The live action trailer for Halo 4 begins the conference this year, as the UNSC Infinity is
sent on a mission of discovery now 4 years after the war has ended. As the ship
is scanned by a mysterious object it is forced to crash land. Seamlessly
transitioning into the game Master Chief watches it’s decent before a giant orb
appears and flies after it.
Now we get the first glimpse of actual game play footage as
Covenant forces arrive. Set in a traditional jungle environment we come across
some scouts, who unfortunately notice the Chief who uses his rifle t dispatch
them. An Elite rushes him but is disintegrated by unknown forces. The
Infinities distress beacon continues to be heard as we enter a clearing, where
the games first new opponents are revealed. The little robotic dog like
creatures are quickly scared off, only to be replaced by more humanoid looking
robot, with a skull for a face, who attacks with twin blades. With a shield and
the ability to launch a drone from its back this new foe is quit menacing. Kill
it and you receive the first new weapon, a ‘light rifle’ with components that
assemble in mid air. Pursuing the drone it summons more robotic dogs, and once
taken care of another skull faced robot teleports in but the rifle is more
effective. Taking its weapon, the ‘scattershot’, allows a one shot kill on the
next foe, but another distress call urges you on. Entering another clearing
Cortana switches the Chiefs visor, which has an infra-red effect revealing more
enemies. The demo ends as Master Chief is overwhelmed.
Ignoring the usual opening spiel the 9:20 mark gives you
another new game announcement, this time for Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Having infiltrated a
terrorist base Sam Fisher proceeds to kill everyone he sees in various stealthy
ways. Tagging the enemies first allows for quick execution in this game, and as
the demo progresses six hostiles are taken out in 5 seconds, though it’s noted
that this ability has to be unlocked first. Xbox Kinect creates a new twist on
old game play elements, allowing the player to lure the enemy over by speaking,
as well as ordering air strikes.At 16:30 comes the sports section, which I ignored. After re-watching the conference I discovered that Madden NFL and Fifa are apparently “better with Kinect”, using voice commands for simple team control, as well as team management on Fifa, allowing the player to make substitutions on the fly. A “hall of fame quarter back” is dragged on stage to demo Madden NFL, showing off the voice commands that make the game very close to the real thing (note: I have never seen a game of American football).
Fable: The Journey returns at 21:40, after first showing us how to drive a horse and art wit kinect last year. Little progress seems to have been made on the game, a mix of trailer and game footage making it look like a traditional rail shooter, which sees the player control magic with hand actions.
23 minutes in we get another speech on the developers Microsoft have been working with, before a trailer for the next Gears of War game. Titled Gears of War: Judgment the game will apparently be a prequel with Baird and Cole as the lead characters (according to Wikipedia), but the video didn’t impress me at this early stage. This is quickly followed by Forza Horizon, the latest game of the Forza Motorsports series. As with Gears there was no actual proper game play footage but it looked pretty enough if you like your cars, and is expected 23rd of October this year.
I like games consoles for gaming, so the talk on Bing didn’t keep me interested 27 minutes into the conference, but for those who like to stream music and movies here are some highlights. The Bing search facility is getting a genre option, as well as more language support for other countries. Even more “entertainment providers” are being made available to Xbox, including Nickelodeon (though if this is just for the States isn’t mentioned.) Sports are brought up again as the NBA comes to Xbox, as does the NHL. There were fewer cheers from the audience at this point as we get special trailer for the sports service, which includes a split screen option. Then short trailer for Xbox Music (what a unique name) apparently aimed at the teen market.
Finally
After 41 minutes we get the strangest announcement, Xbox SmartGlass. Basically your Xbox connects to your smart phone or tablet, offering extra content displayed on those devices related to whatever you’re doing on the console. The example we’re given starts off with watching a film on your tablet, and then continuing playback from the point you left off on your Xbox, whilst the tablet gives you some details about the film, i.e. cast and crew list. Game of Thrones was the basis for the next example; as an episode is streamed on the Xbox, the tablet displays a map showing the characters current locations. This isn’t a completely stupid idea, but a bit too thought out as all tend to do is goggle whatever I want to know about the show on my phone then scroll through Wikipedia, having y tablet constantly updating content may prove a distraction.
