E3 09: Microsoft Press Conference Reactions

by relentlessknight

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Note: My twitter account was actually twitting during this press conference. You could see it here!

I was quite clueless on what Microsoft will present in their press conference. I have only known that Modern Warfare 2, Zune HD, Alan Wake and Final Fantasy XIII will be shown. It was quite confusing to decide which live stream to watch this; so I just choose the G4 stream off of justin.tv. Granted that G4's live coverage on E3 is commercial free and that is an added bonus for me! I'm quite stroked to see this conference, aside from its big exclusives or new Xbox Live features; I always enjoy those corny segments they has been dated ever since.

The Press conference starts off when more footage from Beatles: Rock Band(looks quite silly), as Alex Rigopulos plays the demo with his band of "people". It has quite awkward to start it but I wasn't that sold about this game. The demo ended with a new trailer showing featuring: "Saw her Standing There, Hold your Hand, I Feel Fine, DayTripper, Tax Man, I Am The Walrus, Back in the USSR, Octopus Garden, Here Comes the Sun, I AM ANDROID!Get Back" from the Beatles and show a couple of people that I don't know of or don't want to know of; Yoko Ono, some hairy guy and some girl that was with Yoko. Then they presented us both; Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr for about a few seconds in stage and then disappear.

John Shapport appeared and confirmed that they won't be any sales' charts, which I'm relieved to hear because of their history of boring us with it. He introduced Tony Hawk to the stage to promote Tony Hawk RIDE, specifically the skateboard peripheral that comes with the game . He shows us how this new peripheral works; as it acts like a skateboard that seems to be wireless. The trailer acted like it felt real and the peripheral looks like the Wii Balance Board or something, but I'm not convinced about this product, it doesn't like it can do that sort of stuff. After that, we are presented by the Modern Warfare 2 trailer which is old but still I'm pumped about it. Both Jason West, Vince Zampelli from Infinity Ward goes to the stage and gives us a demo for their new game. It starts off with you and a captain, hanging off a snowy cliff of a mountain( I guess) and introduced a some sort of new feature in the game; I guess is snow climbing which looks quite good. The starting looks quite cinematic while you are climbing up a snowy mountain; through debris falling down to that cliche jump, that your partner lifts you back up. We then see some action that escalates to a friggen snowmobile chase that looks quite epic. Infinity Ward has somewhat sold me on their latest game, it refrains from their previous MW engine and it still looks excellent!

After that exciting demo; two guys plus a hot translator from Square-Enix showcased more of Final Fantasy XIII. The newly added thing for this demo is the summoning system; on which you can use your summons earlier in the game. Besides all of that I think the Final Fantasy XIII demo didn't sold me, whether its the similar leaked footage to that annoying afro guy with a chocobo! This wave as ended as EPIC shows their new game; Shadow Complex. Cliffy B was quite awesome at the stage but the game is quite bland because of its side-scroller Ubisoft showing off their ConvictionMetroid-style gameplay. Unless there are chainsaws in the final product, I'm not sold to this game. These two bland demos came with a plethora of awesome trailers starting from; Crackdown 2, Alpha Protocol, Left 4 Dead 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction. As I'm pretty stroked about this recently announced; Left 4 Dead 2. The trailer shown quite a cartoonish look from Valve and I just love the whole cliche of four new survivors, killing a swarm of zombies and a TANK! Splinter Cell: Conviction is another game that I really wanted to play; it feels like Bourne Conspiracy but with better fighting mechanics and some weird stuff that looks Alan Wakeish to me. I'm pretty stroked for this game and Left 4 Dead 2 but I'm not sold for both Alpha Protocol and Crackdown 2. Alpha Protocol looks like inFamous and they didn't sell their concept well to me; I despise somewhat of these two games because of its appeal on open-world. I'm not saying that open-world is bad but I'm not sold for Alpha Protocol and Crackdown 2.

Then the press conference got a bit boring; I was yawning when the Forza 2 demo started with a person that instantly crashed and then some stupid trailer about customizable colours for your sports' car. After some person from Bungie show off, more game-play footage from Halo: ODST and then their world premire trailer of Halo: REACH. Which got me, thrilled to see more of this game. I stopped yawning when the Remedy guys came up to the stage and finally show; Alan Wake! I jumped out of my chair, seeing the first gameplay of Alan Wake. From what I referenced from Splinter Cell: Conviction; you see alot of weird shit that happens to both characters' perceptively. This demo shows Alan tracking down a person but then got jumped by ghostly lumber-jacks and requires, light to kill them. They show some mechanics of interacting the environment and ended the demo that left me pumped for more of that sort of action.

John Shapport comes back to the stage and introduces more features to Xbox Live starting with; last.fm, Zune Video, Live party, Facebook, and Twitter which only the half that I'm excited about. I cannot wait to purchase movies that isn't exclusive to other countries, I'm really tired of that sort of thing. Since I don't have friends; Facebook and Twitter has been proven useless to me.

The speculation of a new MGS game on the 360 is true; as Kojima enters to the stage in Solid Snake fashion. Metal Gear Solid fans are really pissed off now because of a new Metal Gear Solid game; MGS: Rising will be on 360. It has been confirmed that Raiden will be in it. Let's just hope that we don't see any petitions going on about this like last year's E3 with Final Fantasy XIII. The somewhat trailer looks quite good, with the start-up music and then flashed Raiden's portrait on the screen; flashing MGS: Rising.

YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER!Now here comes the most ridiculous and corny things for this press conference; the motion controller. Starting up with the dumbest trailer that makes the Wii trailers, laughable compared to this. It looks like they have settled the same, family oriented theme as Nintendo, definitely copying them. I was hoping for Steven Spielberg to promote BOOM BLOX PARTY more but it is more of a casual talk about new gamers like him. But he looked quite cool and casual and then far away kiss move which is silly.

Then they show more of the motion controller which is called Project Natal. Which was presented by Kudo talking about this new thing with some girl and some guy doing some weird stuff. It gets even weirder when they both formed to look as a elephant. Hilarious ensues indeed with the whole X-rated material that they have Another creative idea from Peter!provided. This whole Project Natal didn't sell me with its innovative controls, that trailer is just the reason why I shouldn't even get this product. It's family oriented, yes but things like 1 vs 100 and Avatar integration is better than this.

Finally the last segment is shown by Peter M, of Lionhood Studios fame. Which his segment looks pretty insane and awkward, talking about his fascinations of creating a interaction game. Which featured an AI, Milo to talk to you, share emotions with you and to experience this interaction with immersion like a real person. Oh GREAT! A game that totally suits me, talking to a computerized character and my insecurities. Just AWESOME! Besides that, this game somewhat reminded me of Seaman on which you can interact with the characters in the game. I just want to see how the Gianbombast crew, reacts to it, specifically Jeff. Which I remembered an awesome old video that Jeff did. Enjoy!