E3 2012: Microsoft press conference highlights

As usual, Microsoft went first at E3 2012 and here are some of the more interesting stories to come out of that press conference.

Announcements:

Sam Fisher makes an official comeback with Splinter Cell: Blacklist, a brand new Splinter Cell game being developed by Ubisoft Toronto. Old school fans of this series may get disappointed as the game looks a lot like Conviction with fast paced brutal action and takedowns. The game doesn’t look bad at all but it’s definitely a far cry from older Splinter Cell titles where you spent hours tracking guards only to dispatch them off silently.



Gears of war Judgment is officially announced. Details are scarce but it seems the game is now being developed by People Can Fly (BulletStorm, Painkiller) and will serve as a prequel as opposed to a full-fledged sequel. Cole and Baird are the two confirmed playable characters in Judgement which means it will be playable in co-op.

Forza Horizon, an open world Forza game was also announced. I’m not big on the whole racing genre but this game looked neat and it seemed less arcady than previous installments. Definitely something to look forward to this October.



Microsoft also announced something called Xbox360 SmartGlass, a new way for Xbox owners to share content across their Xbox360 and other handheld smart devices. Let’s say you’re travelling somewhere and watching a movie on your tablet. Once you reach home, you can continue watching the movie on your TV through SmartGlass. While playing games on your Xbox360, SmartGlass will give you additional information on your phone/tablet regarding the particular game or track your stats if you’re playing multiplayer.



Gameplay videos:

First up we have Halo 4 that looks a lot like previous Halo games but if you’re a die-hard Halo fan, that should not bother you.



Next we come to Tomb Raider that looked quite awesome but also a lot like Uncharted. Also Lara moans a lot.



Resident Evil 6 was also on display and it looked a bit outdated. Plus the game feels more like Uncharted with a non-stop barrage of cinematic action as opposed to a game that’s actually supposed to scare you silly. We really cannot handle another Operation Raccoon City.



The conference ended with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 that frankly speaking just looked plain boring. I think the series has really outlived its welcome and it’s time for Treyarch/Infinity Ward to go back to the drawing board.