What happened next was hardly surprising, but excited everyone nonetheless. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is, of course, a remake of the FPS that legitimized the Xbox nearly ten years ago. Introduced as the “campaign of the decade remade and remastered”, the remake looks like a faithful upgrade to the classic with vastly improved visuals. Cooperative play and seven classic multiplayer maps were promised to now have Live functionality. The series begins anew on November 15th of this year. Awesome.
This was followed up by Forza Motorsports 4. It was tough for most viewers to get pumped about a racing sequel after seeing Microsoft’s bread and butter, but Forza still looked promising for fans of the genre. Community car clubs, 16 player action and (predictably) Kinect support was announced. The game is said to offer “an entirely new car experience”.
Things were apparently moving at too much of a break-neck speed at this point, so MS called upon Peter Molyneaux to talk us to death. But in a move that caught me off guard, he actually didn’t talk all that much. The Lionhead leader asked how we would feel about being “100 times more in control” in the next Fable. Then he took us right into CG footage of Fable: The Journey. A dragonfly and a bird fly through Albion and the old woman who weaves the series’ narrative warns that “Albion’s end is coming.” She is chased by what looks like the smoke monster from Lost and then hops into a wagon.
You’ve probably already guessed what went down next: Kinect-controlled wagon driving. I had to excuse myself at this point while I contained my extremely moderate interest. An on-stage player then gestured to cast some spells against beasties and quited their annoying grumbling with a large explosion. An angry troll with reindeer horns on its head busted through a gate. Demo over. No more Kinect — for a brief moment, at least.
Minecraft was announced as an Xbox 360 exclusive for this winter (sounded like a timed exclusive to us). The crowd went wild until Kinect Disneyland Adventures was revealed; at which point, it went “meh”. You can visit the park and experience all of its rides and characters. If you have kids, they’ll probably love this. Everyone else but parents looking to save some cash, won’t be terribly interested. Some children faked excitement on stage in a nauseating display that went on for far too long. Hey, I love Disney, but did we really need to see this during E3?
Not yet content to move away from Kinect, MS dragged Tim Shaefer onto the stage to demonstrate a game he made for his daughter: Sesame Street. Once again, a disgusting amount of time was dedicated to the playing of a game targeted at an audience that was not watching the show. Anyways, your kids are going to love Elmo and Cookie Monster’s adventures — if you have any.
There used to be an embeded media player here, but it doesn't work anymore. We blame the Tumbeasts.
Moving slightly up the ladder in age demographics, Star Wars Kinect was also displayed. The music was fantastic (It’s Star Wars, when is it not?) and far too much new trilogy crappola was shown off for my tastes. Then it cut to an aerial battle over Bespin. The player jumped off the ship here and tore through some retarded droids with ease. Force charges and saber swipes made quick work of the foes. Things finally get good when you enter the carbon-freezing chamber from Empire and a pair of dark-robed Sith materialize. Lightsabers are drawn and the demo wraps.
At this point, nobody wanted to hear the word “Kinect” ever again in their life. Kudo Tsunoda, the creative director behind Kinect, took the stage. Damn. He rambled for a blessedly short time and told us that the device “innovated the crap out of stuff”. Alright, he didn’t say that, but it was strongly implied. Tsunoda told the audience that, in the future, all XBL users will be able to scan people to make them into avatars. Everything is cooler in the future, right? You’ll also be able to draw things with your fingers and scan in stuff like cars and skateboards for use in-game. That last bit sounded awesome; but instead of showing, they chose to scan a stuffed animal. Really Microsoft? It’s all part of Kinect Fun Labs, which goes live today. The live audience feigned excitement while secretly praying for the aforementioned Halo 4 showing.
Microsoft went in a different direction and delivered Kinect Sports Season 2. At this point, most of us were expecting Bill Gates to storm in and show off the Kinect Vitality Sensor at any moment. Thankfully, it never got THAT out of hand. A demonstration showed off motion and voice controlled golf. Next up was two douches playing football. Seriously, the demonstrators faked playing together like best buds having the time of their life and I almost threw up at the sickening display.
Surely the madness would end after that, right? Negative. The project director of Dance Central 2 walked into the theater to show off, well, Dance Central 2. All songs from the first game can be imported into the sequel, which will (amazingly) feature new songs. It actually sounded pretty neat for those of you who enjoy dancing. Moreover, Harmonix has never lead us astray before, so there’s no reason to think they’ll start now.
Don Mattrick took over to wrap things up. He claimed that the “Xbox 360 will change living room entertainment forever.” During the recap, he made mention of Call of Duty DLC once again being brought to the 360 before other platforms. Mattrick predicted that the 360 would become the number one console in the world this year. The few audience members that were not yet asleep didn’t offer any arguments.
That’s when it finally went down — the “dawn of a new trilogy for 360”. As everyone stirred from their Kinect-induced slumber, what was obviously Halo 4 was finally put up on the screen. You’ve already watched the video at the beginning of this article, but the highlight was definitely Master Chief propelling through space like Isaac in Dead Space. It’s all CG footage, but everyone cheers wildly nonetheless. This sequel from 343 Studios will launch in holiday 2012. And then it was all over.
There weren’t many “OMG look at that!” moments during the show, but Microsoft certainly showed some projects that excited fans. Sadly, they were so buried under the Kinect’s massive shadow, that it was hard to recall anything not named Halo or Modern Warfare. From a personal standpoint, I’d rate the conference a C. Keep in mind that that does not reflect MTB’s opinion as whole, just this writer’s. The 360 has been my main console of choice this generation, so it was disappointing to see Microsoft model much of their conference after the more drab showings Nintendo had given in the middle years of the Wii’s life. I’m stoked for both Halo games, but the door is wide open for Sony or Nintendo to “win” this year’s E3.
[Images via Destructoid, and Video Game Blogger.]
