Month: August 2015

On the Outside Looking In

Posted on by jaws13

mgs5releasedate1280jpg-1ddd13_1280wNot surprisingly, “Metal Gear Solid V:  The  Phantom Pain” is getting stellar reviews.  It seems harder to find a site that hasn’t given the game a perfect score at this point than one that has.  And – full confession – I’m a bit grumpy about it.

See, for as many years as I can remember, I’ve always played the major Game of the Year contenders.  Not out of obligation, but because I wanted to.  They were games that were already up my particular alley.  The added acclaim just made them that much more exciting.  “Portal 2”, “Skyrim”, “The Last of Us”, “Gears” and “Halo”, “Journey”…no arm twisting required there.  I was always in on the conversation.  All the pros and cons, the arguments and reviews and spoiler-casts were all mine for the consumption and – most importantly – I felt I had something to add, even if only in my own head.  And I could pat myself on the back for having a pretty good eye for greatness (humbly, of course).

And I was doing really well so far this year too.  I’ve played “Bloodborne” and “Batman” and “Witcher” and “Ori”.  I have “Fallout 4” and “Halo 5” and even “Battlefront” squarely on my radar. I was ready.

Until this week.

If the reviews are any indication, it seems almost preordained that “Metal Gear” will be GoTY for most…and I almost certainly won’t be playing it, at least not for some time.  It’s not the game’s fault.  It looks amazing.  I know the quality Kojima is capable of producing.  It seems like the kind of game that will constantly offer something new and surprising for a long, long bit of playtime.

And I just don’t know how much I’d enjoy it.

I recently tried to go back to the “Metal Gear” HD collection on my Vita.  Immediately, I was lost and frustrated again.  What the hell is going on?  Where am I supposed to go?  The controls felt antiquated and stiff and for a game that wanted me to be stealthy, it sure went out of its way to make Snake a clumsy buffoon every time he moves.  But perhaps the games just haven’t aged as well, I thought.  So I tried “Ground Zeroes”.  Marveled at the graphics.  Stunned by the production.  And again asked myself “What the hell is going on?”, “Where am I supposed to go?” and was spotted almost instantly by every guard patrol.

The truth is I just don’t think the “Metal Gear” series is for me.  I like the games fine enough and I definitely appreciate their place in the spectrum but they’re not something I can get excited about the way others do.  For whatever reason, I can’t seem to fully embrace the things the make the series special to others – the goofiness, the “play anyway you want” nature of the missions, the multi-game lore that Kojima has crafted.  In my mind, “Metal Gear” is a stealth game where I suck at being stealthy, a story-driven experience where I don’t understand what’s happening, and a serious game about counter-intelligence that I can’t take seriously because enemies don’t know why the hell a cardboard box just showed up in the middle of the room.  Essentially, I’m trying to play a “Metal Gear” game that’s not “Metal Gear”.  And that just doesn’t work.

Fans of the series will no doubt tell me to lighten up, give it more time, I’m not playing it right, this one is different, and all of that is good advice.  But with soooooo many other games both currently out and upcoming, I can’t justify at $60 purchase where I just don’t know if what I’m getting is what I want, even if it is supposedly one of the best games ever created.

What’s been surprising this week is how surly this makes me.  How this has brought out every bad fanboy tendency from someone who has vocally criticized those tendencies in others.  “Surely it can’t be THAT good,” I scoff.  “Guess everyone forgot about ‘Witcher’ and ‘Bloodborne’ already,” I harrumph.  And the most embarrassing:  “Well, of course they said that! They’re all ‘Metal Gear’ fans already!  Bias!”  It’s petty and stupid and it all comes from one singular place:  I feel left out.

For the first time in a while, I will not be in the conversation.  I will not be trading stories about my Mother Base setup, or how I completed that mission completely differently from my friends, or how Kojima ended his story.  I will not be able to intelligently debate Game of the Year with such a notable omission.  I’m the guy at the party standing in the corner just nursing his drink while everyone else has a great old time.  Actually – worse – I’m the guy listening to everyone talk about the party I wasn’t invited to attend.  Woe is me (and also “first world problems”, I know).

