Xbox One: The games

Despite the controversies surrounding the Xbox One, there were long queues at Microsoft’s stand and quite a few decent titles on show. Here’s a look at some of the key games.

Forza Motorsport 5

Top among the titles on offer was Microsoft’s flagship racer. Turn 10’s racing sim proved to be not only a fantastic showcase for the Xbox One’s visual capabilities but it offered some insight into the potential of cloud gaming.

ForzaVista is back, but it’s been hugely expanded allowing players to poke around every nook and cranny of every car in the game. Turn 10 has mapped the interiors and exteriors of every car available to drive, although they remained quiet on the final vehicle count.

On the track, the frame rate is as smooth as butter and the draw distance is mind-blowing. As players hurtle around the game’s tracks they’ll also notice subtle visual ticks, such as particles hanging in shafts of light or direct sunlight bouncing off their car’s bonnet.

The big addition here is something called Drivatar. Every time the player competes in Forza 5, their tactics, faults and style of driving is pushed to the cloud. The cloud then generalizes how they behave on track, the vehicles they prefer to drive and the tactics they use and creates their Drivatar. This is virtual representation of the player in Forza 5 and, once created, it will then appear in their friend’s games. It drives without you. It earns you points and XP. It essentially grinds for you while you’re offline. You could argue that this is simply a game playing itself, but it’s worth pointing out that the Drivatar is only as good as the person it’s profiling. If players want to get anything out of it, they’ll have to sink some serious time into the game.

Ryse: Son Of Rome

The last time anyone saw Ryse, it was a sword and sandals fighter that was played using the Kinect controller. It also looked as though someone had poured a truckload of dirt across the screen.

In its current format the visuals have received a massive polish and the Kinect interface aspect has been paired down somewhat; it’s now only used to register voice commands. In the hands-on available in the Microsoft booth, players control the game’s protagonist, Marius Titus, as he storms the beaches of Dover and lays waste to the Celtic barbarians he encounters.

Initially, the demo seems to pitch Ryse as some sort of ancient world corollary to the Call Of Duty franchise; as the player begins the beach assault, they’re forced to watch as a flaming projectile which soars into frame in slow motion slams into Titus’s troops and briefly drowns out the soundtrack with the blast from its impact. Titus is knocked to the ground and resumes fighting only after he’s shaken off the shellshock in manly-manly-man fashion.

Ryse offers high-octane spectacle the quick-time kill moves are particularly delicious but in terms of its gameplay, it’s a little hit and miss. Players use the face buttons to slice, parry and shield bash, but on the easiest difficulty setting, they’re able to spam one attack to progress.

There are a couple of interesting stages in the demo such as when the player lines up Titus’s squad to form a Tetsuo but on the whole one gets the impression that, if it’s possible to beat the game using one attack, fatigue and boredom may prompt player to quite Ryse. Still, it looks quite pretty

Killer Instinct

Let’s be honest; before its announcement at Microsoft’s E3 keynote, Killer Instinct’s status existed somewhere between that of a much beloved arcade fighter and a punchline for the entire genre. This was a game in which players could toss their opponents into a neverending beat-down juggle where, provided they time their hits correctly, the poor sod they were hammering wouldn’t be able to lay a glove on them. It was unbalanced to the point of hilarity.

Killer Instinct on the Xbox One is a slightly tweaked beast. The move sets are simple and easy to get to grips with, but the Combo Breakers are far easier to execute. The flow of each fight, now, doesn’t depend on who got the most devastating series of hits in first.

Interestingly, Killer Instinct is free to play at the console’s launch; players will get Jago for free but need to pay for any other fighters they fancy with a discount offered if they purchase them all at once.

You could argue that this is naked profiteering. Then again, you could frame it as bespoke fighter purchasing. It’s your choice.

Guardian News and Media 2013