Category: Games

I think it is time for the PC Gaming show to come to an end.  It is long and boring and the hosts try very hard to make everything seem exciting, but it is not.  Some of the games they showed were interesting like Griftlands:

Still the games shown at the PC Gaming Show could have just as easily been shown at another showcase.  Though hats of to Microsoft for saving them the Age of Empires Definitive Edition.  It looks great.

The company that was really swinging for the fences though was Ubisoft.  They announced a Mario tactics game, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle (AKA Mario XCOM), and they finally showed us all a glimpse of where they are headed with Beyond Good & Evil 2:

Though this trailer did leave a lot of people confused because it looks like it will be a radical departure from the first game.  And even more confusing because it is a prequel, but it still has a ‘2’ in the title.   Still, it is exciting to see that it truly does exist and that people are really working on it.  Even if it does have all the Ubisoft buzzwords attached to it, open world, co-op, and game as a service.

Sony closed out the second major day of E3 (third if you count the EA showcase, but I am not), and as always they know how to put on a great show.  Trailers for all their major first party games were on display, and they all looked great.  Shadow of the Colossus is coming back again, and who doesn’t want more Uncharted.  Though the big news for me was Monster Hunter World, but not for the reason Sony wanted, but because it is coming to the Xbox and PC as well.  I will leave you the way Sony left us, with Insomniac’s Batman Spider-Man:

Let me know your thoughts about this year’s E3 showcases, or what games you are interested to hear more about.

First up I watched the Microsoft show, and you can tell that after they got ripped four years ago for focusing on TV and movies that all they will ever talk about from now on is games.  It was trailer after trailer.  I am guessing with the PS4 winning the console war this generation they wanted reassure everyone that the Xbox would have plenty of games to play too.  There is even one for The Paladin.  It is a first person space dwarf mining and shooting simulator from the people that made Goat Simulator called Deep Rock Galactic.  Here is the trailer:

Of course Microsoft finally dropped the name and price of their new box.  It is the Xbox One X and it will come out November 7^th for $499.  While I get that ‘X’ matches the Xbox branding, it sounds the same as ‘S’ when anyone says it, so it causes a lot of confusion as to which console people are talking about.  It is also interesting that Microsoft is again going to be $100 more than the PS4.  Though I am guessing all that hardware costs a lot of money.  I mean it is the first water cooled console that I can remember.  The 360 was supposed to be, and after the $1 Billion Red Ring of Death controversy they probably wish they would have followed through on that.

The biggest announcement by far was that Original Xbox games were coming to Xbox One this year starting with Crimson Skies.  I must have given my copy away, but this is great news.  I can only hope that this means they are turning on some form of the OG Xbox Live service so we can play these games with our friends.  More info is coming soon, and I cannot wait to hear more.

All in all it was fine show.  They gave us Mixer.com viewers a free copy of Rare Replay, so that was nice.  The games looked good, if not overly exciting, and they confirmed that Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2 would be delayed to next year, which is a bummer.  I will be getting an Xbox One X though.

Next up I watched the Bethesda show which was ummm, well, if the Xbox show was unexciting the Bethesda show  was a waste of time.  It was only thirty-five minutes long and mostly showed trailers for games that were already out.  Though at the very end they did announce The Evil Within 2 and Wolfenstein II, and the later looked great!  Here is its trailer:

If you were hoping for a new open world RPG like I was, well guess what there wasn’t one, so I hope you like the ones you have, because now you will have paid Mods that don’t break your achievements!  Sorry I should take back the exclamation point and replace it with “…”  Ugg, who cares.  Anyway lets hope today’s E3 shows show us something mind meltingly cool!

Hey remember Phantom Dust from the original Xbox?  No?  Well you are not alone, but you should remember because it was an excellent game.  It is a third person action/RPG/Collectable Card Game!  Yes, it is all of those things.  Phantom Dust has had a troubled past, but now you can play it for free!  That is right, FREE!  And you should.

Phantom Dust was a Japanese game for the original Xbox, and as such it never really caught on, but those that did play it, loved it, and those diehards have been asking for a sequel/reboot for years.  It seemed in 2014 that those fans were getting their wish, but the reboot got canceled.  Then at E3 last year Microsoft revealed that they were rereleasing the title with achievements and Xbox Live play, but they didn’t really talk about it for a year until like a month ago when they did a gameplay video with Polygon.  Then two days ago they just released it … for free.

Since it is an old game it will run on anything with Windows 10, even with the high resolution turned on (though to go full screen you need to hit Alt-Enter, I had to go on Twitter to learn that), or of course you can play it on your Xbox One.  While the graphics are nothing fancy, they do hold up surprisingly well.  With the exception of the in-engine cut-scenes: they look terrible.  A word of warning, the single-player starts off slow.  I mean really slow.  The deck building component doesn’t come in for a few hours, and that is most of the fun.  Just getting random Skills and then spamming them at bots gets a little tedious, though it is a good reminder on how to play.

Oh yeah, how you play.  Pretty much you make an Arsenal (AKA Deck) then you hope the Skills (AKA Cards) that you selected show up in the order that you want them to in the form of orbs on the battlefield, so you design your Arsenal around Skills that compliment each other.  Then run around trying not to get hit with other player’s Skills while launching Skills of your own.  Though not all Skills are attacks.  Some are shields or let you fly, steal or wipe out other player’s Skills, that kind of thing.  Anyway, it is a great way to represent a card game in an action game.  The more matches or single-player you play, the more money you get, so the more Skills you can buy, or you can spend real cash on Skills as well.

Since Phantom Dust is a rerelease and not a reboot, don’t expect to be blown away, but the core gameplay holds up very well, and with the non-existent price of admission, you should give it a shot.  Though if you are going to grind through the single-player to get cash and Skills, remember to be patient.  It gets better, much better.