Microsoft’s E3 Press Conference

If you don’t like video games, you will want to mosey on down the road to the next post. If Rex can blog about hockey, which is only shown on Oxygen and WE, I can do video games. They’re sport-ie. Get over it. Here are my Random thoughts about Microsoft’s Press Conference Monday at E3.

Pound it, dog! Microsoft is a bad boy 4 lyfe.

Electronic Entertainment Expo (or “E3“, if you will, and really it doesn’t matter if you will or if you won’t) is the epicenter of the gaming universe. Kind of. It used to pwn but then it got too big and out of control. But they made it small again to cater to all the elitist self-righteous nerds who fancy themselves journalists and media. So it all came full circle, I guess. E3 happens once per year for a week, and this is where the big platforms and publishers drop their major announcements and talk about how awesome they are. As an owner of a 360, I have an interest in Microsoft’s press conference. I used to watch it online but now the badasses at G4 show all of the conferences in their entirety and a bunch of other shit. They have over 20 hours of coverage. They also have Olivia Munn. I <3 u, G4.

The press conferences are typically a blend of awesome announcements and cheesy self-promotion and congratulation. At its best, it gives Goldfish the boner he’s been waiting for.  At its worst, it can be like watching a circle jerk (which I have no knowledge of, but Pipez says it is “not as scintillating as I was hoping for“). The problem I always have with coverage of E3 is it is done by a bunch of reporters who have a vested self-interest to make sure they stay in with all the right people, and thus censor themselves heavily. This also happens in sports. So the advantage to reading my coverage is a) I’m an average gamer like you, friend and b) I have no incentive to sugarcoat shit. Although there may well be a market for sugarcoated feces. On to the recap…

The press conference opens with Rock Band Beatles. They make a big fucking deal about the game and even pay Paul and Ringo a shit ton of money to stand on stage and pretend like they care. This is a strange way to start until you realize that every major exec at Microsoft is probably in his late 50s and grew up on the Beatles. When the guys on stage are genuinely more excited than the crowd, you’ve got a problem. I guess it is cool to have a Beatles game, but to have it headline E3 seems a bit ridiculous. Paul and Ringo didn’t even feign an understanding of where they were or why. They just kept saying it was a neat game and then Ringo made fun of his character looking and moving anamatronically. Yikes. Someone should tell Microsoft that we’re nostalgic for the 80s right now, not the 50s/60s. Bad first move, Microsoft. Better step your pimp game up.

Next is Tony Hawk, who hawks (get it? harhar) a skateboard peripheral to be used in his new game, kindasorta like a Guitar Hero guitar. It seems pretty cool, but then is preempted by a non-skateboard later in the show (to follow). Strange. Tony Hawk pimps his own brand more aggressively than anyone this side of Donald Trump. Are we near the point of Hawk saturation?

Modern Warfare 2 is shown. Oh snaps, it looks awesome. This is also known as Call of Duty 5 or 6, depending on your count. Developer Infinity Ward was so worried about Treyarch diluting their brand (and rightfully so) that they stopped calling it Call of Duty. See, Infinity Ward and Treyarch took turns making the Call of Duties, but that is hard to message to a casual gamer. Treyarch did 3, which sucked, and 5 (called World at War), which was pretty good, and Infinity Ward did 2 and 4, which were both games of the year and system-sellers. The name change is Infinity Ward’s way of telling Treyarch to stop sticking their dick in the mashed potatoes. If you own an Xbox, you’d damn well better pre-order Modern Warfare 2. And keep your dick out of the mashed potatoes, good sir. It is not that type of a party.

Final Fantasy 13 is shown. A lot of this has already been shown, but it still is cool. If you like Final Fantasy. Dork.

Did I mention that John Edwards is one of the presenters? Check this picture out. I thought he’d be too busy recovering from running for president philandering and lying about it to care about E3, but this shows what I know.

Gears of War’s Cliffy B. and some really excited dude show Shadow Complex. The guy’s mike doesn’t work, so Cliff half-narrates. It is a kinda-sorta old-school side scrolling shoot em up, but the game craps out with bugs (it seems) halfway through and they say “that’s the end of the demo, folks!”. Whoops! Heads are going to roll for that one. There will be blood at Epic. By the way, I think Cliff actually changed his legal name to “Gears of War’s Cliffy B”. I would.

Next a bunch of trailers are shown back-to-back. Crackdown 2. Apparently Crackdown 1 was teh roxors. If you like using your police badge and superpowers to wreck shit up. And really, who doesn’t? I just wish Crackdown would do some sort of a licensing deal with Judge Dredd so your avatar could yell “I am the law!” when fucking shit up. That would be the perfect game.

