By Adam Tuck
The short version: If you’re one of the ten million or more that purchased a Kinect since its release last November, Microsoft has promised that they’re going to take very good care of you.
Microsoft decided to start off their conference with a bang and jumped right into a short game demo of Modern Warfare 3. It still looks visually stunning, and they went ahead and reconfirmed its November 8th release date. They went on to demonstrate Tomb Raider, then Mass Effect 3. ME3 will support voice commands; when having a conversation, the game will display which dialog choices you have, and will allow you to speak the line yourself as though you were the main character. Pretty neat stuff!
The new Ghost Recon: Future Soldier game was shown next, with very neat Kinect support. A “Gunsmith Editor” mode allows you to grab and pull apart your gun with your hands, minority report style, and switch out gun parts and loadouts with motions and voice commands. The game will also feature motion control options for firing weapons and/or movement.
Next Microsoft talked about their new (new new?) Xbox Experience. They’ve done a sparkling new redesign of the dashboard, with enhanced voice controls, allowing you to do pretty much anything on your Xbox without using a controller, including searching through and launching any kind of media.
Next Microsoft showed off interactive UFC (an interactive HUD over UFC matches allowing you to call fights, review stats, or watch similar fights), Gears of War 3, Forza 4, Disneyland Adventures, Star Wars Kinect, Dance Central 2, and Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster. They also talked about Kinect Labs, which provides a bunch of free test software for players to experiment with.
Finally, Microsoft revealed their coup de gras, which was two new Halo games: firstly, “Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary”, a full remake of the original game, featuring a remastered campaign, classic multiplayer maps, and more purple neon lights than you can handle. Second, they announced Halo 4 with a short teaser trailer confirming that it is in fact being made.