Rumours hit the internet todaythat at E3 this year not one but two new consoles are going to be announced. After a painfully long wait it finally looks as though both Microsoft and Sony will be announcing the next generations of the XBox and PlayStation family. The first site to make this announcement was mvcuk.com. They stated that  ”MCV’s third-party publishing sources claim the firm had signalled to partners this will happen.” Ben Parfitt MVC’s online editor also tweeted about the news saying “Obviously we can’t reveal our sources. But you have my personal word on this – the source is exemplary, 100% concrete, ultra high level.”

This is pretty huge news, but as it is only an announcement we probably won’t see any solid release dates until a year or so down the line. Personally I expect that at this years E3 the most we will see is  maybe some concepts and if we are lucky a screen shot or two. Interestingly, if they go ahead these announcements will coincide with Nintendo’s announcement of the official release date and price of the Wii U.

E3 sounds like it is shaping up to be quite a show this year. We will be keeping a lookout for more official information about the 360 and the PS3′s successors, so stay tuned to PlusXP for more updates soon.

Though as yet information about the next generation of consoles is limited, personally I am hoping that a whole load of new IP’s will come out of the next console generation. It would be great if the successors to the 360 and PS3 bring a whole load of new features and content instead of being just a basic continuation from their predecessors. I also hope that the new Microsoft console will have an integrated blu-ray player.

While we wait for more information to surface what do you guys think and what are your predictions for the next generation of video games consoles.

Garv

Back in my uni days I was a sucker for trading in games. This was partly so I can get the latest games a little bit cheaper and I really didn’t think that any of my titles were worth hanging on to except a select few. My collection kept changing and changing. It was a fantastic way to save money and get some good titles in the process.

Ever since things like Xbox LIVE and Steam on PC started to do downloadable games, I was always a tiny bit put off when the words NO REFUND FOR THIS PURCHASE came up on-screen when you were just about to hit the download button. I always thought if retail games were allowed to be traded in once you are done with them, shouldn’t download games get the same treatment?

From one stand point you could say royalties are something that should be considered, game developers and publishers are working their butt’s off for these games and yet when people are finished with them they get traded in and then some gamer is gonna pick buy it again and then the game creators get nothing. This is why EA have probably done the whole multiplayer lock thing, so that they can get something back from the trade ins. It is a very touchy subject whatever side of the coin you look at it, but I have stumbled across a website that grabbed my interest almost instantly. (I say stumbled a nice gaming man emailed me and said check this out, I was then pleasantly surprised at what I had been sent. )

A website called Greenman gaming that does digital download games, which you can trade in after your done a great concept which someone should have done sooner, but not only that, they also pay royalties back to the game creators. Making us the gamers and the game creators very happy. I thought this was a perfect idea, for all of you who are interested here is their business synopsis in full:

“Green Man Gaming (GMG) is a UK based independent digital retailer for PC Games. Using globally unique proprietary technology, GMG offer consumers the ability to trade-in digitally downloaded games for new purchases and publishers the ability to generate ongoing revenue from their intellectual property. Green Man Gaming is the only retailer in both the online and offline world to pay a royalty back to the publisher on all pre-owned sales.

There are currently some 500 titles available to purchase from 50 publishing partners.  These games have been sold in to 89 countries around the world.”

Sounds pretty awesome, and recently they have done a website overhaul which includes a desktop widget that can automatically launch the games you have bought from the site, and also puts the gamer in control of all their trade ins.

A fantastic idea if you ask me, and something that Sony and Microsoft should take into account. I think digital media should be something that you are able to trade in, and I also thing Trade-ins should give something back to the game creators. Maybe if we give something back to the creators they will stop doing pointless DLC that should be on the game disk in the first place and stop locking out multiplayer options on second-hand games.

Gamers of earth the green man has spoken

Garv.

Check the website out at: www.greenmangaming.com

Last night saw possibly one of the biggest launch events for a game/console/peripheral in new york. Times square was littered with dancing people for the launch event for Kinect. Originally labeled project Natal back at E3 in 2009. The idea behind Kinect is controller-less gaming, meaning you can play games just with your body. With the Tag line you are the controller it sounds like it should be a revolution for the 360.

