Title:Microsoft Winter Showcase
Editor: Nicholas 'bapenguin' Puleo
Microsoft Winter Showcase
Last night Microsoft held a showcase event for the Xbox 360 Holiday Lineup. Among titles there were Gears of War, Viva Pinata, Crackdown and a whole slew of Xbox Live Arcade titles. Also announced at the event was Microsoft’s
inititive to deliver TV and Movie content over Xbox Live.
Peter Moore took the stage to announce partnerships with various movie and TV studios to publish their content to Xbox Live. The Marketplace will now allow users to rent hi-definition movies for a small fee. The movies remain on your 360 for 14 days, and once you start playing them you have 24 hours to watch it. There are also TV shows available to download, and these can be kept indefinitely. (
Video of the presentation by Peter Moore)
Of course after immediately arrive (and getting a beer) the first thing I did was hit up
Gears of War. This was my first time seeing the game in person, and the game’s looks lived up to expectations. The amount of detail present in the environment combined with the excellent use of color palettes make this the best looking game I’ve seen to date. I then sat down for some multi-player goodness and promptly got my ass handed to me, again and again. Battles are fast and frantic with blood and guts flying everywhere. Time and time again our team would be flanked by a crazy chainsaw wielding fellow that would hack us to pieces. My only complaint with the game was the controls weren’t very smooth when scoping in, but this could be a configuration issue.
After Gears I checked out Microsoft’s other big title,
Viva Piñata. I had no interest in this game whatsoever, but the little time I spent with it I found myself strangely addicted. Basically the premise is to make up your garden to attract certain piñatas. After clearing some dirt, little wormy guys showed up. After I had two of them I had some strange blue builder guy build them a house. Then they did the “romance” dance and had an egg. Graphically the game is impressive, and I can definitely see it being a hit with the kids. Keep a close eye on this one.
Next up was some Live Arcade goodies. I saw myself down at one of the machines that had a ton of Indie titles on it. Here are some impressions:
Small Arms: Fast, fun and weird. Graphics are solid and gameplay is kind of silly. Lots of good weapon variety.
Roboblitz: My god this game is gorgeous. The physics are excellent and the puzzles look like they can be fairly challenging.
Heavy Weapon: Another dual analog style game, but this time it’s a sidescroller with a tank. Lots of fast and furious action. Graphics were pretty good too.
Alien Homminid: Absolutely gorgeous in motion, but I found it very difficult. Looking forward to getting more hands on time with this.
Novadrome: Some strange futuristic racing game. Wasn’t impressed at all. Skip it.
Street Trace: Another futuristic racing game, this time on hoverboards. Graphics were decent, but the controls were bad.
Assault Heroes: Top down shooter style game. Looked and played good.
There was also some retro titles to check out. One of the more popular ones was
Track and Field from Konami. I witnessed Larry Johnson of the Kansas City Chiefs button mash his way to victory on this game while wearing jewelry that cost more than my house and cars combined.
Centipede got a graphical overhaul and looked very trippy. Contra looked solid as well, though the screen size was kind of tiny. The new explosion effects were a nice touch.
The other impressive thing I saw was the new Torque Game Builder X for XNA Game Studio Express. With the new Torque system from
Garage Games, it's easier than ever to create a game from scratch in little to no time. On top of that now you can compile things straight to the XBox 360 by using a Torque scene file. I was very impressed by the demo of the technology. When TorqueX and XNA launches in December, prepare for lots of quality user created content.
I also checked out the HD-DVD player. It was bigger than expected, and the quality of the video (Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) wasn’t that great in my opinion.
Overall the night was pretty fun and sort of surreal. Now I can’t wait to get home and play some Gears of War!
Amani Toomer Playing Madden.
Centipede
