E3 09 Musings - Press Conference 09 Reactions

You can see the newsy bits of Microsoft's E3 2009 Press Conference here, but I wanted to share some of my specific opinions on some of the announcements.

Overall, it was a good show. There were a few things missing, though. Where was the XBLA montage showing off the next wave of big Xbox Live Arcade titles? Where was the big retail game montage showing off the next wave of third party Xbox 360 games? I can understand why they only showed the big guns and focused on exclusive stuff (to shut up all of the "360 has no gamez" blogs that clot N4G every day ...), but I wanted to see more. Also, where the heck was Rare? We know they have stuff coming (I was seriously expecting a "Perfect Dark for XBLA this week" surprise announcement going in, but it didn't come), but maybe it is further off than we thought.

Left 4 Dead 2, Crackdown 2, Forza 3, all good announcements. The Halo: Reach announcement didn't pop as big as it could have since it was all over the 'net already. Seems like it should hopefully come sooner rather than later since ODST comes with a beta invite for Reach. Funny how Bungie split from Microsoft because they wanted to make something else, but all they have done so far is make two more Halo games. Alan Wake looks incredible, but we already knew that. I wish it would just come out already. Alan Wake = Game of the Year 2010. I'm calling it. Splinter Cell: Conviction may well be GOTY 2009. I liked what I saw, at least.

Metal Gear Solid Rising should be good. Maybe a little more gameplay than MGS4 offered, maybe? Please? I loved MGS4, but 5 hours of gameplay and 10 hours of cinemas is not a good ratio.

And, finally, Natal. We've seen this all before. Sony tried it with the Eye Toy. Microsoft tried it already with the Vision Cam. But the whole motion sensing camera thing hasn't worked that well so far. I do have to say that the Natal looks to be leaps and bounds better than either of those two as far as pure tech. This is going to be a very advanced little device. If it can deliver what Microsoft showed off, it should be pretty special. At the very least, Milo from Peter Molyneux looked amazingly good. I also liked the voice recognition and controller-free ways of browsing the dashboard and doing that sort of stuff. I can see myself using it just for that even if the games don't turn out that good.

I also have to say that I'm happy Microsoft is intentionally steering clear of making a Wii-mote type of device. I think it is pretty clear now that a wand or remote motion sensing device can't really deliver on what we all thought it could back when Nintendo first announced it. And, no, Wii Motion Plus isn't going to fix these problems because it goes a lot deeper than just needing to be more precise, but this isn't an article about the Wii. What Microsoft is attempting to do is to give you full 1-to-1 control of not just your arms, but your whole body. And to give you full control over what you are doing instead of locking you into preset animations and motions. If they pull it off, Natal could be spectacular. But, most importantly, Microsoft is keeping it all optional. Traditional games with the standard controller are still going to make up the vast majority of releases. If you don't like Natal or don't want to use it, you don't have to, which already puts it a step above the Wii in my book.