Holy crap where do I even begin?! Last the last few years E3 kicked off with Microsoft trotting out onto stage first to show us they've got in store for gamers for the rest of 2011 as well as the coming year. This year they kicked off the day with a bang by starting off with a demo of Modern Warfare 3. As critical of Activision as I am I have to say this game looked good. Everything about this game is just bigger than its predecessor. The mere scope of that level they showed in the demo was massive and I'm kind of hoping the game play lives up to the visuals because the game looks and sounds wonderful so far. Beyond this, though Microsoft still had a ton of things up its sleeve to show off and rolled right forward from their Modern Warfare 3 demo by bringing out the lead designer on Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider.
If you haven't heard about it in the last two months or so, Crystal Dynamics is rebooting the series by showing the origin of Lara Croft's adventuring ways. Up until today we had only seen concept art of the new design of the Lara Croft model. Today we not only got the E3 trailer but we also got to see our first glimpse of the game play and it looked awesome. Being it's an origin story and before Lara became the bad-ass we see in the original games, the game play comes across as more of a survival based game than a exploration shooter. The demo mainly consisted of Lara trying to find her way through and darkened cave after being shipwrecked. Visually it was stunning and really gave me a feeling reminiscent to that of when Uncharted was first unveiled. It looked like a fresh approach to the third person adventure kind of games I enjoy. I look forward to more game play being released on this. We also got to see a demo of the single-player campaign for Gears of War 3 with Cliffy B and one of the game's voice actors, Ice-T. Cliff of course thanked everyone for their support in the beta and finally showed off some long awaited campaign footage which looked top notch. Following the demo, Ice-T promised Cliff that his band Bodycount would reunite to create a song for Gears 3. Look for that to release in September.
Of course Microsoft was quick to drop some knowledge on what they're cooking up with Kinect and that was evident early when they showed off a Kinect compatible version of Mass Effect 3 as well as a Kinect enabled Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. We didn't get to see a lot of these two games but what they did incorporate was rather interesting. Both games have a bit of a tactical aspect to them so being able to call out commands vocally to the Kinect microphone which the characters then pick up on is kind of cool. On the plus side we finally got to see what is probably the first game that'll be marketed to hardcore gamers for the Kinect in the form of Crytek's Ryse which appears to be a first person battle simulator. Again we only got a brief glimpse of it in trailer form and not a full fledged demo but it could be pretty interesting.
By this point the Kinect enabled games were in full swing but it seemed as if Microsoft took a slight step back to quickly talk about the new things coming out for X-Box Live itself. As with the last few years they have a full slate of games for the X-Box Live Arcade's Summer of Arcade(including the very cool From Dust). Then they laid out the new features to expect in the fall including a new dashboard layout that is optimized for the Kinect controller free interface. It's a more streamlined interface from what we could see on screen at the time. Along with the interface change, Microsoft will also roll out a new service for live television. This was long rumored going into E3 and we finally got confirmation, thus making the X-Box 360 on step closer to being your one stop shop for entertainment in the living room as it comes with TV (even local channels), Netflix, ESPN, Hulu; not to mention the newly announced for the fall update inclusion of YouTube and live, interactive UFC events. Yep, Microsoft means business when it comes to their online service. No details yet on whether or not this service will cost extra or if it will definitely be part of the rumored X-Box Live Diamond service. Part of me hopes that the increase in membership fees last year sometime contributes to this service.
Sticking with the Kinect trend in the show, Microsoft continued to tout the motion controller's usefulness as they announced console exclusive version of Minecraft to be released later this year. This game has really taken off and now the indie darling is heading to the X-Box 360 with full Kinect support. Joining Minecraft will be the Star Wars Kinect game which went from a tech demo at last year's E3 to a full fledged title this year. The good thing here though is that Microsoft is back tracking from its original stance on Kinect tweaks as it is now releasing the Kinect Fun Labs which will give all users access to the many tweaks and hacks that have been shown on the Internet since the Kinect hit the market. This service is currently available for free to all Kinect users. Take a look at how the gaming community itself is helping to make strides in the usefulness of the motion technology.
Rounding out the Kinect heavy portion of the briefing was the announcement of a sequel to the wildly successful Dance Central, a Sesame Street inspired game from Double Fine, and Kinect Disneyland Adventures. A game for the kids is always kind of cool and having Tim Schafer at the helm of it is rather awesome. Dance Central 2 of course is coming from Harmonix, with the ability to import all your tracks from Dance Central 1 and now with co-op, a career mode, and improved mechanics. It should be a really cool experience for Kinect users. Kinect Disneyland Adventures is sort of a mixed bag though. It's basically experiencing Disneyland's attractions from the comfort of your home it would appear from the demo. I'm not sure I quite get the appeal as I'd much rather go to Disneyland but to each their own. If you're looking for more gaming centric things then look no further than Lionshead's freshly announced Fable: The Journey which will once again, take advantage of the Kinect motion control. There was a brief trailer and demo which mainly showed some of the combat including the player forming some kind of magic spear. It looked kind of nifty so it's something I'll follow a bit as far as updates go.
I'm sure at this point I've sort of gone out of order but once I got into the Kinect stuff I figured it'd be best to roll with it. In any case, along with all this Kinect heavy property, we got the announcement of Halo: Combat Evolved the remix. Yes, to go along with the 10 year anniversary of the release of Halo, Microsoft is remaking Halo: Combat Evolved, cashing in on the remastering trend that is sweeping the industry. But if old school Halo isn't your cup of tea, then don't fret. Closing out Microsoft's conference was the announcement of Halo 4, the beginning of a new trilogy. It would have been an unexpected surprised if this news hadn't been leaked this morning shortly before the conference when someone accidentally updated the X-Box homepage just a little too early. fortunately for Microsoft, it didn't dampen any one's enthusiasm for the announcement as they got quite the loud ovation for the teaser. I'm sure we'll hear much more about it in the coming months.
That about covers Microsoft's conference and honestly I have mixed feelings about it. Some of the stuff that was shown off looked amazing. The Modern Warfare 3 demo looked good and I'm very much looking forward to hearing more about Tomb Raider, Ghost Recon, and Mass Effect 3. The problem here though is that all these games are third party games. Aside from Gears and Halo, they didn't have much to show off in terms of first party games. It's the reverse of the Nintendo situation where they lack third party support but have stellar first party games. We'll see how it goes but it could be an uphill battle for them from the software end. Let me know what you think of Microsoft's showing today. Sound off in the comments!
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