First off, “most” of the launch titles were available for demo. The launch list is to say the least mediocre. Ryse: Son of Rome seems to be the Xbox One’s choice for the premier launch title. Don’t get me wrong though, it doesn’t look like a bad choice.
The graphics are stunning by any standards, the gameplay is fairly intuitive while the story line from the demo at least seems to be engrossing enough to keep the player invested. Here’s the Microsoft description for Ryse…
As great as the game looks it seems to suffer from the one thing I absolutely can’t stand when overused in any game: quick time events. Some games use them in a fun way and others tend to use them to advance to the next story mission. Then there are titles which go completely overboard entirely. From the demo of Ryse I can say that the end of every kill appeared to be a quick time event. That gets very old, very fast. Don’t get me wrong, the game still has some amazing potential to carry the Xbox One as a day one release title to be reckoned with though. I like the idea of rising through the ranks and battling my way to infamy!
I just don’t like quick time events dictating the journey…
Other titles of mention at the event included: Battlefield 4, Project Spark, Killer Instinct, and Disney’s Fantasia – which looked as interesting as watching paint dry. Sue me, I’m just saying. Also being shown for some reason were Halo 4, Fable Anniversary, and a few other titles that frankly aren’t on my interest meter of note. Add to this they were running on 360s…
It would have been nice to see what all the fuss is about and, as an avid Assassin’s Creed player – Ezio really was the best character they ever created and that’s not just because he’s Italian – I was very disappointed this was not at the Xbox event. This looks to be the largest AC game to date, with a new protagonist, set during the Golden Age of Piracy. Oh piracy how we miss thee! I’m extremely curious as to how the story line will pick up elements of the previous titles, especially after what I felt was the ***Non-Spoiler Alert*** lackluster ending of AC 3. If you haven’t played it yet I won’t ruin it for you as it’s mostly an amazing game. Unfortunately AC3 is yet another title that suffers from minimal payoff in the ending. Or at least that’s my opinion.
During the evening Jeff and I had the pleasure of speaking to Microsoft’s Major Nelson (Larry Hryb). Larry was seemingly very excited about a few upcoming announcements that, of course, he wouldn’t spill the beans to us. I did express my contentment of Microsoft backing down on their restrictive shared game policy as well as their “always on” connection policy. Those were my two biggest gripes against the Xbox One and I was happy to see they were no longer concerns.
The Xbox One plays smoother than anything I’ve ever used; it’s quiet and looks to have the power to handle any next gen title with authority. What remains to be seen is if the next gen console warwill be one of amazing exclusives or just simply boil down to console preference. I guess we’ll see over the next year or so. This is one Xbox fan excited to see how things play out. And, of course, I reserved an Xbox One console the day they became available and can’t wait for release.
I’m curious what our readers are looking forward to with the next gen release of the Xbox One?
I will say it was pretty funny how Larry Hyrb didn’t seem to like how I brought up the $100 price drop a couple times. Hell, we were there to report too – not just booze it up. 🙂