I very thankfully received an Xbox One for Christmas and with a gift voucher I got for leaving work I managed to buy a couple of games to go with it too, so I'm sure you can guess how I've spent my holiday. I also thought my first impressions would make a great blog post, I'll go over the console and the few games I've got.
The Xbox One
The time I've spent with the Xbox so far I have enjoyed and any of the negative feelings I had after the E3 revealing are gone. The console is larger than I thought it would be but it appears well made nonetheless. The controller feels pretty much like the Xbox 360 controller, with some minor tweaks. The triggers are now wider and follow the curve of the controller, meaning your finger can rest easier across them and the thumb-sticks are slightly smaller with a bit more resistance to them. Everything else is more or less the same but I will say it feels of a higher quality than the 360 controller. The Xbox One controller does have a few hidden treats though with the mandatory motion sensor and both triggers now also have their own rumble.
Motion controls are something that I have never cared about, I don't want to wave much about when gaming. I can handle the "shake the controller to perform an action kind" as long as it's not overused but Kinect is way out of my league, so the thing is just sitting on top of my TV, glaring at me with the 3 red lights like some sort of Doctor Who villain. It's great that when Kinect sees me I sign in and scanning QR codes is much better than entering 25 digits but I just can't sit there and shout at my TV so I do feel the thing is a bit wasted on me.
 |
| Yup, this is pretty much what mine looks like [1] |
There's no surprises when it comes to the UI, following Microsoft's trend lately everything is squares. It is easy to navigate with a controller and most of the things you need are only every a few button presses away, I still haven't figured out how to change the background though... I'm not even sure you can.
A great new feature is how the guide button functions now, it works the same as Alt+Tabbing on a PC, while in a game or an app you'll be tabbed back to the Home screen where you can do whatever you need then you can resume where you left off and it does all this really smoothly. There's other stuff as well, like the video recording (DVR) where you can record the last 60 seconds of game play and then upload it. I'd love to write about this but uploading the clips appear to behind the Gold paywall so all I've done is record the footage. The recordings are not HD but they look fine.
Forza 5
I came into Forza 5 expecting to be a bit disappointed after reading all the negative press it has received but I'm glad to say that the core Forza experience is still there, though I can certainly see why the game wasn't as well-reviewed as Forza 4. You buy cars, tune them up, paint them, then race and it's all still deeply engrossing. The cars once again look better than ever and this is all helped by a new, more natural lighting system that even helps some of the tracks look good, the game is no longer plagued by overly-clinical lighting. Some of the race track flaws are more noticeable than others, like the paper crowd or cardboard trees, but when you're moving at 140 mph it is hard to spot to them.
 |
| One of my Forza traditions: The Toyota Trueno! |
Forza also makes great use of the rumble triggers. The left trigger (The brake) allows you to monitor if your brakes are locking and the right trigger (The acceleration) lets you feel the traction of your wheels, which is all fantastic for cornering. It's another subtle feature that really adds to the game and I hope more games incorporate the rumble triggers properly.
The usual polish of Forza games begin to disappear when you look a bit further unfortunately. The car selection is much smaller than normal, certain series favourite tracks are missing and I find the menus to be clunky. Then there's the Drivatars, an idea great on paper but in its current state is just a pain in the arse. Every race now begins with a pile up that you must force your way through, it's quite funny at first but once you begin to get into the top-tier cars it just becomes frustrating. The soundtrack has been replaced with repetitive orchestral music and the once great Storefront is gone... or just hidden behind the menus.
It is a shame then that core gameplay is spoiled by things that could have been ironed out with a few more months development time, but I guess Microsoft wanted this out for the launch of the console, the next one should be back on track!
Dead Rising 3
In todays gaming market killing zombies is a bit of a cliche but when the first Dead Rising came out it was still a fresh idea after the countless games of killing Nazis. It's a good job then that Dead Rising 3 doesn't feel like other zombie games and is still holding on to the uniqueness of the first.
