Nuclear Monster

  • Rayman’s Raving Press Conference starts now:

    • South Park: The Stick of Truth is getting a sequel with superheroes instead of medieval stuff. It’s called South Park: The Fractured, but Whole. Get it?
    • Lots of dumb butt-hole jokes with Matt Stone and Trey Parker on-stage. Apparently it’ll be using the same formula as the first Stick of Truth game, so expect more RPG in the same engine.
    • So many dumb jokes about other things including “tea-bagging.”
    • Reddit jokes.
    • Trailer for something called For Honor. Medieval dudes fighting. Vikings too? There’s a dude with a way too well manicured beard on stage with a cane. Two teams of four are now playing a demo. Looks like it is a cross between Chivalry and Mount & Blade.
    • The Crew is getting motorcycles and monster trucks in The Crew: Wild Run. November 15th.
    • A horse is galloping and shooting fire out of it’s nostrils with a weird cat thing that has a ray gun. It’s a new Trials game.
    • More Tom Clancy’s: The Division. Third-person multiplayer shooting. Sphero’s. A wilhelm scream as an NPC dies. Your team can betray other teams that you come across in the multiplayer. Or you can betray your whole team and take their loot for yourself. Betas for console and Windows early next year. The Division comes out March 8th, 2016.
    • Anno 2205, November 3rd. It’s Ubisoft’s city building game. They mention a beta later this year so I’m not sure if that is 2015’s November or 2016. The PC versions of these games have been pretty terrible in terms of DRM that only has a few activations before you can’t play it again.
    • They’re trying to make meme jokes with some dude in the audience who is wearing the most embarrassing cosplay and is not prepared for this at all.
    • Just Dance 2016 on all motion platforms. Xbox One, Playstation 4, Wii-U. There’s Jason Derulo singing to a completely unresponsive crowd. Even the host of the show won’t get up and dance with the singer when he attempts to pull her on stage. After the song Derulo even mentions how awkward it was. There’s a subscription streaming service called Just Dance Unlimited for Just Dance 2016.
    • Of course what follows up dancing and singing better than terrorism in Rainbow Six: Seige. Angela Bassett was in the trailer, now she’s on stage. Bassett is your boss in the game. Terrorist Hunt is in this, if it’s anything like Vegas’ Terrorist Hunt mode I will be psyched. There’s an on-stage demo, it looks awesome. You can break through walls with battering rams. Beta starts September 24th, 2015.
    • Trackmania: Turbo is up. Francois and Francois are here to show us some single player. It looks amazing. There’s a procedurally generated track mode. Francois flubs it the first time on the new track and hits a sign on a jump, flipping his car over.
    • Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. Horse-drawn carriages and mutton chops mean it’s victorian England business. Not one assassination yet. Guns and wrist-blades are seen at the end. There’s some kind of in-person demo kiosks available in various locations around the world but the only United States location is in Los Angeles.
    • We couldn’t go through another press conference without mentioning “IP” and you bet it’s “new IP.”
    • The new IP is Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands. It’s some kind of open-world third-person shooter. Tom Clancy’s name is getting a real workout for so much that he isn’t involved with. I guess that counts as new IP since the gameplay is kind of new,

    That’s it.

  • Here’s the news from the EA E3 press briefing:

