We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief because The Big Three has come and gone. Beforehand, we had only seen small slivers of what was going to be shown and with E3 over, the windows are opened to the new realms we’ll get to explore over the course of the next year or so. As always, I am so overly excited for some of these games that I can barely contain myself, so in this article I will touch on the ones I am most excited about.
First up, let’s discuss Assassin’s Creed Unity. I am so damn excited for this one like I haven’t been before with the other titles in the franchise. The trailer was amazing, as they always are with Ubisoft. The team killed it with this outing. The graphics are refined and the gameplay has undergone some much needed overhauls. For instance, the missions seem to be more openly structured and the lack of tailing mission is going to make all of their fans incredibly happy. The parkour elements of the game have been heavily touched on and now they should be better than ever and more fluid.
When I played Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag after playing Assassin’s Creed III, I realized how much more fluid everything felt with Black Flag. I am patiently awaiting to play this next-generation outing of the much loved franchise because of the refinement over something that was already excellent in my eyes.
Another important feature I’d like to point out is the game is built on next-generation technology, so I am more than happy to travel through one of my favorite cities during one of their darkest times. Also, as if all of this wasn’t enough, they’re introducing Assassin’s Creed coop. You can finally scour the city and do all of these tasks with a friend or three. While I have never been a fan of the franchise’s multiplayer aspect, this is shaping up to be one of the funnest, deepest, most sprawling and entertaining historical adventures yet. I just can’t wait to see where it lies in the franchise as far as the story is concerned.
The next game I very dearly want to talk about is actually not just one game, it’s four: The Master Chief Collection. I can’t possibly say that Halo is what made me go the Xbox route when I used to love Sony so much, but it was a huge deciding factor. The overall splendor I get when playing a Halo game for the first or hundredth time is one of undying appreciation for all things science fiction and action adventure. The fact that 343 Industries threw together four of the games that fans love the most is probably what makes this the most ambitious HD collection out there. Oh, they also remastered Halo 2 while they were at it.
The amount of deals in this collection is astounding. First off, you get Halo: Combat Evolved with the same engine it shipped with back in 2001 and also with online multiplayer for the first time. Next off, Halo 2 has been remastered with this collection as well. It’s coming as the rest of the games with it’s original engine that’s been polished into beautiful chrome. The reason we are only getting the main entry games and not the spin-offs, like Reach, is because they want to stick with the story of Master Chief. I think that’s important because they aren’t getting sidetracked with anything else and are just delivering what gamers really want: Nostalgia, multiplayer and all the Master Chief we can handle.
That isn’t it, not even close. Next off we have Halo 3 and Halo 4, which are shipping in their original engines, and also with 1080p glorious resolution. I can’t wait to play Halo 4 like this. The game looked amazing on last-gen so I can only imagine how it’s going to look and play at the new beautiful resolution. The same goes with Halo 3. I’m too happy for this collection. And of course it doesn’t end there, you get access to the Halo 5 beta in December as well. November 11th is going to be a huge day for me and all Halo fans alike.
The third and final game on my list is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I know some of you that see my excitement for Halo and are wondering where Destiny is, but I’m holding off on that until I play the beta. The Witcher 3 took one of the best looking games that I own on my Xbox 360 and stepped it up a notch with the final game in the trilogy on Xbox One. I have to admit it was the best looking game at E3 as far as I saw. They changed some things around and one of those big aspects is that it’s going to be completely open-world. I haven’t discovered much about this game and I don’t want to know much of the story seeing as how I haven’t completed its predecessor yet, but as more details about the gameplay and small tidbits of the story unfold, I’m going to be there ultimately salivating.
A few other games I would like to say I am excited for before I close this article for good: Kingdom Hearts III finally making it’s well respected leap into Xbox is making me extremely happy. Destiny, Mass Effect 4, Dragon Age Inquisition to name a few others getting me pumped. I don’t know which I will buy first and which I will play the most, but one thing is for certain, my wallet and I aren’t going to be on good terms when these slew of amazing games start to release this Fall.
