Microsoft Conference Impressions

So last year we tried a little something where all the staff have a little chat during the E3 conferences. We tried it again this year for Microsoft’s press conference, and after heavily editing Michaels foul mouth the results are laid out below for you to see. A lot of this is our stream of consciousness so apologies in advance if not everything makes sense.

So the conference kicked off with a demo of Call of Duty: Black Ops. Here’s the staff’s response to the next game in the renowned series:

Chris: I’m no FPS fan, but this does look good

Kris: The lighting is actually very nice. Like the sloshy sound in the mud as well

Nofi: Sorry, this is a terrible demo.

Chris: not as bad as the ice climb last year

colossalblue: it’s beHIND you!

Murdo Connochie: Lovely dust effects

Nofi: Trees are nice, though. It’s like Oblivion with a helicopter. And less swords.

Michael: Ok, so this is actually a rubbish and boring demo. I am sure the game will be ok, but this is actually really dull.

colossalblue: It is stunningly pretty though isn’t it? I thought World at War was very pretty too. I like Treyarch.

Nofi: Yes, it’s gorgeous.

Kris: I’m not sure how they managed to make a helicopter battle kinda dull

Michael: They should do an Airwolf game.

As you can see, some people liked how the game looked, although not everyone was Next up was Hideo Kojima with what I felt was a great looking trailer for MGS: Rising. Opinion amongst the rest of the staff was a little more split.

Lewis: Kojima with 360…it’s like finding your wife in bed with another man…only more painful

Kris: Well this cutscene is pretty. That’s a lot of bullets. Seems wasteful

Murdo: Feet are too small.

Greg: HIs sword’s quite sharp.

Peter: did he just punch a severed pelvis? pervert

Chris: Kojima game in cutscene shock!!!!

Nofi: To be fair, the cutting is incredible. I want to cut up vans. And melons.

Lewis: woah

Kris: Ok cutting down the environment is cool

Peter: cutting up vans like in Super Street Fighter!

Greg: there’s your melon

Lewis: Parents are gonna have a field day with that one

Kris: Realistic Melon physics!

Michael: You play this with Kinect, right?

Colin: That looked great

Michael: That looked rubbish.

That’s right Rising had it all; bullets, pelvis punching, melons, seriously what on earth more could Michael ask? What does it take to make him rate a game positively? Does Jessica Alba have to come through the game and hug him? I’d say things were about to turn around for him, but I honestly can’t remember. Anyway Gears of War 3 is up next.

Chris: Gearz time

Murdo: Nice arm physics

Lewis: He’s ‘armless ;)

Murdo: Looks very grey

Greg: Did his chainsaw bayonette run out of petrol?

Murdo: This just looks slow, clunky and brown.

Kris: Shooting off arms looks fun

Greg: Beast mode?  Play as the Horde?

Now you’d think that after all of that moaning about dullness maybe we’d move onto something people cared about. I’d like to tell you that, but it’s simply not true. In fact there was so little comment about Fable 3 I literally have nothing to write here. At all. Or the new Crytek game, for which the only comments boiled down to “it exists”. So I guess that Halo: Reach is up next.

Chris: Halo y-a-w-n

Kris: Woo Halo

Peter: Reach looks really good though. Not the Multiplayer, obviously but the single player looks good.

Nofi: Ah, this looks ace.

Kris: This is looking good

Chris: Some very low detail on background and floor, almost like a multiplayer game

Greg: They’ve certainly cranked the HALO engine up a notch or two.

Peter: same engine, stripped and rebuilt.

Chris: oh, more tunnels and corridors in a space station :|

Nofi: It’s space, Chris, what do you want, a carnival?

Chris: At least KZ swaps envirnments every release, not the exactly the same thing 4 times running

Kris: Man a carnival would be kinda awesome

Peter: space carnival.

Peter: space combat? No thanks.

Nofi: SALE LOST.

Kris: I get to fly a space ship?

Nofi: No you don’t, Kris. YOU DON’T.

Chris: So, Halo Reach is Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST with a higher rez, great

Peter: shush, Sony fanboy.

And at about 750 words that’s where we’re going to take a break. Why? Well it’s at this point that the conference moved onto Kinect, which in all fairness could benefit from its own discussion. I don’t think any of you want to read us talk insanely about games for now, so we’ll return to this tomorrow morning.