E3 09: Mircosoft Impressions

Wow...is it that time of year already? E3 is upon us again and like last year I'm going to give you my impressions of the keynotes. Microsoft kicked things off like they always have these past few years. To me personally, I felt their showings of core games didn't appeal to me as much as last year, but I still enjoyed their offerings and can't wait for some of these games.

The Beatles Rock Band: Like last year, a long amount of time is spent talking about what is basically an expansion pack to game that's not worth spending too much time yapping about. I do like the Beatles and it was pretty awesome that Ringo and Peter were there in person to promote the game. Oh yeah and Yoko Ono was there.....

Modern Warfare 2: I don't like war games, but I've heard how Call of Duty 4 was different...although it didn't look different enough from what came before for me to give it shot. Although this follow-up game doesn't look much better either..it did manage to make me want to run out rent the 1st Modern Warfare...so I guess that's something.

Shadow Complex: An Xbox Live Arcade game coming from Epic Games. Cliff Bleszinski said that it would mix elements from titles such as Contra and Super Metroid which sounds good to me, And I'm not too sure but I think they said it was releasing over the summer, which sounds even better to me.

Crackdown 2: I love Crackdown! Everyone was bummed last year when it was stated that there wouldn't be a follow-up to awesome game Crackdown, but it looks like they changed their minds and to me, this was the biggest surprise announcement in the show. While the art style in the trailer was similar to first game, it also seemed a tad more realistic, which added to the shock that this was a Crackgame game. Sadly no release time frame was given.

Left 4 Dead 2: Too Soon... Not Another Zombie Game... Those were the only things going through my mind while this trailer was going.

Splinter Cell Conviction: The Splinter Cell series has fallen in recent years and it seems that Conviction is banking on bringing the series back to prominence. I haven't played the series since Chaos Theory on the Gamecube. The Graphics look amazing and the gameplay seems to be fast paced which would solve what I feel to be the sole problem with the series.

Halo ODST & Reach: I've always been thankful for what the Halo Series has done for first person shooters on home consoles...that doesn't I like the games. I feel the series has never deserved the amount of attention it gets and these games aren't changing my opinion of them. ODST is a prequel to Halo 3 and apart from it's admittedly interesting story telling approach, the game doesn't really seem to be an improvement on Halo 3. The games' developers, Bungie, also revealed that Halo: Reach was the secret game they had in development, dashing hopes that were working on a new IP.

Metal Gear Solid Rising: Rumors of MGS4 popping up on the 360 has been around since before E3 08. What no-one could have predicted was that a whole new Metal Gear would appear on the console. MGS Rising stars Radien instead of Solid Snake and may not be a system exclusive. This game does however open the doors for all of the previous games to be made available on the 360. Personally I think I'd stick with Sony for my Metal Gear...if I ever get a PS3.

Project Natal: This is Microsoft's big answer to the Nintendo Wii and it's pretty damn interesting. It's basically a motion and voice sensing peripheral that will allow you to simulate handling a steering wheel, navigate the 360 dashboard, control a kung-fu fighter, dress an on-screen avatar and so much more. Peter Molyneux's Milo project (which isn't a game, just something he's be using Project Natal to tinker with) was amazing, if not kinda creepy. I doubt I'd personally have much use for Project Natal but I'll admit that I'm excited to try this thing out.

Overall Microsoft gave a solid showing and a few legit surprises. This should be another great year for the 360.