Microsoft E3 Presser Highlights

x360The Microsoft E3 press event has officially taken place. With it come a bevy of announcements, trailers, videos and more.

Here are the highlights:

  • Modern Warfare 2 gameplay looks awesome.
  • Splinter Cell Conviction coming Fall 2009. Sounds like they’ve added some new gameplay elements, mainly for the story.
  • Final Fantasy XIII coming in Spring 2010, much earlier than projected.
  • Left 4 Dead 2 Coming November 17th! Seems a little early, but I can dig it. New weapons, including chainsaws.
  • Forza 3 is coming in October.
  • Crackdown 2 trailer shown! This rules, it was one of my favorite games of this generation so far.
  • Halo 3 ODST video looks sweet. They also highlighted a story-telling element: most of the game will be a mystery pieced together through flashbacks. Coming September 22nd.
  • Bungie also shows a trailer for a new Halo game, Halo: Reach. Guess they lied when they said they were done with Halo, but I’m cool with it since Reach is such an awesome story. The book is incredible. Fall 2010.
  • Last.fm is coming to XBL gold users at no additional cost. Listening to music is neat, but I’d rather not do it on my TV. Still though, not bad for a service I’m already paying for.
  • Facebook and Twitter are coming to the XBox 360? Double no thanks. The world is over as we know it.
  • Kojima sneaks onto stage to announce that the Metal Gear Solid franchise is coming to the 360. Kind of cool, but it’s a Raiden game. Which is not so cool. If you’re bringing MGS to the 360, bring the actual game, not some dumb Raiden extension. Guess sloppy seconds is better than nothing, though.
  • Motion control coming to the 360. The final wtf? It’s not a controller. It’s a camera that translates your actual movements to the game. Sounds mega-lame. “Project Natal”. Lionhead even showed off a new game for it called Milo.

By the way, the links are to videos. So, which of these excites you most? Which is the stupidest? Go!

Byte Sized News From E3

fat_princessJust a couple of items to get things going here:

  • Fat Princess will be released on the PSN sometime in June.
  • Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 has been announced for 2010.
  • Hideo Kojima is still batshit crazy.

Analysis: So excited for Fat Princess, it is kind of like a 2-D Team Fortress 2, with a fun class system and really cute, colorful graphics. Lego anything can go fly a kite, but Harry Potter might be kind of fun to play. A rental if I ever saw one, but hopefully they change up the already stale gameplay. As for Kojima, don’t be surprised if he gives a solid 5 hour speech and then you wake up in a basement, tied to a chair with a clone of yourself pointing a gun at you.