Gamertell

Never before have I ever been as excited about announcements from a keynote as I am right now from the Microsoft keynote that took place yesterday (June 1, 2009) afternoon.

Admittedly, I was falling asleep through the beginning of the show listening to the people drone on and on about their games, many of which just didn’t grab my attention.

Getting the remaining Beatles band members to come onto a stage like this is quite the feat for all parties involved – that would be Harmonix, us, and the Beatles themselves. Normally, seeing the chances of seeing media dodgy members like them wouldn’t happen if the world were ending, but that’s just a testament to how popular and relevant things like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are making games in today’s culture and it helps they were there to promote a game with their name on it but still.

It echoes back to last year’s E3 (2008) when The Who actually played a gig for the crowd – a crowd of games journalists and more or less fans. This is a whole different piece for another time however and these are way too many words to spend on a game I most likely won’t be buying – I love the Beatles but I don’t think I can justify the price of admission on this one.

Tony Hawk’s Ride made me wonder why this franchise hasn’t learned its lesson yet. Skateboard accessories aren’t going to save a stale game but I suppose the name Tony Hawk will sell… somewhat maybe?

The only game that really excited me was Epic’s 2.5D game, Shadow Complex. It’s basically a hodgepodge of every great 2D game thrown together in a giant melting pot and cooked almost to perfection – the game glitched during the live demo. Castlevania meets Metroid meets Contra meets Bionic Commando in a hot, sweaty orgy of Epic proportions to pop out the bastard child of fandom, that should be the advertising quote for Shadow Complex. I can’t wait for this summer.
Halo ODST looks like… well, Halo. Modern Warfare 2 looked like a million other FPS games and my point is that without playing these games, it’s hard to tell whether or not I’m interested so why show them outside of a trailer?

Splinter Cell: Conviction looks like it did in previous showings but now we have promises of a release window!

Alan Wake is still alive! Man, that was a long demo though. Way too long to watch some guy playing though it did look both good visually and peaked my interest.

Facebook implementation on Xbox 360? Really? Whatever, I guess it’s everywhere anyway, why not my 360?

! Metal Gear on Xbox 360! I saw this coming, for some reason I felt this year was going to be the year when the classic flame war ammunition of Metal Gear would finally be thrown from the Xbox 360 army. I’m just glad it’s finally out of the way.

Metal Gear Rising, there’s not much to say about it other than how long until it hits? Oh, and thanks for letting us take over cyborg ninja Raiden or at least making us think we will be. How long before we see it though, 5 years again? 6 maybe? Let me know Kojima Productions!

The funny thing about this keynote was, the minute my girlfriend stopped watching it; Microsoft brought out the good stuff. This is funny because my girlfriend can’t stand a lot of technology talk and that’s exactly what I was hoping for and exactly what Microsoft gave me.

Browsing Netflix instant queue titles from the box – finally! Having to pull out the laptop or my iPhone to queue things up wasn’t that hard but it’s nice to now that I will have to use one less device.

Instant streaming of Xbox Live (or is it Zune now?) movies and they are in “full” 1080p resolution. I’ll believe this when I see it. I know they showed it working in during the announcement but thing is, they are probably using a T1 connection, something most of us don’t have access to.

On-demand retail games, the disc-less future is approaching kids. Get used to it.

The new convenience of Xbox Live’s pipeline service to my living room is certainly exciting, but I can’t help but be skeptical. Thing is, even if Microsoft gets things up and running as promised there’s a load of things that could go wrong, the biggest of which is out of their hands.

For starters, there are the massive server strains that are inevitable. Microsoft’s servers go down about once or twice a year and usually the outages last a good while. I can already see the comments on various threads screaming at Microsoft for offering more than they can handle. Hopefully Microsoft has a nice server farm somewhere on standby to handle the worldwide load.

Then there are the Internet providers. Anyone with an Internet connection knows that Internet providers are stingy with bandwidth, instituting ridiculous bandwidth caps on consumer plans that just aren’t going to be worth using on our Xbox 360s alone. Not to mention the speeds needed to make these services worth attempting in the first place. Hey Microsoft! FiOS isn’t everywhere yet!

Now here’s the part where I gush about Project Natal.

It’s some amazing technology that I honestly can’t wait to try out. Which is weird for me to say considering that I haven’t been able to jump on the whole motion in video gaming bandwagon. It always seemed like a gimmick to me, waving your arms around like a mad man attacking imaginary foes while drunk on peyote and listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club backwards. You know what I mean?

Natal really opened my eyes by showing me not just a new way to do motion in video games, but a new environment altogether. Leave it to Peter Molyneaux to show me exactly what I needed to see.

The demonstration by Mr. Molyneaux and Lionhead Studio, of the animated character Milo really wowed me. The way you could interact with him by actually handing him a piece of paper or “catch” a pair of goggles was fascinating. Unfortunately, this technology is a long way off but already has me excited about the future of gaming. I just wonder how hard developing games for Natal will be? How long will it take to get the next Fable or anything for that matter?

While I should be reserving judgment, what can Sony or Nintendo really bring to the table that would trump Microsoft at this point? Microsoft has made it clear that the Xbox 360 is fast becoming the all around home entertainment experience that Sony wanted (or wants) the PlayStation 3 to be and Nintendo, who knows what Nintendo wants at this point? They already have the best selling console and handheld so I’m sure they will be kicking it easy.

Later today (June 2, 2009) we’ll hear both companies’ answers to Microsoft’s keynote and I really hope they both respond strongly, but I can’t shake the feeling of disappointment.

Maybe I just drank too much Kool Aid?

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