Gaming Showcase 2024

[Worgen]

This is why they need to stop doing prequels. The next Gears of War game is another damn prequel. Why? I'm not a fan, but they should just go to the six main line entry and move on.

But you don't understand. At some point in the past a character sneezed and its vitally important we know every little bit about that sneeze and how it shaped their backstory.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Alrighty, here we go with Ubisoft Forward. Gonna grab a beer for this one.

They start with a musical score, leading to SW Outlaws. And I swear, it's the least SW-ish score I've ever heard.

We now have more gameplay on SW Outlaws. Now the market environment does look cool. We also have space dogfights as well. And holy crap, you actually can fly into the planet's atmosphere from space! Not sure if it's a cutscene, loading screen, or if you have full control. As for the gameplay, I know we are supposed to play as a smuggler, but this looks like every other 3rd person shooter games that Ubisoft has shat out over the years. Still, it looks better than anything EA has put out, dare I say even the Jedi series. The speeder travel looks fun. And guess what? NO Jedis, Siths, for force involved; Finally, they aren't taking the center stage of the universe

Content news for Xdefiant. Piss off.

Content news for Skull and Bones. Two live-service content news in a row..... REALLY? Also gotta love how they attempt to paint all the negative feedbacks (well-deserved) as "exciting feedbacks from the community). Also they want to make an Eastern dragon as a boss monster. They do realize in many Asian cultures dragons are revered as benevolent gods, right?

We have three news related to Prince of Persia for its 35th anniversary.

• For The Lost Crown, new challenge maps. Free content available now.
• For The Rogue Prince of Persia, new biome called temple of fire, featuring new weapons and enemies.
• Sands of Time release window....2026? FFS

Rocksmith Plus ad. No

Avatar Frontiers is getting new content or whatever.

The crew motorfest. Didn't know this was live-service either.

Anno 117: Pax Romana. As the name indicates, you get to build your version of Roman Empire.

Next they have a lightning round for all their smaller games. Battle core is the only one that seems new

Finally, we have closer look at AC Shadows. We start off with another musical score, and this one sounds better than the SW one.

As for the actual gameplay, Kinda like with AC Syndicate you can switch between the two characters. The game will also feature environmental/weather affecting how you approach each mission. And just like with the trailer from the day before, the environment looks amazing. You can pet a dog!!!! Also, Both Yasuke and Naoe seem to love to monologue, even more than the MCs of the past games.

The combat looks different from the recent entires; Lot more deflects and parries are involved, and NO NUMBER POP UPS. I think that means the game won't be a looter. That already earns a plus from me.

Overall, it does look a lot better than Odyssey or Valhalla, in more ways than one. But I am not giving Ubisoft $70 and fueling their coorperate greed.

Speaking of which, another ad segment, this time for ubisoft +. No.

The show ends with that disgusting snake of a ceo. Some people on the stage clearly looks like they don't want to be there.

Overall, it's clear that AC Shadows and SW Outlaws were the main stars of the showcase, both looking intriguing enough. However, that is not gonna stop me from giving this my seal of the worst showcase so far

 

[FakeSympathy]

Alright, here I go with the Awards:

Best:

• Overall showcase: Goes to SGF 2024. Yes, it wasn't quite what I was looking for, but at the same time there were lots of great news.
• Individual announcements: Gears of War E-Day. I'm just glad Microsoft actually remembers this game exists
• Gameplay: Doom The Dark Ages. It looks so fucking good
• Presenter: Jeff Keighley. He always seem to have energy to carry the shows, even if they drag on or each annoucements are bad

Worst:

• Overall showcase: Ubisoft Forward. Only two signficant games, and the rest are live-services
• Individual announcements: Pop Sands of Time for 2026. Seriously, wtf is this development hell?
• Gameplay: Concord. Fuck this game for misleading me in the first place, and then revealing it to ve a 5v5 hero-shooter
• Presenter: Phil Spencer. Love how this cockhole talked his ass off about how amazing all the studios at Xbox are. You mean Bethesda and Acti-Blizz, right?

 

[Hades]

Anno 117: Pax Romana. As the name indicates, you get to build your version of Roman Empire.

Its pathetic. You know why that man isn't drawing any crowds? Because he is not the true Roman news reader. True Roman bread for true romans.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Its pathetic. You know why that man isn't drawing any crowds? Because he is not the true Roman news reader. True Roman bread for true romans.

View attachment 11305

Also for not speaking the roman lantin. Step it up a notch, Ubisoft!

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Ubisoft showcase was the best one so far because it was in front of an audience. Just having folks react and be present makes a world of difference.

Outlaws and AC: Shadows look sick as heck. No I don't have any illusions about what these games are- I very much doubt I'll play either in 2024 due to personal schedule and frankly lack of desire of buying any new big games for a while but they look like are a Star War and a cool as fuck AC and that's fine.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Ubisoft showcase was the best one so far because it was in front of an audience. Just having folks react and be present makes a world of difference.

