#FF00AA

This morning I kinda want to have an Xbox One just because of Sunset Overdrive’s trailer. (There were so many ways the idea for that video could have turned to obnoxious shit in the hands of other studios, but Insomniac knocks it out of the park.) And if Crackdown delivers on half its promise, that would be a nice bonus.

Assassin’s Creed: Unity is more of the same, but fucking gorgeous. And the new traversal controls visibly make movement more fluid while alleviating one of the franchise’s biggest annoyances, your character jumping off in the exact opposite direction of what you intended. Pretty sure I’m gonna have to give more money away to that franchise, for which I kind of hate myself (especially after buying the undercooked standalone Freedom Cry on PS4 just so I’d have something to look at).

Far Cry 4 is also more of the same, but in that case that’s a very good thing. And it, too, looks gorgeous. The best part is a very interesting marketing gamble: you can invite a friend who doesn’t own the game into your sandbox — campaign missions will be closed off, so they’ll have a great taste of the game and then have to buy it for themselves (or wait until you’re done and can lend it to them).

Meanwhile, on the Sony exclusive side, H1Z1 looks… like shit? At least I’m glad I’ll be able to play Grim Fandango, but even that appears to only be a timed exclusive.

Wait, was I supposed to care about Little Big Planet 3? As charming as the franchise has always been, there’s nothing significant about it anymore. Or Uncharted 4? They only showed the smallest sliver of a cutscene, I’ve never liked that series anyway, and episode 4 appears to have been rebooted mid-development and taken over by the creative leads of The Last of Us, which I enjoyed even less.

At any rate, co-op is the name of the game this year, and it’s time I found myself more gaming friends, now that I’m not stuck on dialup-like bandwidth in the boonies.