[Delays] Updates and Excuses

First off..sorry for not yet posting the next of the E3 roundups (Nintendo is the scheduled next one). I signed in just now to finish/post the next update, only to find its disappeared...fantastic...

I promise, if not tonight, then in the morning, you shall have the next part of my E3 roundup!

In other news, and less gaming related, I turned 25 last saturday. Can't say I've noticed a difference, apart from mentally knowing that I'm yet another year older. All and all though, was a fantastic birthday weekend, kicking off with getting my hands on a Muse ticket (call it a present for myself) on Friday morning.

A big thank you to everyone for making it such a fun weekend!

On another note, I can't believe I wasted a couple of days without relizing that Final Fantasy VII had appeared on the UK PSN Store. It has now been purchased and installed, on my PS3 and PSP. If you haven't played it before, or, like myself, played it and loved it the first time round...then..well..what are you waiting for? It's £7.99, and worth every penny.

[E3] Microsoft Round Up

With the big 3's conferences out of the way, and the real show-floor gaming beginning, I thought I'd take some time going over what each of the major console manufacturers have announced this week. Once I've completed the posts for Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, aswell as mentioning other muti-platform announcements, I'll take some time out to pick out some of my early impressions. But anyway..that's for later!

First up (and in order of conferences this week) is Microsoft:

Project Natal

Alright, lets get the big announcement out of the way first!

Project Natal is the current codename for the Xbox 360's new motion sensored controller. A new Live Vision Camera you ask? Well..not quite...

Sitting just below your T.V. this new camera from Microsoft is capable of mapping your body movements, facial recognition and voice recognition. The best way of imagining how this all could work can be left to the following video:



Pretty impressive huh? I was! It was inevitable that Microsoft were bringing some form of new motion sensored device to E3, in an effort to steal some of the Wii's gaming audience, but I wasn't expect what Project Natal offers.

Lionhead Studio's Peter Molyneux went on to demo 'Milo', a virtual boy, using the 360's new camera. I highly recommend reading Stephen Totilo's experience with Milo over at Kotaku. If you weren't impressed before, I'm sure you'll be at the very least a little impressed now!
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Social Networking, Music and T.V.

Before Christmas Xbox 360 users, for no extra charge, shall be able to access Facebook and Twitter on their 360. Along with this, and again for no extra charge, you'll also be able to access Last.FM straight from your dash.

Not so free, will be Microsoft's 'Games on Demand' service, saving you a trip to the shops, allowing you to download the latest 360 games straight to your console. Microsoft have also formed a partnership with Sky, which yet again is scheduled before Christmas. This will allow users to watch popular Sky programs, movies and sport much like their online offering, but through their 360s with no addition hardware required.
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Halo Reach, Forza 3, Left 4 Dead 2 and Crackdown 2

Forza Motorsport 3 has been rumoured to be in production for some time, but now its official, and is being aimed to be instores come Christmas. Graphics have been improved aswell as the frame rate thanks to a new engine powering the game, new cars are to be added along with ofcourse new tracks. Another interesting addition is the ability to create, edit and upload your own racing videos to Forza's website, of which you can then download.

Left 4 Dead 2 will be set around the timeline of the first L4D. Introducing 4 new survivors its also expected to offer 'deeper cooperative gameplay' aswell as being longer than its predecessor. Improving upon L4D's A.I Director, the A.I. Director 2 shall not only change the location of the zombies each time you play, oh no, now it'll also change weather effects, objects and pathways. Backed with new weapons (which include a chainsaw!) and more close combat melee action, it aims to be more than just L4D with a little more content.

We haven't had chance to buy Halo 3: ODST yet, but that hasn't stopped the announcement of a new entry into the Halo franchise. Dubbed Halo: Reach, it shall be set before the events of the original Halo game. No other information has been released about the game, apart from the fact (as stated at the end of the video teaser below) don't expect it before fall of next year:



You'll also note that for those who purchase Halo: ODST shall get an invite code for the multiplayer beta of Halo:Reach.

