E3 2011 Impressions: Microsoft

The stage is brightly lit, almost as if it were extracting all light within the conference center, and leaving the audience with anticipation that's dense as the dark surrounding them. A voice then welcomes the crowd, as the theater above suddenly illuminates with the Xbox logo. The presentation immediately transitions to business, with one of the most anticipated sequels of the year being demonstrated to the conference attendees, and kicking off the forum of upcoming releases for Microsoft’s catalog of 2011.

The scenes above portray Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Infinity Ward’s latest effort along with the collaboration of Sledgehammer Games. The First Person shooter that was recently rumored before being leaked was now getting played through a campaign scenario, which involved the underwater infiltration of an enemy submarine. The attention to detail will immediately flood your retinas, as you absorb the underwater environment of what appears to be a sunken subway tunnel; you'll then traverse forward to your objective. The Tunnel comes to a close when a pipeline then progresses the infiltration, where debris and sunken corpses enter your view. Within these few scenes, Infinity Ward has managed to find the balance of presenting an exaggerated scenario in a believably realistic fashion; this likens to the sensation one would feel playing Uncharted, only for a First-person military shooter. The genre -- despite its saturated presence within the marketplace of today’s video games -- has done little to evolve what makes it good, and has regurgitated familiar settings and premises that have only hurt it from these recycled efforts. Referring back to the footage, you journey through the underwater minefield, where the setting grows more and more desperate the further you travel. The target enemy submarine then appears from behind, as you stay stationary in order to not alert any possibility of being detected by the vessel; you’re then given the authority to engage the propellers of the target, and plant the explosive through a contextual command.

The scene then allows jumps to the submarine’s compulsive retreat to the surface, and engages the true objective.  As the intrusion within the submarine is executed, analyzing the animation to speculate what the control and feel will be like, there’s a sense of realistic recoil with each bullet fired. Enemy soldiers were gunned down through your offensive trek to the control deck; that kind of feedback in your shots only adds to the depth that this genre severely needs, in order to remain relevant within the game scene. Within mere feet of the control deck, a contextual command appears to plant explosives and blast the door open; this is followed by a bullet-time scene, which wasn’t arbitrary. As the door careens through the air, the sensation of slowed time to kill all enemies within vicinity only captured an artificial perception of adrenaline, that only adds the immersion that modern video games are supposed to add within the first place. The boat chase that follows the escape of the submarine is done with the attention to details of the games presentation. Overall, Modern Warfare 3 does show potential in breaking from the mold; its predecessors had shaped the genre before it but judgment remains to be reserved until it is played.

As the promise of time exclusive downloadable content and revolutionized entertainment trailed the end of the Modern Warfare 3 preview, the re-envisioned Tomb Raider was to appear next before our eyes. The footage starts with the heroine Lara Croft portrayed in a way she has never been portrayed before. Where every Tomb Raider before it depicted Lara as this cool, calm, confident, and infallible explorer with plenty of experience and adventures under her belt, This Lara was held captive, terrified, and anxious, with no inclination of how she will even survive this predicament. Tomb Raider was being presented in this whole new light where the player could now relate and empathize with its protagonist, where witty remarks and the misinterpreted charisma of a shallow over-inflated ego would be replaced by this new Lara. As the gameplay trailer begins, Lara is wrapped in what appears to be a ritualistic torture cocoon within a catacomb seeping with all of these visual of torment and anguish.  As the player swings Lara back and forth, her shivering within some fevered state, she collides with what appear to be another cocoon full of aged corpses that is then also pushed into a sacramental display of candles, lighting the material on fire. The ancient body bag then spread the fire towards Lara’s restraints, as the fire also burns her legs; she is then dropped from her jailed layer onto the ground, where a jagged bone breaks her fall and pierces through the left of her abdomen. The player then follows the instruction of the following contextual command, in order to rip the bone out of her body with such a visceral display of pain.

Lara tries to quiet her weeps of agony, as to not alert her captors while traversing through the caverns. Holding her gut wound to prevent bleeding out, the camera shifts through the outside perspective of shaken dizziness and blurred imagery to empathize Lara’s current mental and physical state; this mechanic of gameplay reinforces the bridge of immersion the game has displayed so far, as well as bringing the player close to the common ground of caring for the protagonist. Lara is stumbling through the cavern in her ailing state, the dialogue of her confusion adds to the tension of the trailer. She comes across another sacramental shrine where a corpse is hung as if part of some twisted ritual; it’s implied that Lara recognizes the body which only amplifies her terror. Without hands-on gameplay, there can only be speculation as to how the game will feel. Within minutes of witnessing the entire game in action, it displays an impression of intuitive control, both in Lara’s actions and response to the contextual commands with the stage that’s being maneuvered through. Lara is attacked by some primitive assailant; that can only suggest he is in league with the same enemy who kept her captive. The confrontation is controlled by a quick time event but one that is brief and subtle, and that didn’t take away from the apprehension of Lara’s struggle. Lara is then stopped by a pile of debris that obstructs her from progressing any further. The intuitive display of control and acknowledgement of Lara’s actions through varied contextual commands is reinforced through refined visual clues, keeping the flow while never disengaging the player from the immersion of the situation itself. With the pile of debris destroyed, the cavernous chamber starts flooding with water, which causes the catacombs to start caving in. The action sequence of Lara’s escape finds you poised on the edge of your seat, between the escape of continuing attackers and refined quick-time events where appropriate. The trailer ends off with Lara’s violent emergence into the surface, outside of the Catacomb’s dangers. If the same amount of detail is given to the Tomb Raider reboot through the entire game, I can whole-heartily say that it will do more than give Uncharted a quote-unquote, "run for its money." Though speculation of implied intuitiveness, however, can only do so much until the game is played.

