Microsoft Press Conference Liveblog - E3 2009

-Something’s happening, the conference has begun!
-It looks like an intro for The Beatles: Rock Band
-The video seems to be a run through the various stages of the Beatles’ career
-It’s an awesome video actually, especially towards the end as they ride a giant blue rhinoceros to the tune of “I am the Walrus”
-Here come the Harmonix execs
-Talking about how important The Beatles were
-The Beatles: Rock Band is being shown off by the Harmonix house band now, the instruments look authentic and there are three vocal parts
-The multiple vocal parts will allow up to six players at once, how much would high-end instruments and three microphones cost?
-The game will ship with 45 songs
-On screen the game looks like the Rock Band we all know, but with The Beatles characters and locations
-The game will also feature downloadable albums... seriously, I’m going to wind up spending a ton of money on this game
-The game will feature actual recorded conversations between the band members
-The song 'All you need is love' will be exclusive, (no mention as to whether that is timed or not) to Xbox 360 as a 1st day download
-Danny Harrison just showed op for a moment, now Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison
-Holy bejeezus, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are on stage now
-Ringo: “The game is good, the graphics are good and we were great”

-John Shappert is on now
-Shappert is talking about what people want these days
-“today is about showing, not telling”
-apparently we’ll be seeing ten world premieres of games never before seen

-Here comes Tony Hawk to talk about Tony Hawk: Ride
-“The best way to experience skateboarding is the way it’s meant to be, on a board”
-A video is being shown, no real new information, the board peripheral looks pretty solid though
-Tony Hawk leaves

-A Modern Warfare 2 trailer is playing, one we’ve seen already
-Bruckheimer and Bay films have nothing on this trailer
-The Infinity Ward guys are on stage now to show off some gameplay
-it’s a snow/ice environment, probably the same as the one with the snowmobiles in the trailer
-the player is using ice picks to climb a frozen cliff wall
-The character almost falls and is saved by a teammate
-The visibility in this level is almost zero, the air is filled with snow
-The gameplay looks distinctly Infinity Ward
-There seems to be some sort of radar built onto the side of the weapon
-Enemies are coming after the player with snowmobiles, after dispatching the enemies, the player takes the snomobile
-An action-packed snomobile race with guns ensues and the game is shut off
-Shappert is back and announces that the first two Modern Warfare 2 map packs will be timed exclusives for Xbox 360
-Modern Warfare 2 will be out November 10, 2009

-The Squenix folks are here to talk about Final Fantasy XIII
-The translater is one of the best I've seen at any games conference
-Final Fantasy XIII is being shown off running on an Xbox 360, it looks as stunning
-time gauges have been added to the combat that will power up attacks
-They show off the 'Odin' summon and it looks pretty sweet
-Square Enix is targeting spring 2010 for the FFXII release

-Shappert is back talking about exclusives, says that everything from now on will be totally exclusive to Xbox 360

-Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games and Donald Mustard of Chair Entertainment are on now, Cliff is wearing a Bill Gates mugshot T-shirt
-They announced the next Epic Games Unreal Engine 3 game to be released: Shadow Complex
-Mustard says the goal of Shadow Complex is to take the gameplay style of Metroid and Castlevania and bring them to next gen with modern design sensibilities and next-gen graphics
-Mustard: Shadow Complex is all about exploration punctuated by moments of combat
-The game will star Jason Fleming, a guy who stumbles upon a secret military complex with just a flashlight
-Visually the game is like Bionic Commando: Rearmed, but with the lighting and texture quality of UE3
-The gameworld looks huge and it seems that there is emphasis on creative problem solving
-As the game progresses the character will go from being a regular guy to a "weapon of destruction" with advanced armor
-Over 120 collectible items and over 10 hours of gameplay
-Shadow Complex will come out this summer

-Shappert is back and talking about a game called "Joy Ride"
-It looks like a party/kart racing game with a bit of stunt driving set in a road-runner environment with Avatars at the wheel
-It will be free to download and play, with microtransaction upgrades for cars, racers, etc.