Not alot has been mentioned regarding Crackdown 2, apart from it'll be slightly different than the first. Some form of virus has infected the cities residents, causing them to act like zombies. The title shall also have cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes.
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Metal Gear Rising

Now..I wasn't too sure on where to put this. When Microsoft first announced this title on Monday during their conference, although never really stated, everyone assumed it to be an Xbox 360 exclusive. This apparently is not the case.

Staring Raiden as the lead character (not Solid Snake) you can check out the teaser trailer below:



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Alan Wake

Remedy Studios new title has been rather quiet as of late..that's all changed now as new screenshots and a trailer were shown off to the public.

Its scheduled for Spring of next year.
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Perfect Dark

The original N64 hit, Perfect Dark, will be hitting Xbox Live Arcade later this year. Rumoured to be able to run in 1080p, along with being able to have online multiplayer matches. I..cannot..wait... One of my most played N64 games!
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360 Avatars

As the year progresses, expect lots more clothing for your avatars, aswell as props and awards that can be purchased or awarded (by completing game achievements possibly?)

Joy Ride, a new XBLA racing title is also being produced, which will support your avatars.
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Sorry for not going into much detail, and yes, I know I've missed some announcements out (as mentioned at the start of the post, multi-platform releases shall see its own post). My intentions are to round up some of the major news, some of which I shall break down into more detail, along with personal reaction.

Keep an eye open for Nintendo's round up, which should be online in the coming few days.

Many, many thanks to Kotaku and Gametrailers for the coverage provided over this week!

[Events] E3 is Upon Us

E3 kicks off today, with Microsoft's conference only a few hours away (at time of posting).

Lots of rumours and leaks have been appearing over the course of the last few days, including the (officially may I add) leaked information on the new PSP Go!

I've got a good feeling that atleast one of the big 3 are going to blow us all away with something we weren't expecting (and no, a motion-sensered peripheral from Microsoft does not fit that category!).

I've got my fingers crossed for Zone of the Enders 3, but sadly I expect we'll just see more news about a new Metal Gear from Kojima instead...

I'll post round ups of the news from L.A. over the course of the week.

Oh...and if your like me, and were un-happy that Final Fantasy VII got a release on the Japanese Playstation Store and not ours, well.. we could be in luck! It's appeared on ESRB's website for the U.S., meaning they'll get it soon hopefully. Fingers crossed we'll be next!

With thanks:
PSP Go! Info Leaked - Develop Magazine
ESRB Website confirms Final Fantasy VII for PS3/PSP - Kotaku

[Demo] Afro's and Chocobos (Updated)

Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting down with a good friend of mine who'd received an item that he'd purchased off eBay..that item being the recently released Final Fantasy Advent Children Complete Blu-Ray set, which includes the demo to the upcoming Square Enix title Final Fantasy XIII.

First things first...the demo is Japanese, with no option of English subtitles or dubbed voices, meaning guess work is required. Luckily, after the first two battles it sort of all fell into place which 'button' did what.

The demo was surprisingly longer than I anticipated, giving you a chance to play through sections of the level with two groups of characters. I'll be honest, I've not read that much on the storyline/characters set to appear in XIII, so I'm afraid I can't give you more of an idea of who you get to play as. I'm trying to keep my mind clear on whats going to happen in-game, as I personally think that's one of the great things about the Final Fantasy series, meeting the characters for the first time and entering their in depth stories from the beginning with no thoughts on what may happen along the course of the game's storyline.

The combat works well, utilising a 'combo system', allowing you to choose up to 3 attacking/defending techniques in one turn, with each technique ether taking 1 or all 3 combo bars to use. With the game being totally in Japanese, its quite hard to explain exactly how it all works!

It was a very enjoyable experience. I was already excited for its release, and now the demo has made me even more so. The opening cinematic is fast and frantic, and sets you up well when it comes down to taking over the controls.

As for the Blu-Ray edition of Advent Children, I didn't sadly get the chance to view it all, managing only to see the opening 5 or so minutes of it...although within those few minutes I saw new/extended scenes not seen in the original release.

