The Full Circle: 360 News Report 07.14.08

Posted by Joe Roche on 07.14.2008

It's the eve of the celebration of my birth, but more importantly the Microsoft E3 Press Conference has come and gone, and what an event it was. We didn't hear about a new Halo project, and there was no news on a web browser for Xbox Live, BUT we did get a huge Xbox Live interface update, and something else happened...Oh right, Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the Xbox 360.



It's Monday, E3 2008 officially kicked off with the Microsoft presentation at the LA Convention Center and being a man of my word I'm back with a very special edition of The Full Circle. I am writing this mere minutes after the Microsoft event ended so I haven't spent a great deal of time trying to think of a format for this article. I had thought about just running down each and every feature that we were shown but I think that might get tedious so I'm going to take a page out of the "how to beat a dead horse" handbook and rate the various announcements as if I was a commenter in the wrestling section of 411Mania. If you've ever checked out our fantastic wrestling section (and our statistics show that you have) then you'll very familiar with the concept of EPIC FAIL, and EPIC WIN. Without further ado let me get right to it and take you around this special Monday Full Circle News Report.



Epic Win: Final Fantasy XIII. The final announcement of the presentation was probably the biggest and most shocking. Were there even hints that this was coming from Square? We all knew about Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean and The Last Remnant but I hadn't even heard whispers of Final Fantasy XIII coming to the 360, but what an announcement to close out the show. This is a huge move for the 360 taking a title that has worldwide appeal and adding to their catalogue helps strength the idea that Microsoft is making a play finally to get into the global sales competition.Note: Keep this on the back burner during the Square Enix Press Conference it seems like FFXIII in Japan will still be PS3 exclusive, I think. I'll need to look into this and find out more definitely where the Xbox 360 will be getting FFXIII.

Epic Fail: G4 Camera Angles. Give me a break Microsoft who apparently didn't want G4 viewers to enjoy the Final Fantasy XIII announcement since they made the camera angle about forty yards away and on an angle. I had no idea what was happening until the very end of the video – which is too bad because I would have marked out like I was watching CM Punk win the World Title had I known Final Fantasy was coming to the Xbox 360.

Epic Win: Resident Evil, Online Co-Op. I was really looking forward to seeing Resident Evil 5 in action and the Online Co-Op looked great. Working with your online teammate to get things done should be fun and add some replay value to the online campaign.

Epic Fail: Glitches. Did anyone else notice that the early game play footage had some significant problems. Todd Howard was having trouble with his controller being connected during the Fallout 3 demo, and Cliff Bleszinski ran into an obvious game glitch while showing his demo for Gears of War 2. Just minor details but they reflect a bit negatively on Microsoft while giving their presentation.

Epic Win: Fable II Online. It was fun to see the purple orb come into play with the Fable II screens. Knowing that you've got the ability to invite your friends into your world when you see that they're playing their own single player campaign is interesting, especially finding out that each player will have their own fully changing world so that whenever you jump into another gamers world you'll see new and different things. I also thought it was interesting that you can build relationships, get married, and have children adding more depth to a game that has a lot of game play value already.

Epic Fail: Fallout 3. The first game shown by Microsoft and one of their major releases this year came off a bit – flat. I'm not sure if it was just the way the game was presented but to me it was shown more as an empty world where nothing is going on, instead of the nuclear fallout warzone that it was hyped as. The highlight of the presentation was the funny 1960s style infomercial before we saw actual game play footage and other then the VATS footage of the shoulder launched nuclear device nothing else really stood out as overly exciting.

Epic Win: Xbox Live Videos. It's obvious that Microsoft wanted to boast about Live, and why not it's one of the major strengths of the platform. Adding NBC and Universal to the fold for video downloads is a huge step in the right direction, and the Netflix announcement being official is another major move for Microsoft. I know personally I love the idea of being able to stream movies at home through my Netflix subscription.

Epic Fail: Video with Friends. This might just be me but one of the things highlighted about the new Xbox Live interface was the ability to stream your video with a friend in your party, which seems alright until you stop and think – who wants to sit around in different houses watching a movie together? This might be the final step in the de-evolution of our society into cave dwellers. Seriously folks go out on a date night, do not hook up your girlfriend with a 360 so the two of you never have to leave the house to watch movies together.

Epic Win: Xbox Live Interface. We're getting a major fall software update with Xbox Live that will bring us a better, more inclusive Xbox Live community, as well as fully customizable avatars and the ability to join into larger parties to share content with one another. From what we saw this is a clear upgrade from the current Xbox Live interface which is a bit boring.

Epic Fail: Xbox Live Interface. So a huge amount of wasted space, silly avatars and still no web browser. Thanks for the update Microsoft but how about giving your consumers what they've been clamoring for since you launched this service two and a half years ago.



Epic Win: New Xbox Live Arcade Games. Three words: Portal: Still Alive. Talk about your mark out moment when that voice came over the blank screen my heart fluttered. We're also getting Galaga: Legions, South Park, Geometry Wars 2, and the original Banjo Kazooie.

