There are a few things that are going to warrant posts of their own, but a lot of what happened at X08 doesn't need a whole lot of discussion. Here's the quick and dirty on how the day went;

• Had a few minutes hands on with Lips and was surprisingly underwhelmed. It felt like a poor man's SingStar. Mind you it was clearly an early demo and a good deal of what will set Lips apart doesn't exist yet, so take my opinion for what it's worth. INiS has yet to disappoint so I'm still holding out hope.
• Spoke with Jason Ing, Product Manager for Live Arcade. Discussed their quality over quantity initiative that kicked off with the delisting discussion and has shown it's merit with the Summer of Arcade. Also asked him about the Braid pricing fiasco. More on that to come.
• New dashboard was only fake showable. It was a flash demo and exactly what was shown at E3. They didn't really have any answers to our dashboard questions, either: Will Avatars be optional or required? Can I play games like 1 vs. 100 without one? No news isn't always good news, so assume you're stuck with them.
• Capcom didn't make the event, so no Dark Void or Street Fighter IV for me. Boo-urns.
• Gears of War 2 mulltiplayer was expectedly awesome. The maps we played around on were pretty solid, and the changes to gameplay were instantly noticeable and welcome. Two things I liked best? Crawling away behind cover when injured and button-mashing chainsaw duels.
• Highlights of the event were UNLEASHED! Specifically Sonic Unleashed and Star Wars: Force Unleashed. Get ready for the first good Sonic game in a long time people -- this thing is SWEET. The day levels are fast and the gameplay is smooth. The transitions from 3D to 2D are downright seamless, and there's no stopping and starting like previous games. At night it turns into a combo heavy action game as Sonic takes wolf form, and is equally as killer.
• Force Unleashed was probably the best looking game I've seen in terms of gameplay, environments and art design I've seen this year. They nail the Star Wars vibe while dishing out a fast-paced action title. If you asked me to pick my game of show, this would be it.
• Other strong showings in my book? Tomb Raider Underworld and Mortal Kombat vs. DC.
• Spoke with XNA team. Community Games are on track for this fall. When I asked about quality control (especially considering how much effort is being put into it with Live Arcade) he assured me that the peer review metrics for making it on Live will ensure that we're only getting the cream of the crop.
• Met Jordan Dodge, the PR Coordinator for Red Octane. He's been with them since before Guitar Hero, so we ended up talking the old school Red Octane Taiko peripherals. Maybe not a timely topic, but what can I say? They kicked ass. We also talked all things Guitar Hero and got a first look at World Tour's Music Studio. More on this later -- hopefully we can give you an interesting peek inside the franchise.
• Fallout 3 was playable and pretty, but I couldn't get my hands on it. Damned other people wrecking my fun y having their own.
• Spider-Man: Web of Shadows was on the floor and playable already, much to my surprise. In a lot of ways it's similar to previous Activision Spider-Man titles, but it's added a slew of new gameplay elements that are going to make this one worth checking out. You can switch from the classic to the black costume with a click of the left stick, each with their own set of abilities. New combat elements are there too -- in addition to the standard ground combat we now have wall-climbing combat and air combat. The air combat is some sweetly stylish shiznit, my friends. The level we played was a fight with the Vulture, and to keep fighting him you need to keep attacking with your web so you can hold on. It sounds like it might be a pain, but it's smooth as silk. Spider silk, that is. (See what I did there?)
• Infinite Undiscovery will definitely warrant a closer look when it ships next week. It's a Square game that looks more like Dark Cloud than Final Fantasy (and I mean that in a good way).

That's pretty much the long and the short of it. I think that's everything I tackled at the show, or at least everything that was worth mentioning. Expect a few posts to hit throughout the day that will go into a little more detail, and some hands on previews to hit sometime next week. If there's anything on this list you want to hear more about let me know and I'll make sure to dish whatever I've got.

Comments (3)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment