7/14/2008

E3 '08 - Microsoft Press Conference

Fallout 3 looks amazing. Bethesda strikes again. The level of detail they're showing in this demo is incredible. There are various ways you can play the game. It can be played in 1st or 3rd person, you can attack in real time (like any other FPS game), or you can pause the game to target specific body parts of enemies and then watch your character blast away and your enemies explode into (literal) pieces. Environments look great, and there's just so much (gory) detail. It really does look fantastic. I've never played a Fallout game before, but I assume if you've liked the others you'll go for this one. To me it's reminiscent of the dark humor and detailed action in Bioshock.

Resident Evil 5 I really have no interest in, but it looks good. It takes place in Africa, at a site of a bioterrorism incident that the main character has come to investigate. For the first time in Resident Evil, there is an online co-op mode, which it looks like you're going to need to reach certain areas on the game. Not sure if that means you must play it that way, or if an AI will be available instead (or if you as a player just switch between them), but they obviously want to showcase the online feature. March 13, 2009, world wide release.

Lionhead! Woo Peter Molyneux! Time for some Fable 2. The game is complete apparently. I loved the first one and have high hopes for the sequel. Cut scene graphics here are looking incredible, characters still look a little cartoony, like they did in the first. Hilarious little trailer here. Dramatic bird poop drop. And here's the famous dog companion. Co-Op over Live...very interesting feature here. Your friends who are playing the single player game show up as glowing orbs, and you can invite them into your game at any time; they can interact with everything just like you can. Lots of my favorite things are back - getting drunk in the bars, getting married...you can have KIDS now? And it seems you can play a female hero as well this time around. Wow. Holy crap, awesome! October can't come soon enough.

Gears of War 2 now. Didn't care for the first one, but I can't deny the fantastic visuals. And they're sure devoting a rather large amount of time to its demo.... Now has a 5 player co-op mode where you can fight wave after wave of locusts.

I was not much of a fan of the original 'box, but the 360 is hands down my favorite platform this generation. I hope Square will present us with some good shots of Last Remnant. It's going to be their first simultaneous Japan/US release, and they'll be breaking from Sony to offer this on the 360 (as well as the PS3). There's no release date yet, but I'm hoping for one to be announced this week.

5+ million units ahead of the PS3 in the US. Wow. Not surprising, though. Little bit of LIVE pimpage...it really is a great online service. Not a fan of DC for games though, as I believe it leads to uncompleted game releases. They're partnering for more movie releases; no wonder they're releasing yet another 360 with an even larger HD. Hmm, they're changing the interface/dashboard this fall. I don't think there's anything wrong with what they've got now. Must just be an excuse to add a 360 version of the Mii. It's cute, but it's kind of excessive; though I can see how they can snag the more casual gamers with this.
Most of the rest of this it little arcade games and different features for the new interface. Gameshow games you can play with the avatars, different ways to share through the friends list, etc.
GLADOS! Now they've got my attention again.
OMG. Portal - Still Alive. A new Portal game (or is it an expansion?) for the Live Arcade. Portal anything is good.
5 seconds of a South Park arcade preview.
More arcade community games.....
More TV and movie announcements...stuff I can watch for free on my TV.
New partnership with Netflix? ............. Oh now that IS interesting. If you have Netflix and Live you can watch Netflix downloadable movies with the 360. But, of course, I can do the same thing on my computer. On Live though, it seems you can invite people off your friends list to watch them with you. Boy...way to promote reclusiveness Microsoft.
E for everybody game trailers. Including NEW VIVA PINATA! W00t! .... Oh geez, card marketing. *sigh* Buy cards and scan them in using the 360 camera for new pinatas in game. Oh I hate that crap.
Hm, here's a game that utilizes the camera to put yourself into movies using improv and games. It's called "We're in the Movies." Basically "movies" stands for "mini games," just that your actual self is up on the screen. It takes your movements from the mini games and places them into cheesy B-movie sequences. The motion capture seems to work well, but the movements didn't seem to fit that well into the movie.
Moving on to music games, which basically means Guitar Hero. And karaoke games. HAHA that was a BAD idea. They got the actual artist of this song to come sing along with the game...it's not turning out well. It's pretty funny. Duffy singing "Mercy" (yeah, I don't know who she is either). The game is called Lips.
And there's the Square-Enix president! Come onnnn Last Remnant!
Infinite Undiscovery (which looks great) Sept 2 in the US, a Star Ocean game spring 2009, and Last Remnant THIS HOLIDAY SEASON. YES. Footage! Woooooooo! Bet you can find this up at Gametrailers or G4 later. .... That's it? That was crazy short (maybe a minute) You can see more on their website from their Tokyo Game Show trailer (and you ~should~ watch it). Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant are on my must have list. Eh? He interrupted the MS guy for a "big announcement." Camera angle at the request of MS? WTF you can't see anything! OMG it's FFXIII. OMG!!!!! It's not going to be a PS3 exclusive! OMG OMG OMG. Yeah, the past hour or two has just been erased by that single announcement. Thank you Square!
That's the biggest blow to Sony since they launched the PS3. Haha, sorry that's harsh. But it's definitely their biggest blow since MGS4 and RE were announced as 360 titles as well.

1 comment:

ArmoredFoe said...

thank you thank you. For me as well the 360 is by far my favorite platform as well. Great machine, regardless of what people say about it.