Features// E3 2010: Microsoft's Press Briefing

The games they did show off were all things we saw the previous night at the Kinect/Natal event, though this time they where explained, shown in detail, and mostly demoed in real time.

Dance Central was the stand-out. It's made by none other than rhythm game inventors (just kidding, I know about Guitar Freaks and Jeff Minter) Harmonix. Not much new to report today accept that I will buy any game that features Bel Biv Devo's Poison. As such, expect a glowing review of this as soon as I can get my hands on it. Providing it can recognize my mad skillz that is.

The rafting game and the moving platform/human Tetris game are one and the same and are called Kinect Adventures. Oh, and its got multiplayer drop -in/drop-out at any time, which is cool.

Kinectimals - I honestly wonder how much variety Microsoft and partners can put into this thing. It does not seem much deeper than a Nintendog and those got old pretty quick. It does, however, bode extremely well for heaps and heaps of micro-transactions and DLC aimed at the pre-teen or the basically psychotic but lonely adult.

The same Star wars trailer was shown again, though this time they confirmed that it was recorded from real game play at least.

Kinect Sports: to me this seems like Wii Sports, but better in almost every way. Most importantly the boxing should actually work; man, I hate Wii Sports boxing. Table tennis is another notable addition to what was seen on Sunday night and looks as if it will be a perfect fit for Kinect. Admittedly there are times when holding an item may seem preferable, for example tennis, just to make it feel more real rather than adding to accuracy.

Joyride, Microsoft's Kinect-powered kart racer, next. You apparently power slide by quickly thrusting your hips to whatever side you're turning away from. When this was illustrated by the lovely lady on stage all the “gentlemen” in the crowd could be heard murmuring approvingly.

Of course no new line-up would be complete without an addition from our good friends at Ubisoft. This was surprisingly not Just Dance 2. Instead they went to their second biggest seller; no, not Assassin's Creed. Yes, fitness software! It looks pretty impressive all around, with some nice graphical flourishes that take advantage of the way Kinect sees people. Most interesting to me was the fact that Ubisoft seemed to imply that it could tell your measurements just by you standing in front of it for a moment. This could lead to much more accurate fitness readings, which gives the system a huge leg up on Wii Fit titles that have to rely on the often-derided BMI.

Lastly, because its actually a real game, is Forza Motorsport. A title was not “announced” but it was said it would be out next year and I'm betting there's a number in it. The game, of course, has the usual Kinect driving “controls” (you make like you're holding a steering wheel and you pump the pedals') but it also has another very interesting feature wherein you can walk around your living room as if you are in the game's garage and see the cars from different angles: even zooming in on particular items.

The absolute last thing to happen was, of course, the recently leaked and now finally revealed Xbox 360s (Slim). About two-thirds the size of current models, it comes jammed with 250Gb HD, and 'n' wifi. It is supposedly “whisper quiet”, which will make it a heck of a lot better for movie watching.

Thanks to an Oprah-like moment of kindness from Microsoft, I (along with everybody else in the room) got a free Xbox 360 Slim. As I'm still in LA, but hail from New York, I haven't got my hands on mine yet, however, the unboxing and my impressions will be up as soon it's in my anxious little mits.

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