With Tomb Raider finished, Peter Moore then approaches the stage with light-hearted humor towards the familiarity of the Microsoft stage. He goes on to announce that several EA titles will feature Kinect Augmentation. The enhancement of traditional styled control with the support of Kinect is where the real innovative potential can be found, and it’s refreshing to see EA acknowledge it. Examples include Madden ’12 giving the player the option of calling out an audible for plays involving voice recognition, or the physics tracking of a golf swing within Tiger Woods Pro tour ’12. EA then displays the possibilities of what Kinect can do for one of its biggest upcoming releases, Mass Effect 3. Dr. Ray Muzyka approaches the stage on behalf of Bioware (Andrew’s secret male crush). A scene involving Mass Effect’s famous contextual dialogue tree is displayed with voice recognition, with a very simple yet sly execution method. Speaking the statements within the tree to follow the dialogue associated with the choice of statement does engage the player further into the role of Commander Shepard. Along with being able to use your voice for tactical placement of your squadron, and activation of their special abilities completely eliminates any thought into accessing a menu or macro command; this launches through button presses in the heat of battle, when they can be declared through intuitive voice commands. The premise of this kind of voice control in the established design of Mass Effect only furthers my resolve to just get through the damn game already. Mass Effect 3 wasn’t fully shown of course, being as this was reserved for the EA conference but this attention to detail with Kinect kept in mind will hopefully set a standard for the accessibility that Microsoft wishes to attain, with Kinect being in the household of 360 owners.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier then played through a promotional trailer, with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemo greeting the crowd with the promise of Kinect augmentation. Ubisoft displayed the potential of Kinect support, however it didn’t appear to be intuitive through its entire presentation. When customization leaned towards the firearms, the display of the shooting mechanics involved with Kinect just displayed a very awkward presentation. Microsoft can truly capitalize on Kinect when it’s implemented appropriately, despite all of the revolutions it brings to motion control; it’s still much too limited for anything that matches the grossly ambitious expectations Microsoft has for it. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is a perfect example, if what was shown on stage is any indication on where Ubisoft plans to go with Kinect support for it. The awkward posturing and cryptic contextual sensitivities involved for precise maneuvering -- through situations that involve crack-shot firing and sensible survival -- is when the player finds themselves hunched over with their face looking into a non-existent scope, that’s disproportionate to what’s on screen while mimicking stress-ball squeeze motions for trigger pulls ... you’re doing it wrong Ubisoft; this is the kind of shit that’s going to doom the Kinect.

The announcement of all future Tom Clancy Titles being set to fully support Kinect usage can actually spell trouble, if it’s anything like what was displayed on stage with Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. We can only hope that Ghost Recon plays the martyr to convince Ubisoft on changing directions in its path to encourage Kinect being a staple within every 360 owner’s home.

Marc Whitten appears on the stage to showcase what the next Xbox Live dashboard will work like. With promises of Kinect augmentation, allowing for seamless navigation through all of the functionality of the 360 dashboard for gaming and Xbox Live through motioned gesture or voice commands, I couldn’t help but feel déjà vu.  As he prattled on, these same promises were given to us with Kinect…last year. The Kinect has been anything but intuitive to the point where it still actually holds no place within the current dashboard, and actually has its owned bare bones version of the dashboard, in which it can operate in with limited selection of what a gamer can actually do using the Kinect and the Kinect alone. Along with piss-poor voice support and a laughable process involving its use with Netflix, Kinect has been anything but intuitive within Microsoft’s projections of quote-unquote, "A truly revolutionary experience." The newest dashboard, however, appears to show promise, as it was showcased to have full voice support within navigation. The new dashboard further exhibit’s integration with the Bing search engine that is augmented with voice control through Kinect use, which can possibly provide the seamless interaction that Microsoft is pushing to have within the homes of gamers; this -- along with YouTube -- gives the Dashboard more substance. 