-It looks like a trailer for Crackdown 2 now, all CG so far
-It seems there is now an infection in the city, and the shadow of some sort of monster is shown at the end
-L4D 2 trailer!
-It looks like this time there will be melee weapons: axes, chainsaws, etc.
-It will be only on Xbox 360 and PC, available November 17th
-Splinter Cell Conviction trailer now, Fisher has short hair

-A couple French guys from Ubisoft are on stage now to show of SC: Conviction
-Melee combat and interrogation looks awesome, it looks like objectives will show up in-game*
-This Splinter Cell looks far more fluid than the past iterations
-Gadgets will make a comeback in Sam's inventory
-While the game is stealth-based, Sam looks like he will now be able to clear out rooms using his ninja-like abilities
-SC: Conviction will be out in Fall 09 exclusively on Xbox 360

-Shappert is back and talking about racing... that means Forza 3
-Yep, he says it's coming in October, video playing now
-That was a very short video, must be an introduction
-Yes, here comes a dude from Turn 10 Studios with a fancy Audi R8 on stage
-They're going to show off the game now
-The game looks jaw-droppingly good in motion and will run at 60fps
-Now the guy's talking about car customization
-Now we see a video with people talking about how much they love custom painting cars through Forza and sharing them on Xbox live...
-The car customization and video editing looks pretty darned amazing though
-Turn 10 guy leaves the stage

-Halo 3: ODST time
-Joe Staten from Bungie is out now and wastes no time getting into showing off ODST
-Looks like the game starts with the trooper landing in a one-man drop ship, (flashing back to Quake 2 now)
-The player will have a new supressed smg and visor, supressed smg is pretty loud
-It seems that this game will involve some mystery solving and playable flashbacks, certainly new to the Halo universe
-Staten briefly mentions a new game mode that will be included with Halo 3: ODST called 'firefight'
-Uh oh, there's another Halo project
-Looks like a teaser trailer to me...
-It's Halo: Reach, coming 2010, the trailer didn't really show much but my guess is that it's the rumored squad-based game

-It's Sam Lake, the face and writer of Max Payne! Also there's another guy from Remedy
-They're playing Alan Wake on the big screen
-Environmental effects look darn good
-Alan is running around in a forest town in the dark, the lighting is nice
-Something invisible is picking up objects and chucking them at Alan
-Weird humanoid monsters are coming after Alan Wake now and he's destroying them with his flashlight
-He starts a generator and a floodlight comes on, destroying all the enemies in the area, I guess they don't like light
-Alan just shot off a flare to clear out the area, the smoke and lighting are superb
-"To be continued," the trailer ends, Sam says Alan Wake will be out spring 2010 on Xbox 360 only

-Shappert is back talking about entertainment
-last.fm will be integrated into the Xbox dashboard for free for Xbox live gold members only (this year)
-Netflix will now allow users to access and change their queue from the Xbox
-The HD video library on Xbox Live will be upgraded from 720p to 1080p and now 18 countries will be able to access the video store, also the videos will (supposedly) begin instantly
-Xbox Live Parties will be able to view video now
-Facebook will be integrated into Xbox live as well
-Felicia Day just showed up to show off Facebook... the nerds in the audience all just melted
-It looks like Facebook has been changed to fit the look of the Xbox dashboard
-She's talking about something called "Facebook Connect" now... it seems that games that support it will be able to post images straight to Facebook
-She just mentioned that Twitter will also be integrated into the Xbox dashboard and they will both show up this Fall
-Felicia Day is very pale
-She's leaving now and Shappert is back
-He's reiterating the presentation, maybe it's almost over already
-Nope, he just introduced Don Mattrick

-Mattrick Says there is still an IP missing from Xbox
-Hideo Kojima just showed up, is it MGS4?
-He says it's called "Metal Gear Rising"
-Apparently it won't star Solid Snake
-Teaser time, "Metal Gear Solid Rising: Lightning Bolt Action” starring Raiden

-Mattrick is talking about the origins of Xbox and Xbox Live now
-Oh it's motion controller time
-He says the controller is a barrier for too many people; it's definitely going to be the camera
-A commercial video is being shown that shows off some sort of motion sensing controller, it looks pretty darn good but it's basically an ad so who knows how accurate the depiction is
-The video just showed an ability to scan in a skateboard deck and use it in a skateboard game
-A girl just walked in front of the camera and it recognized her face and logged her into her live account
-The girl is checking out dresses with a friend while video chatting now
-A family is playing 1 vs 100 using their hands as buzzers; they’re playing against another family in another home
-a couple is navigating the dashboard to find a video using their hands, looks pretty slick

