My thoughts if anyone cares to read. Will save Halo for last since I have a good bit to say about that.
Thought it was a good show overall. Strong portfolio from MSFT. It was great to see Dragon Quest XI in the preshow. I really enjoyed playing that game earlier this year on Switch. Incredible announcement For Game Pass-should have saved it for the main show. Outer Worlds DLC, Tetris Effect, and Ori upgrade were nice announcements. State of Decay is a franchise that IMO has a ton of potential if it moves away from locally hosted coop to constant world. Everwild continues to interest me. The move to Forza Motorsport as a platform was great; wonder if we see another project from Turn 10 now? Their games are not my cup of tea but it was great to see Tim and Double Fine thriving-a really neat little studio. 40k and The Medium both looked interesting. I am really interested to see how Crossfire X fares in the west and I am excited to give it a go (missed the beta). This could really help Xbox in Korea; I see a lot potential in that market. PSO 2 in the west is great to see. STALKER 2, Fable, Destiny 2, and Avowed were all absolutely fantastic announcements. I think Destiny 2 and Avowed were my "moments of the show". The new MMO lite rumors about Fable have me a bit concerned as that is not the sort of game I am looking to play. Need more info on that but fantastic to see Fable alive-it’s been a long time since 3. Overall, a great show and liked the focus on Game Pass. Nicely done.
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Halo-where to start with this one? This one was tough for me a huge Halo fan.
Art+Graphics: Graphically the game was a wreck. I think the memes have done well to get that point across better than I could. It just seemed like it was a really old build which is odd for the end of July. Everything had this odd blocky action figure like appearance. This was immensely disappointing after the prior two trailers and the supposed return to the classic art style. Some designs looked really good but others just did not land with me. It was not the return to the classic art style that I had expected.
Gameplay: This was another miss for me with movement but I am interested in the open world. Sprint in campaign is fine but it means it will likely be in MP too. We've had three different takes on sprint and none of them have worked. I do not understand why they would try it a fourth time. If its campaign only, then great but I doubt it. Overall the movement looked similar to Halo 5 with sliding in as well. The grapple mechanic initially had me excited because I thought it suggested a Halo 3/Reach MLG approach to equipment being limited time use objects found on the map. Will have to see how it works in MP. It reminded me of Titanfall which relies on speed but seemed out of place in the slower Halo; will have to try it for myself. The guns all fired incredibly fast, seemingly tuned for sprint. Will need some time messing around with the sandbox to see what it has to offer. None of the new additions did too much for me and it was certainly not the return to form that I and other fans were looking for. Conversely the open world nature of the game with objectives looked fantastic and is something I have been hoping for. I really look forward to seeing what they can bring to the table with this new mission structure and world.
Music: It is incredibly hard to fill Marty's shoes. Was happy to hear the Ori composer, Gareth Coker, had joined the team. Ori has a fantastic soundtrack so I am interested to hear more. There wasn't a ton of music today but what I did hear sounded really nice and I have faith in Coker and Schweitzer.
Story: I think Halo did really well when the story stayed focused on this grand "save the universe" scale. Halo 4/5 had this weird juxtaposition of a "personal story" and the new forerunner "chosen one" mythos. The "personal story" in Halo 4 and 5 felt like more of a strange soap opera. This Brute vs Spartan is thankfully a step back from both of those but not quite far enough into the grand "battle for humanity's survival" from 1-3. That said, I was happy to see them move away from the strange forerunner lore they pushed for the past 10 years. There wasn't too terribly much to chew on here; I'll have to wait and see how the full story comes together in the final game.
Overall, setting my love for Halo aside, I think the game looked fun for the casual fan and it looked like the open world format could be a real win. That said, I have to wonder if it is enough to really wow somebody who is on the fence about jumping into the Xbox platform this gen. Is it "the game to play?" this fall? Does it stack up against Spiderman? I don't know. Personally the new Spiderman title didn't exactly wow me either. I also really struggle with how the game presented itself-it was certainly not the big power of next gen moment that people were hoping for. The graphics were incredibly rough and it looked like an early 2020 build of the game; not what I would expect this close to launch. I have to wonder if they are behind or if they made an odd choice to show a build that was several months old. Finally, as a Halo fan, I am just left wondering why they made this half step to return to the classic style-I don't think this is the game anyone really expected after 2 years of this "Chief is back", classic art style, soft reboot messaging. Will have to see more of it. Really the rough graphics and movement were what set it back for me. If they clean up the graphics and the multiplayer pushes a more classic style then I think it could be well received. I really want this to be a good game, I’d like to see Halo doing well again. 343 seems to be more stable now and Chris Lee seems like a good leader-always liked him and hope he can help them carry this over the goal line.