Ladies and gentlemen, this is the 2011 E3 Microsoft Conference blog, with a bit of commentary from my end. I hope you will find it to be a pleasant read. Don’t forget to leave a comment with your opinion on what was showcased at said conference.
The conference started with a live demo of the latest installment in the Modern Warfare franchise. This third installments takes place around the world, that find itself locked in to World War 3. We find our squad of heroes underwater at first, heading towards a submarine that is about to launch rockets. It’s their job to stop it, and so they must traverse unseen and board the ship unnoticed.
From the darker, first part of the demo, we quickly move above the surface. There we find that New York is burning, half destroyed because of the ongoing war. With this at our background, we make our way on to the sub and fight towards the control room where we stop the rockets and then flee the scene, ending with one final shot of New York. A very dramatic demo with suspenseful action. This might very well be their best installment yet. Talking about the entire Call of Duty franchise here.
Moving on we hear from an Infinity Ward and a Sledgehammer spokesman, giving the usual PR speech of thanking the fans and whatnot.
Don Mattrick comes on stage and welcomes everyone to the conference, then giving an introductory speech with the usual PR nonsense thrown in for good measure. Luckily he doesn’t stay on for long and hands it over to the next guys.
Newberger and Galagher from Crystal Dynamics come on stage and talk Tomb Raider. Wait, no, showcase a demo? Fantastic news! The entire demo is very reminiscent of the opening to Uncharted 2, minus the flashbacks. Lara is injured and needs to press forward through a large set piece in order for the player to get used to the controls a bit. Clear is that this game looks absolutely amazing from a graphical standpoint. Even Lara looks human! As far as gameplay goes, it also has this Uncharted feel to it, which, truth be told, had a Tomb Raider feel to it. So, the student becomes the master I suppose. In all though, it’s quite obvious that this reboot is more realistic, more personal and way grittier than ever before. Ending it all is a music cue so good that it reminded me of the old school games.
Peter Moore comes on stage to say that EA Sports is now fully supported by Kinect.
Moore called in Ray Muzika to talk about Mass Effect 3, and how it too will be Kinect ready. You’ll be able to voice out the dialogue option you want and you’ll be able to command your team. Only problem is that, whilst it’s supposed to bring the player closer to the characters, I think that it might actually distance them in the dialogue part of the controls. But, for what it was worth, it did showcase Mass Effect 3 and it looked like Mass Effect 2, only prettier. Let’s hope that it doesn’t stay that way.
Next up was a CGI trailer for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. It looked fantastic, like most CGI trailers do. Unfortunately that doesn’t say much about the game itself.
In comes Guillemot, who tells his partner Chris to demo an aspect of the game. It’s called Gunsmith. It uses Kinect and it’s … well, have you ever seen Minority Report where Tom Cruise is messing around with those screens? That’s basically how you can do this. You can fully customize your weapon by turning the weapon, removing a part or all parts and even use voice commands. It looks awesome, honestly.
Also, Guillemot informs us that all Tom Clancy titles will have Kinect Support from now on.
Following this, we learn that Xbox Live will now have Youtube, Bing and Live TV. Also reminding us about that old feature that would allow us to use voice commands. Though the example they gave us made you sound like an idiot. “Kinect, Bing”. Urg.
Blandest trailer ever follows.
Dana White comes on with Xbox Live ESPN UFC news. Shows a trailer.
Phil Spencer comes on and gives a speech, then says that all following titles are 360 exclusives.
AND FINALLY, we’re back to something great. Mind you, there’s a lot of minutes between Ghost Recon and this. So, what’s next? Gears of War 3! Cliffy B, get your sexy ass on stage! *cough*
So, Cliffy invites Ice-T to come on as well and together they play a short demo. Like with CoD, they really upped the ante on this one with better graphics, amazingly awesome set pieces and gigantic bosses. Oh, and more Cole Train. “Speaking scientifically: we need to blow its brains out of its ass.”
We then see a trailer for Ryse, a kinect game that has a fantastic trailer. Gameplay looks absolutely bland, but at least the trailer was good.
And now we have the Halo theme, folks. What could it possibly be? Of course! A trailer for the HD remake of the original game!
Greenwald then comes on stage to showcase Forza 4, using music used already by the Saint’s Row The Third trailer. Smooooooooooth.
When Peter Molyneux was announced next, I laughed. Because, by god, he started his speech exactly like he does every time. By spewing a load of manure at the audience as if they think he is god. He presented to us Fable: The Journey. Another Kinect game, this time in the fable universe and in first person. Absolutely bland. But, as is usual in this conference, it’s accompanied by a fantastic trailer.
