We're here finally: the last press conference of the day, which is Sony's! What's gonna be in store fo us? Who knows! With the recent fiasco that Sony's been going through, will they talk about it? Skip over it? Will they have something that will blow us away? Take a gander in the Live Press Conference, right here on Gamerzitch!
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2 conferences down, 3 to go! With the previous conferences coming out in full force with their upcoming games, it's now Ubisoft turn to show what they've got!
Of course, keep watch on our Twitter and Facebook to get you up to the minute announcements and news as it happens!
Well, well, well, Microsoft! Not a bad press conference at all With the show mostly being all about Kinect, which isn't as bad as you think (and we will get to a litle bit futher in this post), Microsoft didn't forget about the core gamers with obvious demonstrations of what we know is coming out within the year. One example was Gears of War 3, but let's not start with something like that. Let's indulge ourselves with what was shown at the conference from beginning to end.
Microsoft opened up their press conference with what everyone wanted to see: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3! When the demo opens up on stage. we take a gander at team of soldiers, underwater and going en route. As we slowly creep in the water, we begin to realize that wer're going through a tunnel that's in complete shamble.
Rising up from the tunnel, we swim passed underwater mines, sinking ships and as we see all this, we constantly keep hearing the sounds of muffled war. The objective, the enemy sub, goes right over our team of soldiers and plant a bomb. The team tries to quickly evade before the bomb goes off, which goes off, leading us to swim to the surface....all out war has broke in New York City. At the same time, the sub that had begun to sink had surface as well, in which our team of soldiers raid. After raiding it, we leave via speedboat, reaching a helicopter and leaving the city under siege. Thus, ending the Modern Warfare 3 demo.
Next up was the ambitious reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise, developed by Crystal Dynamics. One of the most distinctive things that we saw from the live demo was the dark and gritty look for the game. To those familiar with the Tomb Raider Games, this is definitely a new take on what we can expect from this installment in the franchise.
Lara Croft also can use her instincts to get past obstacles/puzzles - reminiscent to Batman: ArkhamAsylum's detective mode. Comparable to Uncharted, this looks like it could turn some heads over to their direction. I mean, it's sort of been a while since we got a good Tomb Raider game, no? Here's hoping this one is!
Peter Moore from EA Sports was up the stage where, from here, Kinect reveals had begun. Peter Moore talked about how their studios, such as EA Sports had begun working hard on incorporating Kinect with their sports games like Tiger Woods, Madden NFL, FIFA Soccer and many more from their lineup.
Speaking of Kinect and EA Games, Mass Effect 3, which will be published by them will be compatible with it. With Kinect implemented, of course being optional, Voice Recognition will be used. With your voice, you will be available to give out squad commands to your teammates. Along with that, one of Mass Effect's distinctive features that's popular among fans is the dialogue wheel will let you choose what you say by your own voice!
This isn't anything new that we've seen, but possibly taking that could lets us play Mass Effect in a whole new way.
Another game, which was least expected to use the Kinect, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. At first, I and the rest of the industry, were skeptical on how Kinect would even work with this installment of the franchise. Remember, Kinect utilizing these features are optional. What I can say right now is that it was pretty damn impressive. One of the first things we see is Gunsmith, a feature that's in Future Soldier where the player can customize their weapons.
Choosing from each and every single piece, your weapons are truly unique in the way you customize them yourself. So how does Kinect step into this? Well, with you standing in front of Kinect, you will be able to use your own hands to dissamble and re-assemble each weapon. You can in fact, almost, fire the assault rifles with your hands as well! Getting the best of the best also comes in this. You see, I'm not that great with in-depth details about guns, but with Kinect, saying, "Optimize for Long Range" gets you set up for...well...long range fire! Leaning yourself to the left or right even gives you a look at your weapon, which I'm imagining you can do with the controller as well. Thus, wrapping up Future Soldier, Kinect sure uniquely gave the game a small twist in gameplay.
With more Kinect features being showcased, Microsoft gave us an early look at the next dashboard update using the Kinect.
We get the normal voice commands that we're all aware of that we expected to see, but we also get to hear and see what's next for new dashboard and Xbox Live service as well, like YouTube, Bing voice search engine, UFC Social Entertainment, and live television! A first I assume, not counting AT&T U-Verse, heh!
Next up, not forgetting the core gamers, Mircrosoft brings out the big guns with some exclusives that we'llbe getting. Cliffy B and Ice-T take the stage to do a live stage demo for Gears of War 3 in a never before seen campaign level being played cooperatively!
Crytek, known for making the ambitious Crysis games, revealed their game RYSE. Not much is known, but we were lucky enough to get a trailer!
Sure, that's one awesome game that's been highly anticipated, but there's been one that was rumored and wanted by hardcore fans of the series. Yup a Halo 1 remake as coming! The actual title is Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary - Celebrating the 10th Anniversary when the game first launched way back on the original Xbox in 2001. Included will be all the classic multiplayer we have come to love and all maps remastered!
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will arrive on November 15, 2011!
We also now take a look at another Kinect compatible game that will make car enthusiasts, "Squee". Forza Motorsport 4 was showcased with the best of the best graphics seen in a racing game in such a long time, besides Gran Turismo 5. With Forza 4, using Kinect, headtracking will be enabled to see the enviroment and track you're racing on. Forza 4 will also feature a crapton of manufacturers and in fact get frequent updates!
