E3 2008: Microsoft Press Conference

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

E3: Microsoft Press Conference


Yes, I am a gamer. And since E3 is one of the many ways to wet a gamers appetite, I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents for each Platform's Press Conference. Of course, Microsoft got day 1, and of course they tried to blow it up, but to be honest the whole thing was kind of obscure, up until the last 5 minutes...

First, hardcore gaming: we have Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5 and Halo Wars. OK, I will avoid Fallout and RE5, because I know they will be on PS3 and I want to see how it looks on there before I have an opinion (Sony's conference is at 1 pm today).

Fable 2: and it looks good. The on-line co-op is nice, if it works and there is an intuitive way of interacting with your friends (no more lobbies), also the NPC to PC interaction is astounding. In fact, you can do everything from getting married to having children, all of which affect the world you live in and the life you create. Knowing me, I will probably be so obsessed with looting and leveling that I will be twice divorced before game end.

Gears of War 2: Nice. They pulled an Ashley Simpson during the demonstration (2 people were supposed to be playing live, but 2 minutes in the image cut out and it looped back to the beginning, I bet it was pre-recorded). But looks to have a better story line, tons of new weapons and vehicles?! and a 5 player co-op!! Really hoping these guys live up to the hype because if they do, it will kick ASS!! Chainsaw duel anyone?

Halo Wars... I don't really play RTS games and this is Command on Conquer, in a Halo skin, overall it looked nice though.

They had numerous other 3rd parties come in: Rockband 2, Guitar Hero WT (that presenter was such a poser), Lips (360 Karaoke), etc. But Microsoft's big push is the new Live setup. You can see it all online, it is pretty extensive, from joining forces with Netflix, creating Avatars (lame), a ton of games (new Portal anyone?) and the potential of being able to rip your games to your HDD! That's right, bye bye load times.

And for the grand finale Square-Enix took the stage. Now, as I already knew, Square has made 2 or 3 new IPs for 360 and they all look good (Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean Finale), but they fucking sold the boat by announcing that Final Fantasy XIII will be on the 360... SHIT!!!

Now, the PS3 may be in a run for their money, considering the Exclusive games that made the PS2 the greatest selling video game platform of all time are available somewhere else. We will see if Sony has what it takes.