Spence is back, this time talking about … Minecraft on Kinect. Ok, this is the first real announcement we’ve had all show. This is huge. I mean, really huge. I haven’t played it myself, but it’s wildly popular and maybe one of the best games of the passed few years. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE NE … xt …
Disneyland Adventures, people. The entirety of Disneyland is put in a game, with each ride being turned in to a Kinect game that is about as generic as it gets. This has to be the greatest waste of money we have seen yet. Not even the horrible kid actors can save its blandness.
THANK GOD, Star Wars is he … Kinect Star Wars? Well … Graphically it looks quite impressive. Just like you would expect a Star Wars game to look like. Unfortunately, the rest falls flat on its face. It’s an on-rails game through and through. Plus, it looks like there’s a massive delay between the action in real life and the action on screen. This looks … again … BLAND!
Following this is a game that instantly becomes ten times more awesome than the Star Wars game, simply because it’s made by the man of legend, Tim Schafer. It’s Sesame Street: Once upon a monster. A game for kids, on the kinect. And it actually looks fun to play if you have a kid.
Captain Sunglasses, Tsunada, comes on stage and talks more about Kinect. It’s Kinect Fun Labs, a hub for all content about it. For example: Kinect Finger Tracking, an app made for porn no doubt, and Object Capture, which let’s you scan object and actually play as them.
More Kinect comes next with the trailer for Kinect Sports 2. With Nicole Makila to talk us through it.
Ok, guys, this is getting nowhere fast. This is long, boring and filled with Kinect, which is by far the last thing anyone wanted to see. OH, great, my computer froze. Rebooting the entire thing now. Waiting. Waiting. OKAY, what did I miss … Dance Central 2? Fuck, did I miss seeing someone completely and utterly embarrass themselves? Fuck … ahwell, at least Dance Central is one of the best franchises that Kinect has to offer.
Ending the conference is an announcement that we’re about to see a trailer that will be the first of a trilogy. A game we’ve all been waiting for. Halo 4. Master Chief awakens to explosions and Cortana’s voice calling out to him. He bursts from his cryo-pod and makes his way to the front of the ship after he saved Cortana. A bigger ship is looming right above them. The trailer ends. This is like the single most disappointing thing of the entire conference. We already knew this was coming. It got leaked. SHOW US SOMETHING AT LEAST. But, nooooooo.
This was the Microsoft conference people. Just barely better than last year. Ba-re-ly. E3 is for investors, I know, but the number one way to pull in investors is to have the backing of the people. And with a weak-sauce conference like that, you are more than likely to lose investors than gain em.
The conference started with a live demo of the latest installment in the Modern Warfare franchise. This third installments takes place around the world, that find itself locked in to World War 3. We find our squad of heroes underwater at first, heading towards a submarine that is about to launch rockets. It’s their job to stop it, and so they must traverse unseen and board the ship unnoticed.
From the darker, first part of the demo, we quickly move above the surface. There we find that New York is burning, half destroyed because of the ongoing war. With this at our background, we make our way on to the sub and fight towards the control room where we stop the rockets and then flee the scene, ending with one final shot of New York. A very dramatic demo with suspenseful action. This might very well be their best installment yet. Talking about the entire Call of Duty franchise here.
Moving on we hear from an Infinity Ward and a Sledgehammer spokesman, giving the usual PR speech of thanking the fans and whatnot.
Don Mattrick comes on stage and welcomes everyone to the conference, then giving an introductory speech with the usual PR nonsense thrown in for good measure. Luckily he doesn’t stay on for long and hands it over to the next guys.
Newberger and Galagher from Crystal Dynamics come on stage and talk Tomb Raider. Wait, no, showcase a demo? Fantastic news! The entire demo is very reminiscent of the opening to Uncharted 2, minus the flashbacks. Lara is injured and needs to press forward through a large set piece in order for the player to get used to the controls a bit. Clear is that this game looks absolutely amazing from a graphical standpoint. Even Lara looks human! As far as gameplay goes, it also has this Uncharted feel to it, which, truth be told, had a Tomb Raider feel to it. So, the student becomes the master I suppose. In all though, it’s quite obvious that this reboot is more realistic, more personal and way grittier than ever before. Ending it all is a music cue so good that it reminded me of the old school games.
Peter Moore comes on stage to say that EA Sports is now fully supported by Kinect.
Moore called in Ray Muzika to talk about Mass Effect 3, and how it too will be Kinect ready. You’ll be able to voice out the dialogue option you want and you’ll be able to command your team. Only problem is that, whilst it’s supposed to bring the player closer to the characters, I think that it might actually distance them in the dialogue part of the controls. But, for what it was worth, it did showcase Mass Effect 3 and it looked like Mass Effect 2, only prettier. Let’s hope that it doesn’t stay that way.
