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To kick off E3, Microsoft took the stage first. They hit the ground running with a game-play demo of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. With Robert “FourZeroTwo” Bowling at the controls you knew you were in for a ride as you can see in the video above. During the gameplay we get to see a lot of awesome footage. Seen my favorite gun “AK74U” in the game. While they focused on the single player aspect and gave no details on multiplayer. The game looks solid and is something I am kinda looking forward to later this year. We were then reminded that Call of Duty:MW3 content will first appear on Xbox 360.
Next up we were giving a taste of the reboot of Tomb Raider. This is something I as well as most of us here at bifuteki enjoyed. We are happy this game is getting a fresh paint on it. Its also great to see a normal shaped Lara Croft was escaping from a shipwreck, as well as navigating through some really tight caves. We also saw a different side Lara. A more vulnerable Lara Croft, one who shows fear and paranoia. Overall, it was impressive, and seems to be the breath of fresh air that the Tomb Raider franchise.
In a not so surprising announcement, both Minecraft and Youtube will be coming to Xbox Live on the Xbox 360 console. This to me left a bad taste in my mouth as well as a few other who were watching with us on our live stream. Seeing Youtube come to Xbox 360 is really disappointing as well as pointless. Most homes have computers and or a smartphone that are fully capable of looking at Youtube. While no details were announce about the Youtube feature, I for one am not looking forward to it. Minecraft will be coming to consoles, and will be on Xbox 360 first. Keyword is FIRST. Meaning it could come to other consoles. Still don’t see how Minecraft on Xbox Live will work, seeing as you need some way to communicate with different Minecraft servers. All in all blah.
Then we hear about UFC coming to Xbox Live. At this point I am kinda sick of hearing about applications on a console that you have to pay 60 bucks a year in order to use. While this may be cool for all the UFC fans. I feel this is just bloatware. Kinda like that ESPN app they launched last year that I can’t even use. But the UFC app just allows you to vote on fights and get a bit more in depth about different fighters. Final judgement I can do with out it.
Former chief at XBox, Peter Moore, takes the stage and announces that several games will support Kinect. Tiger Woods PGA World Tour 12, Madden NFL 12, FIFA 12, Mass Effect 3, The Sims 3 Pets, and Family Game Night 4. While we did not see much from the games, they did show how Kinect would work with Mass Effect 3. They added voice commands to the gameplay. I hate to say it. This has been done before on PlayStation 2 with Socom US Navy S.E.A.L.S. You have the ability to tell your squad where to go, when to attack and I am guess much more as more details are released later on this week.
We are then treated with a new dashboard look. With this dashboard we now have Bing search, that responds via voice command like shown during the presser was “Xbox Bing Harry Potter”. Once that was said, Anything Harry Potter related, be it a video game, movie either on the marketplace, Netflix or anything related to Harry Potter, is now displayed. While its a really cool feature, the use of Bing to me kind senseless. With this “new” look experience there is also Live TV with DVR. Now I don’t know bout you and your situation. Live TV here in the United States is not free. Seeing this being added to your “Xbox Experience” I could not help to stop and think this is really not that new, nor will it be cheap. Seeing as AT&T Uverse allows its customers to use their current Xbox 360 as a setup box with an additional charge of about $155 in order to use that. This also does not include the monthly charge to actually use the box. Bottom line this feature is 4 years too late.
What would a Microsoft E3 Press Conference be without a Gears or a Halo trailer. Well this year they did both. First they showed an HD remake of the Halo Combat Evolved. This remake finally adds multiplayer to the classic title. Cliff Bleszinski brought out Ice-T to play some Gears of War 3. Lets just say it was full of action. I just hope it doesn’t disappoint. We also can not forget that there is a new Halo trilogy coming. Starting with Halo 4 we get to play as Master Chief again. While little detail was told about this game, you do know that Bungie is not working on this game.
In the end they showed a lot of videos of games to come. They pulled the same “bring out child actors and have them act like they are playing” card. It’s really sad. I hate to say it but is this all that Microsoft has to offer. Here we are in the second year of Kinect and no hardcore games are coming. Yes I know you can test out a gun configuration in Ghost Recon Future Solider, but you can not expect me to actually play the full title that way. I think the Kinect thing is fun and all but gamers want to see more games on their console. Hold on, did you hear that. It’s the sound of a fanboy crying. Microsoft I gave your Press Conference a Xbox Bing 3 out of 5.