Microsoft E3 2012 Conference Round-up - Article

Tweet

Halo 4

We got a first look at Halo 4’s single-player campaign, featuring Master Chief in a mysterious alien jungle, fighting both Covenant forces and planet wild-life. 

Bringing back the element of the unknown is what’s looking best about Halo 4. While the Covenant will certainly play a factor in the game, the new setting and Forerunner technology-based enemies bring back the level of mysteriousness that’s been missing from the series since the first game. 

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

The newest addition to the Splinter Cell series was announced, subtitled Blacklist. Looking to follow up on 2010’s more action-oriented Splinter Cell: Conviction, Blacklist brings back Sam’s “Mark and Execute” ability,  

This entry also seems to be moving more into the action territory, showcasing Sam running head-on into enemy fire.

Possibly most interesting were the showcased Kinect features. Using Kinect’s voice commands, players can call out to enemies to lure them away from their posts, then silently dispatch them out of sight. After saying “Grim, now!”, Sam would call in a missile strike from series-mainstay Anna Grimsdóttír. While the continued focus on action set-pieces may be disappointing for long-term fans of the stealth series, it’ll certainly be interesting to see what newcomer Ubisoft Toronto brings to the series. 

Gears of War: Judgement

Microsoft also officially unveiled Gears of War: Judgement, which has been building up hype since last week. Unfortunately, all we got was a relatively short trailer, featuring a younger Baird as assumedly the new protagonist, once again facing off against the Locust horde in a prequel to the original trilogy. 

Microsoft didn’t really put too much attention on the fact that this entry into the series is being developed by Bulletstorm developer People Can Fly, which is unsurprising considering Bulletstorm didn’t really blow up the sales charts. However, considering Bulletstorm won our coveted “Best First-Person Shooter” award of last year, we’re excited to see what People Can Fly can do with the Gears franchise. 

Forza: Horizon

Microsoft followed with an announcement for Forza: Horizon, though the following trailer didn’t really reveal too much info on the game, other than that the game will feature lots and lots of cars. 

Resident Evil 6

Capcom showed off a quick demo of Resident Evil 6, featuring fan favorite Leon Kennedy and new character Ellen, with what appeared to be classic, slow, T-Virus zombies. Unfortunately, the game seemed to contradict rumors that Resident Evil 6 would be going back to its survival-horror roots, as the demo was fairly action packed. Still no word on whether or not the game will feature Resident Evil 5 style co-op, or if sections of the game will only feature one character. 

Smart Glass 

Microsoft announced a big new service feature for Xbox 360 called Smart Glass. The new service will allow you to stream content from your tablets and smart phones (Android, iOS, and Windows 8) onto your Xbox 360. Unfortunately this seems limited to media purchased from Microsoft's Xbox Live services (like movies, music, and games, which are already integrated into Xbox 360).

Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider had an impressive new gameplay reveal. Lara was shown murdering her way through enemies with a bow, setting fire to them by using flaming arrows on gasoline and shooting down lit lanterns on their heads. Numerous set-pieces presented themselves throughout, putting Lara in panicky survival situations. The whole thing came across as a great, adrenaline-filled adventure.

Kinect Voice Commands

Continuing Kinect’s use of voice commands, EA showed off the ability to play as either a Football manager or an NFL quarterback in FIFA and Madden.  Joe Montana was on hand to demo the Madden voice commands and seemed to genuinely enjoy it, which isn’t always the case with celebrity presenters. 

 XBLA game announcements

Three new IPs were announced from the makers of Toy Soldiers, Explosion Man, and Pirates of the Caribbean (yes, the movie).  Not much can be said for Ascend: New Gods, LocoCycle, and Matter, since the trailers were less than a minute each, but all of these developers/creators have a good pedigree behind them so there’s reason to keep an eye out.

 South Park: The Stick of Truth

Matt and Trey of South Park fame made an appearance for one of the most honestly funny moments of the conference, when they asked if you’d ever watched South Park and wanted to play it in your TV, while it was being controlled by your tablet, streaming through your phone, and connected to your fridge.  They also talked about how South Park: The Stick of Truth forced them to map out South Park for the first time ever so you can navigate your way from Stan’s house to the School or vice versa.  Sadly there was no release date mentioned, but Matt and Trey promised that they were going back to work immediately after leaving the conference.

Dance Central 3

The next dancing title from Harmonix was announced with plenty of Usher.  He said that he helped work on Dance Central 3's dance routines.  Not much was said but the press release announced that there will be a new eight player multiplayer mode as well as 40 new tracks including artists like: 50 Cent, Cobra Starship, and, of course, Usher. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Set in the not-too-distant future in City of Angels (L.A.), where America’s unmanned war assets are turned against us.  Gameplay showed an escort mission where you are using an X-ray sniper scope to guard the President during a full-scale assault.  The bar seems to have been raised but we’ll have to wait until November 13^th to see for ourselves.

More Articles