Left 4 Dead 2, the sequel to the smash zombie killing hit. This one is set in New Orleans (which is neat) and seems to feature an all-black cast, which means it won’t sell 10 copies. Valve, you should be encouraged for being forward thinking, but you also should know a) there is only one black person in every horror movie and b) said person dies 10 minutes into the move. It happens in every horror movie. Coincidence? Quit trying to shift the country’s semi-subconscious and racially-charged paradigms! (I actually love the move on their part.)

Alan Wake is next. The game has been in development since the Atari 2600, but it looks cool as shit. Survival horror and you really have to watch the video yourself.

Forza 3. Yawn. Having the definitive racing experience (which they never will because of Gran Turismo) is like having the hottest girl in the room when there are only 3 girls and they are all fugly. Not a “big win”.

Halo ODST, which is a prequel. It looks cool but there is no Master Chief. But it’s Halo and it will only retail for $40 or so. Plan to buy it. The original name was Halo Recon, but apparently that was too easy to remember so they replaced it with an acronym. Because acronyms sell so well. Microsoft and Bungie is piggybacking Halo Reacharound Reach on ODST. That’s due out in 2010. Then in 2012 is Hal0: Just the Tip. 2014 is Halo: She Promised She Was 18. And lastly in 2016 is Halo: Herpes. Good times ahead for the series.

Last is Splinter Cell Conviction. This looks freaking sweet, and you know it is going to be solid, but what happened to long hair Sam Fisher from the earlier trailers? His long locks made him look like a cross between Tom Cruise from Mission Impossible 2 and a brooding vampire from Twilight. Now he’s back to short hair. Why did you do it, Ubisoft?

Metal Gear Rising is announced for the 360. This ends Playstation’s exclusivity on any title that counts. Microsoft got Final Fantasy and now they got Metal Gear. Game and over. Microsoft always wins. Hideo Kojima-sama had the “I can’t believe how much money they just paid me!” look on his face when he made the announcement.

Next is OH SHIT!!!! Project Natal, which is a goofy name for the best thing I’ve ever seen from E3. Everyone thought Microsoft was going to announce their Wii-mote, because they steal something every year (last year it was the dumbass avatars). Instead they’re coming out with a controller-free peripheral. Their pre-recorded commercial for it looks awesome. Just use the movements you’d use in real life to do karate and drive a car and skateboard and whatnot. It has facial and voice recognition, too. I’m sure the first generation of games is going to suck, but this thing has more upside than any device I’ve ever seen. Steven Spielberg thought it was cool, too. The creative director of Project Natal, who thinks he is Bono with the indoor sunglasses and the long hair, showed some prototypes. Someone should have told him that only black people look cool with sunglasses indoors. Bono is the exception, not the rule. When you save millions of lives through your humanitarian work, Project Natal guy, you can wear indoor sunglasses. Until then, you look like a dork. One of the prototypes was (I swear to god) motion sensor Microsoft Paint. I think the creative director on that project is Jim Brewer, which makes a lot of sense. “Dude, first you put some trees and some grass. And then you smoke the trees and the grass!” There are too many jokes to be made about the “shadow puppet” silhouette feature. Suffice to say you know what we’d be making. Penii. Big veiny bastards.

HOLY SHIT AGAIN! That crazy bastard Peter Molyneux created SkyNet!  Holy shit! Watch this! We’re not going to be smiling when that virtual kid becomes self-aware, I’ll tell you that. Thank goodness for Christian Bale and his futuristic temper-tantrums.

Very impressive conference to this point.  Halelujah, holla back! as John Brown would say. 

Last, Xbox Live is partnering with Facebook and Twitter and last.fm for music. Yawn. Last year was Netflix, which was awesome. Any movie available online through netflix you can instantly stream to your TV through the 360. I watch most of my movies on Live now. Awesome. So for an encore we have…Facebook. And Twitter. Tweet. Here is what I would Tweet about were I was a Twitterer:  ZOMG Project Natal! why is it named after an indian (dots not feathers)? will the mocap capture my teabags? 10010101!!!  So basically Twitter would be just like every blog post we do.

Overall, a great conference. The breakthroughs were sweet, and the let-downs were not too terrible. I’m excited to be a 360 owner again, so that means mission accomplished, Microsoft! Just remember – no one under the age of 35 gives a shit about what you liked when you were a precocious teen. Keep that in mind when making and selling games. Halelujah holla back.

kthxbye!

Pictures from here and here.

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