    • The new Mass Effect has a name, it’s Mass Effect: Andromeda. “Discover a new galaxy.”
    • Need for Speed. No subtitle. Customization, what a surprise. “A new narrative.” with five ways to play. November 3rd. Looks good. I’ve been playing a bunch of Wreckfest lately and getting back into arcade racing.
    • Star Wars: The Old Republic has a new expansion, Knights of the Fallen Empire. October 27th. Free to paid subscribers, free 2 play players are left out I guess?
    • “…next two original IPs…” STOP SAYING “IP”
    • Unravel. A cat made out of yarn called Yarny. Puzzle-platformer. The yarn that Yarny is made out of unravels while you move. It’s nice to have a completely different tone to this than the extreme bro-ocity of Need For Speed.
    • Of course we have to revisit Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. A zombie walks out on stage in a super hero outfit. The Zombie is ushered offstage while a joke, “You can’t take Zombies anywhere.” is delivered flatly and received by the audience with no reaction. Excuse me while I take a 5 minute power nap. Zombie co-op mode called Graveyard Ops. Local split-screen. A timer on-screen reminds us that it is only 35 minutes to Star Wars: Battlefront. Garden Warfare 2 launches spring 2016. Free content updates are promised.
    • NHL 16. Lots of Tim Hortons advertisements on the boards.
    • PGA Tour.
    • EA Sports Ultimate Team. It’s the same dumb card game thing.
    • NBA Live 16. “Rooted in self-expression.” Hoop God is here to show us how to do stuff. Face scanning. Face scanning is the stuff Hoop God is here to show us how to do. September 29th. Phone app for the face scanning. Apparently it’s spelled THAHoopGawd. “Up your swag.” No, up your swag. Dude only has one tweet.
    • Here’s a little secret between you and me, I didn’t even know that the Golden State Warriors were a professional team and I’ve been in Oakland since 2011. I thought they were a college team.
    • Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes collectible card game for phones.
    • Minions Paradise. I’ve never see any of the Despicable Me movies. This awful game has two currency systems on screen already.
    • Pelé is on screen talking over a montage of football video. Now he’s on stage. The crowd rose to all take cell-phone photos. Nobody think about the current FIFA scandal. Nothing is wrong in the world of football. Pelé is here to make you feel better.
    • FIFA 16. “Tons of innovations in our game.”  We’re once again reminded that it there are only 15 minutes until Star Wars: Battlefront. “Women’s teams are in the game.” Okay, that’s legitimately innovative.
    • “What would life be like if we willingly gave up our privacy?” I don’t know, is Eric Schmidt up next to tell us about how we’ve been doing that for years? Oh, never mind. It’s Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst. “She doesn’t need any guns.” Correct, Faith doesn’t. Please don’t ruin Catalyst with them. In-engine footage. February 23rd, 2016. Awesome. The game looks like they’ve been inspired by the lens-flares of Mass Effect.
    • Madden 16. Some dude from ESPN 2. I just hear the trombone sound of the parents from Peanuts speaking. Draft Champions is helpfully on-screen because I had forgotten what they were talking about. Fantasy football. That’s what they were talking about. I’m checking on my Fallout: Shelter on the iPhone.
    • Fuck the timer, the Battlefront trailer is already on YouTube:
    • Peter Moore is speaking about Star Wars: Battlefront but not showing the trailer.
    • They’re finally playing some Star Wars music in the background and trying to convince us how much they care about Star Wars.
    • Multiplayer and AI battles for singleplayer.
    • They’re still not showing game footage on stage. They just keep talking.
    • They’re finally playing the exact same trailer that is on their YouTube channel. The view switches between first and third-person. The schwartz is strong with this one.
    • No Battlefield 5 mentioned during this one. Did they not want to confuse people or what?

    That’s it.

  • Watching the Xbox press briefing this morning. Here’s what got announced:

    • Stop saying IP. Holy crap that terminology is dumb.
    • Halo 5 has 12 v 12 multiplayer that looks like battlefield and what looks like 4 player co-op.
    • Something new from the folks behind Metroid Prime but it was just a trailer instead of gameplay footage. Robots and power spheres in the desert called ReCore.
    • Xbox One, like the 360, will have limited backwards compatibility with some Xbox 360 games. There’s a list of 100 games that’ll be available later this year. People on the invite-only dashboard preview program can get access to some of them today. More games will be added later on until Microsoft stops caring and they have already put the onus on developers/publishers to approve their games for backwards compatibility during the conference.
    • Fallout 4 mods will work on the Xbox One at no cost. Fallout 4 comes out this November.
    • Xbox One Elite controller, it’s customizable, changeable parts, paddles and extra buttons on the back.
    • Electronic Arts’ Access Vault garbage having more games available. Access Vault is EA’s subscription thing ($5/month) where you get early access to games via download.
    • Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2.
    • An advertisement for a new Ford car preceded a Forza Motorsport 6 reel.
    • Dark Souls III. Early 2016.
    • Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: The Division beta this December exclusively for Xbox.
    • Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Vegas 1 & 2 backwards compatibility this December. They’re free if you buy The Division. I loved Vegas 1 & 2.
    • Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Seige comes out October 15th.
    • Tacoma from Fullbright looks awesome. Timed exclusive for Xbox and Windows. No specific date but out in 2016.
    • Ashen, not Ashens.
    • Beyond Eyes, Summer 2015. It’s a third person game.
    • Cuphead, 2D platformer that looks like the original Mickey Mouse and old Betty Boop cartoons. Exclusive. 2016.
    • Unfinished games come to Xbox with Game Preview. It’s Microsoft’s answer to Steam’s Early Access. Each game will have some kind of free trial version. The Long Dark, Sheltered, Elite: Dangerous, DayZ are the first announced games for it. All are already on Steam. Elite: Dangerous and The Long Dark will be available later today.
    • Rise of the Tomb Raider, end of the year. Xbox exclusive. Pre-order now to commit your money before you know if it’s any good or not.
    • The rumored Rare game collection is real. RC Pro-Am, Solar JetmanKiller-Instinct, Battletoads, Blast Corps, 30 games total. $30. It’s called Rare Reply and it’ll be out August 4th. Battletoads still sucks. No Goldeneye, no Donkey Kong Country, of course.
    • Sea of Thieves from Rare, exclusive multiplayer Pirate adventuring.
    • Fable Legends. Free2play for Windows and Xbox.
    • A bunch of VR stuff. They’re working with Valve VR as well as Oculus to display games in 2d in both headsets when streamed from an Xbox One to Windows. Mixed-reality with Microsoft’s Hololens.
    • Apparently Mojang is pronounced Mo-yang. What.
    • Hololens will work with Minecraft. It’s 2D and displayed wherever as long as you have a Hololens device. Or it can be displayed on a physical table and it’s augmented reality-ified. Nifty.
    • Gears of War: Ultimate Edition. August 25th. Xbox One version of the first Gears. 1-week public beta starts today.
    • New Gears of War. Looks good. Dark. Seems less bro-ver-the-top. It’s just called Gears 4. Late 2016.
    • There’s a new Xbox One UI coming.
    • I just got an e-mail from the Elite: Dangerous developer, Frontier, encouraging me to buy Elite for the Xbox One with a £5 gift code for the Elite store if I do. I don’t really see any reason why I would do that when I  have it on my computer and can display that on my TV with a long HDMI cable and a wireless controller. Or a Steam Link. Or a Steam Machine.
    • No Call of Duty at this event, no mention of Xbox on the Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 banner outside the E3 building.

