It begins!
http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/20/m...ox-one-review/
Forza Motorsport 5
Forza is one of two first-party graphics powerhouses from Microsoft meant to dazzle new Xbox One owners. And if you aren't dazzled by
Forza's gorgeous lineup of cars, something has gone seriously wrong. Consult an optometrist. Thankfully, in addition to looks,
Forza Motorsport 5 is excellent, if not a touch too serious. It's still a driving simulation first and foremost, but in-game driving assists and recognizable cars make its depth of simulation easy to skip past.
Dead Rising 3
Of all the launch games we played on Xbox One,
Dead Rising 3 feels the most underdone. Animations are awkward and dialogue is terrible. Nothing about it feels like a finished product, and at $60 it's a seriously hard sell. Don't waste your time: Skip over this empty zombie action game.
Ryse: Son of Rome
Ryse might be the most graphically impressive game on any next-gen game console. More excitingly, it's got engaging combat and uses the Kinect effectively (the occasional shouted troop command). Graphical prowess is used for acting, combat animation and showing off the glory of (fake) Ancient Rome. It's an easy game to get caught up looking around at how gorgeous everything is visually, and it's right there with
Forza (and beyond) as a showcase for graphics on the Xbox One.
Crimson Dragon
Not long after the PlayStation 3 arrived, a dragon-flying game named
Lair launched to
critical disdain. You'd think the subsequent console launch wouldn't feature yet another dragon-flying game. It does; only this time it's named
Crimson Dragon. It's not pretty; it's not very fun; and it doesn't do anything particularly interesting with the Xbox One's tech.
Crimson Dragon is squarely with
Dead Rising 3 in the category of "Not Worth Your Time or Money."
Killer Instinct
Given that it's free,
Killer Instinct is hard to turn down. To unlock the rest of the game's characters, though, you've gotta plunk down some more dough. We think you'll find that a few fights with Jago and you'll be in for more money and more punching fights with werewolves.
Killer Instinct isn't the best or prettiest fighting game we've ever played, but it owns its silliness and has a shockingly deep combo system. Beware of that ultra-hard CPU difficulty setting: It's a
doozy!
The Xbox One may not be exactly what Microsoft thinks it is, but it's still a strong start for a powerful game console. Its sheer speed, versatility, horsepower and its ability to turn on and off with words make it a relatively seamless entry into our already crowded media center. What determines whether it stays there is the next 12 months: Exclusives like
Titanfall and
Quantum Break will help, as will gaining feature parity with the competition (we're looking at you, game broadcasting!). For broader success beyond just the early adopter's living room, the NFL crowd must buy in to Microsoft's $500 box. But will they? That remains to be seen. What's there so far is a very competent game box with an expensive camera and only a few exclusive games differentiating it from the competition.