Next up was a CGI trailer for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. It looked fantastic, like most CGI trailers do. Unfortunately that doesn’t say much about the game itself.
In comes Guillemot, who tells his partner Chris to demo an aspect of the game. It’s called Gunsmith. It uses Kinect and it’s … well, have you ever seen Minority Report where Tom Cruise is messing around with those screens? That’s basically how you can do this. You can fully customize your weapon by turning the weapon, removing a part or all parts and even use voice commands. It looks awesome, honestly.
Also, Guillemot informs us that all Tom Clancy titles will have Kinect Support from now on.
Following this, we learn that Xbox Live will now have Youtube, Bing and Live TV. Also reminding us about that old feature that would allow us to use voice commands. Though the example they gave us made you sound like an idiot. “Kinect, Bing”. Urg.
Blandest trailer ever follows.
Dana White comes on with Xbox Live ESPN UFC news. Shows a trailer.
Phil Spencer comes on and gives a speech, then says that all following titles are 360 exclusives.
AND FINALLY, we’re back to something great. Mind you, there’s a lot of minutes between Ghost Recon and this. So, what’s next? Gears of War 3! Cliffy B, get your sexy ass on stage! *cough*
So, Cliffy invites Ice-T to come on as well and together they play a short demo. Like with CoD, they really upped the ante on this one with better graphics, amazingly awesome set pieces and gigantic bosses. Oh, and more Cole Train. “Speaking scientifically: we need to blow its brains out of its ass.”
We then see a trailer for Ryse, a kinect game that has a fantastic trailer. Gameplay looks absolutely bland, but at least the trailer was good.
And now we have the Halo theme, folks. What could it possibly be? Of course! A trailer for the HD remake of the original game!
Greenwald then comes on stage to showcase Forza 4, using music used already by the Saint’s Row The Third trailer. Smooooooooooth.
When Peter Molyneux was announced next, I laughed. Because, by god, he started his speech exactly like he does every time. By spewing a load of manure at the audience as if they think he is god. He presented to us Fable: The Journey. Another Kinect game, this time in the fable universe and in first person. Absolutely bland. But, as is usual in this conference, it’s accompanied by a fantastic trailer.
Spence is back, this time talking about … Minecraft on Kinect. Ok, this is the first real announcement we’ve had all show. This is huge. I mean, really huge. I haven’t played it myself, but it’s wildly popular and maybe one of the best games of the passed few years. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE NE … xt …
Disneyland Adventures, people. The entirety of Disneyland is put in a game, with each ride being turned in to a Kinect game that is about as generic as it gets. This has to be the greatest waste of money we have seen yet. Not even the horrible kid actors can save its blandness.
THANK GOD, Star Wars is he … Kinect Star Wars? Well … Graphically it looks quite impressive. Just like you would expect a Star Wars game to look like. Unfortunately, the rest falls flat on its face. It’s an on-rails game through and through. Plus, it looks like there’s a massive delay between the action in real life and the action on screen. This looks … again … BLAND!
Following this is a game that instantly becomes ten times more awesome than the Star Wars game, simply because it’s made by the man of legend, Tim Schafer. It’s Sesame Street: Once upon a monster. A game for kids, on the kinect. And it actually looks fun to play if you have a kid.
Captain Sunglasses, Tsunada, comes on stage and talks more about Kinect. It’s Kinect Fun Labs, a hub for all content about it. For example: Kinect Finger Tracking, an app made for porn no doubt, and Object Capture, which let’s you scan object and actually play as them.
More Kinect comes next with the trailer for Kinect Sports 2. With Nicole Makila to talk us through it.
Ok, guys, this is getting nowhere fast. This is long, boring and filled with Kinect, which is by far the last thing anyone wanted to see. OH, great, my computer froze. Rebooting the entire thing now. Waiting. Waiting. OKAY, what did I miss … Dance Central 2? Fuck, did I miss seeing someone completely and utterly embarrass themselves? Fuck … ahwell, at least Dance Central is one of the best franchises that Kinect has to offer.
Ending the conference is an announcement that we’re about to see a trailer that will be the first of a trilogy. A game we’ve all been waiting for. Halo 4. Master Chief awakens to explosions and Cortana’s voice calling out to him. He bursts from his cryo-pod and makes his way to the front of the ship after he saved Cortana. A bigger ship is looming right above them. The trailer ends. This is like the single most disappointing thing of the entire conference. We already knew this was coming. It got leaked. SHOW US SOMETHING AT LEAST. But, nooooooo.
This was the Microsoft conference people. Just barely better than last year. Ba-re-ly. E3 is for investors, I know, but the number one way to pull in investors is to have the backing of the people. And with a weak-sauce conference like that, you are more than likely to lose investors than gain em.
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