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E3 press conference coverage
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The latest from my brother, Joseph Tresca of Eyeballistic, who is currently live in LA at the Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference to discuss the latest gaming news:
Microsoft kicked off E3 with their press conference and although it started out decidedly slow with a focus on Rock Band featuring the Beatles the show picked up the pace when it was announced that they wouldn't be showing sales estimates or attachment rate charts at this years event. The show began with a long intro cinematic of the Beatles looking hand drawn, which we're told is the actual intro cinematic to the new Rock Band installment. The introduction was a pre-rendered walk through the Beatles timeline, which could best be described as their album covers brought to life and animated.
"Cool for the first minute 45 seconds," said Joe, "but boring thereafter unless you are a huge Beatles freak."
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the only surviving Beatles took the stage and made a few awkward comments about how great the game is and then they inadvertently made fun of the animation of their on screen avatar's when Paul described his movements as looking robotic—even going so far as to mimic the non-fluid animations with his body.
"No one was sure whether to laugh or not and clearly Paul and Ringo hadn't prepared anything to say."
Nonetheless the two legends quickly bowed out as gracefully as possible so as to avoid further discomfort with a gaming crowd they barely understand.
Next up, Tony Hawk showed off his new Skate Board controller. It looked very responsive based on the brief demonstration he showed.
"I'm glad they showed this earlier in the show because in my mind Microsoft would go on to make such a device irrelevant with their announcement of 'Project Natal'," said Joe. More on that in a moment.
We finally got more than a glimpse of Modern Warfare 2, the true sequel to Call of Duty 4 (COD4). Infinity Ward's creators took to the stage to show the new game in action, which looked suspiciously not a whole heck of a lot better or different than COD4. However any Modern Warfare fan knows that at this stage in the game it's less about a leap in graphics and more about silky smooth 60 frames per second first-person shooter goodness. Fortunately the game does look refined in this area with a glimpse of the single-player mission taking place on the side of a snow-capped mountain. We're presented with a first person view of us digging our mountain climbing tools into the icy side of the mountain. We had several "cliff hanger" moments before reaching the top where a new weapon was revealed with what looked like a GPS screen attached to the left hand side of the gun. A few explosion's later and we were racing on snow speeders through the icy landscape while shooting our handgun at the opposition.
"The fluidity and speed of this scene was a comforting reminder that Infinity Ward has opted to refine the wheel instead of reinvent it," said Joe.
Next we caught a glimpse of the Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy 13. It looked just as good as the Playstation 3 version and SquareEnix announced that it would be released in Spring 2010. There were new fighting mechanics described with the addition of power bars which once filled would allow for an impressive summon animation to occur. Very cool.
Left4Dead 2 made an appearance next. It looked pretty much just like the first game, "but honestly who cares?" said Joe. "That game was always about the enjoyment of playing with your friends through the zombie apocalypse and less about the graphics." The demonstration was suitably brief so Joe didn't go into detail.
Next Forza Motorsport 3 was announced. It looked awesome with 400 cars and 100 real tracks as a major highlight. "Still not the Grand Turismo killer Microsoft is hoping for in terms of graphics, but the game play looked fast and fluid with a variety of cars shown in the demonstration."
Next Bungie took the stage to show off Halo 3 ODST, which puts you in the role of a rookie. Joe wasn't sure what to think about it until he got some hands on time with the game. "It definitely looked like Halo 3 and I don't think it'll be a disappointment to fans of the series," he said. They also announced a new Halo project called Halo:Reach which is due in 2010. The trailer was brief so, Joe's reserving judgment until he sees more of the game.
Next we saw the long awaited Alan Wake in action, finally. "This game looks absolutely stunning with vast detailed third-person camera controlled environments that just oozed atmosphere. Alan Wake game proves that the Xbox 360 still has some left in the tank to compete with the PS3 in the graphics department." The environments seemed very interactive and the storyline looks engrossing. We'll see Alan Wake launch in Spring 2010.
A huge shocker was when Hideo Kojima took to the stage to reveal that a new Metal Gear game would be announced for Xbox 360. This new game, titled Metal Gear Solid: Rising will feature Raiden as the main character.
Facebook and Twitter fans should be happy that Microsoft has decided to bring those social networking tools to Xbox live. We'll see how successful this move turns out to be.
The crème de la crème of the show was the announcement of the aforementioned Project Natal. Microsoft showed this new peripheral, which can be attached beneath your television just like the Playstation Eye. What makes this peripheral stand apart from the Wii wand or PSEYE is its ability to track full 3D motion captured movements at a 1:1 ratio.
"It looked absolutely incredible," reported Joe, "with the demonstration of a dance game, a fighting game, a skateboarding game and one of my personal favorites, a Godzilla type game where you wave your arms and legs to destroy a city. You know you totally always wanted to do that! Trust me you've never seen this kind of control in a game before."
Joe also mentioned that the peripheral will support voice commands as well. Being that this will be a separately sold peripheral, it runs the risk of being a great idea that never fully hits its stride. If nothing else, it shows the potential of using your body as the ultimate game controller. Steven Spielberg took to the stage to affirm his support for this revolutionary technology near the end of the presentation.
Peter Molyneux ended the presentation showing a "somewhat eerie" demonstration of a young boy who responds to what you say via the devices' voice control.
"It was very cool when the demonstrator drew something on a piece of paper and then handed it to the boy on screen in the game. The paper was instantly scanned as the digital character showed what was drawn to the audience. This was a perfect way to end the presentation in my mind."
More from Joe as it happens!
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