A lot was announced this year in Microsoft’s E3 press conference. I’m sure you’ve heard it all by the time you get here, but in case you haven’t, hit the jump for a brief description of the show and our impressions of the conference.

The show began with a segment focusing on The Beatles: Rock Band, with a few tracks being detailed: “I Am The Walrus”, “Back In The USSR”, “Tax Man”, “Here Comes The Sun”, “Octopuses Garden”, “Get Back”, and “I Feel Fine”, “All You Need Is Love” and “Day Tripper”.

Next came a trailer and gameplay demo of Modern Warfare 2, set in an icy location with a very CoD4-esque demeanour. Also noted is that the first DLC maps will be timed exclusives for the 360.

Final Fantasy XIII was also shown at the conference, with its first Xbox 360 gameplay footage and a tentative release date being set at “Spring 2010″.

Next was a reel of trailers, featuring the announcement of both Crackdown 2 and Left 4 Dead 2.

Forza 3 was announced following this, with an extended look at the game and its line-up of cars.

Next, a new Halo game entitled Halo: Reach was announced, and following that, Xbox Live’s connectivity with Facebook and Twitter, as well as Last.Fm and Sky TV (and more NetFlix stuff).

Possibly the biggest announcement was that of a brand new Metal Gear game featuring Raiden on the Xbox 360, named “Metal Gear Solid: Rising.”

Finally, The Wii, Project Natal was announced; a motion-sensing webcam device which mirrors the user’s movements exactly on-screen. Peter Molyneux made an appearance and spouted some stuff about how it was the greatest thing ever, and Steven Spielberg also appeared, comparing Project Natal to IMAX for some reason.

Here’s what Ripten thought of the conference. More opinions to come, honest!
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Sam Naylor

I thought it was a pretty good conference, if only because Left 4 Dead 2 was announced. I did also enjoy the moment when it was mentioned that Project Natal was ‘not just some preset waggle control’. Burn.

Crackdown 2 will likely be a lot of fun, too, and it’s good to see Metal Gear coming to the 360, even if it is only Raiden…

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Patrick Steen

Although the conference went off to a slow start, with only Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney exciting the Brit in me, Microsoft picked up the pace with game announcements and gameplay debuts.

The predictable announcements, including Crackdown 2, Halo Reach and Forza 3, were framed by the announcement of Metal Gear Solid Rising for the Xbox 360. Raiden comes to the 360 for the very first time and Microsoft was lucky enough to earn some stage time with Hideo Kojima.

Although the newly revealed motion sensing camera was impressive, the games showcased didn’t look terribly fun: Microsoft’ll need to get their Wii on if they want to trump Nintendo. However, the appearance of Lionhead’s Milo was astounding. Seeing a realistic boy interact with the female gamer in such a convincing manner, using live motion and voice interaction showed very clearly that Microsoft has something truly special on their hands. This conference will be very hard to beat.

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Dylan Duarte

I awoke today to some awesome announcements, both expected and unexpected. Among the most exciting were Halo: Reach, Crackdown 2, Just Cause 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and, of course, Metal Gear Solid: Rising with its “lightning bolt action.”

The trailers and footage were all awesome, with the MW2 and L4D2 stuff being especially great.

With the Project Natal stuff, I don’t want to get my hopes up too high this soon. It seems too good to be true, but if it does turn out as amazing as it looks, it’s serious game changing stuff.

To echo what Patrick said, everything with Milo was jaw-dropping. Though as excited as I am, I’m also justifiably nervous, as this is what Milo makes me think of.

All in all, Nintendo and Sony are going to have a tough time living up to Microsoft this E3.

Tags: conference, E3 Conference, E3 Expo, E309, Microsoft, Xbox 360

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