Microsoft Press Conference Breakdown

Microsoft finished their E3 press conference and well, if you really love Kinect, then you’ll be happy with it. No big surprises or original exclusives were shown and really the entire conference was less than exciting.

The first thing we are introduced to is gameplay footage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The game seems to be full of action and explosions and has really great visuals. The series looks to take it to the next level as you see an waves of missiles barrage New York City. The combat goes from underwater to submarine sabotage to flying through the air in no time at all. Yea the series has been done to death but this looks pretty fun. I just can’t quit you CoD! As announced last year, all DLC will be on Xbox 360 first.

Then Don Mattrick comes on stage and gives his yada yada yada about Xbox being the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Next up we get an incredible in depth look at the new Tomb Raider game by Square Enix. It’s dark, it’s gritty, it’s intense, it’s awesome! The gameplay and ambient background noise are extremely reminiscent of the series but looks to be a much smoother much more interactive experience this time around. She does a lot of moaning….me likey. As usual, Microsoft is showing us a game that isn’t exclusive at all but that’s ok, it still looks sweet.

EA tells us that they have some Kinect sports games on the way, including Madden, Tiger Woods and Fifa and then they concede the stage….thanks for that information…

Ray Muyzka comes out to show us Mass Effect 3 and it looks like the game will use Kinect for facial and voice recognition. You can read your choices out load instead of selecting them with the controller. Then we see how we can shout out orders to squad mates telling them to move up or take cover. A cool idea, although we did see something similar with Tom Clancy’s EndWar and it didn’t go so well. Very little gameplay was shown but I’m sure this game will rock your goggles off.

Speaking of Tom Clancy, Ubisoft announced that all Tom Clancy games will now feature Kinect support. We get a brief glimpse at the new Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Future Soldier which highlights your ability to cloak your character and sneak around. OK the connect usage is pretty cool here, using your voice or hands to assemble and customize your guns…so many parts. Then they demonstrate playing a FPS with Kinect and I say thanks but no thanks. It just looks awkward. Pulsing your fist to fire your gun, bad idea.

Improvements have been made with XBOX Dashboard, including better support with Kinect and in improved interface. Oh and it will have Youtube, Bing and Live TV built in, not bad. The actual demonstration is a little silly, I don’t think it’s actually listening to what she’s saying. They may just as well have Britney Spears here to do the lip syncing.

Do you like Gears of War? What about Ice T? Well your dreams come true as you get to watch Ice T play Gears 3 live on stage. It looks like just another Gears game, shooting things, taking cover, particles and lighting look much improved, levels and characters look just as good as they did with 2. Big bosses are back in fashion these days and Gears knows it, prepare to fight the Kraken!

A new Fable game is coming soon. It will be called Fable: The Journey and is about the journey one takes to leave Albion and find a new home. Graphically, the game has a much more iconic look and will be a first person kinect game. You will use a lot of magic that almost makes one feel like a character from Dragon Ball. This one has me intrigued. No mention of the events of the prior Fables coming into play on this one.

We then get a taste of a new “exclusive”, Minecraft. Which isn’t exclusive at all, it’s been out for PC for some time now, but whatever.  I didn’t see this one coming but unfortunately it looks like the game must be played with Kinect. Microsoft is just going Kinect crazy and they’re getting Disney and Star Wars involved. A full gameplay demonstration was given showing the new Star Wars game where you dogfight, swing your lightsaber and use the force to get through levels. Out of all the Kinect games, this one looks the best but still seems gimmicky and unchallenging. Enemies just stand there as you swing your arm several times until the camera understand what you’re trying to do. Obviously the game needs work and I should also mention it is a rail game.

Then of course, Microsoft takes this time to really reach out to it’s target E3 audience and demonstrates Sesame Street Kinect. No I’m not joking. …Let’s move on.

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is a completely remastered version of the first Halo and will be available this fall. It’s Halo CE using the reach engine, along with “classic” MP maps on Xbox live. And then we finish with a teaser trailer for Halo 4. The game will start a new trilogy, and will be out in the holiday season of 2012.

And that’s it for Microsoft. Kinect up the wall, no new hardware, ME3, GoW3, and Halo 4. They seemed more interested in pleasing their smaller casual gaming audience then their larger hardcore gaming audience. Sure there’s some expected sequels coming out for them but it wasn’t anything worthy of a press conference. Nothing surprising here and if you were looking for some new exclusives then you are probably sorely disappointed.

The Video will be added when it is ready.

Play my outro….

- Jon Duryea (Follow @Artifact911 on Twitter)