Everything is better with Kinect, right? - Microsoft E3 Conference 2012.

Microsoft were the first major company to take centre stage at E3 this year and many were looking forward to what they were going to show. Rumours were flying here, there and everywhere of a new console, the fabled 720, but rather disappointingly this was not to be.

Instead it started pretty much from where they left off at last year’s E3 with Mr Green Helmet Man and his everlasting adventures in space. Yes, it’s Halo 4 and to be fair it looked pretty good! We were treated to an over-the-top trailer that Halo’s getting a reputation for and then a small playthrough of an early level which featured a lot of cinematics and a new feature that sees Chief using his visor to scan objects in a way that has echoes of the Metroid Prime series.

The Highs and Lows of E3 2012.

Last week the games industry came together once again for the annual E3 conference in Los Angeles. It’s the time of year when all gamers get excited and glue themselves to live streams of conference after conference hoping to get a good look at some of the games developers have to offer.

Overall it was a decent expo; some developers did well, others less so. There were plenty of highlights to be found and of course inevitable lowlights… All in all there was something for everyone.

If you like shooters for example you should probably check out EA’s conference as that’s pretty much all they’re bringing out in the coming year with Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Battlefield 3 DLC (no idea why this was shown), Crysis 3 and Dead Space 3 all being shown off. For those who don’t like shooters there’s always SPORTS! Sigh.

In-Out, In-Out, Shake it all About - Microsoft Conference.

Microsoft were first to hold their conference at this year's E3 and they kicked it off with some Modern Warfare 3 footage which included a demo run in a submarine and then on a speedboat. Yes of course it featured some bullet time again, there’s nothing quite like some overuse of bullet time in a game but overall considering I’m not a big Call of Duty nut it looked quite cool. It’s very high impact, very over-dramatic, very Call of Duty. It made me want to at least try the other two games.

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.

The Good, The Bad and The Downright Embarrassing - E3 2011.

The biggest video game event of the year took place a week ago and I’m always happy when it comes around. The Electronic Entertainment Expo has been visiting Los Angeles now for 16 years, and although in recent years it has downsized a little, it still has the magic all gamers know and love.

I love it when E3 is approaching, the anticipation for what’s going to be shown, what’s going to be playable, new hardware, new games, new ideas. It represents the biggest stage video game companies have in showing off their products to us. And boy do they like to show off!

I personally love E3 because it reignites the gaming industry and gets me interested again. People start talking again, forums start buzzing, Twitter explodes, everyone has an opinion and there are plenty willing to argue til their faces turn blue!

The fight for silver rages on.

The Kinect has been out for a while now, and I can’t make out whether it was a success or not. The grapevine tells me that Microsoft’s shifted 8 million of the little blighters, which I think is successful but there’s been a bit of a backlash towards it, mainly from those who I suppose you'd call ‘hardcore’ gamers.

These are the fellows who aren’t too happy at Microsoft spending too much time with this camera sensory devise thingy, many of them have threatened to divorce the Xbox 360 unless they put more effort in with them. Not that Microsoft care, they'll keep on neglecting them and working alone in the shed all night while the hardcore gamers sleep alone wondering what could have been.

Connection Failed.

It’s been a tough old week. Studying and working away tirelessly until your eyes themselves start perspiring. Naturally when I went for some downtime with my faithful friend, the Xbox, I just wanted to kick back and play some games. But it was not to be.

The stupid thing starts prompting me to update it, and it won’t let me progress until I do so. So what do you do? You update it, and sit there waiting for it to download and install. A few boring minutes later and it’s done. Fantastic. Now what?

A new dashboard, cool. I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to new versions of stuff, every time I update my iTunes I’m jumping up and down gleefully waiting to see what new changes they’ve made to my lovely little neat media player. Of course when I load up iTunes afterwards, I find that nothing has changed and I’d just wasted five minutes of my life watching a status bar move from left to right. And it’s much the same with the Xbox.

It’s all kind of changed without really being different. All the menus are still there and the submenus are now white instead, making it look like Apple. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. Oh, and for some unknown reason my avatar has grown about two feet and looks like a ganglier version of Robert Pattinson with blonde hair. Why is this? And then it dawned on me.