Microsoft Conference
The show all really started off with the one of the three big press conferences, first up was Microsoft and they had some surprises up their sleeves, the show started at 10:31am PST with Don Mattrick taking center stage and welcoming everyone to the show.
The first game on the agenda was FallOut 3, now the gameplay footage looks pretty nice, despite a little slowdown on my end with the music having a sort of BioShock-meets-Half Life vibe, which was quite interesting. It was also announced that FallOut 3 would have downloadable content although the details weren't revealed.
At this point Don Mattrick moves to the side and Jun Takeuchi stepped out to introduce Resident Evil 5, the first playable demo of the game was shown with the protagonist named Chris Redfield looking pretty tough with tons of gear. The demo also showed off Sheva, the new playable character, and how she can team up with Chris to take down the bad guys in Resident Evil 5.
Jun Takeuchi said that the teaming-up mechanic would be integral to the gameplay in Resident Evil 5. Also, shown was a new, super-creepy enemy… but then the demo was over. What a teaser! Jun Takeuchi also said that Resident Evil 5 will come out worldwide (simultaneous release) on Friday the 13th of March 2009 Creepy!
Then Jun Takeuchi left and Peter Molyneux made his entrance to talk about Fable 2. He tells everyone that it's finished. The Fable 2 trailer shown was very cinematic, showing off the landscapes, a super-detailed town, and a bird poop surprise for some moppets on the street. Nice! Peter then showed off a demo of the game, demonstrating co-op over live. You can invite other players into your game on the fly, at any time in the story.
Peter also said that you can get married in Fable 2, have a house, a family, what have you. The ability to make real decisions and affect everything in the world - and this will carry over into co-op. And best off all it's coming this year that's right it's coming in October 2008
Then the lights went down was Peter left the stage and Cliffy B made his return to the E3 stage and said its time for a Gears of War 2 trailer, It's the most anticipated game of any platform this winter. He played a live demo to show off the game, the set pieces looked fantastic, plus there are plenty of fire and bad guys. The new Gears cover system was shown in full effect. The game is looking hot - literally. During the demo you could see Marcus (the protagonist) is making his escape in a crappy old elevator, then goes back into the warzone. Awesome stuff and it's gives yet another BioShock flashback. But best of all was the new mode that was announced, called “Horde” it's basically a multiplayer mode where up to 5 players can take on wave after wave of enemies, plus the game is set for worldwide release November 7, 2008.
From this point the shown went downhill with the developers talking about how well the Xbox 360 has done and how it will crush Sony and Nintendo by 2009. They also talked about the new Xbox Live designs along with a new more trailers for games like Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (looked awesome), Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise which looked as gorgeous, as ever.
Other announcements included things like the original N64 game of Banjo-Kazooie will be made available on Xbox Live alongside the new game, a party-game: Scene IT? Box Office Smash using the 1-button controller, You're in the Movies - where you actually make lame, hilarious B movies using the camera and doing actual motions, looks funny, very family-oriented. This is very Wii-esque.
But the only other games shown were Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band 2, Infinite Undiscovery which will be released 2nd September in North America, 5th September in Europe, and the 11th September in Asia. Star Ocean: The Last Hope hits in Spring 2009, The Last Remnant comes this holiday season, November 20th.
At this point I lost interest until Yoichi Wada; president of Square Enix interrupts Don Mattrick for another announcement! A trailer starts, it shows a faraway angle, hard to make out, but there are swooping shots of… airships? Cinematic music… Panzer Dragoon is that you? No, it was Final Fantasy XIII - what a coup… The crowd seemed very pleased and so do Mattrick and Wada. Wada is says that many PlayStation franchises are coming to the Xbox 360. Rub it in! And that's where the Microsoft Press Conference ended at exactly 12:06pm PST.
EA Conference
Later that day at 3:00pm PST it was EA's turn to shine at E3, the show started with Rod Humble introducing a new game, SimAnimals, and teased the upcoming Sims 3, “Imagine you lived your entire life inside your house, and then someone opened the door.” Then Glen Schofield took over and talked about Dead Space (Xbox 360, PS3) featuring Zero-G and “strategic dismemberment.”
Next up was Patrick Soderland from EA Games Euro and he demoed Mirror's Edge (boring!) Will Wright talked about Spore and had a (gasp) PowerPoint presentation. Not much new except that 2 million creatures are currently in existence thanks to Creature Creator.
Now Peter Moore took the stage by storm with a huge round of applause from the audience and he introduced Bill Walton who presented the EA Sports games including NBA Live 09 and the “Dynamic DNA” feature that is promised to help create more realistic acting players. “Team DNA” will help teams work together. Also Nanea Reeves talked about EA Online games and Nucleus which is cross platform (mobile/others). Natalie Gulbis followed this; she showed off the new Wii “All-Play” including a golf game, she played against Peter Moore (very exciting and funny).
Then Shawn Fanning (Napster's creator) talked about Rupture and “Social Achievements” which be added to many of EA's games (WOW). Now I started to lose interest again as this sounded boring but then Travis Boatmn entered and talked about EA Mobile and iPhone games with Tetris, Scrabble and Sudoku on display.
Other announcements included BioWare's Greg Zeschuk showing a Dragon Age: Origins trailer. Valve's Gabe Newell talked about Left 4 Dead (November 4, 2008, for PC and Xbox 360) and how the game will adjust to players' levels Then finally ID's John Carmack was on stage to announce that EA will be publishing Rage. (Sorry Activision) And that was the end of Day One for E3 2008.
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