E3 2007 - Microsoft Press Confrence

By Vermouth

Watching the Microsoft press conference at E3 this year I think it’s quickly evident what their aim was. It was not to build some long term hopes for the future by announcing a bunch of games that won’t be ready for a long time. What it was, was to reinforce this basic fact the Fall 2007 Xbox 360 lineup is one of the best, most complete game lineups in my lifetime.

As someone who follows the games industry on a day-to-day basis there were only two real big surprises in this particular press event. The first of these was the pleasant surprise to find out that Mass Effect was coming in November to my Xbox 360. Considering this was the game that set me on the road to ownership it had me excited. The other new news was a brief teaser for Resident Evil 5 which almost nobody was expecting to be shown for this E3. A full trailer is expected later this summer.

In addition to these few surprises, Microsoft did a great job of hammering home the lineup they had. They had gameplay demos of games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat and Assassin’s Creed that both looked absolutely fantastic. Additionally, Project Gotham Racing 4 made an appearance and they showed off driving with bikes. They also showed a nice bit of footage from Mistwalker’s game Lost Odyssey.

While there weren’t detailed showings for each of these games the montage included a whole panoply of games for 2007. That list was very deep: Call of Duty 4, Stranglehold, Guitar Hero III, Beautiful Katamari, Lost Odyssey, NBA Live 08, Mass Effect, Fatal Inertia, MOH: Airborne, Tiger Woods 08, Ace Combat 6, NHL 08, Assassin’s Creed, Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, Simpsons, Splinter Cell: Conviction, NASCAR 08. Eternal Sonata, BioShock, Madden NFL 08, Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground, Crash of the Titans, Harry Potter, Orange Box, Bee Movie Game, Rock Band, and Naruto. I can’t say there’d be something for every taste but certainly a great variety of games on display.

Additionally on the Live Arcade Front and Windows they unveiled a handful of new games. Included in this was a new version of Gears of War which will have some new content involved. Furthermore Live Arcade got Sonic the Hedgehog today and games like Marathon 2 were also on offer which will certainly be worth checking out for the Halo fans of the world.

When it comes time to grade these things it’s always very difficult. I don’t want to say they hit a home run because they didn’t really bring any amazing new stuff to light and they didn’t reduce the price but by the same token it’s very clear that I’m going to have a whole slew of games to choose from and they’ll be ready before the holidays. I’d grade this effort a nice stand up double nothing to sneeze at but nothing to scream “hallelujah” for either.