E3 2015; Microsoft

For a long time now E3's biggest rivalry has been Microsoft vs. Sony. We all hang around to wait and see who is gonna do what. You have the Sony fans or Microsoft fans who defend everything that their console does or rubs all the great features in the other fans face, and then you have the gaming fans, like my husband and I who wait and hear from both and what console we support that year depends heavily on how their E3 conference went. This year, Microsoft won in a big way.

The big news

Console
There isn't a lot to say here other than simply we all complained enough that Microsoft decided to finally listen to us! Xbox One is finally backwards compatible so if you were like me clinging to your Xbox 360 because you didn't want to lose some of your favorite games, we can finally progress forward! In my opinion after owning both, the Xbox 360 was a better console than the PS3. Then coming in to this generation, the PS4 had all these great new games coming that were Sony exclusive, they were focused on gaming while Xbox One was about a whole entertainment experience which I felt took from the gaming consoles purpose, and new Xbox games were few and far between and I still loved my 360 games so much. I am now ready to throw out my 360 that I was clinging to so violently (my husband asked a hundred times to trade it in) and trade up for the One.


Halo 5: Guardians
From the looks of it, our long time iconic hero Master Chief may have turned into a traitor, and we will now be following the story of Jameson Locke. This is about all that we know about the story;

To me, many of these FPS games are essential the same over and over again. Slight story changes, but essentially they are all super similar. However I really like a couple series, one of course being Halo, and so I am rather excited about it. While is is mostly a revamp of the same thing, we did get to hear about a new multiplayer mode called Warzone where you fight large numbers of enemies on a huge map.

Dark Souls 3
Here concludes a truly epic dark fantasy adventure trilogy. As was the trend at E3, all that we know is what was shown in the trailer which of course left us doing a lot of guessing and speculating to fill in the plot holes. This year was really just a big tease. The trailer essentially gives us the idea that there was a huge tragedy. You see a dead body being dragged across the ground, some ruined structures, and a ruined and asked covered Drangleic, the place you occupied in Dark Souls 2, with people dragging their feet through the ash. We then see a first person perspective as we reach for a crown with a dark aura emanating from it. Then we move on to an unfamiliar realm and essentially what I got from this is that this installment will be far into the future. Almost everything else is rumor and speculation and you could look at 10 different review sites and find 10 different ideas as to the direction of the game. My main concern is, while this has been a good series, I just hope they actually stop here. As we all know, many games have a tendency to promise a certain number of games, reach a good solid end to the series, but see that it's a cash cow and milk it dry leaving a sour taste in our mouth, *cough* Assassin's Creed *cough*.

Gears of War 4
Gears of War is of course one of the post popular Microsoft exclusive franchises up there with Halo, and it is my personal favorite FPS. 

This one I sadly have even less information than other games, so all I can give you is this trailer. 

In other news

Rise of the Tomb Raider
After the first game Lara undergoes therapy to recover from her mental trauma. She finds herself in ruins using many familiar survival skills and game mechanics with the much needed addition of appropriate and practical adventuring attire.

Plants vs. Zombies
Seven game modes, twelve maps, twenty four player matches, and free DLC coming to Playstation, Xbox, and PC coming Spring 2016!

Fable legends

After a long time without we are finally getting our next installment into the Fable Series. Fable 2 was the last good game from Fable. After that it took a fast nose dive, however this looks incredible.

Forza 6
450 cars in 26 locations with over 26 race tracks in 1080p 60FPS, Forza 6 will bring weather effected driving , return of Forzavista, and 24 player multiplayer races.