-Mattrick has returned and referred to the camera as “Project Natal”
-He says the only experience you need to play is life experience
-He says the sensor tracks 3D movement and recognizes voices
-Mattrick likes to clap at his own statements
-Natal will work with all existing and future Xbox 360s
-He just invited Steven Spielberg onto the stage, hot darn Microsoft has some star power this year
-Spielberg says they’ve been asking how videogames can be made as approachable as other mediums of entertainment; most people are too intimidated to pick up a controller
-He says the key was to make the technology invisible
-Spielberg says Natal is similar to the move from square movie screens to cinemascope, and then to Imax
-“What Microsoft is doing isn’t about reinventing the wheel, it’s about no wheel at all”
-Hopefully this means Boom Blox 360

-Spielberg leaves, the creative director of Project Natal is being trotted out now
-Dude’s name is Kudo and he looks like he should be hanging out outside a high school trying out pickup lines… a real slick looking guy
-He’s showing off How Natal can control the dashboard and control Avatar movements… it isn’t working too well, the Avatar looks like it has bone-itis
-Now he’s having a girl show off a game/tech demo called Ricochet, it’s pretty impressive
-The player’s representation on screen is moving exactly like the girl playing with almost no lag
-Kudo just mentioned referenced “preset waggle commands” like it was something dirty
-Ricochet looks like Arkanoid using your body as the paddle
-Time for another tech demo, it’s called Paint Party
-Kudo has the creative director of Microsoft Game Studios working the tech demo
-He’s using his movements to throw paint on a canvas and using voice commands to choose the colors, it looks pretty fancy
-He says “pose” and the camera begins showing the outlines of all the people in view of the camera
-Between two people, they manage to make a pretty convincing looking elephant, seems like they’ve practiced
-He says “cheese and the camera takes a shot and uses it as a stencil to place an elephant in the painting
-“Development kits are heading out to our partners today”
-Kudo leaves and Mattrick is back

-Mattrick swaps with Peter Molyneux who’s giving us the business about what interactivity really means
-Molyneux says Lionhead has been working with Natal for a while
-Video Time
-in the video, a woman approaches a TV with a boy on a swing and says “hi Milo”
-The boy comes towards the screen and addresses the woman by name, apparently the camera recognizes her
-The kid, Milo, seems to be responding to what she says and her facial inflections and conversing with the woman
-This is done in enclosed environment, but it looks like the interactions are pretty fluid… it’s a bit creepy actually
-The woman is drawing a fish on a piece of paper and holding it in front of the camera, which scanned it in, pretty impressive
-The video ends, Molyneux leaves after a few words

-Mattrick is back, clapping again
-He’s wrapping things up now, the word ‘watershed’ has been thrown around quite a bit in this presentation
-Conference is over!

Tales of Monkey Island long trailer

via GiantBomb

285 Years Later, Assassins Have Finally Learned to Swim

A month or so ago, Game Informer revealed details on Assassin's Creed 2. Set in Italy in 1476, (285 years post-Assassin's Creed), players will play as Ezio de Firenze, a nobleman/assassin who carries dual hidden blades and a flamboyantly over-the-top outfit that would startle a blind guard. Fortunately for Ezio, by the end of the 15th century assassins have mastered the art of swimming. As Assassin's Creed takes place in Florence, Rome and Venice, Ezio has plenty of opportunity to utilize this new skill in the network of Venetian canals. THANK GOD. It always pissed me off that water was to Altaïr what lava is to Mario. Master assassin my ass.

Check out some Assassin's Creed 2 art at MondoXbox.

CVG's 200 Reasons to Love PC Gaming

CVG gives their top 200 reasons to love PC Gaming. I might have chosen a different 200, and perhaps a few of them aren't PC exclusive but they are all fantastic reasons to be a PC Gamer that comprise a great list. (Oh lists, you wonders of modern journalism). My personal favorite is #77 because there just aren't enough miniature giant space hamsters in games..

