Next up was the new Tomb Raider game which actually looks
really good! It’s set to go back to the origins of Lara Croft and it might just
tempt me into playing the franchise again. The demo shown appeared to be the
start of the game where Lara is escaping captivity on an old ship that could be
in the Bermuda Triangle, which I‘m only guessing because of the old ships Lara
finds at the end of the demo. It’s a lot darker than we’re used to and looks
very gritty, much more than the old ones. I haven’t played a Tomb Raider game
since the PS1 and I’ll keep an eye out for this one as I’m interested in how it
turns out in the end.
Shoehorning
If you could say there was a theme to Microsoft’s
conference, it would be this: Kinect shoehorning. Take a core game played by
the hardcore gaming market, and apply little Kinect compatibilities to entice
the players to use it more. The worst seen at the conference has to be Ghost
Recon’s where a man came out and showed how it would be used in the game. To
shoot the gun you reach over your shoulder for an imaginary gun then position
yourself in such a way that makes you look like you’re going to grab a bull by
the balls and open your hand to shoot your weapon. Embarrassing. He then goes
and shows how you bring up the scope…by reaching into the sky like a child
grasping for an apple. Yes very innovative, do I feel like I’m in the game? No,
I feel like I’m about to grab a bull by the balls.
What is the point in it? Reach for the sky to use your
scope? Why? What’s the difference between that and pressing the Y button? Both
are about as immersive as each other except one of them makes you look like an
idiot. The guy even says after the demonstration that Kinect is enabling you to
do something you can’t with a controller and that all Tom Clancy games will be
Kinect enabled. Well I’m not sure where this guy has been for the past 20
years, but first-person shooters seem to have done quite well over the years
using controllers. I think I’ll be sticking to the Y button if I‘m honest.
They also showed a new game called Ryse, set in ancient Rome
where you are the controller in sword fights. Hit them with your sword, use
your shield and even head butt them. Pointless, we’ve gone from button bashing
to arm flailing. It’s in Minecraft, it's in Madden, it's in FIFA, it's in UFC,
it’s even in the new Forza. There’s a reason Mario Kart Wii worked so brilliantly,
there was a wheel! Sigh.
There was also a new Star Wars game for the Kinect that
looked pretty poor. You essentially shout “lightsaber on!” and wave your arm about
slicing through enemies. It’s on the rails and about as immersive as hammering
the A button is. It reminded me of the old arcade game where you held a
joystick to use your lightsaber, except that was actually a lot better, and it hasn’t
aged well…
To be honest I believe the Kinect has already found its
purpose in the gaming world: to be a dance peripheral. It’s great for people
who want to muck about in casual party games, or replicate their favourite
dance moves, but that’s pretty much it, Disneyland Kinect? Yes! Halo Kinect?
No! Sesame Street Kinect? Yes! Mass Effect Kinect? NO! Speech recognition is
fine, I don’t really have a problem with it, but trying to use it in hardcore
games like Ghost Recon in such a way is madness.
Exclusivity
Mercifully it wasn’t all Kinect shoehorning, they did show
some of their exclusive titles, none bigger than Gears of War 3. They showed
off some part of the campaign which looked alright, it’s Gears of War, what can
I say? It’s traditional Gears gameplay, big monsters, over the top gameplay,
trash talk, the usual. That’s what people love, that’s what they’re getting. It looked good but it hasn’t got me any more or less interested in this one. I am
looking forward to it though, Gears is one of the Xbox’s better exclusives.
But the big news was Halo. Yes, it’s coming back, was it a
shock? Well, no it got leaked but still it’ll have fanboys dancing with glee
because they’re remaking the original Halo on the Xbox for the 360 in all its
HD glory. It’s actually being released before the year is out, so I know what a
few fanboys will be getting for Christmas! I’m not really bothered by this
announcement really. I like Halo, I think it’s a great franchise, however I do
think the first title was the weakest of the lot, I know pretty much everyone
will disagree with me but it really wasn’t that good. Halo 2 was far superior
in every way.
Peter Molineux made his appearance late on with the new
Fable game. It feels like the latest one only just came out to be honest but
there’s a new one: Fable The Journey. The opening cut-scene was very average
and then they showed a playable demo, and yes as you’ve probably guessed, it is
Kinect compatible. Ever wished you could pretend to drive a horse cart? No me
neither but now you can with the power of the Kinect! I’m not even going to
waste more time on this game, it looked so awful. Basically it’s on the rails
Fable, but you do get to bitch-slap a goblin.
More Kinect anyone?
The rest of the conference was Kinect. Kudo Tsunoda, the only
man who still believes wearing sunglasses indoors is cool, came out to show off
the ‘Kinect Labs’ a bunch of new features for the Kinect that you can use right
away. The first was avatar capturing, you can now scan your face and clothing
into the game via Kinect and it will create a very good representation of you
in avatar form. It’s actually pretty good by the looks of it. They also showed
how you can scan objects into Kinect which is also quite cool I suppose. But I
didn’t really get the finger tracking feature…what’s it supposed to do? I just
don’t get it.
They’re releasing a new Xbox hub using the Kinect, with
speech being the main feature. You say “home” you go home. You say “music” you
get your music. You get the idea. Also, you can now watch live TV on
your…erm…TV which is new I suppose. The trailer they showed was pretty annoying
where a woman ordered her Xbox to do things like “Xbox Home” or “Xbox play
Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows part one” I was fully expecting her to
start ordering her couch to take her to bed at the end of it!
YouTube and Bing are coming also, search using your voice
and watch videos on the web. Pretty useful but the most interesting thing I
found here was that Americans pronounce Lego as “Lay-go” how utterly bizarre!
Imagine Cheryl Cole ordering Xbox Bing to find directions to Legoland!
The big finale
So yes, all in all a fairly substandard conference from
Microsoft that focused far too heavily on Kinect. They really should have just
called it the Kinect conference really. But that wasn’t all Microsoft had to
offer, they held their ace of spades right until the death by announcing the
production of Halo 4. Halo is back! Even though it never really left, Reach is
like a year old, but anyway it’s back! Looks promising and it’s set to be a
trilogy presumably being made by 343 games as Bungie have left the project. I
will certainly be looking forward to this and it’ll be interesting how it will
go now that Bungie aren’t on board.
But this big finale wasn’t enough to save the conference. It
was just too much Kinect to handle, it’s even in the core games now. Not all of
the Kinect showcases were bad, Once Upon a Monster looked good, why did it look
good? Because it was a casual game aimed at kids; it’s what the Kinect should
be doing, not shoehorning itself into Tom Clancy games!
Okay so Microsoft went first, and that’s pretty tricky, they
wouldn’t have known much at all about what the others were up to. Though saying
that they knew Sony had the PSP2 to reveal and Nintendo had the Wii’s
successor, so with that knowledge this was a very poor showing from Microsoft
with little to redeem it.
***
The Ghost Recon showcase is below, you need to see it to
believe it!
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