E3 - Modern Warfare 3, Tomb Raider, Future Soldier and much MORE!

 This was written during the Microsoft Press Conference but during all that I lost internet and cable for a few days so I'm probably not posting Sony, EA, Ubisoft and Nintendo.

DAY 00- RECAP 

I was right about Microsoft showing more of Kinect and integration within blockbuster games. From what is showed at the start, Kinect will be featured in both Mass Effect 2 and Ghost Recon Future Soldier. They both utilized voice recognition and tracking, specifically with Mass Effect 3. 

Bioware’s Mass Effect 3 utilized voice recognition, featuring not only with interactions with characters in dialogue trees but implementing strategic commands similar to Tom Clancy’s Endwar. The feature shows Sheppard taking command of his squad without the use of controller and you will be able to call out tactics on where your squad be positioned as well as command them to use their spells and other tactical things. The demo that Doctor Ray shows us, sets place on Earth where we get to meet good olde Sheppard and Mordin who is trying to rescue survivors and Mordin treating them due to infection and contamination from the Swarm from the previous game. There are no surprise that they are new enemies as you are pitted against some kind of robotic machine near the end.

Unfortunately due to their emphasis with the Kinect implementation, the HUD looks identifical to the previous game and the graphics stays the same with the light-bloom. Also weapons are really shown but Sheppard is using his assault rifle but they added in a melee attack rather than hitting them with the butt in of your gun.

This augmented feature implemented with Kinect and Mass Effect 3 has potential – I’m guessing that control wise, it’ll be probably for movement and such and having a Kinect might benefit much if you don’t like to take your time fumbling with the controller. It’s much easier but sometimes the Kinect voice recognition feature in games will have trouble recognizing your voice and depending on what room/place you’re situated in, it might be a tedious task. But I would like to see how it works in the final product and will probably see more exciting features through the usage of Kinect and perhaps more additions to the gameplay and HUD.  The game will come out in Fall 2012 or Q4. 

Ghost Recon Future Soldier starts with a trailer as most of the Ghost Recon trailers could be, it’s cool-looking on how technology and weapons look like the Minority Report. And like what Ghost Recon does best are squad tactics and stealth and special ops. The trailer is just a freeze-frame with opera music of a squad planning their tactics and snacking heads.

After that we are shown the demo which looks impressive since the last E3. Like Mass Effect 3, Future Soldier will utilize the Kinect capability of not only voice recognition but implements the use of tracking similar to earlier Kinect games and like Socom, you don’t have to use the controller instead you can use gestures to interact and play with your motion-tracking. In short, YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER. 

The other surprising feature that everyone applauded is the Gunsmith feature. Like Modern Warfare, you are customizing your weapons but unlike that game, you can freely customize EVERYTHING in your assault rifle with over 12 Million mods. Remember the American where Clooney’s character takes apart his sniper rifle, it is in this game and looking that you can see all the parts of the gun is amazing and also can change that part. Voice recognition also comes in play with choosing your preferred weapon and modifications – if you don’t have the time to sort every piece of the weapon, there are a variety of random and preferred guns/rifles to choose from.   It’s rather surprising that both of these games decide to go that route of the integration of Kinect and its usage, both Mass Effect 3 and Future Soldier might be the same game considering the use of voice recognition and probably Future Soldier will have the ability to command your squad with that. Despite all that, I’m pumped for both games and see how my save/import from Mass Effect 2 will fare in parallel with the story and such. While as Future Soldier is my highly anticipated game from last year’s E3, I hope they tone the difficulty down and the tactics with the usage of Kinect will better be an asset with those games. The game will come out in 2012. 

Microsoft Press Conference first shows us a demo by Infinity Ward’s own, Robert Bowling as he shows a lengthy demo of Modern Warfare 3. It starts with that US Trailer which then jumps into the Manhattan River where you and a squad goes scuba diving underwater for some espionage and trying your best to avoid Russian mines and contact from them.

The graphics remains the same but there are some fidelity in the water that are improved and some other bits of detail that looked better. When you surfaced into the battlefield, it actually looks great with all the destruction of Aircraft Carriers and Destroyers sinking and blowing up, even New York City from that distance looks appealing. The objective is first following your squad and planting an explosive/c4 on the incoming submarine whose has surfaced in the Manhattan River. You and the squad Oscar Miked up the submarine as it surfaces and kill some Russians, going down the sub and finishing them off before launching some nuke or EMP or something. There are some good triggering events with the AI/your squad mates finishing Russians to those pesky breaching scenes with that slow-motion. Weapon-wise, the assault rifle you are using looks different with probably different mods and we don’t really see much of the other weapons you encounter except for Aks and other machine guns.   The game will come out in November 8. 

