Xbox Series S/X: Thread 05

[teddymeow]

Indy looks bad.

It's Craig from Halo Infinite all over again.

[hudson]

Hope there's a third person view. It didn't look too shabby

[fishbowlhead]

I’ll get Senua 2 eventually, really liked the first and I don’t see Ninja Theory going astray for no2.

[Neon Ignition]

Avowed looks alright, I need to see more on the combat to be completely sold. Hellblade looks good but it raised a red flag when they described it as short, it comes back around to the idea that if it's effectively a high budget version of the original then it's missing the point of the original and not where the money should be going. It'll be interesting to see where the thread goes on that one come May. Indy has a wonky air to it but it looked like the most immediately fun game, I miss solid SP FPS campaigns. The developer focus though, I appreciate the intent but that was a long showcase with less than about 8 minutes of real footage. Needs to be trimmed down next time.

EDIT - Seems like Hellblade II is being old as 8 hours in length which means 5-6hrs in real life so presumably its original reveal came when they had pretty much nothing done on it.

[nonny]

I thought they all looked pretty decent. I don't think Indiana Jones is going to set the benchmark graphically and I was initially shocked that it was predominantly in 1st person but then after watching it a couple of times and know the pedigree of the studio I think it is the correct choice.

I've enjoyed all of the Wolfenstein games up until now and graphically this does very much look like an extension of those titles. They always seem to give humans a slightly cartoonish look to them (if that is the right term?) so they don't look too realistic. I think that's their artistic choice and as such they simply aren't going for sheer realism like other titles.

Similarly I think sticking to 1st person might allow it to cut it's own path. If it was 3rd person then there would be obvious comparisons to Uncharted and Tomb Raider. I certainly thought they'd go this route... but now I've come around to it and I like what I've been shown. What they have done is capture the tone and essence of the movies... the whip looks good, the music is on point, the audio of the punches made me smile and the voice acting for Indiana sounds almost perfect (I am assuming it isn't Harrison Ford?)

So count me in...

Avowed was also pretty damn good as well. I like where they've gone with the graphics and it just feels like an Obsidian game through and through... the combat looked decent but they didn't give away much. Pretty sure that will deliver enough... and I love that box art.

Hellblade 2... Meh the behind the scenes stuff didn't do much for me here because we've seen so bloody much of it already. But getting a release date confirmed is good and precisely what was needed. The runtime for the game didn't surprise me to be honest... I didn't assume it was going to be a 30 hour epic but I guess it is a bit on the short side. It depends on what replayability there is but as a Game Pass showcase title maybe it's just long enough?

What I don't like and I think they absolutely need to change is making it digital only. We've seen Alan Wake 2 do exactly the same thing recently but I think big publishers like Microsoft need to still offer physical releases for big titles like this. So black mark on an otherwise decent developer direct.

Last but not least, not a PS5 logo in sight and clear designation on all the trailers stating these titles are coming to Series X/S, Game Pass, PC and Steam... so doesn't sound like the 3rd party commentary is affecting these releases (yet) and its good they did this after all the furore over the Blade announcement.

[Neon Ignition]

The release timelines for these games highlights how much BS the third party rumours are. As for Indy, from what I can gather it's the ever faithful Troy Baker doing the voice. It will get at least a score of 8/10 for including Marcus

[Lebowski]

That Indy game looks awesome, I'm a bit confused if it's A FPS or a 3rd person action adventure game though, we haven't had a good Indy games since the amazing lucasarts game Fate of Atlantis, from the trailer it looks like it's going to hit all the right notes, while also delivering a decent bit of action and exploration.


Avowed to me looks very poor, combat lacks any weight theirs a weird delay going on too when you hit an enemy, and they take an age to react. You also see the player struggling to hit enemies with weak looking spells too and missing constantly. Game world doesn't look great, they showed Multiple very sparse flat looking arena like areas with the same copied and pasted generic lizard men enemy. I had to laugh when that devs start going on about their amazing combat, wow you can freeze an enemy and then shatter them, mind-blowing original combat here guys. Not a fan of the art style or setting, getting Conan/Rust type Vibes from.


Hellblade II looks to be more of the same, not sure if it was needed, i dropped the first game after the burning village bit as i found it a bit too linear, gave it a good few hours but it just didn't grab me so will be skipping this new one.

[wakka]

I liked the look of the slower pace of the game play of this Indiana Jones walk 'em up. The cutscenes left something to be desired though.

[Neon Ignition]

Like the developer of Avowed said in the video, I'm sure that when the time comes many of us will have a great time entertaining ourselves as we play with our one handed wand

[Lebowski]

one handed wang errr wand waggling ftw

It might be because i've been playing a lot of Hogwarts legacy recently but the impact of smacking someone in that with spells has a real weight to it combo juggling an enemy reflecting their spells and finishing them off with a fire blast is super satisfying, In the Avowed trailer the protagonist looked like he was hitting them with a water pistol for all the impact the spells seemed to do.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, Avowed has the air about it that Obsidion were bought by MS and suddenly had more resources at their disposal and so said "We'll make you your very own Elders Scrolls type game, the perfect use of our experience and a great new exclusive IP for you"

Then got to work only to look at the news one day and see the Besthesda buyout. Avowed feels like an Elders Scrolls that has pivoted to be not-quite ES and in doing so it feels similar and yet everything is a little bit "off".

[nonny]

one handed wang errr wand waggling ftw

It might be because i've been playing a lot of Hogwarts legacy recently but the impact of smacking someone in that with spells has a real weight to it combo juggling an enemy reflecting their spells and finishing them off with a fire blast is super satisfying, In the Avowed trailer the protagonist looked like he was hitting them with a water pistol for all the impact the spells seemed to do.

I'm playing this currently as well and agree that combat in Hogwarts is excellent... It makes the films look poor.

For Indiana Jones they said it's mostly 1st person but will pull back to 3rd person for some traversal and cutscenes... There was a bit where he's scaling a drain pipe and it basically pulls back at that point.

I don't think it'll be in 3rd person much at all.

[Lebowski]

It looked to have uncharted type sections where you're exploring tombs and the like, where being spoilt this year for action adventure games like this what with the Tomb Raider remake, and now we get to be Indy and do some whipping and quipping.

[DeathAdder]

What is the whole let's walk down a corridor, film it, and put it in the Developer Direct nonsense all about?

Filled with unnecessary BS and it's making me quite bored watching it.

The games looked pretty good, all 2024, but the presentation was so dry.

Couldn't agree more. Much prefer Nintendo Directs, which seem happy and full of joy throughout. Even when they are showing something I have no interest in, I still enjoy watching.

[nonny]

Looks like PalWorld is lighting up Steam and is day one in game pass right now.

Didn't have Pokémon with guns on my bingo card... I'm surprised it's so successful and might be a major win for Xbox getting it on the console.