At the time of writing this article, Square Enix are set to release Final Fantasy XIII in Japan before Christmas, with no word on a date for the West. I've got my fingers crossed for before Summer 2010.

[Update] Advent Children has the option to have English speaking, but sadly no English subtitles.

[Events] i36 Review

Day 1
Leaving at 4:30am wasn't fun, though it was needed, the car was full and on the way we got lost a few times. Got there about 8:30pm where we parked the car and grabbed our bags. Upon entering Stoneleigh Park the sheer amount of tents were incredible, and therefore gained the name "tent city" on the forums and irc.

We got our multiplay lanyards and visitors badge and entered to find our seats. I went with a TUP (Turn up and play) ticket which game us access to everything but also included a Packard Bell computer instead of bringing our own, I plugged everything in to find that my mouse had a hissy fit on the way there and decided it wanted to double click everything or not click at all. So I kindly went up and asked if I could borrow one, and received a old Razor mouse, but a mouse none the less.
Some of the main games were all ready installed and therefore only needed a CD Key entering. I locked my computer and went to look at the M-Festival exhibition in which I would be able to see some games and hardware that haven't been released to the public. After getting inside 20mins after the annonced openning time. I was able to see a dozen or so stands with some interesting kit, but they were flocked by the rest of the participants and I was unable to get a good look in, but on stage they were giving out some free stuff and annoncing the line up for the days to follow and what the exhibitors were doing during the weekend. I then proceeded back to my computer and decided to play some COD4, of which there were only 10 dedicated LAN servers in the listing but played on them none the less. Until we retreated to our hotel at approximately 5pm.

Day 2:
We woke up late as we were tired and didn't get to the venue to later on, I went to get another mouse as I returned the one I used yesterday, but was told there weren't any other mouse's left, so I decided to buy one from the Kustom PC stand, a Razer Copperhead would do the job. Today being the FIFA group stages, I went to the tournament area to find such chao's, I didn't know when my match was going to be played or who with or on what machine, so i decided to forfit and not turn up to any matches (I wasn't going to win anyway). We went around the exhibition more today but only really a glimpse and didn't look into anything much, though got my first free Rustlers burger. Mainly played some COD4 again today, but played a few other games to fill the time up. Went home about 8pm just after the pub quiz had started, we were going to enter but we were still quite tired and decided to have a few beers at the hotel.

Day 3
We woke up today, got to Stoneleigh and setup only to hear on the tannoy about Seinheisers's easter egg hunt, they had ran it yesterday but we hadn't found anything and all the prize's had gone, so we had a fresh start today, I had a look at a few of the stalls today, including Overlord II which was very buggy (I walked through two building) though acceptable as its not been released yet publically, I've never played the first one but seen it being played, there was a little improvement on the graphics, the level I played was set in the snow, the storyline seemed interesting. The next game I tried was called Fuel by Codemasters which seemed pretty good, though a great copy of Motorstorm but more open. Again I played some more COD4 and had leveled up around 8 - 10 levels by this point.

Day 4
The last day, we went in to see whole rows of computers missing and lots of packing up being done, I installed Farcry 2 and again played some COD4, when I heard the raffle draw tannoy annoncement. Everyone flocked to reception to hear Wizzo (Craig Fletcher) announce the winning ticket, I unfortunatley didn't win anything (There was one on the back of the visitors badge and I bought 5 more). The lucky guy infront of me had won a G15 Keyboard and a Seinheiser headset, combined win was around £150. Everyone was packing up, so I uninstalled all my games, I didn't have to but I wanted to be safe, as I was leaving I spoke to someone abit further down sking if he was leaving to and found out he lived about 3 miles away from my house. As we were leaving I was surprised to see how much empty rubbish including many Pizza Box's were there.

Overall a good experience and definatly would go again, though would:
Bring My Own Computer
Stay on site
Go as part of a clan
Bring more money
Buy more raffle tickets.