Crystal Dyamatics shows us the ‘’reboot” of Tomb Raider and demoed it. Tomb Raider will feature a gritty and different origin story of how Lara Croft got where she is now and a 3 person perspective with the causal parkour/jumping or climbing through obsoletes in the environment. The demo shows that Lara has been shipwrecked and has taken captive in some underground dungeon as she hangs upside down and wrapped. To free yourself, you have to swing a lot of times until you fall down with incrusciating pain and annoying noise from your character.

But one of the things I like about it is how realistic it conveys when Lara is impacted from her falling, the camera goes blurry and wobbly as Lara barely stands up and clutches quickly to escape this place. Now the camera and effects has its usage but having the camera too close for a 3 person perspective can and will be tedious in some tight and intense sequences. I hope that they tweak more of the perspective because in some areas in the demo, I felt the camera is out of place sometimes. 

Aside from that, you can interact with the environments from puzzle solving to further advance in the story to those parkour/jumping and climbing moments that Lara is infamous for. They briefly show some of the interaction in this demo with the cage and such. The other aspect is the new voice actress, as they stated to make her gritty and non-sexualized as well as somewhat realistic; at the start, you fall down and almost crippled your legs, she begins to moan constantly and breath heavily as she encounters intense obsoletes and environments that get in her way. It’s a merit to make her more lively and realistic as a character but those moans sounds are quite annoying with all the frantic shit when Lara tries to not only escape her captors but the collapsing tunnel that she is running away from through time-events of button-mashing to avoiding obsoletes. 

It’s a cliché of her escaping through this underground place to rising up to see the pretty horizon of her ship being shipwrecked and the capability of the graphics use. There isn’t much visceral action that they promised to show but it is recalled that they will be showing more in the show floor with open-world environments and such. I’m not really pumped for this game, seeing how Uncharted has already put in place of those scenes that we see in this demo. This game will be launched in 2012.  

EA Sports President, Peter Moore jokes on being in this conference again and introduced a sports lineup for Kinect; featuring Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Madden, Fifa and another special game which he will not mentioned.  Also in these twelve months, games such as Sims Pets, Hasbro’s Family Game Night and other games will be integrated with the use of the Kinect. It’s surprising that there are so many developers utilizing the Kinect and its potential but it could evidently be a bad thing later on. 

Xbox Live’s own Mark shows us the true capability of Kinect being an innovative experience and the decline use of the controller through their new dashboard. This really isn’t a surprise due to them showing that “type of capability” when they show those Kinect trailers, last year with voice recognition and control. This new dashboard utilizes voice command technology like when the Kinect launched but now with more options and integration. It provides effortless control and proven to be more easier with the navigation.

Mark also unveils increased partnerships with Youtube and original content and Bing, a search engine that fully utilizes this technology. You can search what you want through Bing whether it’s the recent XMen movie and its games to other things game and movie related. I think this feature, whether or not it will search everything will only search for things in the marketplace or just content on the 360 and Live through an easy navigation tool that was implemented in. 

Spike/GTTV Exclusive

 I hate exclusives but every media outlet had to have them due to more viewers and due to the fact that GTTV is on Spike TV which every watches. Anyways, GT has a number of exclusives and world premiers before the press conference starts. 

The first one is a World Premier of the next Ninja Gaiden in teaser format. From the teaser, it looks the same from any Ninja Gaiden game but it is now set in London where Ryu is battling out demons and new foes. There are new characters also shown as they look like in despite need of Ryu’s assistance and no signs that they are British and fully Japanese. The gameplay also shows deadly attacks and combos which Ryu often use in the battlefield with his trusty sword, killing giant monsters. What didn’t impress me is the amounts of (as I like to call it) “fruit punch”/blood that is spewing out as Ryu is stabbing fools, that sort of thing is getting too old for its ridiculousness. 

The second Premier is Resistance 3 with another teaser – it doesn’t really show much of the gameplay but it felt more post-apocalyptic with “war never changes” and the chimera is still a threat to Earth. I really want Insomniac to make Resistance 3, the last game of its franchise. Storyline wise, I felt that still having Chimera be a threat on Earth is getting too long-winded, sure there’s going to be some more exciting sequences and such but it’s becoming derivative and annoying. 

Anyways, Geoff Keighey interviews a THQ guy who shows us Saints Row 3 and other THQ games. According to him, Saints Row 3 will be more batshit insane than any other game in the market even though Cargo has already proven that. It will feature a “man-cannon” (which THQ has been four years too late for making that joke with Halo 3) which you can use to “suck-in” pedestrians in the streets and blast them, probably resulting in some serious carnage and destruction in the streets. There are also tanks, attack helicopters and such which GTA has done already and use them against facing an army or something. I want to see how this game handles with its ridiculousness because the teaser/short gameplay footage clearly didn’t show much of that insanity that pertains in other Saint Rows’ games.