You spend the entire article talking about how you didn't see what you wanted to see, yet you never really clarify what it is that would have made it a ground-breaking, jaw-dropping reveal. Generic statements like "it's about the games for me" or "but Sony had diversity" don't quantify anything. If I'm to try and interpret your desires, if Microsoft had shown some indie games that would have made it amazing? If they'd done a tech demonstration like developers do with the release of a new engine... wowing you with their new specular shader, their ambient occlusion mapping, their day to night cycle and wind/weather physics? that would have made it for you? How would that make it any less "unsurprising"?
Turning the XBOX into the single focus of the living room entertainment system seems pretty revolutionary to me. Sure, it's been a long time coming. Yes, it appears iterative and the next logical step. Sure, we saw it coming eventually, but has anyone else done it? Have they done it as well? Granted, we'll have to wait and see how it truly fits in to the living room, but I believe they demonstrated quite well the possibilities.
Just because they didn't show your specific game or demonstrate a partnership with indie game developers doesn't mean it won't happen. It just wasn't the *flash* they wanted for the reveal. This generation is getting harder and harder to please and I think that, to me, is what's most disconcerting. Instead of seeing what's on initial offer and saying "cool, I like where this is headed. I can't wait to see what else is on offer at E3" we automatically assume "that's it? That's all you have to show us? That's the upper limit of the XBOX One?" At this rate, no reveal will be enough for us.
Really wanted to like this game from the get-go but just couldn't get into it during the beta. Really glad I didn't pre-order. Perhaps after a year of patches and a heavy discount I'll buy it.
As a side note... I hope GameSpot fires their camera guy. Not a single frame in focus despite him being behind the constantly moving camera the entire time.
Auto checkpoints but no options to save - Thank you G.R.A.W. Impossibly long boss fights - God of War (Fighting Ares in God Mode) Floating ties - Hitman (All of them) Horrible, awful, pathetic series enders - Myst V
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