The game play applications are more interesting though, with NFL allowing the player to manage and create their own starting plays with the tablets touch screen, whilst Halo 4 predictably connects to Halo waypoint, unlocking new content as you progress in the campaign (such as schematics for the UNSC Infinity), as well as instantly connecting you to a multiplayer match, at the press of the screen, when you receive invitations.
The SmartGlass feature ends with the use of a mobile phone
as a touch screen remote for the Xbox, as well as the addition of Internet
Explorer to the console. The browser looks similar to the Xbox dashboard, with
Kinect voice implemented of course.
52 minutes in Tomb
Raider returns to E3 after last year’s announcement. We’re treated to a new
game play sequence, showing off Lara’s skills with a bow and arrow. Making her
way through an encampment of some kind our heroin uses zip wires to traverse
the mountainous terrain, before setting her arrows on fire to take out multiple
enemies at once. It all looks very impressive, with its own set pieces to rival
Uncharted, but the only downside is
the camera, constantly covered in water splashes or mud it obscures most of the
action.
Almost a hour have past of the conference and we’ve seen
some cool stuff from returning games, but now we get a glimpse of three new
IP’s. Ascend New Gods looks to be a
fantasy RPG using Xbox live to track players, whilst LocoCyle is about a motorcycle, and Pirates of the Caribbean Gore Verbinski makes a Kinect game about
an Orb, Matter.At 01:01:00 Capcom demo Resident Evil 6 as Leon S. Kennedy once again shoots his way through the zombie hoards. Escaping into a nearby building with his partner both close range and melee combat is displayed, though the game appears heavy on quick time events when you get close to an attacker. Then something I haven’t seen in a while, running towards the camera to escape an explosion. The demo ends with another quick time event as your helicopter crashes through a building, before Leon falls into the centre of a hundred hungry zombies.
Only six minutes later the funniest looking game debuts, Wreckateer. A Kinect based game the player uses a catapult to assault castles, with the different types of ammo show cased needing varied arm movements to control; spinning your arms to aim the projectile in mid air, or pretending you’re a bird to guide towards targets.
We’re in the final stretch now at 01:09:20, as Matt Stone and Trey Parker come on stage to talk about the new South Park game, The Stick of Truth, whilst also poking fun at the rest of the conference; “How many time have you been watching an episode of South Park and thought ‘I’d like to be able to watch this on my television while hooked into my mobile device, which is being controlled by my tablet device, which is hooked into my oven, all while sitting in the refrigerator”. The game looks exactly how you would imagine a South Park game to look, the 2D design perfect for this side scrolling fantasy RPG. I would suggest just skipping straight to this section as they are the funniest and most natural public speakers compared to the Microsoft drones, but this section is cut short.
13 minutes on the hour (unlucky, definitely unlucky) Usher talks about Dance Central 3, claiming anyone can learn his moves. Oddly Usher is talking in VT, but then comes on stage to sing and dance for us, forgetting the words to his own song. Strangely footage from the game is only shown towards the end of the routine, and is blocked half the time by smoke machines, which defeats the point of showing off Usher’s dance moves.
Luckily 01:18:30 gets us back on track for the grand finally, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Jumping right into the game, this section set in 2025, terrorists have attacked and David Mason is protecting the President in her convoy. Unfortunately drones are blowing up everything in your path and it’s not long before you’re flipped over. Grabbing your gun you head for a turret to take out the drones, before picking up a sniper to provide cover fire. This rifle can fire through cover if you charge it long enough, and comes with a handy x-ray scope. The footage then cuts to a shopping plaza, now with drone support via a tablet on Masons arm, giving the player mini remote controlled flying gun turrets. After a building topples onto your position Mason climbs into a fighter jet, and the demo ends with a brief flying section as the player protects another convoy from drones.
And that brings us to the end of the conference, hopefully tomorrow I’ll write a shorter piece on Sony’s conference.
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