Kinect Kinect and more Kinect! I think that was the general message from Microsoft. Before yesterday I was a big hater of Kinect in that I felt it was sucking away Microsoft from its hard core gamer audience due to its success with casual audiences. And at the start of the conference I was already thinking maybe I should just skip this one.
But then I saw Mass Effect and Ghost Recon both using Kinect in a way which kind of worked and made sense. However I’ve used voice recognition software in the past and its usually hit and miss. I dont mind having a trial and error battle while speaking to control lets say a menu or a conversation as seen in Mass Effect 3, but would I really want to use this in a segment of a game which has fast paced action?
Sure using the voice worked in the Mass Effect Demo but I’m already sceptical that those videos were done in real time. In Ghost Recon for example I can already foresee me telling a unit to “go over there” and have them just walk into my line of fire or just walk into an enemy tank. I was impressed with the Kinect voice integration but think il see for myself if it actually works well. But its great to too see third parties looking to integrate Kinect in more hardcore titles, especially in future Tom Clancy titles as was announced.
Fable looked Meh-tastic and looks to just be a connection of mini games, not a Fable fan (anymore) so went to go cook some noodles when it came one. And then when I came back with said noodles the Star Wars Kinect game came on, I personally feel the game looked horrible when we last saw it and it looked even worse now. As a Star Wars nerd I really hope the “story” wont be canon to the saga as I saw a few inaccuracies, just saying.
Gears of War 3 unsurprisingly looked amazing and didn’t really show anything new. Oh apart from the fact that Ice T and he’s band(?) are going to record a track for the song because they love what the games all about and aren’t in any way contractually obliged to. Tomb Raider looked quite compelling and a big departure from the norm with its dark tone. It already reminds me a lot of Uncharted though but imitation is the best form of flattery right?
And of course the BIG finale was Halo 4 which was stupidly leaked not long before the show and ruined the surprise 
But the announce of an actual TRILOGY was surprising and looks like a bold move as opinions are already slightly negative seeing as Bungie wont be in charge of this one and Microsoft’s own 343 Industries will be at the helm.
I’ve missed a few things out such as MW3 which I genuinely thought was MW2 as I missed its introduction and the sports stuff was OK I guess. Who knew Lil Wayne played FIFA?
Overall I think Microsoft did a good job and had a decent balance of hardcore and casual titles on show. Id give it a B- only because a few more surprises would have been nice.
I missed the Sony and EA conference so will drop my opinions on them after more reading up on them. Bring on the Nintendo Conference, speaking of Nintendo my 3DS is humming its update tune as I type so wish me luck!!!
