My day with the Xbox One

Ever since they announced its existence Microsoft have done a sterling job of convincing me that the last thing I want to plug into my television is their latest console – the Xbox One. It’s their combination of not knowing what they are doing whilst simultaneously thinking they know better than me that has made me a bit wary, but today I was given the opportunity to play on an Xbox One at a pre-launch event in my home city of Manchester and so I put my preconceptions aside and decided to let the games do the talking. Could I yet be won over? Here is my breakdown of the games I played.

Dead Rising 3
This game was a lot of fun. The demo I played started the character of with a lot of cool weapons so you could dive straight into the action. I’d always thought the previous DR games were a good idea but not quite executed well enough, this is the game that they should have been. I didn’t see any slowdown even when ploughing through zombies in a sports car. As far as I’m concerned this is Xbone’s must have title.

Killer Instinct.
I loved KI back on the snes and I used to kick ass on it so I was very happy to get my mitts on this. I played as both Jago and Sabrewulf and had a lot of fun. Does it feel like the Killer Instinct of old? Not really but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I didn’t think the graphics were that amazing and the particle effects sparkling off your enemies when you hit them with a fireball looked a bit too much like Tinkerbelle pixie dust, but overall the game was fun.

Ryse
Let me be blunt – this game completely sucks. It’s slow, clunky, has very little depth and is not much fun to play. OK it looks nice but it’s just really really crap, and seriously God of War 1 on the PS2 puts this thing to shame.

Kinect Sports rivals.
I tried the Jet Ski level in a large open space dedicated to Kinect 2.0. First it didn’t recognise me so they moved me over to a different system, that one worked so away we go! Basically you have to hold your hands in front of you and pull your arms back at the elbow to turn while making fists to accelerate. My previous experience with Kinect 1 led me to the conclusion that it was a useless piece of crap. My experience of its successor is that it’s not very responsive and my after a few minutes of holding my arms in mid air they started to ache. Diagnosis: Turd.

Kinect Tech Demo.
This was actually very impressive to watch with the demo cycling through the different ways that Kinect see’s you (3D, night vision etc) and then how it uses that data to construct various skeletons and muscle structures, as well as being able to detect force from punches or standing on one leg. The girl talking us through the demo was very nice and chatty but was clearly talking bollocks, regardless I was impressed by the tech but still not convinced about its application in games.

Battlefield 4 & COD
These games play exactly the same regardless of console so I’m not going to bother going into too much detail. BF looked good and COD looked like the same old junk Activision has been churning out for the last 6 years. If you like these games then you know what you are getting regardless of what console its on.

Forza
Looked pretty but I don’t like car games so I didn’t bother queuing up for it.

Conclusion.
I’m sure Xbox one is a capable games console and it certainly has some fun games, however it’s also stuck with Kinect which is one of the worst peripherals I have ever used and it wants to charge me an extra £100 for the privilege of waving my arms around like a bell-end trying to get my console to acknowledge my existence. So with that thought I cannot justify purchasing an Xbox One, not that I wanted one anyway but today’s experience solidified my purchase of a PS4 in a week’s time.

[DragonKnight]

You should check out Tara Long's review of Dead Rising 3.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[Nicaragua]

That's a pretty scathing review but to be honest she focuses most on the things that i didn't really get to experience in my limited time with the game, such as story and character.

Really all i got to do was run/drive around and kill zombies with a variety of weapons, and for that it seemed like fun.

I actually prefer the darker tone of this game compared to its predecessors, its more in line with what i expect from a post apocalyptic zombie nightmare and i very much disliked the cheesyness of DR2.

i had about 30 minutes with each game and maybe if i had some more time with it i would change my mind, but as it stands i would consider buying this if it makes the jump to PS4.

[MRMagoo123]

LMAO i see you struck a nerve there with that vid, all you said was check out this review and 12 ppl disagree with that lol :) It was a good review i think, pretty much summed up the game perfectly.

[DragonKnight]

I have professional haters that follow me around, and also you aren't allowed to say that Xbox One launch games are average at best because that's the one thing they were supposed to have over Sony and they don't.

[Bzone24]

Could have swore I saw this exact blog/post somewhere else a while back. Maybe a month or so ago.

[Nicaragua]

thats deja vu, its usually caused by a glitch in the matrix.

either that or everyone has a similar opinion on these games to me.

[Software_Lover]

I’m sure Xbox one is a capable games console and it certainly has some fun games, however it’s also stuck with Kinect which is one of the worst peripherals I have ever used and it wants to charge me an extra £100 for the privilege of waving my arms around like a bell-end trying to get my console to acknowledge my existence. So with that thought I cannot justify purchasing an Xbox One, not that I wanted one anyway but today’s experience solidified my purchase of a PS4 in a week’s time.

I have never seen so many people write blogs about what they don't want

Edit: I must say, I did laugh when you ended your Kinect sports rival with "turd". That was funny

[Nicaragua]

Im just an everyman who had a chance to try out a new piece of tech, i figured that was worth writing about.

Ive tried to be as honest as i can including were my personal preferences lie. Its not like im trying to be a proffessional critic or push a corporate agenda.

Anyway im glad someone shares my appreciation of the word Turd, its criminally underused in our vocabulary.

Chod is also another favourite.

[Welcome2Die]

I really dont see the Xbone being all that great, yeah it does have some goood games at launch but nothing special, the only game I was looking forward to was Ryse but it looks about as lame as dead to rights on the PSP with better grapphics. The extra 100 and the kinect camera plus the XBL Gold charges are some of the big reasons why Im skipping the Xbone. Not to mention that they tried to completely screw me over as a gamer and as a consumer.

PS4 FTW, we may not have the greatest library but oh boy is it coming!
Greatness awaits.

[Raiden]

I HAVE JUST SPENT SOME 3hrs WITH THE X1, ALL I CAN SAY IS IT MY CONSOLE OF CHOICE. It was great and didn't have a problem the kinect. Thank you MS great console.

[Nes_Daze]

Damn, so Ryse is really THAT bad??

[Nicaragua]

I think so, it just seems very basic.

The combat is pretty much like the combat in assassins creed, you just block, wait for them to attack, and then do a scripted counter move. It gets old very fast.