Cheat Code
Member
- Day 1: Sony 2013
- Day 2: Nintendo 2008
- Day 3: Ubisoft 2010
- Day 4: EA 2011
- Day 5: Sony 2006
- Day 6: Nintendo 2004
Microsoft 2010 had better foreshadowing than most films. For half an hour, it started off pretty strong. After that, we entered a hellish vision of what Microsoft would eventually become (temporarily) in 2013. The conference continuously built up, from sending off there biggest guns at the very beginning, to the turning point of the conference at ~30 minutes in. For now though, let's concentrate on that first, wonderful segment.
Starting with Call of Duty: Black Ops, which depending on your outlook on Call of Duty was either acceptable or fucking despicable, was sensible enough with the new three-year early DLC contract. We then get that damn traitor Hideo Kojima talking about Metal Gear Solid on Xbox. Of course I'm only joking, but I'm still convinced that Microsoft refuse to let Japanese developers speak Japanese with translators at their conferences, because Kojima pretty much always has a translator at western conferences. Anyway Metal Gear Solid: Rising looked fucking great so fair enough.
After that, Gear of War 3 was announced fully unveiled, featuring a co-op campaign which was pretty cool, especially with a live demo taking place. They are few and far between, so it was exciting to actually see one. Of course, this was only one of the many live demos at the conference. Yeah, those too. I guess Fable 3 was also shown off, but I was more fixated on Peter Molyneux sounding more and more like a Monty Python character that has escaped fiction. Then there was Project Kingdoms, which was apparently Ryse and so doesn't count as a 360 game. They topped it off with some campaign footage of Halo: Reach, which I suppose was exciting enough. This came after Reach's multiplayer beta was running though, so I don't think anybody was anticipating new gameplay.
Then, in Marc Whitten's following talk, his microphone broke, and I feel there is some weird coincidence here because the entire conference went to shit immediately after this happened. Kinect was certainly here, because the rest of the conference, just under an hour, was entirely dedicated to it. We weren't allowed games though, not until we sat through 15 minutes of Ron showing us how to use our magic hands and voice to watch Alice in Wonderland and listen to terrible music*, thanks Ron. We also were informed that a camera with a microphone had the ability to do live video chat, and that Xbox is the best sports console in the world. This may ring some bells for anybody that watched the Xbox One reveal. That was just the utility side of things though, we had some exciting games to look forward to following that.
*Note: this a subjective opinion held by Cheat Code. Your opinion may vary.
Well shit. Kinect isn't off to a great start. Kinectimals was a difficult watch, with the annoying little girl, weird movements and animal abuse culminating in a sign of things to come for Kinect, except it was abusing humans instead of pretend tiger cubs. Then it was Kinect Sports doing exactly what Wii Sports did four years prior. Okay maybe it had running too, but if you want to run, go for a damn run outside. In this, I guess, short demo compilation, we finished with what I am certain is the only time Kinect Joy Ride ever worked properly. This was all weak shit though, Kinect Adventures was the game that was packaged with Kinect, this is gonna be the one that makes us shit ourselves.
While it was probably the most impressive game they showed off, which honestly wasn't that difficult, Kinect Adventures was almost a confirmation that nothing truly impressive would ever be released for it. These avatar based games made up the majority of Kinect titles, and none of them had the same groundbreaking appeal that the Wii in 2006. It didn't help that the two women they had demonstrate the river game annoyed pretty much everyone with their constant screaming. I would imagine they were told to be over-enthusiastic, but tone it down a bit.
I've already spoken about Fitness Evolved when I did Ubisoft 2010, but considering Ubisoft wanted to go for a double I'll take the piss again. Your Shape tried to make doing standard exercises more fun by putting pretend boxes around that you kick the shit out of. After that, perhaps the most infamous Kinect demo started up, Dance Central. Dance Central probably ended up being the most popular Kinect game, by a significant margin. However, the guy that demoed the game a second time didn't really help the game. Honestly, he was a better dancer than I ever will be, but once the GIF wizards get involved, you'll be immortalized on the Internet forever.
They had to end on something big though, so they saved the big demos for last. It's just a shame one was completely fake and one was completely stupid. Star Wars Kinect sounds like a good concept on paper, but when they decided to show off the game with a CG demo masquerading as a real game, it was easy to work out the game wouldn't turn out well. If you played Star Wars Kinect when it came out, you would know that is absolutely did not. We finished off with Dan Greenawalt with hair giving us the big finish of the game, playing Forza with an imaginary steering wheel. Not only that, but you could look at the car in a really in-depth, including some really sexy headlights. Goddamn those headlights were sexy.
That was it! Sort of. I suppose they actually ended with the new 360 model, an annoucement I don't fully understand the crowd's response to. Even with a wireless and a bigger hard drive, surely after four years the 360 would be cheaper. Also you can buy a better model of a thing you already bought really soon. Maybe people would cheer for anything after that hour of nonsense. Maybe people were just happy it was over. Maybe they were genuinely excited about a new 360 model. Maybe they all got one for free (thanks Jase). Maybe I don't care.