So, what to do?  My head says to be smart, to understand that there’s only so much time and money to go around, that other things are more exciting for me personally and deserve my attention, that it’s just a game and my life will not be less fulfilling for not having played it.  By then I see yet another website rate the game as “essential” and I can feel myself starting to cave.

And so, restraint…for now.  Eventually the game will drop in price to a point where I can no longer resist and I must see what the fuss is about, time and money be damned.  Until then, I’ll publicly be happy for the fans of the series and ecstatic for the medium of gaming in general…and try to keep all my scowling and growling on the inside.

Going to the “Rapture” With Henry

Posted on by jaws13

My son Henry comes down the stairs as I’m playing “Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture”.  I have my headphones on but I pull the one side off so I can hear him while finishing up.  He’s six-about-to-turn-seven but quite the gamer, so he’s interested any time there’s a controller in someone’s hand.

“What are you playing?”

“It’s called ‘Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.'”

His brow furrows.  “What’s Rapture?”

I briefly contemplate telling him it’s an underwater city run by a megalomaniac who has read too much Ayn Rand, but I figure that can wait until later in his gaming career.   I also consider “don’t worry about it”, but I hate that answer.  So I go with…

“Some people who believe in heaven think that if the world ends all the good people will just disappear from Earth first.”

He gives me a look that suggests I might have gone crazy.  I shrug.  Not my idea.

Everybody’s-Gone-to-the-Rapture“Can you take one of those cars?”

“Nope.”

“Why are you moving so slow?”

“Because I’m walking.”  And also because the developers forgot to tell everyone that there actually is a “run” option in the game.  But I digress.

“Where are all the people?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Did they all die?”

“Or they left.”  Or aliens.  Or strange anomalies of physics.  “That’s the big mystery.”

“I bet if you go to one of the big houses the people will be there.”

He sees one.

“Ooh, go there.”

“Okay, bud.”

I go in what seems to be a school or meeting house.  Some of the yellow-light figures show up and begin talking.everybodys gone to the rapture review main

“See?  Told ya.”

“Yeah, you were right.”

Back outside.

“Are you sure you can’t take those cars?”

“Yeah, bud.”

“It would be cool if you could take that car.”

I can’t disagree.

“Can I play ‘Splatoon” now?”

“Sure, pal.”

Video game logic and kid logic together are a wonderful thing.

Jumping the Gun: The Problem with Video Game Previews

Posted on by jaws13

quantum-break-1This week, Kotaku posted some reactions to what they saw of “Quantum Break” and called it “rubbish”.  My XBox related Facebook group lit up with frustrated fans claiming  Sony bias, saying the game looks amazing, etc., etc.  Meanwhile, a number of sites have extolled the virtues of XBox’s cloud-based processing in “Crackdown 3” as something that “PS4 can’t do”.  To listen to some, the console war had clearly just ended.  Hand out the trophies and the champagne.   Somewhat lost in all of the noise is the fact that one of those games comes out in April of next year.  April.  As in eight months away.  The other is vaguely slated for “summer” of next year.  And don’t even get me started on IGN’s “First” treatment of “Scalebound” this month, a game that is over a year away at absolute best.

There’s something a bit odd about a preview of a game that may not even be the actual game that releases, and often times it seems counterproductive long-term.  “Watch Dogs” was, in my opinion, a fun, solid game.  It just wasn’t the game that the hype seemed to promise.  Ditto “Rage” and “Assassin’s Creed 3” (or “Unity” for that matter), Other games like “The Order: 1886” seemed doomed before they started.  Then there’s the charges of graphical downgrades (see: “Watch Dogs”, “Dark Souls 2”, etc.) which are hard to avoid when every single screenshot goes under the fanboy microscope.  Even this year’s previews of “Quantum Break” acknowledged that it’s a very different game (including the entire cast!) than what was first shown quite some time ago.

