Well I sat down ready to be impressed with what Microsoft would have to offer us at E3 this year and as I watched I began to wonder if they had built a 360 into a Kinect camera.
They started the show off with what else, but Modern Warfare 3.
It was a game demo of a section in New York, it looked polished and as usual had the feeling of a Jerry Bruckheimer Movie.
Next up new Tomb Raider, and I have to say, that this was probably my pick, they look to be taking it down the survival horror route and that can’t be all bad.
Mass Effect 3 with Kinect, it used voice recognition for dialogue options and combat, it looked a bit gimmicky, have a look and you decide.
Ghost Recon – Future Soldier, you guessed it, more Kinect, this time to change your weapons, 20,000,000 apparently.
There was a cool trailer though.
Halo Combat Evolved – Anniversary trailer, not much else to say really.
Next up, Cliff Blezinski and Ice T gave a demo of Gears Of War 3, it look bigger and bad asserer, not a lot else to add, it’s more Gears Of War.
Codename Kingdoms now renamed Ryse from Crytek, finally showed itself, again it appears to be an on rails Kinect game, but at least it looked gritty and brutal, this may be the one shining Kinect light.
Forza 4 up next, there was Kinect, but they seemed to focus more on community features, which I have to admit did look pretty cool.
And then it happened, Peter Molyneux stepped out on stage to show us Fable The Journey, the word underwhelmed describes my feelings about this, it was basically a first person on rails game, and it looked pretty average at best.
The next big one was Kinect Star Wars, oh my god this looked pretty, but also pretty average, the guy on stage swinging his arms around and trying to headbutt the TV didn’t help.
Finally to end the show, they gave us………….Halo 4 and that was that, no new IPs, all sequals and Kinect, maybe Sony and Nintendo can do better, as Microsoft were distinctly average.
Probably the biggest announcement for me was Minecraft coming to 360, it’s saying something when an indie game announcement makes you excited.
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Funny Stu, we must having been typing frantically together. I also posted a round up in the forums. Don’t be so down on Kinect. Implemented correctly it will be a whole new layer of immersion for even us hard nosed addicts.
Maybe, but from what I saw today, I still need convincing, it’s good for Your Shape, kick started my diet, and I am just shy of 3 stones lost now, so there are some positives.
Frickin lightweight.
why would i want to talk to my tv to command my npc squad mates. my wife would walk in and ask, who are you talking to. i would have have to answer. “oh, its just mordin.” i would never live it down.
fable looks like it sucks. peter whatshisface has lost perspective.
now, forza… that looks awesome. head tracking is exactly what we were hoping for and Ryse does look a little interesting.
it appears that publishers are frantically attempting to push kinect against the biggest ip’s so it hits the core gamers like us. but its hard for me to see true hard core gaming value in it. i will not be anxious to get home from work just to be dragged around a rollercoaster of events while attempting to dislocate my shoulder.
kinect has its place. its a great way to interface with the xbox and its games should be designed for its features. squeezing kinect features into existing platforms just sucks.
thats why dancing games and ping pong are great fun, but fable journey will tank and possibly bring lionhead to ruin.
meh.
I have just watched the Microsoft keynote and it was very poor indeed. Like Stu, I thought the Tomb Raider reboot looked interesting, and Gears 3 looked cool. The Kinect stuff, just like everything else I have ever seen on Kinect, left me completely unimpressed. The stuff in Mass Effect 3 could be achieved quicker and more seamlessly with a controller (and without the wife asking who I’m talking to!) and tbh distracted me from actually watching the game footage of what is my favourite franchise. Forza 4 – well I already have Forza 2 and 3, I don’t really need another one, and all the kids’ games were, well, kids games. Speaking of which, I’m not normally in favour of real-life murder, particularly child murder, but in the case of those 2 stage school brats doing the Disneyland demo I’ll gladly make an exception.
Did anyone notice how all the hardcore-baiting Kinect stuff was on rails? Ryse, Kinect Star Wars, Fable The Journey, all on rails. This is the biggest of several fundamental problems with Kinect as a control system – nobody has yet designed a way to control your motion within the 3D game space, or in other words, how to get from point A to point B on a map without using a thumbstick. Even the Tom Clancy demo was cleverly constructed so that the shots were fired from a single spot. So basically all you can ever do is stand still and flail your arms about.
The most interesting news about Kinect I thought was that the big EA Sports franchises were going to support it. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with FIFA in particular – I can imagine the kicking, heading, backheeling etc working well but making runs, switching between players, even controlling where you pass to all seem like a very tall order for Kinect. If EA pull it off, big props, but I will be astonished.
This must be what it felt like to be a Nintendo fanboy in 2007.
Minecraft 360? OMFG!!!! Fortess Craft is good but not as good as Minecraft could be on a 360!!!
Tomb Raider looks better, it looks more modern and gritty but Lara as Instinct for survival… really?
The fun of the older Tomb Raiders was working out the puzzle in front of you, where to jump next and what lever to pull in order to move said box which would make a cog turn and finally open a door. Not having all the useful items lit up with a glowing shadow! This let it down for me.
Halo 4 is shocking but I would like more Halo maybe middle to end of 2012. Maybe Halo Reach could be a VG playdate sometime in the future? I know Duke loves Halo!
id be up for the halo reach thing. halo 4 however, looked like more of the same. and the redo of the first halo. that literally is more of the same. bungie has done a great job but they need to roll out their new ip before the fan base starts looking elsewhere for entertainment.
axeman, that is exactly what im talking about for kinect. plugging in old ip into kinect is bound to add complexity and break something that works (me3). child of eden looks promising, but it is merely disguising the on rail game play. i would still take it over fables journey to the trash bin.
kinect is what we always suspected to be. a great party game, kids game, and interface add-on (zune, netflix). it will extend and enhance the 360, but should not replace the controller.
Bungie are no longer making Halo 4, it is being made by a Microsoft internal company called 343 Industries, Bungie are making something else, who knows what that could be.
ah i see. that explains things.
They put too much emphasis on Kinect in their presser, some good stuff and some bad. I have to say I love the Fable games but this new Kinect one looks dreadful. However Future Soldier and Forza 4……..awesome