I have said time and time again on Plus XP and indeed other gaming sites that controller-less gaming is not the way forward for me. I had some hands on time with Kinect, both at the Kinect galleries in london a few months ago, and at the Eurogamer Expo 2010 last month. The games for me weren’t bad in all honesty, with dance central making people look very confused trying to mirror the dance moves on-screen, Kinect adventure with some mini games that are a little reminiscent of Wii sports resort but less sporty and Kinect joy ride, which was pretty much Sonic and Sega all-stars racing but with only avatars. All of these games are a great novelty but to me the life span of them will probably wont last a week, much like the well hyped, you’re in the movies that lasted all of 5 seconds.

The problem with Kinect is that it is one of these things that will be great at Parties or family gatherings, then after that will gather dust in a corner till next christmas or whenever. At E3 2009 when Kinect was first announced it was showing us full dashboard integration and a new level of interaction with you Xbox system as a whole. This is all well and good but with the average gamer age around 35 at the moment, these are people who are just gonna want to come home, crash out on the couch with a controller in their hand and play some games. They aren’t going to want to move the coffee table and get into some gym gear before they turn their Xbox on. I could go on with the comic over exaggeration for a good thousand words or so but the fact of the matter is I think that Kinect is more of a gimmick still than a revolution.

To be honest I am still a little bitter about the new 360 Dashboard. It is actually trying to look a bit more like a Wii every time I turn the thing on. Granted the new Dashboard is supposed to fully work with Kinect, and yes it uses the space a little more efficiently but in all honesty it looks a little disjointed to me and is trying to be something that the 360 wasn’t trying to be in the first place. When the 360 was first launched it was the leading next-gen console, priding itself in the fact it had some awesome games and was leading the pack in that fact. Now it’s looked at the Wii, thought oh crap, and tried to do what the most popular kid in the play ground is doing.

For me Kinect is still not the greatest idea in the world, but you never know it could have some great game interaction in the future, but for now. I would just rather pick up my controller and play some games the traditional way.

Garv

Gears Of War 3 – Beast Mode
With Gears of War 3 having recently been delayed until the Christmas season in 2011, I’ll have to wait even longer to find out whether my time machine experiment was a complete bust or not. Nevertheless, Epic Games showed off a brand new addition to the proceedings at the Eurogamer Expo – Beast Mode.

In Gears of War 2, Horde mode was introduced. You and several friends would have to use the environments and teamwork to your advantage in order to dispel 50 increasingly difficult waves of enemies. The reason I’m explaining this is because Beast mode is for all intents and purposes Horde mode with you as the locust dispatching waves of human survivors. However, there are of course a few key differences when playing as the Locust. Firstly, when you spawn you’re able to pick what locust you get to be, with various types being locked until later waves, which thankfully encourages you to learn different strategies to take out your opponents and also means that dying no longer means you having to repeat the wave. Early waves have you using tickers and wretches and the ability to be as annoying as the creatures are when you’re fighting against them. Later waves let you take control of berserkers, grinders and any of the new locust appearing in Gears 3 as well, and all control differently enough that different methods of play are encouraged in play. Well, at least they should be.

Don’t get me wrong here, because the mode works excellently and I had a lot of fun with it during my hands on with it, but it felt like some of the locust were either overpowered or didn’t feel like they worked as well as they should have. The grenadier class of locust only bothers to carry one grenade then relies on a shotgun, one class is nearly impervious to bullets and damages enemies when he rolls into them and the berserker is nearly useless in tight areas as its slow as heck and takes a few seconds to wind up before sprinting. Granted, you do have a very large variety of different locust to use and they’re mostly fun to play if a bit overpowered, but the whole mode just kind of felt too easy. There didn’t seem like anything stopping everyone playing to just use the best locust all at once and bumrush the enemy, and with there being little to no visible penalty for dying, it feels like there’s something missing from the mode.

Of course, I could be entirely wrong as the demo didn’t really give much indication of the grand scheme of the mode, so I can’t tell all of the workings of it. The impressions I’ve given here are from playing through five or six waves of Beast Mode at the demo stands provided, and with another year now until release, I’m sure the mode will be more than polished and balanced when its eventually released as part of Gears of War 3 in the Christmas season in 2011.

