Alright, the Microsoft press conference just wrapped up and I have a few minutes on my lunch to write up my reactions. Main announcements/titles are in bold, so just scroll until you find something you’re interested in.
Modern Warfare 3 kicked off the briefing with some gameplay that showed impressive visuals and much of the same. Looks like it’ll be good, as always.
Porn Raider… I mean Tomb Raider was next with a very gritty style and a very… vocal… Lara Croft. Its supposed to be an origin story, but I don’t know too much about it because I actually haven’t ever played a Tomb Raider game.
Mass Effect 3 was the first “hybrid” Kinect game that they showed off, where you can issue voice commands to your squad. I still need to play ME2 to catch up on the story, but I’m certain that ME3 will be just as great as the first
Ubisoft was up next to show off Ghost Recon: Future Solider, which looks exactly how it sounds. Ghost Recon, but more futuristic than the previous incarnations. The best part was the mind-blowing GunSmith, which allows you to totally customize any weapon in the game in a variety of ways. That isn’t the mind-blowing part though. This used Kinect in a Tony Stark/Iron Man kind of way, where you throw you hands open to explode the gun out into unique parts, mix and match, give a voice command to switch things up, and then bring your hands back together to put it all back. They also showed a little demo of shooting with Kinect, where one hand aims and the other fires. It looked like shots were fired when your hand opens. I’m not a huge fan of controls like that; I’d rather have a controller. But GunSmith looks awesome!
The next demo was of the New Xbox Experience. But wait! Didn’t we just do that a few years ago! Yep. So I’m calling this the New New Xbox Experience (NNXE). They showed off a new dashboard that looks mostly like an expanded Kinect Hub (And very much like Windows 8!). Everything seems much better organized and streamlined for Kinect. I was impressed, but haters of Kinect might not be.
The next big thing was Bing Voice Search on Xbox. It works exactly as it sounds. You say “Xbox Bing Halo” and it brings up all the movie, music, game, and marketplace results for Halo. Pretty cool, and yet another way to move around really quickly in the dashboard.
They slipped in a quick mention about YouTube coming to Xbox LIVE and a new “live TV” service. YouTube is pretty self explanatory. They didn’t do a demo of it or anything, just a mention. The TV service was leaked earlier this week, and might not be finalized. The idea is that they’re partnering with several content providers to create an IPTV service all on the Xbox. If it means I can finally get ESPN on my Xbox (Since Time Warner and Microsoft still won’t play nice and let the current ESPN on Xbox LIVE app work for me)
Edit: Oops! I forgot that they also announced some sort of partnership with UFC to show fights or something over Xbox LIVE. Not my cup of tea, but may interest someone else.
A quick note is that while there was no mention of the rumored “Xbox Fusion” rebranding of Zune and such, there also wasn’t any sign of “Zune” branding. Not sure what to make of that.
Next up was Gears of War 3. I didn’t see much of this demo because I had some real work to do, but I imagine it looked and played great. I’ll probably pick it up to play through the single player, but much like CoD, I’ve never been enamored with the GoW multiplayer.
Another demo that I missed was for a Crytek game called Ryse. Looked like a Kinect game set in Rome, but I’m not sure. I’ll see what other details I can dig up, but from that alone it didn’t sound like something that would interest me.
My note for this section read “HALO HALO HALO” and thats exactly how I feel right now. I got chills when the Halo theme started playing as they announced (as expected/leaked) Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary coming later this year. I couldn’t tell from the trailer how much has changed, but I know they totally redid the graphics. It didn’t seem like the AI or physics had changed much, but again, I couldn’t tell. I DID see a Reach-style assassination during one clip, but that might be multiplayer only. They did mention full Xbox LIVE support for co-op and multiplayer, which I’m sure will be awesome. I’ll be closely following this one to see how it develops.