Bonus points for anyone who is familiar with every point on the list!

1-100
101-200

Battlefield Heroes Beta: Battlefield Lite

As I mentioned in my last post, The Battlefield Heroes Beta can be easily obtained through Fileplanet, and now having played it I'll share some impressions. I've only gotten four or five hours to play with it, but I only started playing at 10:00pm, so the fact that I stayed up till 3:00 in the morning is a testament to how addictive it can be.

Upon signing up for the game, I was asked to create a character and assign that character to either the Royals (Allies) or the Nationals (Germans). I also had to decide whether I wanted him to be a gunner, soldier or commando. I chose the Nationals because I like the scowl permanently painted on their faces and the soldier class because it looked the most well rounded. Characters are permanently linked to the chosen team and class but will gain experience which grants new levels and new abilities. If you've played Call of Duty 4, Team Fortress 2 or any RPG ever, this system is extremely familiar. At first the options for my character seemed terribly limited, but once I started gaining abilities like flaming bullets, blasting strike and my personal favorite, grenade spamming, I found that this game is a bit deeper that it seems on the surface. Up to four characters are allowed on each account, so should I want to try playing on the Royal Army I can simply create another character.










Once I was satisfied with my Teutonic warrior I was anxious to dive straight into a match, foregoing the optional tutorial mission, but I found that there aren't any server lists or matchmaking options. This game, (at least in the beta form), runs entirely on one-button matchmaking. I clicked a big yellow "PLAY NOW" button and the game found a match and plunked me straight into the fight. This system seems to work fairly well as there is only one gametype and only a few maps in the rotation. Once in the match, I noticed that B:H diverges from previous Battlefield games in a few subtle ways. For one thing, the ability to choose any friendly occupied spawnpoint is gone. Players are spawned at the point that the game determines is nearest to the action. This may sound frustrating but it seems to work alright, especially since the maps in B:H aren't remotely as colossal as those in previous Battlefields. Another change is the switch to third person point of view. This change isn't as striking as you might realize, in fact I played through three full-length matches before it dawned on me that I was using the third person camera to peak around corners.

A change that isn't quite so subtle is the art style. The developers forewent super high-poly models, self-shadowing, advanced physics and all the other "good stuff" we're familiar with seeing in most modern shooters and instead adopted a whimsical pastel-colored Saturday morning cartoon art style. Gone are gritty, war-torn battlefields and in their place are saccharine but charming playgrounds that would be ideal for playing army-men. I could talk about the look of the game for hours and how much I love it, but instead just take a look at the screenshots and keep in mind that this game can run on a single-core 1Ghz processor with 512Mb of RAM. I even tried the game on my three-year-old Dell laptop and I never saw a drop in framerate.

















When it comes to gameplay, Battlefield Heroes is exactly what you would expect. If you've ever played a first or third-person shooter before, you can expect to jump right in and instantly be at home. The learning curve is virtually flat for anyone who plays PC games and not very steep for anyone else. The controls are intuitive and objectives are clearly marked. The only issue I had was one inherited from previous Battlefield games and that was vehicle controls. The vehicle controls in B:H are virtually identical to the rest of the series, which means that for those who aren't already familiar the cars, tanks and especially planes will take a lot of practice to control with precision. This design decision is a necessity though; if flight controls were too arcade-like, the airplanes would completely own the map.

My only worry is that Battlefield Heroes could become too boring too fast unless the final version adds more variety. While the maps look fantastic they are all too similar visually. As levels for Quake were all saturated with the color brown, levels in the Battlefield Heroes Beta are all saturated with green and yellow. The addition of maps set at night, in the desert, in the snow or just about anything to change up the scenery would be a welcome addition. Still, for a beta of a free-to-play game that could easily be sold for $30-50, it's hard to complain.

Battlefield Heroes Beta

I just acquired a key for the Battlefield Heroes Beta via Fileplanet. For those of you who may not have been following its long development, Battlefield Heroes is a browser-based, free-to-play, ad-supported Battlefield-style game with a cartoony aesthetic reminiscent of Team Fortress 2. Check out the official website here for further information.

