Doing Everything Anywhere
Microsoft's press conference this year featured less waving and jumping around and more device connectivity. Halo 4 started the show with a fairly impressive gameplay demo that showed off new weapons, enemies, and gadgets as well as a noticeable advancement in graphics. The next game shown was the newly announced Splinter Cell: Blacklist. It showed off a more fluid method of taking down enemies along with the ability to use Kinect to lure enemies to Sam.
The next segment showed off how Kinect can help choosing plays and formations in Madden '13 and FIFA '13. One example involved calling out plays to Kinect in Madden. It also showed how it is possible to change formations using similar methods in FIFA. After this little demonstration, quick trailers for Gears of War: Judgment, Fable: The Journey, and Forza Horizon.
New features for the Xbox were introduced. Bing search will be updated with more options. More sports content will be added including access to every ESPN channel. They also unveiled their new music service named Xbox Music which offers an impressive amount of music. After all of these announcements, Nike's new fitness game, Nike+ Kinect Training, was previewed.
The most intriguing announcement was Microsoft's response to the Wii U. Xbox SmartGlass uses the same idea as the Wii U controller, but uses other devices like smartphones and tablets as the second screen instead of a special controller. It also includes special functions while watching shows on the apps like HBO Go.
The next thing shown was another impressive gameplay demo for Tomb Raider. It mostly showed off combat and how Laura Croft traverses the environment, but it all looked fun. After this demo, short announcement trailers for Ascend: New Gods, Twisted Pixel's Loco Cycle, and Matter were shown. After all of these previews, a demo for Resident Evil 6 was shown, and featured Leon Kennedy taking out zombies and blowing everything up that gets in his way. After this demo, a demo for Wreckateer was shown, which looks similar to Boom Blox.
The final three games that were shown were South Park: The Stick of Truth, Dance Central 3, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Only a trailer was shown for South Park, but it was the first look at the actual gameplay. Dance Central 3 was announced by an unnecessary performance by Usher, and a demo of Call of Duty: Black Ops II was shown which featured futuristic weapons such as remote-controlled, machine gun, hover drones and high tech artillery that could lock on to multiple targets at once.
The standouts of the show were Halo 4, Splinter Cell, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and South Park and the new SmartGlass system. The rest of the games that were shown have me on the fence due to not knowing enough about them. Call of Duty looks to add branching paths and decision-making to spice up the single-player gameplay, but it's not known how involved or important that feature will be. Overall, Microsoft had a better show this year compared to last year with less obnoxious Kinect and more focus on games and new technology.
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