E3 2014 - Xbox One Indie Roundup: Hyperlight Drifter, Cuphead, Ori And The Blind Forest, Hellraid, Inside, Aztez

Microsoft unveiled a full slew of indie titles as part of their revised, gaming centric strategy for E3 this year -And to be honest we're relieved to see them learn from the mistakes of last year's event with the Xbox One reveal, which focused on anything but that aspect. There were zero mentions of the Kinect at the conference, and their press conference was close to 90 minutes of just pure gameplay with little fluff in between.

One of the coolest indie titles to be unveiled was Ori And The Blind Forest, a title that's been in development for close to 4 years now at the German Moon Studios. Featuring beautiful, painterly environments with story driven 2D gameplay, the title gave off a vibe that I've come to expect from the likes of Team Ico (Fingers crossed for The Last Guardian later today!). We've picked a few of our favorite indie titles from their upcoming lineup, which you can check out after the break.

Ori and the Blind Forest is an action-adventure platformer that combines deep exploratory gameplay with emotional storytelling. Join Ori to solve the mysteries of a dying forest while escaping the evil clutches of Kuro, the dark owl.

E3 2014 - "Sunset Overdrive" Pokes Fun At Activision With Their Latest And Greatest Trailer

Amidst a sea of grit, grays and browns lies a new AAA hope and darling - Insomniac's Sunset Overdrive. For E3 they played it pretty clever by playing up the fact that they're one of the incredibly few new franchises to pop up and re-embrace an art direction style that's been mostly absent in main stream games as of late- Colorful.

Call Of Duty is the obvious target here, with the colorful protagonist making fun of the stale gameplay and art style before offering an introduction to Sunset City and plenty of gameplay to boot. Out of all the Xbox One exclusives, without a doubt this is probably one of the most desirable offerings they've had to show yet.  It's loud, rambunctious and is (As they put it) the culmination of everything Insomniac's been working towards all these years.

While I haven't picked up an Xbox yet, this is one of those titles that would probably get me to drop the money on one. A breath of fresh air outside the indie gaming scene, finally. And also, let's not forget that the amazing folks at Honkfu lent their distinct art styles to help shape the world of Sunset Overdrive.

E3 2014 - Capcom Gets Ridiculous With "Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha Prime"

Now this is DLC presentation done right. Capcom just announced a rather amazing piece of content for Xbox One's Dead Rising 3, transporting all the protagonists of the game into a hyper violent, retro arcade world. Think of it as a Wreck It Ralph for adults.

Created to celebrate Capcom's 31st Anniversary, the title features the four protagonists with the ability to cosplay as a ton of retro arcade characters from Capcom canon: Captain Commando, Mike Haggar, Felicia, Tofu and a monstrous undead M. Bison looking boss to face off against. The DLC is out now, so pick it up if you get a chance- Looks crazy fun.

Sunset Overdrive Is Looking Awesome

Following relative radio silence since the game's colorful reveal at E3 2013 last year, Insomniac is finally offering us a larger taste of what this fun little sandbox game is going to have to offer. Sunset Overdrive is going to be a colorful post apocalyptic sandbox adventure with elements reminiscent of Saints Row mixed with Jet Set Radio. The incessant grinding mixed with the ease and fluidity of movement looks fun, mixed with some over the top environments and the Insomniac staple of crazy weapons.

The game definitely doesn't take itself seriously, with a premise centered around an energy drink called Overcharge Delirium spawning an army of  mutants. After looking at some concept art I thought something about the game seemed a little familiar, until I realized that the Russian concept house Honk Fu, along with the likes of Vasili Zorin were behind the distinct look of the game.

While the title is as of now still exclusive to the Xbox One, I'm kind of hoping that the game will find itself onto other platforms soon after launch. Absolutely love the style, the colorful world and the fact that Insomniac seems to have learned a lesson from their botched Fuze game, which relied too heavily on focus groups to drive the vision and style of the game.

