Late E3 reflections, Part M

Sorry for not actually throwing anything out there while E3 was still ticking away. Wasn't really sure on what to write about. We'll start with the Microsoft keynote, and how it wasn't really all that impressive.

I was giddy as I watched along with everyone else, but perhaps was more excited about E3 in general than what the keynote was actually made of. The keynote started with a very quick run-through of existent and known games. Call of Duty, Gears of War, Halo, were all very stunning, but were too transient - there was a short demo or trailer, but very soon passed along to the next title. There was no real surprises - Halo Reach alluded to some outer-space dogfighting, but nothing all too stunning. The big titles that would usually receive a large slice of attention were hurried along.

Then it came to Kinect-hour. It was during this hour that Microsoft summoned the actor/model families - a bunch of 'regular' people enjoying the experience we once called Natal. It was unnerving - they had somehow found a way to manifest the uncanny valley right there in the theater. There was a lot about the Kinect already known - both from official releases, as well as leaks and insider previews. Quite a few of the game titles seemed interesting enough, if not particularly original. If anything, I was more impressed by third party ideas like Harmonix's Dance Central, or even Ubisoft's Your Shape Fitness Evolved. Some of the features I, at the time, thought would be interesting as augmentations to the traditional hard-controller, but more on that later.

Perhaps the most eye-catching thing about Microsoft's keynote was the reveal of the new Xbox 360 model, a sleek glossy little brother to the older machine. As Don Mattrick revealed it, having been sitting under the shell of the old design, which had been sitting on stage the entire time, I couldn't help but grin. Microsoft's lenient pricing also proved to sit well with the members of the press, who were all given a unit for free for being at the keynote. Of quirky note, the new model forgoes red LEDs, meaning they literally cannot RRoD.

The Microsoft keynote failed to deliver for me - it lacked a showing of the core catalog of games, but redeemed itself in part by introducing a quieter, more efficient system. Kinect doesn't impress me as much as it used to - the limitations of the system seem a bit too great. I'll save that for another day.