Xiong's Fun House!

Ok so today microsoft, EA, and Ubisoft held there conferences today. Id have to say i was pretty depressed about most of what was shown today, except some minor scraps thrown to the fans. Its obvious that todays top conference belonged to EA, with more games to show that most gamers would probably care about. OK, a quick run down of what happened best to my knowledge: (Skip to my Summary if you watched the conferences)


Its obvious going in that Microsoft would be talking about Kinect(The official name for Project Natal), but i didn't expect about 80% of the show just be Kinect!? Im getting ahead of myself though, they started the show off with a new trailer and gameplay of Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops. It looked pretty good, nothing really standing out about it; your basic razzle dazzle trailer. It looked alright but I was hoping for a little more wow, there was a helicopter scene that looked pretty nice but then that was it. Next was gameplay footage of gears of war 3's new 4 player co-op with a new female character. The game looked pretty awesome except for the weird chatter coming from the other 3 people playing with Cliffy B on stage. It felt kinda rehearsed and nervous, kinda made me cringe a little hehe. It looked like a small improvement to past gears with small improvements to details and lighting. Seemed to work pretty damn well, seemed fun. Halo Reach was next and it was gameplay footage played live on stage. This seemed more of what Halo 3 should have been, better graphic, better environments, more dynamic then Halo 3. One of the things i kinda wish they changed was the was way the animation worked, they look kinda goofy. If i remember correctly those animations were done by hand and not mo-caped, i don't really mind it but it looks kinda jarring compared to how realistic the Spartan or other comrades look. Kinda like there attached to strings or something, its not bad its just kinda out of place lol. Well those were the most main things i remembered from the show, i think they mentioned some Alan Wake DLC? The other 3/5 of the show was dedicated to Kinect, man that sounds funny, im so used to calling it Natal. It was not very interesting, i found some stuff like navigation of the dashboard pretty kewl, but the rest was kinda like any other casual Wii stuff: Party games, Fitness games, Dance games, Eyepet type game. Some of the party games looked decent but watching the people flailing their bodies every where was kinda hilarious. Most of it came off awkward, it wasn't long before someone made a funn GIF of it... **COUGH! COUGH!** Anim8td_fan **COUGH**

In closing, Microsoft pulled an Oprah and gave everyone in the audience the new 360 Slim. Pretty nice but kinda sketchy too, lol its like "hey guys! I know it was kinda harsh to make you sit through all that so.... heres a 360!" Its launching today for $299 same price as the Elite, PICTURE BELOW:

Kinda smaller, its supposed to be quieter, have built in 250 GB and Wifi built in. Theres a hard drive panel located at the bottom, there no slot for the old HDD... which makes me wonder how come? It would suck to buy a new one and not be able to have your account/data from your old 360... strange. The price of the Kinect wasnt mentioned, im guesing from the backlash of the rumor that was announced earlier this week. Since it ships this Holiday, i'm sure there guna try to take/replace the stuff inside to make it cheaper before its release. Another question is if the new 360 is more reliable? Is the Kinect reliable? Kinda makes you worry don't it; and that raps up Microsoft's Conference.


Ok, EA is up and they had alot to talk about. They showed some Dead Space 2, which looked pretty awesome.Since I liked the original this gameplay clip was a treat. The only weird this was what they showed was a bit too similar, the main difference was the locales, but the way you shoot, move, melee, even some of the scares were the same pop out stuff. Its not a bad thing its just i kinda wished they showed more stuff, like new abilities, hint at the story, etc. Im sure there are new stuff but they just didn't show it yet. They showed off a Star Wars TOR cinematic. Criterion Games presented the new Need For Speed game, which looked kinda bland since they only showed like one mode which involved online play between two cars: the cop, and the criminal. Need more, not very exciting. Also the new EA Sport Active 2 for ALL CONSOLES!..... and were moving on... . They showed some crysis 2 gameplay with an ending involving 3D glasses, it looked like a positive shooter. Medal of Honor looked amazing, DICE is doing the multiplayer so im sure its going to be a blast to play, they had a beta sign up site but it crashed lol! Hmmm Bullet Storm was shown, it kinda like gears in FPS mode with a combo system. Not bad but the lines some of the characters used was cheesy as hell(i hope it was done so on purpose), quotes like "You scared the dick-off-of-me!" "Hey Fat Boy what're you doin, eatin bullets?" kinda funny in a cheesy way. Sims 3 is coming to console.... uh huh. Madden 11 stuff with Joe montana and Peter Moore.... and thats pretty much it.


OK, the last show of the day! Ubisoft... uhhh... hmmm... yeah Ubisoft really sucked... So im just gunna do this really fast and stupid:

The Good:
- Assassins Creed Brotherhood, Looks awesome.
- Ghost Recon Future Soldier, Splinter Cell+MGS= This
- Child of Eden, Rez with kinect functionality
- Shaun White Skateboarding, its not really good nor bad...


The Bad:
- Innergy, its the Wii Vitality Sensor, except swirly. Put on Penis finger. Breathing gaming... not much of a game.
- Driver, the name says it all. Cant run over pedestrians...
- Motion Sports, a Wii Sport for Kinect.

The Ugly:
- Battle Tag, Lazer Tag... thats it... Oh! and no models included with purchase of Battle Tag.
- Mania planet, UPlay point system that can work online.
- and..... this http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...jackson/101449


In summary today wasn't very exciting, microsoft started well but was really boring for "hardcore" gamers from mid-to-end. Ubisoft's stuff was pretty much junk, atleast it wasn't as bad as last years. EA had the strongest showing, with more games "hardcore" gamers are interested in. Ubisoft got really awkward at times during their conference, i mean the host was good and funny but damn that part when they did that laser tag thing, was just awful and really corny... They had this weird back in forth with casual and hardcore, except their casual games werent really games, and were presented really strange. I mean you can really feel the audiences cringe during some of the stuff... Joel McHale the host was the comic relief, without him it would be to painful to continue watching lol. So today ended like this

EA > Microsoft > Ubisoft

The following is my thoughts and opinion, no flame debate intended but clean debates are welcomed! I own a PS3 but not a 360 or Wii, just puting that out there for people who dont know. ok, lets open this can of fanboyism

The Great Debate!!! hehe
I have a gripe about The kinect, why is it getting so much praise? I mean it does everything the eyetoy did, probably just a bit more precise. I mean the eye has face tracking, voice tracking, but some how people think its the next big thing. I think the reason why its so big is because of purely the marketing behind it. The eye started off interesting but fell flat on its face due to bad marketing and bad game choices. Maybe thats why people believe the kinect will succeed, because it has microsoft behind it? maybe its a fanboy thing? I dont know. The hot debate is that it does so much stuff, but ive been looking into it and i dont really find anything really different from the kinect and PS Move except that the move can use the sex wands. I mean alot of people give the same reply that "I think motion controllers are gimmicky and useless" but then say that The Kinect>PS Move. There basically the same, except for small differences like natal(damn i keep typing natal, lol eff it its called natal lmao) being more precise and the move having the wand. Do you really need natal to be that precise? I mean gamers say i really want it to for things like dashboard support and minor stuff, but does being really precise have to do with that? I dont know, maybe this "versus" thing is totally pointless, its probably fanboys butting heads. I hate the term Fanboy, ive herd it so much around on forums that sometimes when it pops up i ignore the conversation completely, because it usually followed by a nasty remark lol. So what do you make of all of this crap? Leave opinions in the comments

Keep on Gaming guys!
Laterzz

PS: Who's tried the 3D tech for the PS3 any good? and what if they just incorporate something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SDGG9HhbgQ
no need for glasses.