Apparently all you need to get a key at Fileplanet is an account with them, (at no cost). If you're anywhere as interested in Battlefield Heroes as I am you should immediately create an account at Fileplanet and grab a beta key. I haven't gotten the chance to dive in yet, I'm still downloading the browser plugin to play, (which is basically the whole game), but once I get a couple hours of play in I'll throw down some impressions on it.

Happy Zombie Apocalypse Survivor Appreciation Day!

Hurray for fictional but cool sounding holidays, they're the new internet rage! Today we're celebrating the release of the free DLC for the insanely popular and enjoyable zombie-shooter Left 4 Dead. The DLC, entitled "Left 4 Dead Survival Pack," includes versus mode versions of the Dead Air and Death Toll campaigns, (which should have been in included in the game to begin with), and a new game mode called 'survival.' Survival will pit a team of survivors against increasingly large and frequent waves of infected with the only goal being to last as long as possible across 12 specialized maps. If you've ever played Horde Mode in Gears of War 2, you know the setup.

The pack runs at about 100Mb and as was mentioned before it is free of charge. If you own L4D on Xbox 360, it's already available for you to download and if you own it on PC, it should be up available sometime later today.

The importance of good matchmaking

I love Gears of War 2. I play at least once a week online for five hours or more with some friends and aside from Halo 3 I have more fun with Gears 2 that I have had with any other console multiplayer game. This only makes my attempts to play a public match using Gears of War 2 matchmaking more depressing. Gears 2 has been a mess of poor matchmaking and shoddy netcode since it was released in fall 2008, but some recent patches were intended to rectify the issues and slant the matchmaking system more towards the one used in Halo 3.

Earlier this week I attempted to play some public matches hoping the public matchmaking system wasn't the hellhole that it used to be. It placed me in a game with nine players whose minimum level was 47 out of 100. Since the majority of my online Gears of War 2 experience has been in private matches, my level is 3. Taking into account that the private matches don't factor into that score, I felt confident that I would be able to hold my own. Perhaps this would have been true if not for the lag. At one point the game ceased to respond to my input and when I gained control again I found that my death count had risen by three. Needless to say, (but I'll say it anyway), I was frustrated. After the game I checked out the gamercards of the other people in the match and not one of them is located in the same country as me. In fact, the majority of them are located in Mexico, (I'm in Canada).

An experience like that is unacceptable and can ruin a game. A matchmaking system has two purposes: to find other players of comparative skill and to find a game or other players that will yield a decent connection. If the system cannot achieve either of these goals, then creating and finding servers should simply be left in the hands of the players. Anyone, even blind monkey can find or set up a better server than the matchmaking system in Gears of War 2.














The king of good matchmaking.

No Escapism Here

I was playing Fable II last night in the bedroom with my wife snoring lightly next to me. My wife's name is Talitha, by the way, which is not a very common name, (it may seem strange for me to reveal her name but that information will be important in a few sentences). On my way back to Bowerstone after completing a quest, I was passing the gypsy town where I grew up and decided to stop in for old-time's sake. At the time I hadn't yet indulged in courting any of the wide variety of women Albion has to offer, so on a whim I locked on to the nearest gypsy of the fairer sex and hit her with an irresistably seductive pose. She responded favorably, yet I was dumbfounded. I had just macked on Talitha the Gypsy.

Destiny, coincidence or practical joke? I don't know, but there's only enough room for one Talitha in my life so I put the controller down, gave my wife a hug and fell asleep.

This is what a Half-Life (2) Movie could look like

The Half-Life series might be one of the most ideal video game properties to make into a film. It provides a rich setting and interesting secondary characters, but without an overwhelming story that a filmmaker would have to stringently adhere to.

Currently, there are no announced Half-Life related films in the works, but the Purchase brothers have worked up the first part in a series of Half-Life themed short films entitled "Escape from City 17." The story follow a group of survivors attempting to, (big surprise), escape from City 17 during and following the events of Half-Life 2. With surreal digitized backgrounds in the vein of 300, the cost to make the first two parts was only $500, yet the visuals are still top-notch. Watching the High Definition version is highly recommended and can be found on YouTube.