The formula of the game hasn't changed much, this time you're in a respectable-sized city named Los Perididos, you build silly weapons and chop down hordes and hordes of zombies while moving from one activity to another. The next-gen can really be seen with the amount of zombies on screen at any time, it is something to experience and in such large numbers can be a threat, so it's a good thing there's hundreds of weird and wonderful weapons to build and many vehicles to drive. After a few hours the zombie killing can become a bit repetitive but the huge amount of ways to kill them meant I never felt bored.
 |
| Things can get weirder... trust me [2] |
The game itself looks really nice, the characters and zombies look good even when the camera gets in close, considering the amount of zombies and that each of them can be dismembered too I'd say this quite an achievement. Los Perididos holds its own too, having great variation in all 4 sections and no distracting frame rate dips, there is however noticeable zombie and texture loading when you speed into a new area. The pop-ins could be due to the entire city being loading screen free, you only get a loading screen when you go to start a story mission, this makes exploring the world a real pleasure!
Capcom have reworked the story modes a bit too. The original Dead Rising experience where you had to manage your time and your inventory with high precision has been renamed to Hardcore, which can be played straight from the start. The basic Story mode is easier and the time management has been removed, allowing a more relaxed experience. I think this is a great idea as the management heavy style of the older games was a turn-off for some people.
Dead Rising is a great first-party launch title. The story and characters start off a little slow but both develop nicely towards the end and the overall game is stupid fun that doesn't take itself seriously. I'm not sure how far the silliness can take the series but for now it's just enough to make it stand out from the rest.
 |
| Torch + Gems = Lightsaber??? [3] |
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Brotherhood was the last Assassin's Creed game I played, once the series became annual the fatigue quickly set in for me, but after hearing how great the new one is I thought I would jump back in and I haven't been disappointed!
This time around you control Edward Kenway, the grandfather of AC III's protagonist and a pirate. If Heath Ledger was in Pirates of the Caribbean then this is how it would have turned out. The story follows Kenway as he goes from a low-life pirate to an assassin-pirate mash-up with his own ship and crew, I haven't completed the story yet but so far I've met a good cast of likable characters and the plot appears to be moving at a steady pace. There's so much content in the game that the first third of the story is really just showing it all, so it can feel a bit like your hand is held for the first few hours.
 |
| [4] |
Ubisoft have nailed the pirate aspects of the game. Everything you'd want from a pirate game is in here, smokey ship battles, buried treasure, muskets, boarding ships while swinging on ropes. You even get your own customisable ship and if this wasn't enough, a pirate cove to upgrade too! All this leaves little room for being an assassin though, it seems the days of Assassin's Creed II are long gone, where everything you was doing would be leading up to these big assassinations. So far I've killed a few minor characters and plenty of nameless NPCs but these all feel a bit shallow.
There is so much stuff to do apart from the main story it almost over shadows it and it all takes place on a massive map. You can explore the world in your ship then get out and explore some more on foot and it all looks wonderful, with every inch of your screen filled with little details. I do need to bring some attention to the sea in the game because it looks very natural, which is something I find most games struggle with, even how the waves interact with the ships are great to look at.
Assassin's Creed is moving away from the things that made the first few games great, but I don't mind that much, there are some fresh ideas in here that are stopping the games from becoming stale and I get to be a damn pirate-assassin! Not many games could pull that off.
 |
| Shanking Simulator 2013 [5] |
That so far about sums up my Xbox One experience. Considering how far the 360 evolved over its life time I can only expect good things for the future of the Xbox One, I just hope Microsoft can deliver on the platform exclusives.
References & Notes
The Forza screenshot was taken in game, by me, using the games camera function
[1]
http://www.gamerheadlines.com/5-exclusive-xbox-one-releases/
[2][3]
http://www.edge-online.com/gallery/six-new-dead-rising-3-screenshots-emerge/
[4]
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/assassins-creed-iv-black-flag-pc-nvidia-enhancements-revealed
[5]
http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/scr.phtml?cat=f&platform=ps3&link=assassinscreed4blackflag&pic=assassinscreed4blackflag8