Epic Fail: E is for Nobody. I get that Microsoft is trying to tap into the casual gamer community with some of their new releases but did anyone seem excited about what they saw this afternoon? Scene It: Box Office Smash will utilize the Xbox Live avatars which is not bad, but it's still just Scene It. Also You're in the Movies looked like it wanted to be a huge announcement but the people playing the game, you know the developers and Microsoft employees seemed so bored that I can't imagine anyone who wasn't being paid to play the game having much fun with it.

Epic Win: Music Games. We expected huge announcements and we got them from both Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Rock Band 2. First Guitar Hero: World Tour will have the new Metallica album on it's release date as DLC (first for GH3, then World Tour when it's released in September), plus 85+ master tracks, the music studio with Guitar Tunes a downloadable site for your created tracks, and REM song pack with three new songs from their upcoming album and exclusive Van Halen and Eagles songs. Meanwhile Rock Band 2 will have 84 master tracks, plus all DLC from Rock Band 1 is forward compatible, most of the original Rock Band tracks are as well, an exclusive Chinese Democracy track from Guns N' Roses ("Shackler's Revenge"), Bon Dylan "Tangled up in Blue," and AC/DC "Let There Be Rock."

Epic Fail: Singing Games.C'mon Lips, you're a karaoke machine stop trying to sell yourself as the must have game of the holiday season. I did like that it appears you can upload songs from your Zune (and maybe your ipod) into the game so that you will have a never ending supply of songs available (sans words of course). Also huge negative was UK Artist Duffy who apparently had never heard her own song before because she was singing a completely different version from the one recorded for the game – that sounded awful.

Epic Win: Gears of War 2. Cliff Bleszinski did not come to the stage with a ripper in his hands but he still brought the greatness when he shows off the game play footage of Gears of War 2. First off the lighting is fantastic on the game it looked much brighter this time around. But the biggest improvement is the Unreal engine, wave after wave of Locust coming at you, the pace of the battles seemed frantic, the massive amounts of enemies around looked great and seemingly ran smooth. Other then the Final Fantasy announcement the other chills moment was the video of Marcus and Dom standing in the sinkhole – "if they can ride them, so can we." Must also give credit to G4 for missing Marcus dropping an "aw shit" over the airwaves, and Epic gets some points for creating Horde mode for the online game which allows for 5 player co-op mode fighting against endless waves of Locust.

Final Thoughts

The casual gamer stuff fell on deaf ears in my living room but that's not to say that Microsoft is wrong in trying them out. I think the avatar system is obviously an ode to the Wii crowd but it'll be interesting to see how it plays out when the software update hits in the fall.

On the gaming front I think we've still got a lot to see during the convention, but weren't we supposed to see a super secret Halo project being developed in house? Also where was any information regarding the Grand Theft Auto IV DLC? Will there be something from Take Two later on during the week, or are we keeping that under wraps even longer?

From what was shown Gears of War 2 came off looking like the star of the show, and even the Rare games (Viva Pinata, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts) looked like stars. On the flip side of that I'm not convinced that Bethesda did themselves any favors with the Fallout 3 presentation even though I'm sure as we draw closer to the release of that game we'll start to see something more impressive. I also feel like Fable II looked good for what it was, but all we really saw was a few moments of some running around with a buddy and the opening sequence which we've seen before. Again, I understand that nobody wants to spill too much at E3, but it would have been nice for those two games in particular to really stake their claim as one of the titles to look out for as we move forward.

I did appreciate some of the chest thumping that Microsoft did, talking about being the premier US console, moving more third party software, and having a new Xbox Live customer every 5 seconds. You can say what you want but by staking their claim to the hardcore gamers (with Gears 2, Fallout 3), and the casual gamers (GH: World Tour, Rock Band 2, Lips), Microsoft is at least putting themselves out there as the number one company in console gaming. It was smart to talk about the places where they are strong and avoid the places where they're weakest – I am disappointed that we didn't see anything about a web browser, or that potential Blu Ray player but I'm not surprised. I am shocked that we didn't see a motion controller but I am sure that we're going to start seeing third party compatible Wiimote type hardware soon enough.

Frankly this entire event comes down to one major announcement though and that honor belonged to Square Enix, and Final Fantasy XIII. Everyone agreed that the three titles announced prior to E3 were big moves by Microsoft for a console that is generally not seen as the place to go if you enjoy quality RPGs (that distinction belongs to the PS3). However, Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean and Last Remnant might have sold units on the Xbox but they weren't going to move consoles. Final Fantasy is a different story, and make no mistake about it – this is a pretty huge coup for Microsoft (especially when you consider that the previously unknown Xbox 360 version will release simultaneously around the world with the PS3 version).

While I realize that Sony still has the opportunity to put on their presentation and make their own major announcements the lasting image of this E3 for me is going to be Don Mattrick with a smile on his face making the statement that Final Fantasy now joins games like Madden, Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil as former Sony games finding a home on the Xbox 360.



Punching Out

I don't have a very good way of closing this column so I'll leave you with the thought of Final Fantasy on the Xbox 360 because just the thought makes me giddy. Meanwhile, stay with 411Games all week as we will have continuing coverage of all the major news coming out of E3 2008. As for me personally I'll have another edition of The Full Circle on my regular schedule this Friday with all my thoughts and final wrap from the convention floor.