I truly don’t blame the websites and journalists.  This is news and they have a job to do.  All they can do is cover the games honestly based on what they know at present and create stories that drive traffic.  I also don’t blame gamers.  We’re an excitable lot.  It’s one of our best qualities and the one that motivates us to consume every single shred of information about the games we love.  I also suppose I can’t truly blame the developers and publishers.  They have shareholders to excite and budgets to pass and other financial concerns that I don’t pretend to understand (not to mention ideally putting out the best product that they can under limited time constraints). But at the convergence between the three, we have a system that seems broken in any way that isn’t geared towards a cynical cash/attention grab.

wmqz91sh27yjuzqdznikTake “No Man’s Sky” for instance.  Is there any major gaming site that has not drooled obsessively over that game for the better part of the last year?  There’s plenty of reason to do so, as the game looks fantastic both visually and conceptually.  But when you get down to what the game actually is, there still seem to be more questions than answers.  Is the universe actually fun to explore?  Is there sufficient diversity planet to planet?  Is the combat any fun?  Does it feel repetitive or lonely after a while?  Does the game’s economy actually reward exploration and collection?  What’s the endgame look like?  And, of course, when is it coming out?  Maybe this year…maybe next.  Who knows?  So what you are left with is a hype machine running at full speed for a game that could be a galactic version of “Minecraft” or a big polished box with nothing substantial inside.  And, like gamers everywhere, I’m lining up to open that box with the full awareness that I could be colossally disappointed.  Is that really a good thing?

Crackdown-790x444And how about that “Crackdown 3” and the fully destructible city?  Power of the cloud FTW!!  The initial cheering was more than sufficient to drown out some very good questions from devs at Naughty Dog and elsewhere about the long-term potential of an “always online” game, the news that internet providers could choke the processing power, the fact that all the destructibility was 100% in multiplayer and the fact that the summer release window might only be for a beta or a limited multiplayer release.  Does that mean this is all hand-waving and smoke and mirrors?  Not at all, but it does mean that maybe we should wait a bit more before we pronounce this the true next-gen of next-gen experiences.

scalebound_gameplayThink back to E3 and Gamescom and count up the number of games that have concrete release dates (or as “concrete” as such things can be).  How many do you have?  There are the 2015 games, or course – “Halo”, “Fallout 4”, “Battlefront” and the like – but drift to 2016 and you find nothing but fog.  There’s “Uncharted 4” and “Quantum Break” but what else?  Some at least gave windows but many were just the catch-all “sometime next year”.  So how many months of stories and gameplay videos and interviews and podcast discussions and fanboy debates does that add up to by the time the fog clears?  And when it does, what are the chances that what emerges looks anything like the image we’ve all built up in our minds?  Or, more to the point, the image that’s been intentionally put there by publishers, developers and news sites?  Already “Quantum Break” is being set up by some to be the next “The Order: 1886”.  Why? What if it’s the next “Infamous” or “Max Payne”?  “Scalebound”‘s protagonist already has many swearing off the game because he seems like an spoiled brat teen, but what if that’s just the beginning of a significant character arc that sees him grow up over the course of 15-20 hours?  And let’s not even start on “The Last Guardian”.  I’m not even sure if Sony knows what that game will be.  The nasty flip side of this particular coin is that the longer the discussion drags on with nothing definitive in sight, the more the pressure builds to actually deliver the game at some now firm but arbitrary date, leading to crunch conditions for the creators, possible cutbacks in features, and an even more desperate scramble to control the mind-share by any means necessary.

There may be no way to stop it.  The hype train will continue to build momentum until it crushes everything in its path.  In an ideal world, gamers would temper expectations to realistic levels, developers and publishers would wait until a game is nearly finished before showing it off (once again, see “Fallout 4”), and journalists would have something much more concrete to write and talk about.  But that is not the world we live in.  So the discussion will continue to rise to hyperbolic levels – one way or the other – and the hype train will all too often drop us off in Disappointment Town with occasional stops in The Land of Pleasant Surprises.  And we as gamers will continue to punch our tickets not actually knowing which one is our final destination.

The Mid-Summer Gaming Drought

Posted on by jaws13

Let’s call it the “Go outside and play” syndrome.

For whatever reason, the summer months have always been a dry period for video games.  Sometimes there’s a big game around E3 (“Arkham Knight” this year), there are the occasional secret gems that come out of nowhere and there are surely a lot of smaller digital titles that become the focus of PSN or XBox Live, but for the most part it’s a barren landscape.  There’s almost a stigma to being a “summer game”.  “”Until Dawn” is being released in the summer?  Hmph, how good could it really be then.”

