"If you're going to cut things, you should be trimming the fat.".
Is it churlish to ask for Mars, when you're already getting the Earth on a platter? Perhaps, but then again I've never pretended to be anything other than hideously self-entitled. Case study: Halo: The Master Chief Collection. It contains all four numbered Halo games, overhauled and updated to run on Xbox One, and is thus among the bigger bargains ever concocted by the Hand of Man, but two things it doesn't contain are Halo 3: ODST, Bungie's celebrated spin-off, and Halo: Reach, the developer's final Halo game for Xbox 360 and the first Halo prequel.
It's good to be bad, providing you have an army at your back.
Asymmetrical multiplayer is all the rage, nowadays, and they don't get much more asymmetrical than Fable: Legends, which is - depending on your moral alignment - either a third-person action-RPG for up to four players and AI, or a solo real-time strategy experience that can be played on a tablet.
Rest of multiplayer FPS genre officially confirmed surplus to requirements.
There's value for money and then there's value for money and then there's Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which plays host to 106 maps from Halo: Combat Evolved (playable online on console for the first time), Halo 2 (which now supports Forge Mode), Halo 3 and Halo 4. Most run on the original "native" engine, but some have been upgraded with new textures.
You still care, right?.
Gentlemen, ladies - allow me to reveal my secret agenda: to write so many "Xbox One game is 1080p" stories that they form a cosmic bridge to the Moon, where I will reign supreme till the arrival of the Traveller, Destiny's benevolent orb of mystery, thousands of years from now. Speaking of Destiny, Bungie has apparently told Spike TV's Geoff Keighley that "it will get Destiny to 1080p/30fps on XB1".
"An unholy union of flesh and metal." No release date yet.
Not to be left out of the E3 drama, DOOM 4 - or as it's now known, "new DOOM game" - has gone and spawned itself a frightful teaser trailer. There's footage of an icky bio-mechanical demon, plus the sound of a shotgun being cocked. That's all I need, personally. I'm spent already.
Time for a jog on the beach. Don't forget your music.
The Dead Island games are infamous for lots of things: bugginess, plastic effigies of butchered female torsos, trailers that have little in common with the games they purport to represent. The announcement video for Dead Island 2 feels like the antidote to the last part, at least. Remember how that time-rewind piano video for the first game moved us all to (as it transpired, unwarranted) tears? This one's prepared to see the funny side of a zombie apocalypse.
"But it needs to be the right product at the right time.".
The forthcoming Halo: The Master Chief Collection should, all going to plan, be among the best reasons to own an Xbox One this November, but what if you entertain a sneaking, dastardly partiality for that most despised of devices, the computer mouse? What if you'd rather switch weapons using (hawk, spit) keyboard hotkeys, rather than by way of our old friend the Y button [insert catty remark about PC controller support]? Well, 343 says there's hope.
"Only you can save mankind." Peter Dinklage says so.
Bungie's new Destiny trailer reminds me of Call of Duty. No, wise guy, I'm not just talking about their shared propensity for guns. The trailer pacing is familiar, building to a crescendo via a highlights reel of panoramas, spaceship flybys and enemy yelling-at-camera shots. And then there's the music. Dat bass drop, etc. Troubling signs that the game is more of an action-fest than suspected, or is it just presentation?
Phil Harrison is "delighted, really delighted" with Microsoft's E3 so far.
Microsoft's European Studios chief Phil Harrison has given his verdict on yesterday's Xbox E3 conference. In news that may shock and unsettle you, he considers it a bit of a win.
"Enhanced resolutions", you say, Rockstar?.
Rockstar has shed a little more light on the Xbox One version of Grand Theft Auto 5, which was announced overnight. Are you a fan of "detail"? Because there's a "stunning new level" of the stuff in GTA 5 for the next generation Xbox, apparently.
Last decade's game design meets this decade's visuals.
A new video of Halo 2 Anniversary in action on Xbox One has surfaced online - or dropped from orbit, rather, like Master Chief mounting an unplanned orbital re-entry. The footage is badged "work in progress", so don't necessarily throw a wobbly over the state of the textures for the moment. I think it looks pretty handsome, myself.
Alternatively, ride shotgun in a gyrocopter.
Far Cry 4 is a game of great scale and splendour in which you can upset, attack and be killed by elephants and eagles. Sadly, not much of that is shown in the new gameplay trailer, released overnight, though there is a gyrocopter section. Hooray for miniature helicopters! But do get a move on with those elephant levels, Ubisoft. My desktop craves a new wallpaper.
Los Santos welcomes you back.
As if I needed an excuse to play GTA V again. It's no Red Dead Redemption 2 announcement, but it's good Rockstar-related news nonetheless: the developer has just confirmed that a next gen remaster of last year's blockbuster is coming to Xbox One this autumn.
The Parisian revolution gets going again on 28th October.
Ubisoft has announced a release date for Assassin's Creed: Unity - it'll launch on 28th October for Xbox 360 and Xbox One, and features the publisher's "most deadly assassin yet". His name is Arno Dorian, and he's brought friends.
It's out this November, according to the latest video.
Ubisoft's open world racer The Crew will release on 11th November 2014. A new trailer has emerged from the publisher's press event - it takes you through a two hour mission at an accelerated, but strangely soothing pace.
He doesn't like getting blood on his shoes.
Ubisoft has released a new video for Far Cry 4, which hits Xbox One and Xbox 360 on 18th November 2014. It constitutes the first five minutes of the game, in which your character arrives in the Himalayas and is immediately accosted by the main villain, King Pagan Min, "the self-imposed dictator of Kyrat".
New heist mode looks mental.
A brand new gameplay demo for Battlefield: Hardline has been released during the EA E3 press conference. The video focuses on a new 32-player multiplayer mode titled Heist.
"Faith for a new generation".
EA has released the first trailer for Mirror's Edge 2. The team at DICE noted that they are "building on the first Mirror's Edge". The new title looks very similar to the first game so far, but we've only seen very early footage.
Wingsuits!?.
Burnout developer Criterion has released the first information on their new game in development right now. Currently untitled, the game will see players driving a host of vehicle types ranging from ATVs to helicopters all from a first-person perspective.
Alongside a new IP.
The next Mass Effect is indeed in development and will be "taking you to a whole new region of space". Based on a few shots of the game, it looks as though a new galactic map will feature alongside revamped character models and new planetary environments. Nothing too eyebrow-raising, then.