Remedy Games' Quantum Break Freezes and Stutters on Xbox One

Kudos to Remedy for giving me the opportunity to write the most sensationalized article title in all of Awesome Robo's history. Sorry to disappoint all those hoping to see a burning train wreck during Xbox One's press conference, but the only freezing and stuttering that occurred took place during the in-game trailer for Quantum Break. While not a whole lot has been released on how the game actually plays, this trailer gives a peak at the game's emphasis on time. The tech here is definitely impressive, and if this trailer is anything to go by, it could lead to some pretty nifty mechanics.

Titanfall For Xbox One - Mechs, Parkour And More

Following the departure of Jason West and Vince Zampella from Infinity Ward following the Call of Duty 4 profit sharing fiasco where Activision attempted to fire the heads of the studio to avoid paying them royalties for the project, the duo, along with a majority of senior staff (38 out of 46) left to form Respawn Entertainment.

Following 3 years of relative silence, their newest endeavor was announced today at the Xbox conference, featuring a game rather similar in feel to the Call Of Duty franchise, albeit with a refreshing scifi theme to go with it. Featuring agile pilots who commandeer heavily armored Titan mechs, the game seems to mix elements of Mirror's Edge with more traditional FPS based mechanics, along with a dash of Hawken. As fast paced and hectic as it is though, the title's graphics arent exactly awe inspiring, although it looks like the game will be pretty damn fun. On an interesting note related to graphics, a source of ours speculated that the title was originally intended for the 360, but is currently being ported to Microsoft's next gen console with a spring 2014 release date.

Killer Instinct And Panzer Dragoon Return - To The Xbox One

If you think about it it was kind of funny to see dormant franchises migrate their way to all new systems decades after the fact, with Sega's Panzer Dragoon (now titled Crimson Dragon) and Rare's Killer Instinct franchise eventually landing on the Xbox One from their respective Sega Saturn and SNES/N64 systems they once resided on. My guess is that Crimson Dragon will be a Kinect focused title primarily due to it's unchanged on-rail style gameplay, which would be a perfect fit for the system's motion tracking capabilities.

As a secondary point to support the possibility of this being a Kinect title as well is the fact that if you look closely at the white/negative space contained within the dragon, it contains the shape of a human with tendrils spreading out of his hands to the rest of the dragon. As long as it's nothing like the ill fated Steel Battalion - Heavy Armor we'll be relatively happy.



Now as for Killer InstinctI, I have to admit that this gave me a good laugh, especially for the fact that the folks at Double Helix games chose to emulate the aesthetics and insanely over the top announcer that embellished/plagued previous installments of the game. While the game is a rather interesting exclusive, we have yet to see whether this somewhat unproven developer can make this franchise compelling again for an all new generation of gamers.

Insomniac Announces Sunset Overdrive For Xbox One - Colorful Madness

At today's Xbox One press conference, it does seem like Insomniac just announced a colorful, stylized new IP for the system titled Sunset Overdrive, which shows off a slew of protagonists rushing their way through an embattled city overtaken by strange mutants. The game will take place in an ever evolving world and based off of Ted Price's comments, will rely on user generated content (Like Valve's Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 workshops) to supply a regular stream of new content for the game.

Here's to hoping that this title won't fall into the same type of focus testing trap that turned Overstrike into a largely forgettable shadow of it's former self: Fuze. No gameplay yet, but compared to the overall body of work announced at the conference today I hope this game retains it's distinct flavor through it's development cycle.

Xbox One Reveal In A Nutshell

The internet was close to exploding yesterday after Microsoft's announcement of the Xbox One, mostly due to the fact the complete lack of games. While Sony's Playstation 4 reveal was still far from steller, the announcement still focused on what many still buy video game consoles for; video games. The interface for the Xbox One is definitely pretty awesome, but the sheer lack of anything other than TV, Sports, and Call of Duty during the the reveal was a bit of a disappointment. If you missed out on the insanity yesterday, the above video sums up anything you think you might have missed.

At least there's always E3!