How did this start and why does it still happen?  Part of it is surely the shoehorning of all available AAA blockbusters into whatever Fall week hasn’t already been taken in preparation for the Black Friday/Christmas apocalypse.  Part of it may in fact be the notion that gamers are mostly camped in front of their favorite black boxes when it is cold and dark, not bright and sunny (though I think this fundamentally misunderstands our addiction…I mean, “hobby”).  I think looking at entertainment in a wider sense, however, sheds some light on the motivations here.

While TV and gaming have always been sparse in summer time, movies seem to be becoming more so as well.  “What?” you say.  “What about “Avengers”?”  Sure, and then what?  “Hey, Jurassic World”!!!  Absolutely, but let’s be honest – did anyone expect it to be quite THAT big?  And other than those two, what were the really BIG films so far this year, the ones that everyone just had to see on the big screen?  The most highly regarded movies were probably “Mad Max: Fury Road” which had moderate success and “Inside Out” which did very well…but not as well as the much inferior “Minions” if I recall.  After that, it was a hodgepodge of impossible missions and ant-men and rom-coms and so on.  Meanwhile, let’s talk Fall/Holiday, shall we?

“Mocking-Jay Part 2”

“Spectre”

“Star Wars”

And, of course, the usual Oscar bait.

What used to be multiple popcorn flicks battling it out for summer supremacy every single week of June and July has more recently thinned with many of the sure-fire winners shifting to the fall and winter.  Not just “Best Picture” nominees, but big-boom, eye-searing, pulse-pounding blockbusters – the kind that used to be pigeonholed into Memorial Day and Fourth of July.  Instead of a nicely spaced out calendar, we have a month long glut and then nothing until the two month glut  that comes later in the year.  Unfortunately, whether it’s games, film or television, this always leads to winners and losers, a real version of “The Hunger Games” where otherwise quality work goes to die because it can’t compete with some juggernaut like “Star Wars” or “Fallout 4”.

Is there a common thread or two here?

I suspect that the reasons for this are multiple.  First, I think there’s the obvious pull of holiday money.  Everyone is already spending, so why not attract some of those dollars your way?  Second, I think there’s a perception issue, a certain level of seriousness and confidence that is projected when creative people send their work out to compete with other major releases. Surely, only real gladiators enter the ring to do battle, right?  This, interestingly, could have a snowball effect.  As more and more make the move, it could tempt others to do the same, but there must be some saturation point.  Third, it’s hard to overlook those end of year awards, whether it’s the Oscars or the Game of the Year.  It would be great if those decisions were made in a completely unbiased way, but very often the game/movie/show that someone was impacted by most recently looms largest.  I know it often does for me, and while critics are more professional and experienced than I am, they’re still human.  Will I still think “Bloodborne” is my game of the year when I’ve just finished “Fallout 4” or “Halo 5” or “Battlefront”?  We’ll see.

Personally I’m not complaining right now as the drought has given me ample time to attack my backlog – in just the last month or so I’ve finished “Ori and the Blind Forest”, “Sunset Overdrive” and “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare”‘s campaign, and also had time to return to “The Witcher” and finally try out “Titanfall”.  Not too shabby.  But that’s my situation for the next few months as well until “Halo 5” releases in October, and other gamers are likely already twiddling their thumbs waiting for something new to drop.  The real shame is all the great work that gets missed once the massive pileup finally does begin. The most often cited example right now is “Rise of the Tomb Raider”.  However great that game turns out to be, can it survive releasing mere days after “Black Ops 3”, the exact same day as “Fallout 4”, and only one week before “Star Wars: Battlefront”?  How about Nintendo’s big holiday release”Starfox”?  Or “Just Cause 3”?  And even if those games get delayed, do they really want to chance going up against the probable releases of “Uncharted 4” or “Dark Souls 3” or whatever else is lurking in the spring?  What’s the answer then?

I think the answer is for some of these games to plant their flags in the weak spots on the calendar, such as summer.  It worked for “Dying Light” this year in the spring.  It’s probably easier said than done as release dates are all too fluid.  Maybe it also creates a perception/awareness issue, but that’s for your marketing department to solve.  Maybe the game is not remembered as well at the end of the year.   Again, marketing or perhaps word of a “game of the year” edition incoming.  It’s a chance, for sure, but isn’t that better than a great game being drowned by a sea of other great games?