Dana White then shoots out onto the stage to announce a UFC application specific to the Xbox dashboard, which does a lot for UFC fans but not much for anything else. However, the premise of that interactivity can be implemented into the ESPN experience, so far as other sports are concerned. Cliff Bleszinski approached the stage later -- also joined by Ice-T -- as they showcase gameplay in a trailer depicting Cogs on a ship being attacked by a sea creature that was infected by the lambent epidemic. The campaign showed off concepts one would expect from Gears of War, though the new mechanic of the Silverback mech-suit displayed mechanics involving your partner's use of the other player, who's riding the Silverback as cover. Along with the newer weapons and streamlined interface that was utilized within the beta, Gears of War 3 does show promise to be the best in the series yet.

The next previews that followed were promotional trailers that exhibited upcoming first party releases from Microsoft. Ryse, a game that appeared to take place within war-torn Rome, portrayed a promotional trailer explaining its premise along with the combat within gameplay. Between using the shield to defend and the headbutt that followed, the game's suggesting a very intuitive use of what appears to be a seamless combat system, but the reality can be poor contextual response and limited options. Also through what one could only speculate from over-analyzing the brief glimpse of movement, the game also appears to be an on-rails ala Dragon Quest Swords for the Wii. The trailer being shown through a more promotional standpoint, as opposed to in-game only adds to the skepticism as well.

The next trailer presented Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Remake Edition, which promised a remastered campaign but may more or less be complete graphical facelift with newer Halo conventions that were never present in the first game; this could include Dual-wielding and the supplemental weapon accessories. The game does promise CO-OP over Xbox Live but does nothing different, other than being a labored love letter to the fans of the series.

Forza Motor Sport 4 was played shortly after, displaying new brands and a bigger focus on community modes like Car Clubs that can provide additional options for fans to sanction events; this was exciting to hear but doesn’t do much of anything else to evolve what its predecessors established within their respective franchise before. We were then greeted to the arrival of Molyneux, who came on stage to promote Fable: The Journey, a Kinect-only game within the series that furthers the misuse of developing games that appropriately take advantage of Kinect. The Game did display an impressive use of intricate hand motions for magic spells, akin to Child of Eden, but that’s just the thing; it was yet another Kinect game that was on-rails, once again proving that despite how revolutionary the Kinect can be for innovating game experiences, it is not without its gross limitations.

Minecraft coming to XBLA was quite possibly the most welcome surprise of the conference. Thankfully the game will only support Kinect augmentation; whether or not the game will feature some sort of cloud interface that will be able to be shared amongst PC, IOS and Android OS is yet to be seen but also very doubtful. Kinect Disneyland Adventures was then shown but came off as a shameless cash-in mini-game collection. The one praise of note that can be given to the game is that the entire Disneyland park is faithfully recreated to an almost immaculate detail (sans the over priced merchandise or yuppie child predators). Kinect Star wars then came on and portrayed something different: a third-person over the shoulder view, with what appeared to be free movement (sluggish free movement, but none of the less free). The only issue was how the player was able to freely move in the game with no prior explanation, no visual cues from the person controlling it. The fact it was just being done on-screen only enforced the apprehension towards yet another deceptive portrayal towards Kinect. I will concede to giving the game the benefit of the doubt, as it hopes to achieve something considerably challenging within using Kinect as the sole control interface but is doing so through the most intuitive methods available, without some arbitrary contextual garbage or cryptic movement.

Tim Schaffer than bursted out onto the scene, with Double Fine’s weirdest project yet: a Sesame Street licensed game centered completely around Kinect. This game, however, was quite honestly one of the most impressive... but why? Because, the Kinect is fully utilized and feels far from arbitrary. Watching an episode of Sesame Street on television, the characters of the show often try to interact with its child audience, and imply that they acknowledge the response the child gives back to the famous educational Muppets. Kinect completely bridges that boundary and delivers something faithful to the experience of watching the show, on a whole different level that a child can do along with their parents; this attention to details is only enforced by the respect that was given towards the license and soure material by Schaffer and Double Fine.

When Kinect was Project Natal, the trailer originally showcased the promise of real time Face scanning, object scanning, and finger tracking. Kinect Fun Labs has finally made that a reality. As a bonus, it was revealed that the game would be available for free, and hitting the XBLA Marketplace the day of the conference. Along with sequels of the more successful Kinect titles like Dance Central 2 and Kinect Sports: Season 2, enhancements towards simultaneous CO-OP play was announced but the entire emphasis on the local multiplayer is compounded by the extremely common limitation of have too small of a play-space to even activate these features. The conference ended with Microsoft, in collaboration with 343 Studios, announcing a new trilogy within the Halo universe starting with a teaser trailer for Halo 4. It seems while other franchise are in dire need of a sequel (ahem... Shenmue 3), Microsoft just can’t let go of their decade long cash cow. So instead of granting a quiet and honorable death, we’ll be subject to business practices comparable to Activision once more. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic to see that the Kinect is finally being utilized; I’ve been an owner since launch and it's been recently reduced to a dusted paperweight that lives behind my TV, like a bitter troll. However, if Kinect isn’t approved upon or used properly, then it’s going to be the U-Force of this gaming generation, leaving gamers too jaded towards adopting any successors towards the hands-free motion scene of video game play. Only time will tell really.