LOS ANGELES — Microsoft’s E3 2008 press conference was all about the games this year. Sure, they talked about the new 360 interface they have in the works, but there was no talk about price cuts or a wireless motion sensor or any of the topics that the Wall Street Journal had leaked ahead of time. Instead, Microsoft senior Vice President Don Mattrick spend his time talking about what games the XBox has in store for us. Here are their big four games they have slated for release.
Fallout 3:
Fallout 3 is an action/adventure role-playing game that takes place in post-apocayptic Washington, DC in the year 2277. The Enclave, the last remnant of the US government, controls the robots that patrol the wasteland and are the enemy that are meant to be destroyed. The game allows you to play in either first person or third person.
“On my wrist is the Pip Boy 3000,” said Todd Howard, Game Director from Bethesda Game Studios who demoed the game. The Pit Boy monitors the stats of the main character, controls its skills and do other various things.
“I happen to have the Bloody Vesper, which lets people die in ridiculously violent ways. I also have various weapons, so that I can kill people in ridiculously violent ways, and I also have radio, so that I can pick up broadcast that are happening out in the wasteland,” he said of the Pit Boy.
“This is where the content might be inappropriate for some audiences,” said Howard as he disembodied one of the radioactive humans in the game.
Fallout 3 contains over 100 hours game play. Its world is so massive that a player can go to the Washington Monument and take the elevator to its top floor.
“I think it’s the marching band music [from the radio] that really nails it,” said Howard.
Fallout 3 will be released in the fall of this year, and will feature substantial material downloadable exclusively for Microsoft in the XBox Marketplace.
Resident Evil 5:
Resident Evil 5 represents the first time a Resident Evil game has appeared on a Microsoft system.
Chris Redfield, the game’s main character, is in Kijuju, Tunisia to investigate the causes of some terrorist activity. He has joined a new organization called the BSAA based in Africa. His partner is a woman named Sheva.
The game features a multiplayer online cooperative system that is new to the series. The cooperative system allows players to complete missions that they would not have been able to alone.
Resident Evil 5 will be available in a simultaneous worldwide release on March 13, 2009.
“Please hold on just a little bit longer, and we’ll have it to you very shortly,” said game producer Jun Takeuchi.
Fable 2:
“Fable 2 is finished” is how Peter Molyneux, the founder of Lionhead Studios, introduced the game to the E3 audience.
Fable 2 takes place years after the first game. The player gets a choice to play as either a boy or girl, and is the story about how each player chooses to progress in their journey to become a hero.
The game seems to be just an update of 2004’s prequel, but Fable 2 offers an interesting multiplayer capability. Around the world are orbs which, when you press a button, is actually a different player in their own single player game. When the button is pressed, the other player has the ability to join that world to create a multiplayer experience.
Fable 2 will be released in October of this year.
Gears of War 2:
Most of the Gears of War 2 presentation was gameplay, but design director Cliff Bleszinski had several other goodies up his sleeve about the highly anticipated game.
“We are quickly building to the point where we have the most anticipated title, this holiday season, on any platform,” he said.
The Locust are back, and it is the job of Marcus and his affiliates to try to destroy them.
Returning weapons are the fan favorite flamethrower and chainsaw.
Bleszinski introduced the new “Forge” mode for Gears 2. “Forge” mode is a five player cooperative multiplayer mode where the team takes on wave after wave of increasingly difficult Locusts.
Gears of War 2 will release worldwide on November 7, exclusively for the XBox 360.
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