theartfulescape
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Xbox's lack of compelling games won't be fixed next year
Microsoft's 2017 started six months early. At E3 2016, Xbox chief Phil Spencer closed out the company's keynote by teasing the "most powerful console ever." At this year's show, he finally revealed the Xbox One X, and in November, the hardware was at retail. In the time it takes to earn a bachelor's degree, Microsoft addressed one of the internet's loudest complaints about the Xbox One: that it wasn't powerful enough compared to the PlayStation 4.
'The Artful Escape' is what happens when rock stars make a game
The Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti is a psychedelic hipster dream disguised as a narrative-driven adventure game. It stars Francis Vendetti, the fictional nephew of the late, great musical icon Johnson Vendetti. In this alternate universe, Johnson was the David Bowie of his time, legendary and untouchable. Francis is a young musician himself, struggling to find his own voice and separate himself from his uncle's legacy. On his quest of self-discovery, Francis connects with a laser artist named Violetta, and he traverses a multidimensional highway packed with neon lights and tentacled aliens. The Artful Escape presents the kind of world that burgeoning musicians might fantasize about, the ultimate rock star dream of conquering new, exciting dimensions with the power of music alone. It's the kind of dream that the game's creator, Johnny Galvatron, once had -- before he signed a record deal with Warner Bros. right out of college and discovered what the true rock star life was really all about. "You feel like those sort of record deals will unlock these magical doors to worlds of wonder to explore that you imagine when you're young," Galvatron says. "And then you realize very quickly that's not what it is, and you live in a hotel room with six really smelly dudes. I guess The Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti is informed by my teenage imaginings of what the music industry would be."
