Off the Cuff: Microsoft E3 Conference – Games

Microsoft just finished up their E3 Press Conference, and though some are predicting Sony to “win” this years E3, I have to say Microsoft really threw down the gauntlet. This year they opted to avoid having awkward corporate suits dance and act on stage, and instead focused more on the games and products that really set it apart from the competition. They broke the conference up into 3 sections, first focusing on Xbox games and exclusives which catered more to the “hardcore gamer”, then turned their focus to Xbox Live and the new features being implemented, and finished with a vision of future functionality for the 360 with “Project Nadal”.  Here is a quick run through of the first portion of their conference which focused on games.

• The Beatles: Rock Band is a big coup for Harmonix, but I’m not sure it needed as much time devoted to it as Microsoft gave it. I’m not sure it would be something I’d start the show off with, especially if it is not an exclusive. They had a performance using the game, and it looked like any other Rock Band, but then they also showed trippy music videos in the game which I have to assume are extras, because there’s no way anyone could play the game while those things are playing. I thought it was a bit of a waste to use Ringo and Paul the way they did, as they were only briefly on stage and quickly talked about the game. It would have been great to have them come out singing during the stage bands playthrough of one of their songs, but instead I felt they were underutilized. I was intrigued by the singing portion of the game, as they had 3 singers on stage, and I’m wondering if this iteration of Rock Band will allow for multiple singers and harmonies. I will definitely be purchasing this game, but am hoping I can pass on purchasing all the new hardware, as my living room has enough embarrassing plastic instruments as is.

• Tony Hawk Ride is another addition to the Tony Hawk universe, but this time the focus seems to be on a skateboard peripheral you stand on in your living room. I did not hear if this game would also be compatible with a controller or not, as the video they showed had more athletic people than I standing on a board in a living room doing tricks. My concern with the board controller would be how it would react to different type of carpets and floors, as I’m sure it can spin and turn a lot easier on some than others.

• Modern Warfare 2 by Infinity Ward looks amazing. The level they showed was very snowy, and at one point the player hopped on a snowmobile that they jacked from an enemy, and then began to traverse the level on it. Not sure if the player could have gotten on a snowmobile at any time, or if this was just a planned part of the level where you have to get on to progress, but it did look amazing. Reminded me a bit of the speeder bike scene in Return of the Jedi, though I’m interested if the snowmobile is user driven, or if it’s more like the last level of CoD4 in the jeep where you just shoot while the AI drives.

• Square/Enix showed off Final Fantasy 13 running on the 360, and it looks great. I was a bit surprised to hear the English voice actors, but I know the game is still exclusively PS3 in Japan. I feel it’s kind of hard to convey the new battle system without getting some hands on time, and though I know they were excited to show off the player summoning Odin, but I imagine it’s going to be one of those “That was cool the first time I saw it, but why did you not add a feature to skip this”.

• CliffyB came out with Shadow Complex, a game for XBLA that they say is in the same vein as Metroid and Castlevania. Have to admit it looked kind of fun, and they stated it’s a 10 hour game with lots of replayability and big boss battles. Hopefully it comes in at a good price point ($15) and doesn’t disappoint.

• Joy Ride is a free race car game on XBLA where your avatars are the drivers and you can customize your cars. I don’t think it’ll compete with Mario Kart, but I don’t think it’s really targeted towards the more hardcore gamer either. If more casual people owned a 360, I could see this doing well, but I really think the Wii has that market tied up, and not sure I see my mom asking for a 360 for Mother’s Day any time soon like she did for a Wii.

• Crackdown 2 just showed off an intro with a tagline like “The City is infected. You are the cure.” Didn’t notice if it’s being made by the same people as the original, as I know they are working on the MMO APB. Hopefully it lives up to the expectations from the fans of the first one.

• Showed off a video of zombies getting parts blown off of them, leaving me to question whether we needed another zombie game that looked just like Left 4 Dead. Then I saw the Tank barreling through a crowd of zombies, and my eyes lit up. Turns out Left 4 Dead 2 is going to be 360 and PC exclusive, though that’s no surprise with Valves past comments on the PS3. Appears to be a new group of 4 struggling to survive in L4D2 (sounds like a new Star Wars droid), and they appeared to be using some melee centric weapons in the video, so I’m guessing either you don’t get unlimited pistol ammo like you did in L4D, or there’s some benefit to using close quarters weapons.

• Splinter Cell: Conviction was shown by Ubisoft, and looks to have gone through a lot of changes from what was shown a few years back. No longer does Sam Fisher have a beard nor his famous tri-goggles, but instead seems to be fighting against those he used to work for. The gameplay they showed seemed to be less about stealth action and more about being a complete badass against everyone in his way. The one thing I noticed was Sam took a lot of punishment and kept going strong when taking a frontal approach to dealing with the enemies.

• Forza Motorsport 3 was shown for racing enthusiasts, but it appears they are trying to reach more than their initial fanbase by adding features such as one button driving and what appeared to be an arrowed path for those not sure how best to handle the turns. They also showed off tattoo artists, skateboarders and others discussing how Forza allows them to create custom cars which they can share with their friends. I expect to see a ton of variations on the penis car unless they have some sort of moderation planned.

• Bungie showed off some gameplay from Halo:ODST in a sparsely populated New Mombasa as your character known as The Rookie sought out his squadmates. This demo didn’t really reveal anything we hadn’t already learned from the Game Informer article a few months back, but did reveal that fans of the Halo 1 pistol would love the Halo: ODST pistol. The single player portions of the last two Halo games, though ambitious, didn’t really sell me on the story, so I’m interested to see if they can pull off a story driven game like ODST. There was also mention of a co-op mode as well, which I expect is probably tailor made for co-op, unlike former Halo co-ops which were just the single player experience with multiple players. Bungie then went on to announce a surprise game they have been working on, Halo: Reach, which if according to the Halo lore, will be a prequel. Not much more than an intro was shown for this though, and was listed as Fall 2010. I’d be interested to find out if it uses a new engine, or if it’s just another game using the Halo 3 engine (which seemed to be a modified Halo 2 engine).

• Alan Wake was shown and we got our first glimpse of gameplay, which revolved around the main character Alan supposedly living some of the book he was writing. This seems like it will be a very story driven game, with the main character presented in 3rd person and brandishing a flash light. Enemies are affected by light, be it the flashlight, flares, or flood lights, and there appears to be some sort of bullet time effect going on as well in the game (or it just got extremely slow from too many enemies, but I’ll go with bullet time for now).

• Much like the Final Fantasy 13 surprise announcement from last year, Microsoft trotted out Hideo Kojima to announce his latest project on the 360. Once again Microsoft dropped the hammer on Sony fans by announcing Metal Gear Solid Rising, with the words Lightning Bolt Action somehow fitting into the title as well. This title seems to focus on Raiden, who seems to be a lot more badass than his Metal Gear Solid 2 outing. Hopefully this is a new game and not a rehashing of Metal Gear Solid 4.

Stay tuned for coverage on the enhancements to Xbox Live and “Project Natal” and the remaining Big 3 conferences.