The next big announcement after Halo was Forza 4. I have no interest in it, but they’re doing some cool stuff with Kinect head-tracking. Basically, as you move around in front of the game, the camera moves with you. Not sure how well it works in pracice, but the concept sounds cool. If you’re a Forza fan, I’d suggest checking it out.
Fable: The Journey was next up. I’m not too excited about it after the letdown that was Fable 3. Speaking of, I still need to finish that. Unfortunately it seems like they’ve diluted the Fable universe even farther with this title, which seems to be an on-rails spell-shooter. Maybe that was just the section they showed here, I’m not sure. Either way, it didn’t look exciting to me. The Fable franchise has lost me as a fan.
MINECRAFT FOR KINECT?!?! – My exact note. I don’t think I need to say much more other than the fact that Minecraft will be a console exclusive for Xbox and Kinect.
Next came the Disneyland Kinect game (Don’t remember the exact title). Looks awesome for Disney fans, but not really my thing. I’ll probably end up getting it though. I know a certain hardcore Disney fan that probably won’t let me pass on this one.
Star Wars Kinect doesn’t look good. At all. A laggy on-rails game, set in the Clone Wars universe. Feels like the prequel trilogy as a whole: A crappy application of a great franchise. And thats pretty much all I’m going to say about that.
Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster looks great for kids, but isn’t my thing. Its supposed to be an “interactive storybook” which can teach kids various life lessons through the world of Sesame Street monsters. Not much more to say about that.
The next cool thing was called Kinect Fun Labs. Basically seemed like a sandbox of tools for people to play with Kinect. It looks like it was developed by Good Science, the group behind Kinect Adventures. They showed off an avatar creator called Kinect Me, which maps your face and clothing onto an Xbox avatar. The end result was cool and creepy at the same time. I think it was dipping too far into the uncanny valley. Next was some kind of 3D drawing for Kinect. It let you take two photos and then draw in a 3D space using your hand. Looked neat, but doesn’t seem liek it would hold my attention long. Finally they showed an object capture much like the infamous “skateboard scanner” that was shown in the first Kinect trailer. This seems to be what finally came of that idea. The demo showed an object being scanned in and then manipulated by the player. Pretty cool. I think the main goal of these three things is to show off what Kinect can do to give developers a kickstart to create new games.
Continuing with Kinect, Microsoft showed off Kinect Sports: Season 2. It didn’t look good. Oddly, it looks like Rare isn’t developing the sequel, and instead it is being created by Big Park (Kinect Joy Ride). They’ve added several sports, and they demoed golf and “football”. I put football in quotes because I don’t think it did the game justice at all.
A side note here – Almost all of the Kinect demos were cheesy and terrible. I know they’re trying to appeal to the masses here, but these just weren’t good.
Harmonix was up next for Dance Central 2. More songs, side-by-side simultaneous multiplayer, and other improvements. No mention of Xbox LIVE multiplayer. Hands down, the best pure Kinect game so far. The term “Harmonix Home Run” should be a common phrase.
Finally, as a wrap up to the whole thing, Microsoft showed a teaser for Halo 4, which will be kicking off a new trilogy of games. The trailer showed Cortana yelling for the Chief to wake up (Curiously she referred to him by his first name, John, which she has never done in the games before. In the novels, yes, but not the games). He wakes up to explosions and general mayhem, grabs Cortana, and then begins to evacuate the ship that they’re on. The final shot is of the ship seemingly being pulled into some kind of opening in a planet. I’m REALLY excited for this, which is due in Holiday 2012. My only question though, is how will this trilogy be structured? Will the first be on the 360 and the next two on Microsoft’s next console? Or maybe more like the first Halo trilogy with two on the current gen and one next gen? Either way, it looks like Microsoft isn’t going to be introducing new console hardware anytime soon.
And that was it for Microsoft! I’ll be watching the EA and Sony conferences and taking notes, but probably won’t have posts up for those until later this evening! If you actually take the time to read through this, I’d love some feedback!