    That’s it.

  • Alan Joyce:

    This summer, we’ll launch YouTube Gaming, a brand new app and website to keep you connected to the games, players, and culture that matter to you, with videos, live streams, and the biggest community of gamers on the web–all in one place.

    YouTube Gaming is built to be all about your favorite games and gamers, with more videos than anywhere else. From “Asteroids” to “Zelda,” more than 25,000 games will each have their own page, a single place for all the best videos and live streams about that title. You’ll also find channels from a wide array of game publishers and YouTube creators.

    Keeping up with these games and channels is now super easy, too. Add a game to your collection for quick access whenever you want to check up on the latest videos. Subscribe to a channel, and you’ll get a notification as soon as they start a live stream. Uncover new favorites with recommendations based on the games and channels you love. And when you want something specific, you can search with confidence, knowing that typing “call” will show you “Call of Duty” and not “Call Me Maybe.”

     Live streams bring the gaming community closer together, so we’ve put them front-and-center on the YouTube Gaming homepage. And in the coming weeks, we’ll launch an improved live experience that makes it simpler to broadcast your gameplay to YouTube. On top of existing features like high frame rate streaming at 60fps, DVR, and automatically converting your stream into a YouTube video, we’re redesigning our system so that you no longer need to schedule a live event ahead of time. We’re also creating single link you can share for all your streams.

    A sub-site specific to games with custom search isn’t going to solve everything wrong with using YouTube for game streaming and pre-recorded videos but the other changes are very important. Scheduling a live event ahead of time makes sense for developers and publishers live streaming but doesn’t always work for people like me who would rather build up an audience of subscribers who get notified when I go live.

    The most important change YouTube could make is to recognize that I’m in a game and more intelligently handle copyright notices. Video games are full of copyrighted music, and without legal advisement it is difficult to navigate YouTube’s current copyright notice system. To be fair, YouTube is more intelligently handling that problem than Twitch’s policy of just muting the audio for the portion of the video where the copyrighted music is present. I’m still terrified that my YouTube account will get shut down if I dispute the copyright notices with a claim of fair use, which is the only way to get some videos to be viewable again in the United States.

  • The Xbox One controller is getting an update. It’ll have a 3.5mm headset jack and better bumpers. More importantly, Microsoft is finally going to release the wireless dongle for computers to accept connections from XBone controllers. Previously you could connect it with a USB cable, it’ll be good to stop using the one from my Steam Controller.

    I’ve got the wireless dingus for 360 controllers to connect to PC, but those adapters are not as easy to find anymore and the newer XBone controller is superior to the aging 360 pads in most ways. Hopefully this also puts an end to the days of people trying to use 360 play-n-charge kits to connect their gamepads to a computer. That never worked because the play-n-charge kit delivered power without a data signal.

    There’s no release date yet for the Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows other than “this fall.” It’ll cost $25 when it is released or $80 in a bundle with the updated controller.

    The new controller will be available on it’s own much sooner, on June 16th for $60, to coincide with a new version of the Xbox One that includes a 1 terabyte hard drive at $400. That’s $50 more than the 500 gigabyte Xbox One. The hard drive will still not be user-replacable on either version of the console because Microsoft:

    1. Doesn’t trust their users to swap hard drives
    2. They don’t understand the value of designing that functionality
    3. They want to give people a reason to buy new consoles.

    Pick one. Any way you look at the hard drive situation on the Xbox, it’s insulting to users.

    You could take this to mean that Microsoft just wants to be ready in case Valve’s Steam Controller gains more of a foothold. You might be right, but I don’t take that this latest push from Microsoft to mean much. They’ve pretended to care about Windows gaming before.