With the start of June came the new Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and this year was certainly one to behold. Now that the show is over and all has been said and done on with the big conferences and the show floor, it's time to reflect on what stood out the most Monday.
Today's Memories:
The first Major event of the show came the day before the show officially started with the Microsoft press conference. Microsoft came out of the gates swinging bringing out guests that are legitimate world superstars with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Steven Spielberg as well as gaming superstars Peter Molyneux, Hideo Kojima, Bungie and the Infinity Ward guys. But Microsoft wasn't going to get by on star Power; they showed a strong lineup of games coming soon.
The first game that made an impact was The Beatles Rock Band which is coming to the 360, PS3 and Wii this fall. I was looking forward to buying this game when it came out but I wasn't excited for its release until I saw the trailer and was reminded that the Beatles were the soundtrack of my early childhood -- Well played Microsoft, I'm on board.
Another game of significance to me was Splinter Cell Conviction. This game was stuck in limbo after facing countless delays, but the live demo at the conference cast aside any doubts that this game has the potential to be awesome when it releases in the fall. Projecting story elements and mission information onto in game environments is a unique way of keeping a game fluid and adding an element of style into what is essentially a dark and gritty reboot of a successful last generation franchise.
Modern Warfare 2 was featured with a lengthy live demo and a new snow environment, but it wasn't all that exciting for me. Not that the game didn't look great, but I'm one of the few people in the planet that prefers WWII shooters to modern shooters. Maybe it's the degree in history talking, but WWII is far more interesting than some near future, fake Middle Eastern and fallen Soviet countries. With that said I'm sure I will own this game before the calendar changes to 2010.
A big surprise in the conference came in the form of Hideo Kojima "sneaking up" on Don Mattrick and delivering the announcement of Metal Gear Rising was in development for the Xbox 360 (which was later confirmed to be in development for the PS3 as well). No game play was shown, but the announcement of the first Metal Gear game for the 360 is significant.
Last year's big surprise, Final Fantasy XIII was shown for the first time on the Xbox with a short battle summons demo presented by Motomu Toriyama and Yoshinori Katasi. The visuals looked great, but my excitement for this game won't pick up until after the new year since it's a planned Spring 2010 game.
Nothing else is coming to mind as far as the presser goes (though I know I have left things out), nothing but Project Natal of course. Natal is Microsoft's new full body motion sensor that completely eliminates the need for a physical controller. Natal seems like a it can be awesome and it can literally change the way we play our games in the future. Natal was demoed live on stage with a simple game featuring motion capture game of a girl kicking and slapping balls in some sort of full body pong and it seemed to work well. Microsoft then launched a sizzle reel of what you could do with Natal in the future that showed facial recognition, item scanning and a whole host of different possibilities for what Natal can do with the right development. The biggest thing shown with Natal was the inclusion of Peter Molyneux's Milo, which is a young virtual boy that can sense your emotion and even engage in conversation with you.
My problem with the Natal demo is that most of the coolest possibilities weren't shown live. I have my doubts on what will actually work until it's right in front of me and working. I would love to see Natal in person, and if it works as advertised it's going to be a huge deal for Microsoft in the future.
Overall the Microsoft was big on style and substance and I don't think anyone could have walked away from that conference disappointed.
[Watch The Microsoft Conference @ Gamespot]
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