But today was a new day. The segregation of Kinect into its own bizarre spectacle left many hoping that this morning’s more traditional keynote would, aptly, reassure more traditional gamers. Talk of “a new era in entertainment” was inevitable; their place in it was the real concern.
Setting that tone at the outset was a very cinematic demo of Call Of Duty: Black Ops, which cut from dank tunnels and fear to a showy strafing run in a stolen helicopter. It looked like a level from Crysis but with greater purpose and fireworks. All COD map packs and add-ons will, we were told, launch exclusively on Xbox 360 from 2010 to 2012. Is there are deeper significance to those dates? Many will no doubt speculate.
Continuing his apparent transformation into an Xbox Live avatar, Microsoft VP Don Mattrick returned to the schtick of previous years. “Once again,” he beamed, “it’s all about showing, not telling.” No PowerPoints, then, or sales charts.
If you’re going to apologise to a disgruntled bunch of hardcore gamers, you’re best starting with Hideo Kojima. And if, while you’re at it, you still feel the need to apologise for Metal Gear Solid 2, you’ll be wanting the trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Rising. “A sword action game unlike any you’ve seen before,” the game introduces the concept of Zan-datsu: ‘Zan’ meaning ‘to cut’ and ‘datsu’ meaning ‘to take’. Swinging into action for just a few seconds, nu-Raiden uses an analogue crosshair to slice (procedurally, it seems) his enemies into shapes of his choice. Then he slices a melon. It looks utterly brilliant.
Epic design director Cliff Bleszinski doesn’t need special hardware or on-screen icons to jump about the stage, though there was plenty of urgent prompting between the four players of a live Gears Of War 3 co-op demo. The new class of Beserker boss looks fun, new lady character Alex looks like a Viking opera singer in a stainless steel bra, and there’s a new mode, Beast, to be revealed later this week.
“It’s more than an adventure,” declared the trailer for Fable III, “it’s a revolution.” Then it was gone. Codename: Kingdoms, a mysterious new IP from Crytek, came and went with similar efficiency – enough to confirm the developer’s love of the movie 300. There were swords, shields, bodies and blood, but no actual gameplay.
The world premiere of the Halo Reach campaign delivered heart-stopping space porn and a quick glimpse of a Ratchet & Clank-style – probably not the comparison Bungie would prefer – spaceship battle. In keeping with the theme, nothing was really said. In a second evening dominated by Kinect, the games often felt like preamble.
Based on today’s demos, the true appeal of Microsoft's 'full body controller' lies, as many will have suspected, in everything but the games. Scanning through a Zune stream of Alice In Wonderland with your hands was one example, as the morning entered Minority Report mode. “Xbox, Stop!” commanded the Microsoft engineer. And lo, the playback did stop.
2001: A Space Odyssey territory followed thanks to VideoKinect chat, which doesn’t just stream your image to family and friends but tracks it as you move about. There was a cute line about Achievements in Avatar: The Last Airbender – they were indeed a joke - and with another quick voice command the call was ended.
ESPN’s Josh Elliot and Trey Wingo announced the 3,500 live and on-demand events to appear via the network’s deal with Microsoft. There was a joke about England goalkeeper Robert Green and an NFL touchdown in HD. “Xbox! Replay!” The touchdown was replayed. All of this, it was announced, will be available to Xbox Live Gold customers at no extra cost.
As the only comfortable company man in the room, Kudo Tsunoda should have hosted the entire show. Instead, he welcomed back the previous evening’s Kinect titles. The loveable Kinectimals (game of the year, clearly, if you can just get the title out of your throat) lets you adopt 40 unique animals and enjoy 30 different events. You can make tigers skip rope in bullet-time. Rare’s Kinect Sports involves, among other things, the hurdles (demonstrated), javelin, bowling, table tennis, boxing and beach volleyball.
BigPark’s JoyRide lets you drive and flip karts across five different modes. Kinect Adventures hopes to “get everyone off the couch” with various body pose challenges – one neat feature: automatic splitscreen when joined by a second player – and is clearly of great interest to its developer. For anyone living in the same house as a dusty Wii Balance Board, though, it’s less revolution than repetition. Such is the flaw of using promo clips full of five-year old metaphors.
With its sedate background music, Ubisoft’s Your Shape: Fitness Evolved demo felt more like an exercise in mind control than gesture recognition. Together with Kinectimals, though, it’s one of the stronger prospects in the 15-strong launch line-up. Harmonix legend Kasson Crooker (Symbion Project, Freezepop) deserves better than doing live demos of Dance Central – better than Dance Central, in fact – but seemed to be enjoying himself. After the split-second majesty of MGS: Rising, meanwhile, it is scientifically impossible to feel any kind of emotion over Kinect’s first Star Wars game. The “radical new driving experiences” brought to Forza Kinect, demoed with a gesture-controlled walk around a Ferrari, fared little better.
Hardware and launch titles will reach US stores, it was confirmed, on November 4.
Proceedings closed with that one big announcement which, as ever, had been broken by the internet beforehand. Whatever you do, don’t call it “Xbox 360 Slim”. The “New Xbox” is a squat, glossy and undeniably sexy piece of hardware. It has a few new angles and a few new features, and for us, the words “whisper-quiet” were by far the loudest. For many at home, it’ll be the news that this new hardware is shipping to retailers... now. The US price is the same $299 as the current model. Everyone in the audience got one for free. Sorry.
This keynote did not, understandably, live up to the onslaught of last year’s. There was no Spielberg. There were no Beatles. There wasn’t even Milo and Kate. There was, ultimately, none of the reassurances those traditional gamers are hoping for. The game presentations were muted, the announcements few. Welcome to Cirque du Kinect.