Perhaps I’m being too cynical.  Maybe each team and publisher truly thinks that their game is a champion, the one to rise above the noise and stand out as something truly special.  Maybe it’s optimism more than anything else that reigns supreme. That’s admirable and I hope it works out for them.  But I can’t help thinking that sometimes the best way to win the fight is still to avoid it completely.

Microsoft Gamescom Conference Reactions

Posted on by jaws13

So the Microsoft press conference is in the books and I’ve had plenty of time to digest everything they presented.  How did I think they did?  Overall, very well as expected – some major highs, some minor missed opportunities.  Here are my thoughts on the announcements that left the biggest impressions on me.

–  Right out of the gate, Phil Spencer puts the focus on first party lineup stretching into 2016 as promised.  Very smart.  The unfortunate downside of Microsoft reversing many of the unpopular features of the XBox One is that the system is now less easy to distinguish from the Playstation 4.  Add to that the ongoing perception that the PS4 is more powerful and you need something compelling to set the XBox One apart.  As many have said, it’s all about the games.  Spencer clearly knows that.

Quantum-Break_2015_08-04-15_017–  I said before the conference that “Quantum Break” needed to blow me away.  I’m not sure I’m quite there, but this was nearly everything I was hoping for.  The gameplay looks like a mix of “Max Payne” and “Infamous” – a winning combination in my book – though I am surprised that the game is as much of a shooter as this showed.  I’m still unclear on how the television show works with the game.  Is it in-game cutscenes?  Something accessed from the menu?  Can we manipulate it at all?  Or is it something almost completely separate?  Whatever the case may be, both the gameplay and the live-action preview were enough to get both me and my wife (mostly a non-gamer) wanting to see more (having Game of Thrones’s Littlefinger (Aiden Gillen) in it sure didn’t hurt).  The one disappointment is the April release date, as I was hoping for something a bit sooner.  Still, as long as they hit this date, it’s a must-play game for me.  Any more delays, however, and the red flags start to rise again.

–  I didn’t play the first two “Crackdown” games and while I like the look of the game and I certainly understand the appeal, I”m reserving judgement on this one.  It needs to show me that it’s something more than just another “blow everything up” simulator.  It was interesting, however, to get a small glimpse of the original vision for the XBox One when, during the multiplayer reveal, they discussed the “100% destructible environments” thanks to the cloud-processing power of the system.  I’m still not sure exactly what this means or if it truly offers something dramatically different, but it was an interesting side-note.

gaming-scalebound-screenshot-03–  There’s nothing quite like a Platinum game, is there?  “Scalebound” has all the stilted, cheesy dialogue and absurd sense of style that’s been on display in games like “Bayonetta” and “Vanquish”. And just when I think the game might be too “cool” for its own good, the action starts and I want to have a controller in my hands.  This is probably the game I am most divided on from the conference.  I do not love the main character at this point, but I wasn’t sure about Bayonetta as a character at first either and I found her to be much more charming and interesting once I played the game (though most of her supporting cast is another story entirely).  The world itself looks pretty but fairly empty and I wonder if there’s enough to bridge between the action set-pieces.  As far as the dragon, is he just a constant companion or is he part of the gameplay that I can control?  And the promise of 4-player co-op sounds cool, but all we see here is a trailer with some trash talk from the main character about having to take the entire group on.  The game could be amazing or an utter disaster and I wouldn’t be surprised either way.  The fact that it won’t be coming until holiday 2016 means we’ll have to wait quite some time (and hear more about it at next year’s conferences too) before we get that answer.

–  On the hardware side, I’m intrigued by the DVR functionality.  As a new XBox One owner and someone who is looking to cut cable, this is something I need to learn more about.  Could be an awesome feature for those who can use it.

–  I understand that backwards compatibility is not a major deal for many, but for me it’s been a game-changer.  When I traded my 360, I put a lot of trust in Microsoft to deliver on this promise and so far, so good.  Between the inclusion of first party titles, all future Games with Gold titles, and the developers shown on-screen as being onboard, it looks like this might actually bring the majority of the 360 library forward to new-gen.  Having said that, there were some notable absences (like Activision) and the cash-cow of remastered games still casts a big shadow.  We’ll see come November.  Fingers tightly crossed.

