With the Electronic Entertainment Expo — E3, parishioners — less than 2-weeks away, we’ve got over 30 games in 10 days to preview. Welcome to Day Thrizzle.
***DAY THREE, June 3rd — TOM CLANCY’S GHOST RECON: WILDLANDS, WATCH DOGS 2, ATTACK ON TITAN***
Archives:
“DANGEROUS DISCIPLE” DANNY WITT @Drake
TOM CLANCY’S GHOST RECON: WILDLANDS (Ubisoft – PS4, X1, PC – TBA 2017) – About a year ago developer Ubisoft was touting what, at the time, was heralded as the company’s most ambitious project yet: A vast open world co-op shooter taking place in a modern setting with high stakes and cutting edge graphics. The Division certainly lived up to the hype; but now it seems as if Ubi was just beta testing their true masterpiece last fall. Ghost Recon: Wildlands promises to be the largest open world game to date— and with beefed up graphics and traversal mechanics, it looks to be The Division on ultra #beastmode steroids. As the title suggests, I get the feeling from what I’ve seen that it will be as if there was a wild night of whiskey, blow, and tequila between Far Cry, The Division, and GTA, with Wildlands emerging 9 months later. The pre-rendered cinematic videos we’ve gotten so far look on par with Uncharted 4 in terms of photo-realism, although it remains to be seen if Ubi can actually overcome the endgame content hurdle that has certainly swallowed up The Division; with its spiritual predecessor quickly losing steam, my hopes for Wildlands turning into a mega-hit are less than ideal.
“DEACON E” Esko @eskobts
WATCH DOGS 2 (Ubisoft – PS4, X1, PC – November 15) – Nice try, Ubi. Are we really expected to fall for the same trick twice? After almost a year of the most inclusive, multimedium marketing campaign I’ve ever seen for a video-game, Ubisoft delivered Watchdogs. With all the hype, I expected pure game-changing greatness. However, I was bored to death quickly. That’s what I expect with Watchdogs 2, but I’m not fully against it. Ubisoft talks of “taking risks” with this game and giving it a “new tone”, based more so on the Silicon Valley strategies that dictate how most of us live (i.e. advertising, classism, etc.). However, I have trust issues after years of betrayal from Ubisoft, so I’ll believe it when I see it. They claim it could be the best selling game they’ve ever released, which would be amazing. I want that. The series has tons of really cool elements that other games don’t have or unique tweaks to features that other games do have. What the original lacked was creating a fun game around those features.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcVsth-QX_4
(cont.) But today was a big day. Now, Ubi is adding new stuff, super cool no-longer-secret stuff: A team effort based Bay Area tour, led by a (this time) black protag–who somewhat resembles, ahem, yours truly–named Marcus Holloway. He also represents the DedSec hacking crew in San Fran. From the 18-minute reveal, it seems like Marcus and his arsenal and athleticism is going to be a lot more fun to handle. In addition, he has remote cars (the ability to control any and all machine’s functions), and a killer quadcopter scout drone. In case you were wondering, and likely inspired by The Division, the game is fully multiplayer, too, with plenty of other gangs–biker, hacker, street and white collar–to contend with. While I still have my doubts (for obvious reasons), today’s reveal smelled like a breath of fresh Fisherman’s Wharf air.
“BISHOP” RICHARD ZOM” @eyebzombie
ATTACK ON TITAN (Tecmo/Mega Force – PS4, X1, PC, Vita, PS3 – August 30) – It’s hard to fathom a run of success so vast that it ingrains itself within geek culture at a high social media pace. Attack On Titan, in fact, did just that. It only took one season to usher in a new breath of life to the ever-evolving Anime culture. Despite the live action movie in the works, I’d argue most “Tiny Titans” are exciting more for the Tecmo game coming out — an undoubtedly huge gamble, considering most anime adaptations-to-game have met chiefly dire circumstancs. Though, I must preach that writer and creator Hajime Isayama (under the helm of Kodansha Ltd.) have taken their time wisely in cultivating a worthy product for its fan base. Pulling elements from a God of War cutscreen intro mixed in with a Zone of the Enders game mechanics system makes for a good start. Above all else, Attack seems to capture the Shenmue (Dreamcast) art style that should be salivating to about any anime gamer geek.