That time of year again, people out there on the interwebz, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is here and it's ready to blow your socks off with gaming news, trailers, gameplay and interviews. In this "Super Bowl of game developers" as Jack Trenton stated, E3 is a place where games and developers are examined under a microscope. The good, the bad, and the ugly are forever recorded in gaming news history.
So, first on the chopping block is Microsoft. With last year's big announcement of Halo 4 at the end of the 2011 press conference, it was only fitting that Microsoft start the show of with Master Chief. There was a lot of anticipation due to the Halo 4 being produced by the new studio 343 Industries instead of Bungie and that anticipation was met with a comforting hand that put our minds at ease. The gameplay trailer showed new enemies, new weapons, and spectacular graphics. This trailer was one of the better ones that were shown during the press conference and this was only the beginning of the conference
Microsoft then moved from good to great with the showing of Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Sam Fisher is back and, so far as we know, is leading the Fourth Echelon in an attempt of bringing down a terrorist group that has threatened the destruction of the world's most powerful nations. The game showed big promise with its integration with Kinect's voice command, allowing Fisher to distract enemies through your voice, and call in air support by a simple voice command. I was excited to see Fisher back in the spotlight and that Splinter Cell: Blacklist would support Co-Op and the return of Spies vs Mercs.
Everything seemed to be going Microsoft's way, however this was were the fun stopped. Microsoft announced that the Xbox would have a new feature that would allow connectivity with mobile devices titled Xbox SmartGlass. In addition Xbox would support NHL, NBA, and other streaming services it hadn't had before. I felt that there was too much time spent on this "new feature" and more time should have been devoted to first part games such as Gears of War and Forza, or how they were going to promote the Kinect.
Instead, Microsoft decided to breeze over its first party titles with short trailers of Gears of War and Forza, moving to third party games such as Tomb Raider and Resident Evil. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed watching the gameplay for both third party games, but that's not what I came to see. There was a little mention of Kinect voice commands with the EA games, but those were unimpressive. As if things couldn't get worse, Microsoft launched it's campaign to "get people health!!!" yay... with Nike. The features were interesting, I'll give them that, but there was WAY too much time spent on this product. They followed that up with an Usher concert for Dance Central 3 which just made me roll my eyes.
In the final act, Microsoft sought to redeem itself with the new South Park Game and Black Ops 2 gameplay, but by then I was already looking forward to the next press conference. I was impressed by Black Ops 2 and the alternative choices seen in the gameplay seem to give the Call of Duty franchise a new element for the future.
Overall this wasn't Microsoft's worst conference, and it certainly wasn't its best. The bar had been set -not very high- but at least it had been set. Next up was EA.
Microsoft Press Conference:
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