South Park: The Fractured But Whole

Two years ago, Matt Stone and Trey Parker stood on stage at E3 and said they were never making a video game again. It was too hard, they didn’t know how to do it, and it sucked. Well, turns out they’re big fat liars. They said they figured out how to do it toward the end of the game and felt bad because now they could do a really good one, so they did. Oddly enough this is the exact same excuse Tarantino gave for making two westerns in a row. But I digress.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole (hehe) puts you back in South Park with the same group of kids, but instead of playing a fantasy game, they’re playing super heroes, so you’ll be teaming up with the likes of The Coon and Mysterion. This dynamic opens up a whole new realm of gameplay possibilities and story ideas. Since Matt and Trey think they’re better at making games now and the last one was already awesome, I can’t wait to see how good this one will be.

For Honor

A new medieval fighting game called For Honor has been announced. Not much in the way of story is known, but you take control of one of three styles of knights, including samurai, to do battle against your foes. An interesting feature of this game is that while cutting down low level characters is just a quick swing of the sword, playing against human players, or presumably tougher foes, requires skill. Once you lock on to your opponent, you have a number of options to to choose from as you square off against your opponent from different directions to block to different attack pattern and movements. Not much else is known, but this seems like a thinking man’s combat game, which already sounds interesting.

The Division

Yes, the project is still going and still looks awesome. The demo this time showed off an area called the Dark Zone, an area where “anything can happen.” Your group of two other companions find a supply box, but notice some NPCs standing near it. Just as they’re about to take them out, another group of players show up. Instead of fighting each other, they jump in and help out, eventually coming out on top. Our team takes some loot and heads off. They make their way to a helipad and send off a flare, waiting for pick up. In the 90 seconds before pickup, everyone knows someone’s at that pad because of the flare, so they basically have a big target on their backs. A giant firefight ensues and our team barely comes out victorious. Instead of escaping, one of the players leaves the party and kills both of his teammates, stealing all their stuff and running out into the Dark Zone. The amount of freedom and always looming threat of betrayal makes this area high tension, something this game seems to be doing very well. Look forward to hearing more about this game before its launch on March 8th of next year for all platforms.

Rainbow Six Siege

The squad-based combat game is back and looking better than ever. In the demo, we see our team smash through a window with precision and execute the plan with as much finesse. There’s been an addition of a small RC camera so you can cope out what lies ahead, allowing you to really plan your moves and execute in the fastest, most efficient way possible. It’s exactly as tactical as you remember it, from different members of the squad having different job roles to managing your squad, it’s definitely a Rainbow Six game. It also looks like a ton of fun to play it with friends. Like a more tactical Payday 2.  Also interesting is that Angela Bassett is in the game, continuing the trend of celebrities being in cool games (MGS V, Beyond Two Souls).

Trackmania Turbo

The popular PC track building game is making its console debut and it looks awesome. All the crazy stunts, high speeds, and insane tracks you know from Trackmania are all possible in Trackmania Turbo. There’s also an auto level generate if you want to take on a completely unique, random map. This game is crazy fun on PC and should be a good translation to consoles.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

The latest Assassin’s Creed game already has a ton of details about it out right now, but what was shown off here was a demo in which there’s a horse-drawn carriage race climaxing in one of them running off a bridge. So that’s cool! A lot of people seemed concerned about the definitely dead horses, but as one of our writers pointed out, “what else is Assassin’s Creed going to beat?” We kid, we kid. Actually, one of the most interesting things shown off about this game is the addition of a female twin to the main character named Evie. It’s just pretty cool to see female leads in addition to male leads these days, especially in a series as huge as Assassin’s Creed. Other than that, pretty standard stuff — stabbing people with cane swords and a lot of moves that look like reassuring head pats, but are actually neck stabs.

Ghost Recon Wildlands

The trailer was really confusing for someone watching on livestream. It looks almost identical to Just Cause 3, but it isn’t put out by Square Enix, so we had no idea what we were watching. Once the title flashed though, revealing a new Ghost Recon game, it all made sense. There appears to be parachuting, a huge open world to explore, different way to do gunplay, and the ability to complete a mission in a ton of different ways. The trailer showed us many possibilities for completing one mission from stealthy sneaking in to straight up murdering everyone to first calling in a drone strike. This game looks to feature a lot of freedom in how you complete your missions, which is always welcome. Definitely keep an eye on this one going forward.