We Talk Over: Xbox Games Showcase 2020 Live

Glad to see some colorful games and hearing Jack Black lay down a track to Psychonauts 2 was mellow as hell.

Would have hoped for more gameplay but happy to hear Obsidian still gets to work on singleplayer games.

On the last talk-over I commented about a general negative disposition or mood from the team, so I'm more than happy to thank you and commend you all for a much more positive vibe this time! Great video!

Feels like Halo: Infinite needs more time to show what's different. I really liked 5 so I'm in for the combat alone, but this seemed like a tease more than anything.

IGN posted an interview saying this is the next 10 years of Halo. So obviously it's bigger than a skirmish on a hill.

Nobody on the GB Crew commented that the music of the CrossfireX trailer was a moody cover of X Gon' Give It To Ya by DMX?

EDIT : Nevermind, they mentioned the DMX cover at the end. I think that trend of slow moody covers for game trailers has peaked, pack it up, it's over.

I thought this was actually a super solid show. Love that most of those games are day and date on Game Pass.

The best part of this showcase is how there’s less than 5 minutes of gameplay in a 50 minute presentation about games.

Why does Vinny need to bone up on Halo lore when he already knows about the Battle of Arizona?

https://soundcloud.com/user-975941422/halo-story-byjerry#t=0:00

Game-Ass Games: The Showcase.

This show would've been alright if MS hadn't been hyping it up so much. Made it seem like they had way more to show than they actually did.

Such an odd showcase. Halo looks like it has potential but 4 and 5 were so boring (didn't finish either and I loved Halo on OG Xbox and 360.) Everwild, Gunk, Darktide, and Anowed have potential, yet after The Outer Worlds sorta fizzled out for me I dont know about that last one. Hopefully Fable is good? 2 was a solid game at the time but the console-y action open world RPG has come along way since those days. Hopefully there is a hook besides quirky British accents.

Stalker 2 has huge potential, while that will probably be on everything, I'd like to see the open world FPS genre pushed forward a lot. Far Cry 3-4 was a fun jump, Metro Exodus seemed to be really sort of lukewarm, I'd like to think they can learn lessons from all of these while still doing all of the things that made Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat unique and compelling.

After some 30 years of gaming, I can see the benefit of Game Pass. I mean how much money do I spend every year on Steam only to play a game once and put it back on my virtual shelf? Wouldn't it be better to subscribe to a service? If only Game Pass included games I would be interested in playing.

Microsoft 2 for 2 on overhyping and underdelivering. Lots of promise in here, but outside of Halo, another gameplay showcase without gameplay. Maybe it matters less if they're all on Game Pass either way? I can't say, but this didn't move me at all to get back into Xbox's playground.

Love that they continue to dick around with the E word.

I noticed that when they are in the grid view Brad's box doesn't line up perfectly with the one above him, and once I noticed that I couldn't stop looking at it.

I thought the variety of games microsoft showed was good, I just wish there was more gameplay for basically everything they showed. Also, really seems like there isnt gonna be that much coming out this year.

And anybody that keeps yelling about how they don't get excited about anything just needs to watch the Tetris section. They do get excited about games still, its just games they actually care about, not every single announcement, which I like because otherwise it would come across as fake.

Halo: Infinite was legitimately embarrassing. https://twitter.com/geoffkeighley/status/1286380362067611648?s=20

The game is supposed to launch this year...how does it look this awful?

I really thought they would have hit harder with this. I’m still considering buying a Series X because of Game Pass, but most of the games they showed here weren’t exciting at all and didn’t feel next gen to me.

I love Alex's Gone With The Pope poster.

@joelalfaro: Was there any way they could've been positive about that stream? If anything, Ubisoft shouldn't have had a stream nor any reason to celebrate. Fuck Ubisoft.

Looking over the livestream again quickly, I'm now wondering -- was I watching a stream for games to convince me to buy a Xbox Series X, or was I watching a stream to convince me to get PC GamePass? I'm not entirely sure what the value proposition here is.

Maybe I'm jaded but open world halo with a grapple gun didn't do much for me. Especially when the game jumped immediately into a grunt fight. Hope they have more to show.

Rest of the Xbox show was mainly OK but nothing that screams next gen like ps5 stream was. Only thing I got from the Xbox show is that game pass continues to be very compelling and I look forward to playing some of the games on PC.

Dude, you hit the nail on the head here on what this stream was gunning for. They mentioned the Series X a couple times about how it's the most powerful box but the vast majority of the marketing here seems steered towards selling Game Pass and treating the Xbox brand as a broad platform for you to pick where you want to play these games on Game Pass whether it be a PC, older consoles, or next-gen.

Does it matter? Seems like MS doesn't care either way as long as you subscribe.

Microsoft did it again. They're leaving me wanting more... fucking gameplay. Yes, seeing Halo Infinite was great, but then why even talk about Forza Motorsport, State of Decay 3, and Fable?? Sure, you could even throw Avowed in there but I give that a pass because it wasn't rumored or leaked. But at least with Avowed you got to understand it'll be first person and got a sense of the world. State of Decay 3 gave you a sense of the world but that's it, and the game will be nothing like that CG video. So it's kind of a wash. Forza couldn't even show a cockpit view race for 10 seconds? Then why bother telling us a new one will be out? In what? 2022? And Fable. Sure, people are now excited it's official but holy shit you couldn't show concept art or a view of the town? I'm now going into any Xbox showing with very low expectations.

edit: Even throw Everwild (had to look that generic title up) in that. It was previously announced and now you show a long trailer without any idea how you will play the game. I'm down for an adventure, nurturing story, just SHOW IT to me!

