By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
The recently concluded X’10 event held in downtown Toronto showcased the upcoming games for Microsoft’s Xbox console as well as new technologies like the motion-sensing Kinect interface coming out later this year and demos of Massive Incorporated’s in-game advertising models. Here are some of the offerings that stood out.
Kinect for Xbox 360
Taking a page from Nintendo’s Wii and ditching the controller altogether, Microsoft’s Kinect system (top photo) for Xbox 360 turns you, the player, into the perfect remote. Using advanced scanning and tracking technology plus a couple of digital cameras, Kinect generates your avatar and tracks every movement as it pertains to the game.
The most popular demo space in the X10 event, the Kinect area offered users a chance to try River Rush (a mini-game from the Kinect Adventures suite shipping on November 8 with the Kinect hardware). In River Rush, you try to sway from side-to-side to avoid obstacles as your raft charges down steep rapids. You need to jump and steer at the opportune time in order to avoid pitfalls. People can play solo or in pairs which requires some degree of coordination.
Kinect is accurate and the whole experience seems seamless, this could be the peripheral that finally gets gamers off their butts because it will not work if you are sitting down.
Halo Reach
Halo Reach is the latest addition to the Halo franchise long regarded as a cornerstone to the success of the Xbox 360 platform.
Bungie Studios’ producer Joseph Tung, says that 2.7 million people took part in the beta program. He demoed some of Reach’s features by showing us some stunning segments of the first campaign. Reach also introduces new game modes such as Invasion (Spartans vs. Elites) and an improved Firefight mode that offers online matchmaking for players wanting to battle the covenant units.
“We’ve also got a deep player rewards and customization system where you can go in and customize every part of your armour and this is all tied to a deep credit system so whatever you are doing in the game you are earning credits. You can use credits to customize your own Spartan,” Tung explained.
Also demoed were the deep customization features of the Forge level editor that gives users an entire world to design maps and structures. These designs can, in turn be shared with other users.
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Coming to PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on November 9, 2010, Call of Duty: Black Ops was clearly the showstopper during Microsoft’s X10 event.
John Sweeney, producer for Activision ran a demo showing a rag-tag team of elite commandos skulking through the Vietnam’s jungles of and brutally offing enemy soldiers with knives, rifles, pistols and grenades. The graphics and lavish environments as well as the non-stop action of this demo was impressive,
Stealth and cunning are essential components of this game and the demo we saw was full of infiltration, assassination and ambush situations that are suited to jungle warfare. Activision really went the extra mile in creating extremely convincing environments with a tropical rainforest feel and accurate sights and sounds.
Part of the fluidity of movement and realism of Call of Duty: Black Ops can be credited to new motion capture technology that accurately recorded mannerisms and even facial expressions of the characters.
Dialogue between characters is snappy and maintains the flow and direction of the game while the game’s musical soundtrack draws you in and keeps things tense. Call of Duty aficionados will love the new weapons to wreak havoc with like crossbows, ballistic knives, dragon’s breath rounds (short-range flamethrower) as well as the SR-71 Blackbird that can also be piloted during the game.
Fable III
Set in Albion, which is similar to Victorian England during the industrial revolution around 50 years after the events of Fable II. This is a world that is on the cusp of violent change where progress is attained at great cost and poverty and injustice are the norm.
Fable III is a big production with such notable British actors as John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg and even Ben Kingsley lending their voices to the game’s main characters.
Unlike in earlier Fable chapters, you don’t begin your quest as a child but are already a young adult prince, brother to the King who you will eventually have to overthrow in to restore order as you ascend to the throne.
Choices are presented to your character constantly and while these choices do yield specific arcs in the story, they affect the entire kingdom and its future. If you push your character to become greedy and tax your subjects unfairly, you will see your people become visibly poorer and their surroundings will begin to degrade.
Fable III has is a more emotionally involved game than its predecessors since a lot of your choices have repercussions, you also have the option to adopt children, raise them and give them better lives, this definitely adds a new dimension to the usual simulator formula.
Along with improved fight mechanics, better graphics and a more engaging and infidel interactive world around you, Fable III offers a new spin on the genre.