A quick note before I jump into the Microsoft E3 goodness: I played through the Too Human demo this morning, and have some thoughts on it, but since I had one eye on E3 coverage, I wasn't paying much attention to anything but the combat. I'll probably go through it again before posting on it. Now, on with the show:
The Games
Final Fantasy XIII for 360: Fantastic. The more expensive gaming gets, the more I loathe exclusivity. Of course the game still seems to be in such early stages of development that it's unclear whether it will run as well on the 360 as on the PS3, but it's really good to see that Square Enix is really getting serious about the American and European markets, and not letting the politics of the Japanese market dominate all of their business decisions.
Fallout 3: I don't know what to say other than that this sounds like "The Next Bioshock". Since I loved Bioshock, I can't wait to get my hands on Fallout 3.
Resident Evil 5: A bit disappointed to know that you still can't move while shooting, but other than that the game still seems to be on track to be a worthy follow up to the great RE4. The March 13, 2009 release date feels like a long time to wait, but at least it's not as long as some people were predicting.
Gears of War 2: Eh. The first one never hooked me, and the addition of more testosterone to the sequel doesn't sell it to me. However, I'm sure the people who liked the first one are going to find a lot to like in this one, as well. I'll probably give it a try, but my completely non-objective viewpoint is that I don't expect to enjoy it much.
Fable II: I'm interested, but here's my issue: I'm an avid dog lover, and if your canine companion can get hurt, I won't be able to play it. I was so worried about the fate of the dog in RE4 that I could hardly watch the boss fight where he comes to help Leon. Yes, I'm totally weak, but as cool as some aspects of Fable II look, the dog is going to make it or break it for me.
Rock Band 2: As much as I love Rock Band, I won't be buying Rock Band 2. Why? The track list is awful. With the exception of songs by Lush and Interpol, everything else on the disc is either a played out hit that I never want to listen to again, or by bands I never wanted to hear in the first place, like System of a Down, The Offspring and Presidents of the United States of America. I'll buy the new instruments, and I'll keep buying DLC, but I'm putting my foot down on the disc (literally, if possible). If the disc were required to keep getting DLC, I would just sell my copy of Rock Band and move to Guitar Hero World Tour. It's that bad.
Portal: Still Alive: I'm actually glad that this will be coming to XBLA. My only fear for a Portal sequel was that the writing wasn't really suited for a full-length release. But it looks like they're going to go the DLC route, which sounds perfect. If not for FFXIII, the announcement that this is coming this fall would have been the most exciting moment of the conference for me.
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts: Another one that just doesn't interest me in the least. I've never played a Banjo game becuase I hate the title, and the characters look totally unappealing to me. Maybe I'm really missing out on something big, but you know what? I don't care.
Guitar Hero World Tour: When this was announced, I had no interest in purchasing the full-band set up. I'm not a partisan to either Rock Band or Guitar Hero, but I do expect different things from them. Rock Band is the fun and easy party game with a more diverse set-list. Guitar Hero is where I go if I want a solid, guitar-based ass kicking. Both are great in their own ways. So when Red Octane announced that they were going to rip off the rock band concept, I yawned and hoped that there would be a package with just a guitar and the game. But now that Harmonix has utterly failed on the Rock Band 2 track list, I'm more open to the possibility of owning more plastic instruments. We'll have to see if Red Octane can come up with a better group of songs, though. I could very well end up sitting out this round of the music game wars.
The J-RPG fleet: Infinite Undiscovery, The Last Remnant, Star Ocean...honestly, I don't know what is supposed to differentiate any of these games from one another, and now that FFXIII is coming to the 360, isn't it a moot point? My understanding was that Microsoft was bringing over this quantity of second-tier J-RPGs in hopes of distracting people from the quality of the same genre that has previously been Sony's exclusive domain. But if Square Enix is going truly multi-platform with its big releases, do these other games become superfluous? We'll see, but for now I wouldn't even be able to identify screen shots of any of these.
Lips: Call me a music game whore, but I'm fairly excited by the first game to allow me to use any song out of my own MP3 library. It remains to be seen how their vocal-removal technology will work with songs whose production techniques are off the beaten path (will I be able to sing along to My Bloody Valentine and Ulrich Schnauss?), but otherwise this is sounding very cool.
The Ton of XBLA Announcements: The game shows are going to be cool for some people, but as someone who doesn't like game shows, I'm left cold. The announcement of what people are already calling Galaga Championship Edition is far cooler. GTAIV episodic content will definitely get me to put that game back in. Otherwise, I don't remember what was announced, and don't feel like sifting through the coverage to remind myself.
Xbox Live Changes
Avatars: Yawn. I don't do anything with Miis, and I don't see myself doing anything with XBL Avatars, either. Except that, you know, now I'm going to be forced to. I'll miss the picture of the Fruit Fucker that has graced my account for as long as I've had my 360. Also, the thought of paying for customization options doesn't appeal to me, and honestly I don't see it appealing to enough of the user base to make it worthwhile.
New 3D Dashboard: 3D interfaces strike me as something people thought was a good idea a long time ago that technological limitations have kept from becoming a reality until recently, leading to the discovery of better solutions in the meantime. Case in point: would you want to replace your web-browser with Second Life? If you want to look up a word on dictionary.com, do you really want to have to walk an avatar to a virtual bookshelf and pull down a book which then opens the web site? I know I don't. At any rate, this is why I don't care if Home ever actually emerges on the PS3, and why I hope Microsoft isn't going for something similar here. I'm all for streamlining the dashboard, but they're going to have to prove that a flashy 3D interface is actually more functional than 2D, and I think that's going to be very difficult.
Netflix on XBL: This is exciting, but I'm not sure how to interpret the official line that the service will come "at no extra cost" to Gold members. That sounds to me as if they're saying that now with my Gold subscription, I can download movies from the Netflix library for free. But since XBL already has a movie download service, which does not come free with a Gold subscripition, I'm assuming that what "no extra cost" actually means is that I'll be able to pay for Netflix rentals without having to have a unique Netflix subscription. However, if the movies are truly free to Gold subscribers, this is one of the most exciting announcements of the day.
My Verdict
Despite much of this information being leaked in the Intellisponse fiasco last month, they still managed to surprise with FFXIII, which I'll go out on a limb now and predict will be the biggest announcement of E3 '08. It was at least a huge opening shot, and I'm really excited to see how Sony and Nintendo counter.
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