Admin Note: If you fine folks haven’t noticed yet we have added a new writer to our gang. Dan will be grading games and other items in the gaming industry. I wonder if he’ll be assigning homework to industry professionals…..
This week on Grading the Games, I will be looking at the crown jewels of E3, the platform holder press conferences. Games will be revealed, charts will be used to brag, and we may hear the greatest hyperbole in the history of the universe. In an effort to cover the massive amount of material in each of these press events, I will deviate from our normal formula a bit, and grade individual sections of the press events on their own, before compiling a final grade for the event as a whole.
We begin with Microsoft, about whom much was rumored, but very little was known heading into the press conference. In a semi-chronological and partially serious fashion, I give you my grades for Microsoft.
The Beatles:Rock Band
This game looks, well, a lot like Rock Band. Which is good. It seems to play a lot like Rock Band, which is also good. The 10 songs revealed, of the 45 in the game are songs I would like to play, so we’re still positive so far. Abbey Road will be available as DLC shortly after launch, which should sell to every Beatles fan with a credit card. I had nothing negative to say about this section, until Yoko Ono hit the stage with Olivia Harrison. I then cursed for 30 seconds straight without breathing, until Ringo Star and Paul McCartney hit the stage, which was really neat. Until they started talking. Hey Ringo, no one cares about the way your character walks. All in all, I love Rock Band, and I love the Beatles. This section gets high marks, but loses half a letter grade for Yoko Ono being anywhere near it. ‘A-’
Tony Hawk Ride
Tony came out on stage to hawk his new game and hover board peripheral after the Beatles finished up. (Ed: A cheap pun, I would be embarrassed, if I could still feel shame.) At $120, I’m not sure the game will justify the price point, but the footage they showed of professional skateboards playing the game made it look appealing. It looks like it could be a really fun game to play, but the price point makes it a high risk proposition. ‘B-’
Modern Warfare 2
I am not necessarily a huge shooter fan. I like a good shooter, but I probably play one or two shooters a year. I will not miss this game. Both a trailer and actual game play were shown. Both looked stunning, although the trailer was not new footage. The game play included an ice climbing segment that looked very fun and different. A “stealth” segment was shown, which included a weapon with a flip out radar screen for finding enemies. The live demo also included a firefight, which appeared just as engaging as the original. And who can pass on snowmobile riding? That’s right people, you can get your Eskimo drive-by on this November. A can’t miss title and a great live demo, ‘A’.
Final Fantasy XIII
Squeenix sent a couple of representatives out to talk about Final Fantasy XIII … during the Microsoft press conference? As if they hadn’t already battered Sony enough, now they have really cuddled up to Microsoft. They showed the same demo we’ve seen before, but now it’s on Xbox. Yawn. Still, I hadn’t seen the Odin summon before, and that looked fantastic. The release date is still a vague Spring 2010, but the fact that Microsoft had Squeenix involved in their press event again at Sony’s expense scores them points. Overall, a ‘B’ for the FFXIII showing.
Shadow Complex
A 2.5D side scrolling action game from Epic. It will be an XBLA release this summer, looks to be a very cool downloadable game. The number batted around was 10 hours of game play. It seems interesting, I’ll give it a ‘B’.
Joy Ride
A kart racing game featuring avatars. It was going to get a ‘C-’ for being very generic, until they announced that it is free to download, with microtransactions afterwards. Being free elevates the grade to a ‘C+’.
Crackdown 2
Crackdown 2 offered only a trailer, but I got goosebumps as soon as I heard the agility orb sound effect to start the trailer. Very little shown beyond a trailer but I’ll let this title trade of off its predecessor’s reputation a bit. Not offering any indication of a release date certainly didn’t help its cause. ‘B-’
Left For Dead 2
Valve announced Left For Dead 2 as a Xbox/360 exclusive. Left For Dead is not even a year old yet, and still gets plenty of play online. I feel like this sequel might be too soon. Also, we only saw a trailer, no actual game play. For these reasons, I give it a ‘B’.
Splinter Cell: Conviction
The latest entry in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series looks like a fantastic third person action game. The in game demo only served to make it more appealing. This was hardly a surprise, but looks to be big title for the “Novembermas” season in the fall. For delivering a nice trailer and in game demo, I award this title a ‘B+’. After realizing that Sam’s mullet didn’t appear in presentation, I’m raising the grade to an ‘A-’.
Forza Motorsport 3
In one of the worst kept secrets in video games, Forza 3 was finally announced during the press conference. After an introduction featuring an actual Audi R8 on stage, which certainly will increase the grade for this title. After examining the CG trailer and game play of the title, my excitement only increased. With an October 2009 release date, this simulation racer will be here very shortly. Turn 10 has done nothing to discourage me from being excited about this tile, I give it a ‘B+’.