After looking at the amazing Forza 4, Lionhead Studios', Peter Moleneux steps up to the stage to talk about his latest Kinect title, Fable: The Journey. Now, this is a different take on Fable that we've never seen, but may turn away some hardcore fans of the series. The demo opens up with the game in First Person with you playing and guiding the horse that you're riding to your destination. Once we get off of it, from here, everything is on-rails, meaning that, if you're famliar with arcade games, the game guides you through everything.
One of the most distinctive features is that, even though you're on rails, there are different approaches that you can take to take down the monsters livinig in the fantasy world that we all know of from Fable. Using your hands, casting magic spells is uniquely used by rubbing your hands, making friction, where in the game, that takes in effect, which makes a fire spell used against your foes! You can even craft weapons with your hands as well! As of now, there is no release date yet.
Tiny announcement did get brought up, which none of us expected, nor do we know how it'll work, but with Kinect, Minecraft will be coming to Xbox Live. Mojang, the developer behind the highly successful, and unexpected, indie game has had this game under development for so long (and still is at this moment) will arrive to the current gen console. Nothing more's been said.
From here we get even more Kinect games, but mostly short demos of what's to come like Kinect Sports: Season 2, Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster (by Double Fine - Tim Schafer's studio), Kinect Star Wars (which was seen at last year's Cirque de Soleil), and Dance Central 2, but one unique thing that got showcased was Kinect FunLabs.
From scanning your favorite things at home, your body, and one cool thing known as finger tracking. Using Kinect you can take pictures of yourself. Kinect FunLabs became available the same day.
That was a wrap for the Microsoft Press Conference, with Don Mattrick stepping the stage, leaving with just one trailer. I'll let that speak for itself...
So EA just finished their E3 2011 Press Conference and what conference it was. There was plenty of talk about interacting with friends and how they wanted to make games even more of a social experience.
EA kicked off their time at E3 with a showing of Mass Effect 3. The demo shown had Shepard battling hoards of enemies, eventually hopping onto a turret which he then used to fight off a giant screen filling reaper. The demo closed off with us getting a new date for Mass Effect 3, March 6 2012 for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
After Mass Effect left the stage we got to see EA Black Box show off the next entry in the Need for Speed franchise. Need for Speed: The Run looked as gorgeous and smooth as Hot Pursuit with high speed car chases and crashes. The Autolog feature from Hot Pursuit will also be making a return, but with a much bigger role by "having Autolog integrated into the entire career." One new addition that has never been seen in a Need for Speed game before is the addition of on foot sequences which played out in a series of quick-time-events. Think Heavy Rain and add fast cars, it didn't look all that interesting but it's still early.
The next big game on stage was the long awaited Star Wars: The Old Republic, we got a great looking trailer, and that's about it, no release date was announced.
Peter Moore then stepped out to show off next years line-up of EA Sports games. SSX was first up, and in addition to a brand new trailer which showed off Helicopters and a massive Avalanche, we also got word on three different gameplay types that will be in the game. Race mode, Trick mode, and Survive mode, all of them are pretty self explanatory, but they also all sound really cool (especially Survive mode). A January 2012 release window was given. FIFA was next to step up, being hailed as "the best FIFA game yet" we heard about the improved emphasis on defense, and the new player impact feature which will cause players to react in an incredibly lifelike fashion. EA Football Club is basically Autolog for the FIFA games, giving access to new stories and updates that will rollout throughout the games lifespan, as well as connectivity to friends across FIFA on consoles, PC, iPad, iPhone, and Facebook. Football Club will be free to all players.
The next iteration of Madden showed up next in all its bone-crushing glory. Football all-stars Ray Lewis, Peyton Hillis, and Clay Matthews all showed up to represent new fine-tuned areas of Madden 12; Dynamic Player Performance, New Defensive play, and a rehauled Dynasty mode.
Keeping with the social dynamic of social experiences, EA showed off The Sims Social. A Facebook version of the Sims which will play like classic Sim's games with all the added features of Facebook games.
Next we had baseball all-star turned game studio founder Kurt Schilling come out on the EA stage to show off more of his studios debut game Hunter: The Reckoning. We got a cool trailer that showed off a lot of the magical combat in all of it's gory goodness.
What was perhaps the show stealer was the debut of Insomniac Games (the guys behind the Ratchet & Clank, and Resistance games) new IP Overstrike. We got an outrageously funny trailer that introduced a fun cast of characters. The game will have a big emphasis on weapons and gadgets much like Insomniac's other games. It will be the first multi-platform game from Insomniac, and although it wasn't announced yet it would be insane if this game didn't feature four-player co-op.
Finally, we got a look at the incredible looking Battlefield 3. The Frostbite 2.0 engine was shown off, buildings crumbling, environments being bombarded, and enemies falling to waves of your bullets. We then got the announcement that Battlefield 3 will feature "Battlelog." This Call of Duty esq service will allow players to create squads, get stats, and communicate with friends, once again for the low low price of... free. The conference closed off with us getting eight minutes of Battlefield 3 gameplay, it took place in the desert and showed off driving a tank.
Overall EA had a great conference with a lot of great games that were shown off. What are you most looking forward to?
Monday, June 6, 2011 at 6:53PM 