Man compared to the rest of it, why am i the most excited for the CrossfireX campaign? That looked mad polished.

Lots of interesting games. Really good showing, I was actually surprised by the amount they showed.

@topcyclist: Sorry about taking a shit on your game of the century. bud. It's just hard to get excited about a game that looks like the old ones and the only new take being an open world angle that has been beaten to death by an endless list of other games. I'm currently replaying the Halo games through MCC and currently going through 4 and to see yet another grunt fight within the first 60 seconds of gameplay of Infinite didn't exactly have me doubling over in excitement. In truth, it's my mistake for expecting something more out of a new Halo game taking place on a new Halo that proceeds to be more Halo.

They could also absolutely show me more to justify why this game will become yet another open world experience and I'll be all the more happy for it beyond my current stance of "sure I'll play this game on Game Pass" /shrug

@sammo21: It's a 60fps open world game (i presume with co-op and splitscreen). Not many of those exist for console. I'm not saying the game looks great, but it will feel great to play.

I was expecting more raw gameplay and after the Sony showcase and their own lackluster first stream I’m really surprised they showed a bunch of cinematic reveal trailers again.

@cikame: Because Remedy is fucking dope. I'm looking forward to seeing what that game will end up being too.

James Chen, John Ricciardi, and Dan Ryckert in The Tetrising

Vinny with the fable jokes and nobody's picking them up, damn

My girlfriend's mom recently had a chicken move into her yard, and while I was checking it out I was thinking, "Ooh, I'm a Chicken Chaser!" I could use more Fable in my life.

Genuine question:

As a long-time Halo fan, I really can't tell. Was the Halo Infinite gameplay:

a) An art-style change to be closer to CE

b) Just far from unfinished

c) Looking really awful just because it started development for XB1 way back, and also just in general has to run on a base XB1 as well as new hardware since it's a launch game

Everything looked washed out and plastic-like. Side-by-sides from H4 and even Reach make it look bad by comparison, and the promo screenshots they put out are....rough. I still play Halo 5 from time to time and it looks far better.

Don't get me wrong, gameplay still looks rad and I'll be there day 1, but was slightly offput by the aesthetic.

Cheeki Breeki!!!

Get out of here STALKER!


Can't wait to play STALKER 2.

i went back to listen to the slow and dramatic cover of x gonna give it to you but instead it was just kind of boring 😩

@threeoct: OMG what a classic

looking forward to hooking up my xbox 1s to try Halo Infinite on gamepass

Why was 90% of this cinematic trailers??????

Some potentially interesting games here, but yeah. Very hard to get excited about a bunch of cinematic trailers. Everwild could either be my fav game in the world or it could be a very freeform sandbox where you just.. hang out because you want to hang out and therefore it would 100% not be for me.

And while gamepass is great value at the moment, i do wonder what the longterm effect is going to be when all these people are not going out there to actually buy games but rely on companies to bring a bunch of games towards their service instead. How hard will it be for a new developer to stand out enough to get people to buy their game and hopefully get Microsoft's eyes on them to be part of the gamepass rotation? What's happening to the non-subscription service games in a world where most people are spending their monthly allowance on service access instead of games?

The last Halo I played was Halo 3, so take that into consideration. Halo Infinite seems...meh? I got some of that cross gen vibes with some of the footage, but the game itself seems ok. I assumed 343 got a blank check and all of the time after Halo 5 to make this, but it that didn’t come across to me.

The Medium trailer gave me real "Baskin" vibes, for some reason

S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 !!! rumors are they have ditched the xray engine and are using Unreal Engine 5! Trying to remain calm as it's early days and anything could happen but holy sheep shit they are fucking making another S.T.A.L.K.E.R in UE5!!!

As far as I'm concerned, Microsoft once again didn't deliver. They had a chance to out do Sony and blew it. Right now, Sony's show with its console reveal plus many new games and exclusives was still the best presentation so far. With that said, being able to play the new games on Game Pass without needing a Series X is a great thing. And the new Halo, just looked like Halo. I couldn't tell the difference between Infinite and the Master Chief Collection. That is a bad thing. I only hope it was the stream quality that was making the game look so average. And the Triple H alien promo did nothing for me either.

I will add, the game that was the most interesting, was the game made by Blinx: The Time Sweeper studio called Gunk.

I feel like I watched a different show than most, was a fantastic show.

I completely agree with this. I think Halo 5 still looks quite nice especially with the X patch, so why does Infinite look so bland? infinite is easily the thing I am most excited for from Microsoft but man it looks boring. Its like MS waited too long to make an open world game and because its coming out so late seems like the most derivative thing.

@vinny it's funny that you said the halo opening cgi was like Westworld, it was actually created by the same guy who did Westworld's opening credits!

Was an alright showing I guess?

Open world being the big news about halo is...kinda boring to be honest. I know there's probably more, but at this point it's the current selling piece of the new console. So...sell me on it maybe? I can play quite a few well crafted open world games this gen, so what does halo infinite do for me other than just catch up to those games? And I'm not the kind of person to freak out and buy it because it's halo, so maybe this games just not being made for me.

Obsidians news was probably what I enjoyed the most. I'm really excited to see what game they're going to make in Eora after Pillars. I would've liked another isometric rpg, but I think the first person rpg move is a good one considering Elder Scrolls is going to be a no show for awhile still.

The Gunk was the other standout for me. Looked interesting and I'm curious to try it out.

I'm also glad to see that microsoft is continuing to put a lot of value into gamepass. If their plan is to keep my subscription then the good news for them is it's working.

GUNKPUNK!

There's perilously little talk of The Gunk in this thread and frankly y'all should be ashamed.