Xboxist

Microsoft E3 Press Conference Highlights

Microsoft did not disappoint us with their E3 press conference this year, with some interesting new hardware on display and some genuinely surprising game announcements. There was an unbelievable amount of information crammed in to the presentation, so we've sifted through it all to bring you the most important new items below.

Retail Games on Demand: Beginning in August, gamers in North America will be able to buy and download retail Xbox 360 games directly to their hard drives. The system will use a credit card (no points). Early titles on offer will include Mass Effect, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, and more. Pricing for Mass Effect seems to be set at a reasonable $19.99, although this could change before launch.

Crackdown 2 Announced: The sequel to the award-winning "Crackdown," "Crackdown 2" is the premier open-ended action experience that lets you be judge, jury and executioner for a vast city. Coming exclusively to Xbox 360 in 2010, "Crackdown 2" will take multiplayer(2) gaming to unprecedented levels for the ultimate cooperative and competitive multiplayer experience, providing you and your friends with the complete freedom to explore, destroy and play as you return to restore justice and peace to Pacific City - by any means necessary.

Keep watch over the mean streets once again in Crackdown 2.

Metal Gear Solid Rising: Kojima took the stage and modestly announced to the world in faltering English that he has a new Metal Gear Solid title coming exclusively to the Xbox 360. The new entry will be called Rising, and features everybody's favorite sidekick Raiden as the principal playable character. Nothing else was shown.

Forza Motorsport 3: The game was announced and shown off. It will ship in October and includes cockpit view for those driving extremists with pedals glued to their living room floor.

Left 4 Dead 2: An epic teaser trailer was shown, with all of our favorite survivors returning for more zombie-killing mayhem. The trailer says game will launch in November 2009!

Halo ODST: The year is 2552. Covenant forces control the city of New Mombasa. They are searching for something beneath its darkened streets. You are an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. Your orders: Stay alive, meet up with your scattered squad, and escape the embattled city. Game includes 4-player cooperative firefights and the ability to review and compare stats after a round of horde mode.

Camera motion sensing system: Dubbed "Project Natal", this new input device is capable of detecting facial expressions and body movement without the need for a controller. Utterly sci-fi stuff, but let's see how precise the actual hardware is. Scenes of family members playing together were very reminiscent of Wii marketing. Microsoft is still clearly bent on dominating the family living room.

Modern Warfare 2 Shown: This was probably the highlight of the press conference for shooter fans. In the demo, developers showed off a mountaintop scene, where players must use icepicks to climb steep terrain. Clearly this will be a genre-breaking game full of other nifty surprises when it launches in November.

Twitter and Facebook coming to Dashboard: We don't get a full browser, but two of the most popular social apps will be integrating with the Xbox 360 dashboard later this year, giving us more excuses to procrastinate.