Mario Sports Mix:

There are several things gamers are allowed to take for granted nowadays; fanboys will never agree to disagree and will continue to ruin gaming for everyone, anything remotely innovative will proceed to be done to death, people who have no idea what videogames are will misrepresent and blame them for society’s ills without ever playing them, and a short, dumpy italian plumber can do anything. If there is a sport, it’s only a matter of time until Mario will appear to make a game of it. Not satisfied with successful golf, football, racing, tennis and fighting games on top of everything else, in 2011 Mario will take on four sports in one game in Mario Sports Mix. Hilariously wacky and over the top versions of Volleyball, Basketball, Hockey and Dodgeball will feature in a game that’ll hopefully put the fun back into them in the same way Mario’s been able to infect his other sports games with that cheery goofball fun we’ve come to know and love.

Being the third Mario game to be developed by Square (the first two being Super Mario RPG and Mario Hoops 3 on 3), the demo version given to us at the Eurogamer Expo provided the Basketball and Volleyball sports only. Having a shot at the Basketball mode, I went in expecting it to be like all Mario Sports games – unrealistic and colourful with various characters from the Mario universe filling in roles from all rounders to speed or power specialists, random items and a version of the sport that can only be done in videogames with huge points-scoring opportunities that’s easy to get into and hard to effectively master.

So how did it play? Well, as to be expected, more or less exactly how I described it in the above paragraph. But does that work to its detriment or to its advantage? Controlling Mario and his cohorts is done by the analogue on the nunchuck, and then tackling and swapping character control is served by buttons while throws and saves are handled by flicking the wiimote. It actually works pretty well in practice and once you’re used to the controls then it’s pretty easy to ease yourself into the experience. Your partner is handled by the capable AI partner, which’ll do its best to try to swipe the ball from your opponents, move into space and score. What actually comes out as initially confusing is the fact that unlike other sports titles, if the AI catches the ball and is in control of it, it won’t necessarily pass the control onto you. There were a few moments when I expected the game to put me in charge of the character with the ball and ended up floundering around the court in confusion. It’s not a problem as the AI is more than capable, but it’s a confusing thing to get used to in any case.

The main twist on the proceedings is the ability to score multiple times the amount of points you’d normally get for scoring the baskets by performing special shots or by initiating a throw on a multiplier that’ll randomly appear on the court. Pull it off and you’ll be reaping the benefits, and it can also be the difference between dominance or vitally catching up on your opponent and making the proceedings much closer and tense in the final stages.

So as I asked earlier, does the fact that what was shown of Mario Sports Mix came off as standard Mario Sports fare act as a detriment or does it make it work? Well the answer is both. If you’re used to previous Mario Sports games, you’ll probably know what to expect here. If you’re not a fan of them, Mario Sports Mix doesn’t appear so far to do much to convert you. If you’ve not played them before, it’d potentially be an odd title to start with, but nonetheless, with four sports on one disc, there should be more than enough content come release and plenty for you to find fun with come its release in early 2011.

The Legend of Zelda – Skyward Sword:

It appeared randomly halfway during the friday. A small curtained-off stand in the Nintendo Unleashed area of the Expo. Word of mouth and murmurs spread across the Expo: “Zelda’s here”. Sure enough, unannounced, Nintendo was showing off the E3 demo of the Legend of Zelda – Skyward Sword, canonically the first in the Zelda games timeline. I’ve already written an introduction of the game shortly after E3 which should provide a lot of background information and leave me more room to just talk about what I experienced in the demo and what it was like. So how was it then? The Nintendo fanboy in me wants to just say it’s the Game of the Year 2011 and be prepared to whittle you down in lengthy, lengthy debate if you even so much as think about disagreeing. What do I actually think after queuing up for two hours for it and having some time to think about it? Well…

As previously said, the demo was the same one shown at the E3 conference, so if you’ve seen that, you know what to expect – a beautiful forest portrayed in an amazing graphical style which makes the game look beautiful without having to be in high-definition or as technically proficient graphics as non-Wii games. Also on the side of the screen was the HUD displaying all of the controls to save you from a tutorial or anything like that, and helps to ease you simply into the game. The item selection is sorted by holding onto the necessary button and releasing on the relevant weapon or item you want to use. The demo is kind of a playing ground with enemies and items you may not necessarily have at that point (more on this later), and so the Link in the demo had bombs, a slingshot, the bow and arrow, the awesome retriever Beetle and the whip as well as his standard sword and shield, which are controlled respectively by the Wiimote (with Wiimotion Plus) and Nunchuck.

