Something For The Weekend – 17/06/17

And so E3 has come to an end for another year. The bonanza of game announcements, press conferences, and watching long gameplay streams has died off, and we’re suddenly on the cusp of entering the traditional summer lull.

Also it’s bleeding hot out today, so get out and enjoy the sun while it lasts!

In the News This Week

There’s been an awful lot of news flying around, so while there’s a bumper crop of news in the section below, you’ll want to head to TC’s regularly updated round up of every news story to come out of E3 so far.

• Xbox One X is coming out 7th November for $499/£449
  Microsoft’s answer to the PlayStation 4 Pro is an absolute beast of a machine.
• Phil Spencer says the PS4 Pro is not an Xbox One X competitor
  And it obviously riled up a fair few people!
• Beyond Good & Evil 2 is back!
• Bethesda announce Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and it’s out 27th October
• Hazelight’s A Way Out is a story driven co-op prison escape game
  
• Super Mario Odyssey looks fab, and it’s out in October
  With hat-based co-op and taking control of dinosaurs, New Donk City yellow cabs, Bullet Bills and tons more, this looks ace.
• Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle announced
  It’s coming out on 29th August, blending Mario, Rabbids and XCOM gameplay together. It somehow looks pretty good! (You may disagree)
• BioWare’s next game is Anthem, an online co-op RPG
  Shades of Destiny, but from the BioWare team at Edmonton. Could this be the next big hit for the company?
• Life Is Strange: Before The Storm prequel announced
• Monster Hunter: World is coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC
• Backward Compatibility for original Xbox games
• Everyone is embracing cross-network play except Sony
  And their reasons aren’t really all that good… even if Microsoft could be being a bit cheeky.
• Skull & Bones revives Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag’s boat play
  Black Flag, but now a big online multiplayer game? Interesting, to say the least!
• The Evil Within 2 is out on Friday 13th October
• 4A Games reveal Metro Exodus
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps announced
• Bethesda showed off Doom VFR, Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim VR
  An enticing mix of Bethesda’s recent output translated to virtual reality.

Fairly Big Poll – Who Won E3?

We had a discussion about this the other day, but the poll from the bottom of the page is still open. Make sure to get your vote in before the end of the weekend!

Games in Review

You’ll forgive us if there were barely any reviews this week, with just a couple snuck into the gaps between conferences.

• Spellspire – PS4, XBO, PC, iOS, And – 6/10
• Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy: The Telltale Series Episode 2 – PS4, XBO, PC, iOS, And – Episodic, no score.

This Week’s Features

As you might have expected, we got busy with opinion pieces this week. First up, I took a look at how the Xbox One X is wonderfully powerful, but how Microsoft have struggled of late to spur on first and second party development for their systems. Dom then followed up with a take on Sony’s press conference, and how they lacked surprises and any focus on this year, despite an breathless showcase of great looking games. Rounding the big three out, Jake (and everyone else) loved Nintendo’s short and sweet, surprise filled conference, even if a few questions still hang over them.

At the end of all that, we asked who won E3? And yesterday, we got to answer another question: who won the E3 bingo?

Straight after the Xbox press conference, Dave got to cooking up a list of 15 games we’d love to see made available through Xbox backward compatibility. Sticking with lists, Jim gave us 13 reasons why we should be excited for Monster Hunter: World and the series’ return to PlayStation.

In a lonely preview, I sat down to play Outreach, a rather intriguing cold war thriller set in outer space. What We Played, meanwhile, features ARMS, Tekken 7 and Friday the 13th

Trailer Park

It’s so difficult to narrow this down to just five, but here goes.

Spider-Man’s web-slinging adventure looks fantastic

Beyond Good & Evil 2’s return was a wonderful surprise

Super Mario Odyssey’s hat-based co-op looks great

Wolfenstien II: The New Colossus brings an American uprising

Metro Exodus is a makes an open world escape to the country

Your Achievements

It’s been very light on the achievements front this past week, so all we’ll say here is Happy Birthday, Avenger!

The Week Ahead

Despite the craziness of last week, there’s actually a few rather notable releases next week, from a huge MMORPG expansion to explosive arcade action and portable RPG goodness.

• Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood – PS4, PC – 20/06
• Nex Machina – PS4, PC – 20/06
• God Wars: Future Past – PS4, PS Vita – 20/06 (US) – Out now in EU
• Ever Oasis – 3DS – 23/06
• Get Even – PS4, XBO, PC – 23/06

Have a good weekend, and I’ll be back soon!