Outlaws and AC: Shadows look sick as heck. No I don't have any illusions about what these games are- I very much doubt I'll play either in 2024 due to personal schedule and frankly lack of desire of buying any new big games for a while but they look like are a Star War and a cool as fuck AC and that's fine.

So were the other shows. But I do agree this one seem to have better energy from the audience. Huh

 

[BrawlMan]

Max Reacting to SGF and MS Showcases.

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[BrawlMan]

AC Shadows - I am actually impressed with what the team is doing here. The game actually has a sense of style and identity. I won't pay full price of course, but I'll get the game at 50%-55% off. Whenever that time comes.

 

[BrawlMan]

Why didn't anybody tell me about South of Midnight?! This looks like a better Ninja Theory game, than what they've been making for the past decade. I love the Spider-Verse style animation too. This is a Western Action Game!

​

 

[Worgen]

Played a few demos.
Flintlock Siege of Dawn is pretty cool. Souls likey with an interesting plot and magical fox thing that follows you around, plays well too.

Mirage Feathers reminds me of After burner (or how After Burner looked, never actually played it), really fun, but hampered by the characters appearing like 12 and wearing what kinda seems like swim suits so, despite it being fun, probably gonna avoid it cause eww.

Kill Knight, a twin stick shooter roguelike. Nice graphics, good twin stick gameplay, but it seems pretty shallow from the demo.

Metal Slug Tactics, love the look of the game, not sure Im in to the gameplay. While I like a good xcom style game, the type of tactical gameplay that MST has... I'm not sure about. Feels kinda slow and like you have to put in much more planning then I like to do since your characters can attack off each others attacks and it feels like you always want to be setting that up.

Tavern Talk, a relaxing game about running a fantasy world taven, well, more about making drinks, posting quests and talking to regulars. Still though, very nice act, good writing. Just not sure I have the patients for games like that, I still need to actually play Coffee Talk

Bane Murrane, fps game, really wonky voice acting, ugly badly designed levels, kinda nice character/enemy art and the gameplay is... ok. Seems to involve shooting off enemy limbs then melee smacking them.

Wild Bastards, if you played Void Bastards then you kinda know what your in for. Although Wild Bastards has much more character and less stealth, or so it seems from the demo. I think I like it, which, considering I didn't really get into Void Bastards, is nice.

On Your Tail, a cute anthro relaxing mystery game. Like the character design, the mystery mechanics of a magical lens that lets you see some past events is nice and each character/place you go gets you a nicely designed card that tells you more. I'm not sure it would be day 1, but I think I like it and want it.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

So were the other shows. But I do agree this one seem to have better energy from the audience. Huh

I really don't think they were, only the Keighly hosted one.
I mean if the XBox one had an audience they were dead lol. Sure Phil "the Spence" Spencer and Sarah "sacrificial PR lamb" Bond looked like they were giving a TED talk but I'm gonna need pics to believe there was an actual audience there.
The smaller indies were like twitch streams. You could especially tell with the PC gaming showcase because they had two hosts that were doing bits and the material wasn't horrible but it came off so because there was no human reaction, even nervous laughter would have made it human.

Ok well enough about that, here's the other reason the Ubisoft show was the best. Now here y'all correct me if I'm wrong because I had to watch it out of order but was there a single mention or display of big map with icon, or clearing a tower, or boasting of quantity of CONTENT? Did they brag about "so much stuff to do" or 100s of hours of gameplay? Let alone in-app purchases or whatever. All of the typical Ubisoft stuff everybody makes fun of- it wasn't there. At all.

Now- I am not saying none of that will be in the games. Obviously we'll have to wait until the games come out- and wait even further until after initial review cycle because I saw other games in the past couple of years add mtx and such after that, though I don't remember if Ubisoft themselves pulled that dick move- but we never know. And yes I'm sure AssCreed will have some XP packs and other bullshit will have the pretend-hated map with icons and all that, it's still an AC game.
But the fact that none of this crap was showcased- I mean sure I'm focused on the two big games, Star Wars and AC, but it was all world, story, gameplay. For sure they are aware of the criticism at this point and what they choose to advertise in the run-up to the games are to some degree a measure of how game dev goes. We just dunno how much but it's a good sign.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

I really don't think they were, only the Keighly hosted one.
I mean if the XBox one had an audience they were dead lol. Sure Phil "the Spence" Spencer and Sarah "sacrificial PR lamb" Bond looked like they were giving a TED talk but I'm gonna need pics to believe there was an actual audience there.
The smaller indies were like twitch streams. You could especially tell with the PC gaming showcase because they had two hosts that were doing bits and the material wasn't horrible but it came off so because there was no human reaction, even nervous laughter would have made it human.

Ok well enough about that, here's the other reason the Ubisoft show was the best. Now here y'all correct me if I'm wrong because I had to watch it out of order but was there a single mention or display of big map with icon, or clearing a tower, or boasting of quantity of CONTENT? Did they brag about "so much stuff to do" or 100s of hours of gameplay? Let alone in-app purchases or whatever. All of the typical Ubisoft stuff everybody makes fun of- it wasn't there. At all.

