, along with every other part of the world, you can use your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. abilities, as well as up to seventy perks for your disposal, but it makes me worry the level cap is going to be something of a busllshit number, only because if you can use up to seventy; nearly twice the number of Fallout 3's level cap, the. Now many of these perks are we actually going to be able to use? Unless of course, and this is very doubtful; there is no level cap.
If you build a small settlement, traders, as well as raiders, will make there way to trade with
/destroy you, which is a hell of a lot easier than trying to chase down random traders in the wasteland. People, this seems to be one of the themes of the game, as the conversation seems to be more engrossing, unlike past games; where it seemed to taper off into rather asinine conversations at times, although far more greater than the infamous "You, the master of all locks. " and "Jill sandwich" of past dialogue choices. Still, games evolved now to be bigger than most big budget film productions, and the payoff, at very least; is decent dialogue. From what we've seen so far, the character reactions have been quite limited, although it's pretty obvious, and made so by several sources, that Vault 111, which is ten more from our first vault dweller, and soemthing tells me that this isn't done just for the aesthetics of releasing it on 11/10/15, but that something is going to happen to remind us of Vault 101. However, the release date is very excitable, meaning we will have our hands on the game well before 2016, and just in time for the holiday season.
Another aspect I found interesting is the Pipboy, which has been given an upgrade, as the one we had in Fallout 3 was an older model, hence why if makes sense to upgrade it to a newer, and I must say, more steampunk-looking model. Apparently it plays decks, like an old cassette tape from the VHS/DAT era, and these decks have certain games and functionalities in them. Showcased at the conference we're two games, which looked like carbon copies of Donkey Kong, and; appropriately: Missile Command. I'm curious if these games will transfer over to the phone app. Oh, did I fail to mention that the game will be releasing with a Pipboy edition, where you get your own Pipboy, and a free, downloadable phone app for one of the better second-screen experiences I've ever seen. Will it work without internet, or on other iOS devices like an iPod Touch, but it'll be exciting
Although I didn't hear a clear, concise date for Doom; which is scheduled to be released very early 2016, I did get a strong point from Bethesda that unless the fires of Hell break open, Fallout 4 is going to be here on November 10th. There was a definite urge to have this game very soon, as makes sense to coincide with the release of Skyrim, it tends to make one think that Elder Scrolls VI will be released later on in the console cycle's life, just like it was done for the PS3 and Xbox 360, respectively. So expect 2018, approximately, for the release of Elder Scrolls VI, which is about three more years of development, and that's a conservative estimate. Also, the Behemoths are back, and they look more terrifying than anything in the wastes. Except for the Deathclaws, they're always terrifying.
So we get an awesome look that feels slow, and forever-lasting, though I doubt it was more than five minutes of story, barely, and about twenty minutes, which is barely the prologue for Fallout. The main course was delightful, enough to warrant a preorder, paid-in-full. Yet Bethesda wasn't finished, as a nice big piece of the pie for dessert, we have Fallout Shelter. This will be either really up one's alley, or something you can't stand. Fallout Shelter is an iOS game for Android and Apple, and it's out literally right now. I've played the game, and I absolutely hate that it likes to crash nearly every five minutes on me. Okay, I got my complaint about the crash out of the way, so here's what I love: it's like a tamigachi , but with humans. You feed them, dress them, send them out into the wild, you can even make them have babies to increase the size of your vault dwellings.
The game is great because there is no cool down, there is. I gimmick, it works, well, mostly, right after uploading, and it's pretty fun. I love the design, as it has a very child-like innocence thwt comes from the cartoony world of Fallout, and it's practically different every playthrough. You will feel challenged, and so etimes unfairly challenged, but it is a fun game, overall, despite some minor flaws, and it's one of the better-looking games I've seen on iOS, developed specifically for iOS. I spent several hours yesterday playing it, soley to give you a rather detailed review. You start off with a handful of developers, and put them to work building power generators, dining halls, and sleeping quarters. You also need to build treatment facilities to make med paks, and you can even upgrade to broadcast across the wastelands so you get more dwellers to come to your door and help you out. You also get several lunch boxes through completing daily tasks, which really is like a care package full of cards that give you manny benefits, like extra caps, special rare dwellers (I got Harkness from Fallout 3, loved to see if they give you Faust, that'd be overkill though.) the game is fun, but the crashes aggravate more than stimulate the playing of the game. I'll have to send out a troubleshooting report somehow.
You can upgrade rooms to fill your dweller's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes, but the game is tasking, and the leveling up feels like it takes forever. Also, you have to wwtch out for raiders, fires, and radroaches attacking you on a constant basis. You also can make your character go out into the wastelands, and find materials for you to use in prevention of those attacks. I'm not sure that this game will tie into the big brother coming out later in the Fall, but I'm mystified by just how much work has been done to the game. It truly is a great little game, and if they fix the crashing, or I discover why the hell it's crashing, I'll probably love the game even more.
Overall, Bethesda's conference was a mixed bag, and the the only real surprise was from the iOS. I liked it, but I was excited, not surprised, and for E3, I really want to feel surprised, and sadly the fucks of the internet won't allow for anything to be a surprise anymore because they hunt to leak things, like spoiled brats wanting to peek at the presents before Christmas. The thing with leaks is, it's not just a peek behind the wrapping paper. But they rip it apart, tear ass out of the closet, and bust though the living room of the world holding up the prize saying "look what I've found!"
Anyway, I'll be doing the Xbox, Njntendo, and Sony conferences here on the Malacast Editorial as well. Enjoy E3, as well plow through this week of big sneak peaks, and a ton of information that will be the next fiscal year of gaming. Thank you for joining me here on the Malacast Editorial, and please, keep coming back for more in-depth information during my coverage of E3.
No comments:
Post a Comment