E3 2009 : Day 1

So, the annual big bash is upon us, and MS have been the first of the console manufacturers to impress upon us with their 'Media Briefing'. As expected, it was the usual bunch of self-congratulatory, nigh-on-masturbatory collection of charts and sales figures, with one small difference from the same crap they spin every time.

It was actually nothing like that. It was, in fact, the single most impressive spin I think I can ever remember!

First off, Rock Band The Beatles was announced, including the Live exclusive "All You Need Is Love" DLC, with all proceeds going to some Dr. Charity thingy. That was a good start, and it got better when Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison popped on stage. They left, to be replaced with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr! Regardless of how obvious a publicity stunt this was, it certainly set a pretty good tone.

Next came the promise that there would be no sales figures, just games. "Show, not tell" was the mantra. And they shew!

Tony Hawk Ride was both interesting and ridiculous, Modern Warfare 2 looked nice, Final Fantasy XIII looked like the other 12. From that point on, everything was 360 exclusive. And, it was one hell of a list!

Some Gears of Metroid Live Arcade thing from Epic started things off, followed by an 'Avatar Adventure' called Joyride, which appears to be a free-to-play MMO Racing game with premium DLC additions. Could be good! This was followed by some MONSTER titles.

Forza 3, which makes me tingle. Crackdown 2, which makes me hard. Left 4 Dead 2, which makes me cum. And they even managed to show some footage of Alan Wake, which makes me believe that this one might finally appear after all. (I also still believe that Duke Nukem Forever will one day exist, though.) And amongst this, some dude from Bungie came on stage to show us footage from Halo 3 2, as well as announcing Halo 3 3! (ODST and Reach, respectively.)

And then, came the BIG reveal. Hideo Kojima walked onto the stage to announce MGS : Rising. Apparently, this is not actually 360 exclusive, which is a bit naughty of MS to try and make people think it was. No footage, no details, just knowledge that the series is finally on the 360 will be enough to make several thousand Sony zealots cry into their forums for the next 2 months.

So far, so best keynote ever. Surely they couldn't end on a higher note than Kojima-san?

Try again. This was the point at which they revealed the motion-camera that people have been talking about for some time. Project Natal, as it is called, really does look incredible. It basically reads your motions, and transfers them to the screen. So, you literally are the controller. It is the logical extreme of the Wiimote idea, and it actually appears to work really well. Seemingly, it also has voice recognition software built in, as well as things like face recognition. I will be able to sit in front of my 360, it will turn itself on, and I will then navigate through the dashboard like Tom Cruise in Minority Report, and say 'Play game' or 'Watch movie', or maybe even 'Tweet this' since facebook and twitter interactivity was also announced. Along with last.fm, and Sky TV, I really should never have to switch my 360 off again in theory.

Top marks, MS. Absolutely stunning stuff. Everything that was asked of you in previous years was delivered in this speech. Nintendo and Sony have a HARD job ahead of them today. They will need to announce a cure for cancer or something to beat it.