Halo 3:ODST and Halo: Reach
This title featured a live game play demo, and looked, rather unsurprisingly, like Halo 3. The presentation remains essentially the same as Halo 3, with some changes to the HUD, night vision, and the return of the Halo sniper pistol. It was an acceptable showing, good enough for a ‘B-’, before Bungie announced a prequel to the Halo trilogy, Halo Reach, for release in the fall of 2010. Announcing a secret game with no details gives the Halo segment grade a bump up to a ‘B’.
Alan Wake
At long last, Alan Wake returned to the limelight. The Xbox exclusive had an extensive showing in the press conference, featuring an extended live demo. The presentation was fantastic, and the game is certainly visually stunning. The lighting effects in the demo were among the best I’ve ever seen, which is good given a light based mechanic used in the game play. This game needed to make some positive momentum for itself, and it managed to do that in a big way. Unfortunately, it still won’t be releasing until a vague “Spring 2010″, which will drop it’s grade a bit. However, the live demo scores a large number of points in this column, and Alan Wake gets an ‘A-’.
Last.fm
Xbox Live will be adding last.fm integration to bring a music component into the service. This is a strong move toward multimedia feature completeness, and last.fm is a fairly widely used service. This wasn’t a spectacular or surprising move, but it is definitely welcome. I give the addition a ‘B’.
Zune Marketplace
The new video marketplace on Xbox Live will feature 1080p HD video and streaming technology rather than downloads. I like the 1080p upgrade, but I’m unsure if the 1080p streaming will be as instant as Microsoft seems to think. Still, it’s a nice incremental upgrade, ‘B-’.
Facebook
For those of you looking for reasons to never get off the couch again, Microsoft is here to help. Facebook integration is coming to Xbox Live, with a vengeance. The interface looked pretty slick, and it’s yet another feature Microsoft can lord over Sony. ‘B’.
Twitter
I have many of the same feelings on this that I had on the new Facebook integration. Except that I actually like Twitter, and use it much more often. Thus, the grade is a smidge higher, ‘B+’.
Metal Gear Solid: Rising
Oh man, I knew there was trouble when I heard the Metal Gear “discovered” sound effect. Then Kojima was out on stage … at a Microsoft event? Sony must literally just be banging their collective heads off a wall somewhere. Kojima announced that his next Metal Gear title will be coming to Xbox 360, and it will feature Raided rather than Solid Snake. No real tangible details beyond those, but Microsoft has stolen yet another exclusive franchise away from Sony. They score major points for that, ‘A-’.
Project Natal
This is an extremely difficult thing to grade, and may be worthy of it’s own Grading the Games at some point in the future. I will try to keep it brief at this point. It is a very interesting UI concept, and I believe it will ultimately live or die with its software. That said, the software demos that were shown onstage were very well done. It can perform motion detection, facial recognition, and voice recognition. It has the potential to really shake some things up, but there were no words on a potential release. All in all, Natal had a great tech demo and has a lot of potential. Time will tell, but for a press conference debut, it was well done. I will grade out some specifics of the Natal presentation below, but overall, I’m giving it an ‘A-’.
Kudo Tsunoda’s Sunglasses
Those things made him like a guy who says “Bro” or “Bra” a lot and wears pink polos to bars with his collar popped. Also, the press conference was inside. ‘F-’
The “Elephant”
Two people made an elephant shape in front of the camera to import into “Paint Party”. It looked like a game we used to call, “Hey, whose hand is that, and what the heck is it doing there?” I’m taking away points for being a little sketchy, but awarding it points for unintentional comedy. ‘C+’.
Peter Molyneaux’s Hyperbole
‘A++’ or ‘F–’, I can’t decide which. But let me tell you, it was either the greatest, or worst, hyperbole I’d ever experienced.
Milo
Peter Molyneaux’s interactive “friend” demo was very interesting. It was an amazing piece of tech, and appeared to be as truly interactive as any simulated person I’ve ever seen. The Natal appears to give him vision and other senses I hadn’t seen represented before. That said, this may very well be the precursor to Skynet. If too many people play anything like this at once, Xbox Live may become self-aware and destroy us all. Of course, given the amount of people that will now never go outside again, we may not need Skynet’s, I mean Xbox Live’s, help. Milo has earned himself a ‘B+’.
Overall
Microsoft certainly had a packed press conference. They led off with huge multiplatorm games like The Beatles:Rock Band, Modern Warfare 2, and Final Fantasy XIII. The might as well have just brought out a PS3 and a sledgehammer to open their press conference. They then proceeded to show off tons of exclusives in two new Halo games, Crackdown 2, Left For Dead 2, and Alan Wake. Not all of these are coming this year, which makes the lineup a bit less impressive, but it’s still substantial. They ended the event with stealing another franchise previously exclusive to Sony by having Kojima and Metal Gear Solid on stage, and debuting the most interesting UI device for a console since the Wii was debuted. They did very little wrong, besides Yoko Ono being in the building, and Kudo’s sunglasses. I was interested for the entire two hours, and left eagerly awaiting many of the things I saw. In total, Microsoft started off E3 right, I give the event an ‘A-’.
Look for my grades of the Nintendo and Sony press events in short order.
