E3 2010: First Day MS highlights

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So, the madness that is E3 has started and while we weren’t wealthy enough to go over and report first hand for you, we’re gonna try and keep you as up to date as humanly possible….before wishing the monkey was more intelligent and able to type on our behalf.

It’s A-LIVE!

If you didn’t know it already, it would seem us poor little hut dwellers with no electricity, let alone the “internet”, will now become an official LIVE country.  Yes.  That’s correct.  No.  More.  VPN.

Kinect

The motion capture gaming device previously known as ‘Natal’ (no Live but they named it after a South African province!) had a host of announcement around it.  It’s pretty small to start with – not bigger than a 360 controller.  It was dated…and that date is 4 Novemember (yes, this year).  A host of games were shown off and/or announced – Star Wars (light saber swinging), Kinect Sport (sounds familiar…), Disney got all into the family kinda games it can do, Harmonix is doing a dance game and Forza 3 will get Kinect support (virtual steering wheel and track your head movement – this does admittedly sound cool – imagine a FPS with this ability).  There will be games about animals and adventure games.   All in all, the thing looks like it will do what it set out to do – give the family another option to the Wii and PS ‘Move’.  An interesting feature that the Kinect will bring is the fact that you won’t require a remote or controller to watch videos or play games.  Yay, the future is here!  Basically think the ‘Minority Report’ and you’re almost there.

Games, Games, Games…

Not too much on this front, except the usual (and expected suspects).  More Gears of War 3 was shown off (in slightly more vibrant colours than one is used to in the franchise).  Mainly a run through some co-op, but a new mode called ‘Beast’ was promised and would be shown during the exhibition.  Fable 3 was confirmed for a release on 26 October.  Crytek announced a 360 exclusive, called Codename Kingdoms (a codename maybe?) that showed a gladiator.  Activision signed with Microsoft for the next 3 years, meaning the 360 will be getting DLC as a timed exclusive (at the very least).  WWE All Stars was confirmed as been in the works and finally, for now, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood got dated for the 16th of November.

Phew.  Not a bad start, but let’s see what the rest bring us.