E3 Expo 2009 – Xbox Might Just Change Gaming as We Know It

I don’t know where to begin. So much happened today, and most of it happened at the Xbox conference. I got to the USC Galen Center early enough to be second in line and get 1st row center (on the upper concourse), which had an incredible view of everything. I’ve already posted my pictures on Flickr, but it’s going to take awhile to compile some of my videos. I’ve shot so much. Of course, most of the trailers and major media footage of the big announcements are available at their respective sites in high definition or some such nonsense, so what you’ll end up getting from me is a collection of highlight clip compilations. At least here you get my sparkling wit and personality… and complaints about how early I have to get up every day to play video games for 3 days straight. Poor baby me.

And to continue that theme, it’s late. Here’s hoping I get through this before falling asleep (pre-6am wake up time to drive into LA for the Nintendo and Sony conferences tomorrow). But today, everything was centered around the star-studded Xbox media briefing. No one knew just how star-choked the event would be, but WOW did Microsoft deliver! They kicked off the day with the new Beatles Rock Band game and got the Beatles widows Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono to wave to the crowd just before the surviving legends Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney stepped onto the stage to thunderous applause. I’m dying to play the drums on this new game, just because I love playing Rock Band and the Beatles songs are just iconic. They just feel like they’d be fun to play.

The rest of the morning included more than 10 new world premiere announcements of new games and lots of other goodies (more on that later). Among the games featured, in no particular order:

• Tony Hawk RIDE – Tony himself showed up to introduce the new skateboard controller included with this game, lending a whole new level of realism to the skate game genre that he helped pioneer.
• Left 4 Dead 2 – The quick trailer they showed us was scarier than almost any other zombie movie I’ve seen, set down in the Bayou. Intense action and more gore than you can shake a chainsaw at.
• Forza Motorsport 3 – Stunning lifelike racing action that the series is known for. Plus, they showed off a sexy car on the stage!
• Modern Warfare 2 – The Infinity Ward guys showed off an extended arctic battle that involved crazy vertical mountain climbing, ice pick-axe thingy take downs, an integrated HUD on your weapon, and an insane snowmobile shoot and chase scene.
• Metal Gear Solid: Rising – introduced as the first appearance ever of a Metal Gear Solid game for the Xbox by creator Kojima, but it will star Raiden instead of Solid Snake.
• Shadow Complex – They showed off this complex (duh) side scrolling puzzle shooter with surprising depth.
• Halo 3: ODST – They showed a lot of cinematics and some in-game play from the new game set prior to the entire Halo series. Plus, when the game is released this fall, gamers will get the opportunity to take part in the multiplayer beta for the new Halo Reach game.
• Actress and girly gamer geek Felicia Day announced that Xbox would be teaming up with Facebook and Twitter to bring their content to Xbox Live, allowing you to interact with your profiles in all new ways and in some ways incorporating your profile into your games, allowing you to post your status, scores, and performance as it happens.
• Plus announcements on Final Fantasy XIII coming to Xbox, the truly creepy Alan Wake game will finally see the light of day, Crackdown 2 will be released in 2010, a new avatar-friendly game called Joy Ride that lets people race around over Xbox Live, and so much more! I wish I had time to cover it all in detail.

But the big announcement was something called Project Natal. Steven Spielberg even showed up to discuss his involvement in the project. I know it’s been said before, and I expect a ton of negative backlash to crop up between now and the time it actually hits stores (because that’s what the ignorant masses do), but I believe we witnessed history today. There had been rumors that Microsoft would be introducing a new motion sensitive controller today, but no one had any idea that the controller would actually be… YOU! With a new motion sensing camera attached to your tv (and existing 360, which means no new console to buy), your Xbox will actually sense you when you walk into the room. You will command it with your voice and move things around the screen with a wave of your hand, from picking a movie to watch via Netflix to communicating with friends through a video connection to painting a picture using virtual buckets of paint and giant stencil pages to interacting with the game environment in ways that don’t require a controller. And each time we thought that they had showed us everything, they went a little further, until they showed us Milo. In this game, we witnessed a woman communicating with an artificial boy on the screen. She was able to interact with the boy’s immersive environment, even seeing her face reflected in a pool of water on the screen as she waved her hand through it to create ripples. And when she drew a picture on a piece of paper and held it up to the camera, the boy took it into his virtual world, identifying the image as a fish, which she had drawn on the physical page. It may seem like sleight of hand at this point, but the possibilities at this stage are limited only by our imaginations. This is the next step toward a new world of interactivity, not only for gaming, but for communication via the Xbox like no other console or computer has done before. There is no release date just yet, but you’ll know when it hits because it will be the only thing people will be talking about, unless Nintendo or Sony has something big up their sleeves for tomorrow.

I know I’m missing tons of other stuff, such as the new 1080p digital quality picture for all video, including movies (which will instantly play with no download delay), Sky network programming for those who want to see what’s happening on the other side of the pond, and lots more.

After the Microsoft briefing, it was hard to think that anyone could outdo the buzz surrounding Project Natal, but Ubisoft and EA gave it their best shot. I didn’t get into the EA event (sorry), but I heard they had some great new Star Wars: the Old Republic footage among some other stuff. I would have loved to have covered it, but oh well. Ubisoft was much more accomodating, but man was the whole registration process more than a little muddled. Regardless, host Joel McHale from Talk Soup showed off a number of big projects, including Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction, which after seeing the gameplay twice (it was also featured at Xbox), it was no less stunning. They showed off the brand new and much improved Red Steel 2 game for the Wii, the new Rabbids Go Home game, a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash-Up game from the makers of Mario Smash Bros Brawl, and even a new fitness game that includes a camera called Your Shape, that watches you as you work out, giving you tips and pushing you to a better body. But one of the big stars of the event was soccer legend Pele, speaking mostly in Portugese through an interpreter about his new game Academy of Champions, which looks like a cartoony Harry Potter world if they played soccer instead of Quidditch. The only person who might be slightly bigger than Pele (in North American minds) was director James Cameron, who showed up to talk about the evolution of his new Avatar movie and the video game that has been developed in conjunction with the film. He didn’t show us any footage of the stereoscopic 3D game, but he did say that it would be playable on the floor this week, so it will be a must-see, even if the lines will be too long to actually play it for this impatient one.

Okay, well, it’s off to bed for a few hours. Tomorrow it’s Nintendo, Sony, and the official opening of E3 2009! Check back tomorrow for more coverage of this massive event!

Check out our pictures on Flickr