Now- I am not saying none of that will be in the games. Obviously we'll have to wait until the games come out- and wait even further until after initial review cycle because I saw other games in the past couple of years add mtx and such after that, though I don't remember if Ubisoft themselves pulled that dick move- but we never know. And yes I'm sure AssCreed will have some XP packs and other bullshit will have the pretend-hated map with icons and all that, it's still an AC game.
But the fact that none of this crap was showcased- I mean sure I'm focused on the two big games, Star Wars and AC, but it was all world, story, gameplay. For sure they are aware of the criticism at this point and what they choose to advertise in the run-up to the games are to some degree a measure of how game dev goes. We just dunno how much but it's a good sign.

On one hand yeah, they did a good for once. OTOH, it only feels exceptional because their standard were subpar to begin with. Certainly a step in the right direction, but joining the good fight IMO isn’t an automatic W over all the others.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Oh man, the Dragon Age freakouts, lol.

I dunno... why is anyone having any emotions right now? It's still too early! Folks mad the trailer feels like Overwatch or whatever. But it's just a trailer. People made they changed the title subtitle. Like why would someone care about that lol

I'm not seeing any information yet to have any reasonable opinion or expectation about this game.

 

[meiam]

Oh man, the Dragon Age freakouts, lol.

I dunno... why is anyone having any emotions right now? It's still too early! Folks mad the trailer feels like Overwatch or whatever. But it's just a trailer. People made they changed the title subtitle. Like why would someone care about that lol

I'm not seeing any information yet to have any reasonable opinion or expectation about this game.

Cause its EA and the shell "formerly know as Bioware" meaning trust is at an absolute zero and any deviation is a good sign that someone who really doesn't know any better stood up and said "I know better than that!".

 

[BrawlMan]

For the first time, in long time I might be interested in a turned based RPG. What's happening to me?! Somebody explain now!

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
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Interesting trivia from the comments section:

@symphonixblades
1 day ago (edited)

for those that don't know, this game is made by ex Ubisoft devs. Guess we now know where the talent at Ubisoft went to, they all left Ubisoft.

 

[Ezekiel]

@CriticalGaming & @Old_Hunter_77, are you ready.....for more Sekiro-likes?!

​

Look at the indicators for enemies outside of the screen in the style of God of War at 4:10. Again they had to come up with a solution to a self-imposed problem. Lock-on is cool because it allows two fighters to dance, but locking tight cam behind character like that as if they can't turn their neck sucks. Find the constant turning of the enemy-anchored cam rather unwieldy. Even if argument is that it adds environmental challenge, better to make enemies work together to drive you towards those environmental threats. "I need to get around these bastards before they push me off the cliff" better than "Dang, I fell because forgot there was a drop there and idiot character can't turn neck while engaged."

 

[Gordon_4]

For the first time, in long time I might be interested in a turned based RPG. What's happening to me?! Somebody explain now!

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
​

Interesting trivia from the comments section:

They secure their freedom from Ubisoft and their first opportunity is used to make the most weeb looking French thing ever that has 'could be patched into Gatcha bullshit at the drop of a beret' written all over it.

I'm not sure who actually lost what in this arrangement.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Look at the indicators for enemies outside of the screen in the style of God of War at 4:10. ...

You mean the sort of health bars?
Eh... I see what you're saying but I was able to follow what was going on, unlike God of War where it was a mess of yellow and red triangles.

I'm gonna continue to be skeptical about every Sekiro wannabe until/unless I get my hands on it but this one looks better than most. Timing of parries and dodges is most important and we won't know until we try it but at least it makes sense to me when I watch it. I like that you can counter unblockable attacks instead of just evade.
Still I'm gonna need at least some sort of interesting world, story, level design... something beyond Asian dudes sword parry boss health bar shit to get me to pay more than $20 for this thing and we don't know that from this gameplay which was focused purely on combat.

 

[BrawlMan]

Look at the indicators for enemies outside of the screen in the style of God of War at 4:10. Again they had to come up with a solution to a self-imposed problem. Lock-on is cool because it allows two fighters to dance, but locking tight cam behind character like that as if they can't turn their neck sucks. Find the constant turning of the enemy-anchored cam rather unwieldy. Even if argument is that it adds environmental challenge, better to make enemies work together to drive you towards those environmental threats. "I need to get around these bastards before they push me off the cliff" better than "Dang, I fell because forgot there was a drop there and idiot character can't turn neck while engaged."

I prefer regular DMC style of lock on. That said, i'm still interested in this.

They secure their freedom from Ubisoft and their first opportunity is used to make the most weeb looking French thing ever that has 'could be patched into Gatcha bullshit at the drop of a beret' written all over it.

I'm not sure who actually lost what in this arrangement.

Considering the high positive reception i'm seeing online, it is working out for them so far. If this is the game they wanted to make, then I am happy for them. I know neither of us are into turn base rpgs, but I ain't gonna judge them. I do hope that this game does well. We all know Ubisoft wouldn't fund a game like this of a high production value, and it be a turned based rpg. I consider that a win.