E3 is evil. Not in a medieval lash-it-to-a post-and-purge-it-of-its sins kind of way. More of dangling an irresistible carrot in front of a particularly hard worked donkey that would like nothing more than to have its efforts appreciated. The donkey refers to us, the public; the consumers while the carrot of infinite desire is all trailers, clips and demonstration of all the gaming industry products that they intend to launch within the next twelve months.
This year’s E3 has happened to be particularly interesting, getting the juices of many a gaming enthusiasts going into overdrive. Unfortunately, the three day, Los Angeles based event is very exclusive. Most passes are divided between the gaming industry and press, leaving almost every other juiced up gamer treading water in the depths of the internet waiting for press conference streams or scouring Gamespot for snippets of new releases. Nothing I say will be firsthand experience. I simply just wish to believe what I feel is significant. This entry will focus on our dear friends at:
Microsoft
The boys at Xbox have been very busy this year securing all sorts of titles and improvements for their beloved console. Talk of the town before the conference was how Project Natal is going to look one year since its initial unveiling announcement. The result...disappointing.
Renamed Kinect, the peripheral has done well to create a bridge between non gamers and gaming by getting rid of those pesky controls that only take 5 minutes of prodding, poking and the mental capabilities of a five year old to work out.
The games look beautiful and play with ease, but as a gamer who feels most comfortable playing with a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard, I find myself biased to dislike Kinetic. Kinetic is going to be aimed at the market of parents with young children, something they can all play together and have hours of fun with.
But to those with more experience in shooting invading aliens, hog tying outlaws and slashing our way through historically inaccurate battlefields, Kinect seems inferior with a hint of inaccuracy.
Kinetic’s storm cloud of negativity does have a silver lining though. Its integration into the Xbox interface is very impressive. Voice activated commands and controlling what to do by pointing is a redeeming feature. Specifically navigating a film through voice commands appears to give Kinetic a wider purpose than waving frantically in your living room. Playing, pausing and fast forwarding films through voice commands is a dandy feature that sure does take away the hassle of searching for a controller in a darkened room. But paying the fifty to hundred pound fee to simply remove a controller from the equation of watching a film is a little steep, bordering on insanity. Swiftly moving on...
Microsoft also announced many new franchise sequels which beg the question - how long can Xbox rely its revenue stream on the Halo and Gears of War franchises? While their originals were ground breaking and a prime specimen of shoot ‘em ups, Xbox really should look further afield for new up and coming talent that could breathe new life into the sequel-tastic industry that shuns taking risks and new creativity outside of its comfort zone.
Both series’ have new chapters opening up in the coming year, most anticipated of the two is Halo: Reach. After a successful Beta testing stage that made Halo online multiplayer fun again with new game modes and the introduction of a soldier class system, the first look at the single player campaign looks to take the franchise back to what made Halo: Evolved Combat an instant hit nearly ten years ago. With a mission that bears similarities to the D-Day beach invasions (except replace the French coast with a space port and the Nazis with big aliens with laser swords) and shows off how the new Spartan classes are going to play an important role in how the game can be played. Finally showing off with a vehicle section of mission... in a space ship...in space, this is something the Halo franchise has never delved into before but we can only hope it plays half as intense as it looks.
The last big sequel to a sequel to sequel title was the new Call of Duty, Black Ops. Confirming the rumours that have spread around the internet that this time the Call of Duty franchise will be experimenting with the Vietnam War seems like the logical move from Treyarch, the masterminds behind the World War Two chronicles of the series. A sneak peek at the gameplay showed creeping through Vietcong tunnels, encountering a character who, if correct, is everyone’s favourite Red Army Sergeant, Reznov, using scoped crossbows with a variety of different arrow heads and hijacking an enemy helicopter (hello Russia?) and laying waste to Vietnamese valley.
Xbox also pulled out a three year exclusivity deal out their proverbial behind for the Call of Duty franchise allowing Xbox gamers to be the first to get their hands on the next Call of Duty game and all following downloadable content.
Finally, Xbox finished the show with a remarkable revelation kept so under wraps that genuine shock and awe swept through the auditorium - the unveiling of their new slim line console. Well... they say slim line. It looks like the current Xbox’s little brother in a family photo. However the slim line is defiantly the post man’s son. The new Xbox comes in a mesmerizing glossy black shell and really has looks to kill. Supposedly designed to work quieter than its bigger brother and include a more compact method of hiding the 250GB hard drive as well as inbuilt Wi-Fi capabilities, Xbox has gone all out to brush the dust off of a classic console design and give the next few years of this console generation a sparkle till its time has come.
The last feature included that it didn’t mention is that this new Xbox revamp will be able to run the Kinect toy without an external power source. Xbox very cunningly managed to not mention how the current generation of Xbox’s will have to have their Kinect camera hooked up to the mains to play. Very sneaky Xbox. Get people shelling out the pounds to avoid one more cable to find a place in the death trap that is the extension cord behind the living room telly.
But Xbox didn’t stop the surprises of the new and groovy Xbox, oh no. That’s the small news. The big news was that his new console was already being shipped across the US and was due to be available in stores that week. While the auditorium crowd whooped and cheered, they only got a bit louder when they were told they would each be receiving one of these new consoles there and then. Damn you Xbox, that’s just not cool watching on a live internet stream.
So that was a summary of the Microsoft press conference. With the only big news this year consisting of Kinect and a new Xbox, it seems a little bit disappointing on Microsoft’s behalf. Any Tom, Dick or Harry could have guessed that their selection of releases for the year would all be sequels and nothing truly original. Except for a game that looks as if to compare to Playstation’s God of War series - and considering how no gameplay was shown, it hardly deserves mention except for here...at the end.
Fin.
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