Well, the first of the big three press conferences has come and gone and I am going to share my thoughts in point form of the conference.
- 4 stage demos in a row occurred first with Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5, Fable 2 and Gears of War 2. Fallout 3 looks pretty cool and if it has some aspects that Oblivion had since it is developed by Bethesda, this game will be awesome to me. RE5 looks like RE4, which is no bad thing. Online co-op is great to hear because most games like this should have some sort of online co-op in this day and age anyway. Fable 2 looks intriguing also and hopefully Molyneux's words are not full of crap this time around like they were last time with Fable. Gears of War 2 is pretty much Gears but have to say, the graphics do look a tad better though and the Horde mode that was announced sounds great. Stage demos were good for the most part.
- Some new XBLA titles were announced. Geometry Wars 2, which looks pretty cool although I totally stink on the first one. Galaga Legionnaire from the same guys who did Pacman Championship Edition, which is another game I ain't really good at either but its good. South Park game coming, which hopefully is good since the show is awesome. Also, the original Banjo Kazooie is coming to XBLA, which is pretty awesome and hopefully there is some little tweaks to warrant a purchase but probably will get it anyway even though I have the original. Now if they only announced Conker's Bad Fur Day.
- That You're In The Movies Demo was pretty hilarious and once I seen it I immediate said, "Eyetoy Play rip-off". It was just that and that game came out 5 or 6 years ago. But the unique part was that they put these motions from the mini-games in this movie trailer and showed one they did earlier and was just hilarious, as it was so cheesy. Wouldn't be something I would get and doubt it will last long unless they put in oodles of stuff in terms of mini-games and trailers.
- One of the big announcements was the whole new Avatar system that is coming to XBLA and will replace the current dashboard design. Some of the features talked about are interesting but judging by people on the GS chatroom, they ain't loving it and some reasons are stupid (can't use my gamerpics and themes now and wasted money is one of them). You can say its taking a page from Nintendo with the avatars and that they're look similar to the Miis but the features in my opinion make it sound interesting and I will welcome it, besides I didn't waste a fortune on gamerpics and themes. Also, there were partnerships announced with NBC and Universal but that is more for the American side of things than here I suppose.
-Lips was announced, which is of course Microsoft's answer to Singstar although you are able to transfer your songs from your ipod or Zune and hopefully other players into the game and sing them, which is a nice touch. Although people will be saying, "But I can do that without paying money!" Yeah I know but its something this game has over Singstar. Duffy sung Mercy but that part was blocked but I heard it was pretty terrible.
- GH: WT announcements involving Metallica in that their new album will be available on GH 3 in September and WT when its launched. A REM track pack was also announced. Kinda cool I guess. Just have to see the rest of the set list to see if its worth getting. Rock Band 2 announcments also by Alex Rigopoulos from Harmonix. Set list was confirmed and that songs from Rock Band 1 are available to be exported over to Rock Band 2, which is great and that all downloaded songs are compatible also. Not sure if this is the same with GH 3 and WT but if not, not a good sign.
- There were other things announced or so also I believe but kind of forget. Only other thing is the end where Wada-san from Square Enix came and talked about the 3 games coming out on the 360: The Last Remnant where a trailer was shown, Star Ocean and Infinite Undiscovery. When Don Mattick (I think that was his name) announced him, I knew what was coming but didn't know when and my suspicions were confirmed when it happened. What that was is that Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the Xbox 360 and released on the same date as the PS3 version in North America and Europe. And the fanboys were up in arms because of this and the internet exploded with rage too. :P
Overall, it was a pretty decent conference where the only big announcements were the whole avatar system and FFXIII coming to the 360 (although I knew it was coming). People are saying that Sony needs to really put on something spectactular to respond to this. I will do a video during the week where I will give more details on the press conferences and my overall thoughts on the show so look out for it.
Toodles.