The items all control differently from each other and use different motion control methods for you to master. With the whip, players control it just by swinging the Wiimote around like you would the sword, except it reached longer and felt a bit floaty and lacking the impact of a real whip, sadly. The Beetle, once it’s released is used by flying it around with the wiimote, and the bombs can cleverly show you how they’ll travel when you throw them, allowing you to get a better idea of where they’ll land and how they react, a godsend feature that’ll make bombs much more useful outside and inside of battle, especially as you can now roll them, too. The items that work the same as each other are of course the slingshot and bow and arrow, which work in the same way; by pressing the item button, aiming with the wiimote, pressing and holding a button on the nunchuck and slowly pulling it back then releasing it and the button. It actually works incredibly intuitively, or so I felt as I was shooting spiders off a series of climbable vines.

Something new added to the series is a stamina meter, which allows Link to sprint or climb surfaces for a limited amount of time before it runs out. Climbing the vines, it slowly ticked away as Link traversed the vines. It was easy enough here and the sprinting unnecessary in this area, bu later on in the game this could lead to some potentially amazing new puzzles and new ways to think about how to traverse though the areas. Or at least stop you rolling everywhere all the time because its marginally faster than just running.

Combat’s also been given an overhaul with swordplay due to the addition of the Motionplus addon, with the emphasis on thinking about how you approach the battles rather than just swinging your sword everywhere. The plants can only be killed by horizontal or vertical strikes of the sword depending on how their mouths open and some enemies will only be vulnerable on the area where they aren’t shielded, for example. It works very well, but it almost felt the tiniest bit forced, weirdly, and extended battles may give your arm a bit of a cramp much like Twilight Princess was capable of doing if you weren’t prepared. Otherwise, the swordplay actually works perfectly when you’re used to it, and it’s clear a lot of work was put into the swordplay in order to make sure it worked effectively, as they wouldn’t have gone back to the Motionplus controls if they weren’t confident it’d work.

I mentioned earlier on that the demo works as a playing ground with enemies and items you may not have necessarily had at that point or enemies you won’t necessarily face by that point, and the best example of that was the giant Scorpion I had to face at the top of those vines. As a long time Zelda fan, normally the weak point takes about a second to figure out and its attack patterns are quick enough to figure out and counter, but it actually took a bit to figure out how to defeat it, and it felt very satisfying when I’d defeated it, too. I then set about finding more to do and found a Stalfos to battle as another mini-boss confrontation in the demo. I raised my sword, and… the demo timed out after ten minutes.

From what I played though, I actually felt that Nintendo have somehow managed to make Zelda better. It looked gorgeous, played gorgeously and there were so many subtle improvements and nothing for me to worry about. It feels like they’re committed to providing one of the greatest experiences imaginable, and it was well worth the wait, at the expense of making the wait for its eventual release even harder. Game of the Year 2011? Most likely. Best Zelda game? The wait’s killing me to find out.

-Jokesound

Xbox Mobile has been announced, meaning that XBox LIVE is now portable. But will it be a for a new console? No it’s for the new Windows 7 mobile phone. Meaning all your XBox live features will now be accessible through the new device or indeed and smart phone. You can access the XBox LIVE market place, customise your avatar, all sorts. It doesn’t sound that huge yet, rather than just a new app for your smart phone but there is more.

With the new XBox LIVE system for phones you can now download phone specific games, meaning that this thing will actually be a mini XBox LIVE. This is, as I said going to be released with the new Windows 7 phone. You will have a lot of games at your disposal.

This is a big step for Microsoft, and judging by the scale of this project, if executed well these guys could in fact get 1up on apple and their iPhone with console phone integration.

Not much else is known about what is going to happen with Xbox LIVE mobile, but I am very curious to find out. It is defiantly one of those projects that will flop or be a huge success.