–  Good to see “Bloodstained” and “Yooka-Laylee” getting some love during the ID@XBox portion, as well as a new adventure game from Ron Gilbert.  Looks like old-school gaming isn’t dead yet!

WeHappyFew_2_ExitBobby_PreAlpha–  Wow, how much does “We Happy Few” look like “Bioshock” in all the right ways?  Creepy and atmospheric.  Can’t wait for that one in the Preview program.  Ditto “Ark:  Survival Evolved”.  Nice showing for both games.

–  “Dark Souls 3”.  Dear god, that trailer! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3B4egZ6UwI)  This was possibly the highlight of the conference for me, and that’s coming from someone who only finished one game in the lineage (“Bloodborne”). The trailer showed a game that could fulfill my every wish.  Combat that was faster and more fluid.  Updated visuals.  Crazy, otherworldly creature and world design.  I asked for the unholy marriage of “Bloodborne” and “Souls” and it looks like I might just get it.

–  “Homefront: The Revolution” looks like a competent shooter – no more, no less.  But living outside of Philadelphia my whole life has me wanting to play it just to see how they use the city.  Move over, New York, LA, Chicago, etc.!  It’s our turn!

–  Very, very disappointed in the “Halo 5” segment.  I get that multiplayer is a big deal for fans of the series, but if I wanted to watch ten minutes of E-sports, I’d just go do that.  Where is the campaign???  Hello?   Anyone??

–  Just like “Far Cry 4” was an update of “Far Cry 3”, “Just Cause 3” looks like “Just Cause 2”.  That’s not a bad thing since so many people loved the game.  The game never grabbed me the same way.  Looks fun, but probably a pass for me, and I question how well this game stands up in a crowded fall/winter season.

–  While I’m not a soccer…excuse me, “football” fan, the benefits of “Fifa” on XBox and EA Access seem like they would be huge for those who are.  This is especially important as Microsoft is trying to stage a comeback in Europe and other parts of the world.

–  Does Crystal Dynamics have a direct line to Naughty Dog?  The ongoing mimicry between “Uncharted” and “Tomb Raider” continues (first one way and then the other) but now Lara’s creeping around and throwing bottles like Joel from “The Last of Us”!  Again, not a bad thing –  all games derive from others – but if you’re going to resemble two of the best games in recent years, you’d better nail it.  I also question whether Lara’s character development will mesh with the hand to hand brutality on display here.  Admittedly, both Lara and Nate have killed more people than the plague, but there’s a distance to the violence when they’re shooting at people from afar.  Getting up close with sticks and stones is a different feel entirely.  I never questioned that Joel and Ellie were capable of such things – it was a requirement for the world they lived in – but buying into Lara as a stone-cold killer may take some getting used to.  I’m replaying the first “Tomb Raider” right now so perhaps I’ll feel differently as my memory is refreshed.  Still, if they can make these elements work, everything else on display here looks awesome.  And it will have to be if it’s going to stick to the same release date as “Fallout 3”.

–  Never played “Halo Wars”.  Happy for everyone who did that they’re getting “Halo Wars 2”.  Nice announcement.

So my pre-conference wish-list wasn’t quite filled, but it was pretty close.  I would have liked to see “Recore” and “Cuphead” back on stage, there wasn’t anything imminent announced (other than the mention that “Beyond Eyes” was available), and some of the release dates are a bit far off for my tastes, but other than that Microsoft delivered as expected.  They’re clearly in a much different place with Phil Spencer in charge and they are laser-focused on games and gamers.  We’ll see how Sony responds in the weeks and months ahead but I feel that giving Microsoft ownership of the spotlight may have been at least a minor misstep.  Sony’s next big conference isn’t until Paris Games Week at the end of October.  That’s a long time off and placed right in the thick of “Halo 5”, “Forza 6” and “Rise of the Tomb Raider”.  I suspect they’ll have their own announcements to recapture the attention, but hopefully they haven’t waited too long to respond.  Either way, there’s no longer a question that “next-gen” is in full swing and gamers everywhere couldn’t be happier.

Gamescom 2015: Microsoft Flying Solo

Posted on by jaws13

In a little over an hour, Microsoft will begin their Gamescom conference.  It promises to be an intriguing event especially since Sony will be mostly absent from this year’s Gamescom.  We already know some things that will be shown – a re-reveal of sorts for “Quantum Break” and “Scalebound”, a release date for “Quantum Break”, more gameplay from “Halo 5” and “Rise of the Tomb Raider” – but I suspect (and am hoping for) something much bigger from Phil Spencer and company. Perhaps I shouldn’t set expectations too high, but given the strides they’ve made to close the gap with Sony this past year, it’s hard to believe that they’ll let an opportunity like this slip by.  With all the focus on them and no counterpoint from their competition, I have to think there’s a few rabbits ready to be pulled from the XBox hat.  Here’s my personal wishlist:

–  More gameplay from “Halo 5” and “Rise of the Tomb Raider” that distinguishes the titles a bit from their predecessors.  What we saw at E3 looked solid, but a bit too much “more of the same” to truly excite me.  I understand that “you don’t fix it if it ain’t broken”, but in a crowded fall gaming landscape I think both titles need more to stand out.

–  I’m really hoping to be blown away by “Quantum Break”.  I really enjoyed “Alan Wake” and “Max Payne” so there’s no question for me that Remedy can do something special.  But if I’m not planning to preorder by the end of the conference, I’m going to feel a bit disappointed.  And, while we’re at it, PLEASE don’t promise a release date and deliver one that’s a year away.  This needs to be before March 2016 or it’s just a gigantic tease.

–  I’d like to see more from some upcoming indie darlings, especially “Cuphead” and “Below”.  This is one area where Sony still routinely trumps Microsoft, despite recent progress on their part.  I want to see something on the level of “Ori and the Blind Forest” and I don’t want it to be part of a sizzle reel or a vague trailer.  I want concrete gameplay details and preferably a release date.

–  And since I’ve mentioned release dates a few times already, let me just make a general appeal to avoid as often as possible revealing games that have almost zero chance of showing up in the next year.  I know this is normal for these conferences, I know it’s necessary to excite stockholders and fans, but I’m very tired this practice.  I don’t want to see the same games re-revealed at next year’s Gamescom.  Give me reason to be excited now.

–  I’d like to know what the hell “Recore” actually is.  I know it has a girl and an orb that can be used to power up a robot dog.  Adorable.  And I know that Keijji Inafune is involved in some way.  And…that’s about it.  Seems odd for a game that is supposedly coming in early 2016.

–  I want more specifics on backward compatibility.  How many publishers are onboard?  How soon will the feature rollout?  Has the number of initial games available changed at all?  This announcement helped many people, including me, trade our 360s for XBox Ones.  Reward us with some good news.

–  I’m hoping for the “and it’s available right now” announcement in some way.  A big sale, a new game, a new feature on the console, a bonus game being added to EA Access or Games with Gold…something.

–  Given that “Dark Souls 3” showed up at Microsoft’s E3 conference, I’m hoping to see more today.  After finishing “Bloodborne”, I’d like to revisit From’s universe of punishment.  I’ve considered picking “Dark Souls 2” back up, but it feels a bit like a backward step.  I would love to see a game that marries the fluidity of “Bloodborne” with the more medieval combat of the “Souls” series, and I’d love to hear that it’s coming in the first few months of 2016.

–  And, of course, new IPs are always nice.  Given Spencer’s recent statements about his focus on first-party lineup rather than third-party exclusives, I expect that he’s hinting at something new.  This is one area where MIcrosoft can go toe to toe with Sony, especially at a time when Sony’s exclusives seem far off.  If Microsoft can reinforce what they have “now”, what they have “soon” and what they have in “the future” – especially if it is something we haven’t already heard about – they will put substantial pressure on Sony and go a long way toward winning the holiday in terms of new console sales.

And that’s about it for now.  Anything else is gravy.  Phil Spencer has been mostly knocking them out of the park so far and I expect that streak to continue today.  I think it will be an exciting day to be a gamer and an XBox fan.  We’ll see how right I am in just a little over an hour now.