On a side note, Microsoft is planning to relaunch the XBox avatars. Avatars 2.0 as they call it will be more human like to integrate with the Kinect system better. This I find very understandable, but does that mean Microsoft and other game companies have some pain staking hours making all Xbox LIVE avatar items and avatar awards compatible? Lets hope so, I’ll be pissed if my new Crackdown 2 helicopter isn’t compatible.

Garv

Now when one console developer does it, eventually all of them are going to jump onto the band wagon. This is where PlayStation Move and Microsoft’s Kinect come in. They have been a long time in development, but about christmas time this year, you are going to experience what Microsoft and Sony have to offer. Myself and GuitarGirl24 on the other hand got a sneak preview of what Microsoft’s Kinect has to offer.

In an underground room somewhere in Covent Garden in London, we both entered into what Microsoft thought was an ideal Kinect Paradise. There was 3 rooms in this underground area. Each room was decked to to look like a pretty swanky living room. The first thing we noticed, is that the fabricated living room was pretty huge. leaving plenty of space for the player to play Kinect. So all of you who live in box rooms in your parents house 0r student halls already have a bit of a problem.

Once we entered the room we were straight into the experience where we played Kinect Adventure, this game was made up of three mini games which we played. The first was a rafting game where we both had to control a rubber raft as it cascaded down some rapids, both leaning from side to side (preferably in unison) we had to direct the raft through gates to score points, there was also places where you had to jump together to collect coins, which again added to your final score. It took us a while but we finally got the gist of it. If I were to judge Kinect solely on this game alone I would say it was pretty responsive.

The other 2 games in Kinect adventures were a jump and duck corse where myself and 24 were head to head, simple having to duck, jump and weave around obstacles. In this game I started to find Kinect a little less responsive but still quite fun. Then there was the last game of Kinect adventure where you had to hit balls against a wall of blocks to core points, you could either kick, slap or even head but the balls. This was probably the most fun game from Kinect Adventures, even if 24 almost knocked me out while trying to punch the ball on the screen.

We then played Kinect Race. This was a Mario Kart type game where you held an imaginary steering wheel to drive your car. You could lean, to the side to drift around corners and thrust your arms forward to boost. This was a very fun racing game which I really enjoyed. But again, I found Kinect a little bit un responsive at times when I tried to boost, sometimes not even recognised that I thrust my arms in an extravagant fashion to make the car boost, this was a little frustrating at times, but the game was fun when it responded.

We then played a dancing game, Dance Central for Kinect. I tell you know is flipping difficult, and tiring. The idea of this game is to mirror what the dancers are doing on the screen sounds simple, but on medium mode it was very hard to keep up with all the crazy moves that they were doing, be it an air guitar, a hip hop version of a spotty dog or the Macarena sped up 50 fold the game proved to me further that I can’t dance at all. I wonder if they expect you to spin on your head in expert mode?

Finally I got to play some Kinect Spotrs. Very much like Wii sports but of corse without the Wii-mote. I decided to do hurdle to round off our time with Kinect. Again the Kinect camera itself was a bit laggy off the get go, I would start running and after about half a second my avatar would then start running. The idea here was to jump hurdles as soon as they go green. Kinect picked up my jumps pretty well (luckily) and I managed to finish the race in first. I was then able to wave to the crowd which I thought was a nice touch. As Kinect could pick up all my arm movements I tried semaphore instead. No idea what I said mind but hey.

Kinect is a nice idea that still needs tweaking. Sure is can pick up your movements ok but the lag issue I thought was a bit of a problem, and even though it could pick up your arm movements, it didn’t pick up the movements of my fingers, so I couldn’t do the rock devil horns after I won the hurdles, but hey you can’t have everything.

Now for your viewing pleasure I present to you a Video that GuitarGirl24 put together of our hands on with Kinect, enjoy!

Kinect comes out for the XBox 360 this November.

Garv

Then if you look at the posts I had been doing months after that announcement. I said that Milo would in fact be pretty much impossible to make, because the world does not have the technology to make fully function organic Artificial Intelligence. If we did I would probably be sitting here right now next to my new Robot best friend drinking beer and planning to kill all humans. The fact of the matter is, how the hell could you make something so intelligent that it recognises every dialect of english and every accent english is spoken in. Plus how could you make something that would recognise every single human emotion, be it big or subtle. In this dayun age it’s quite frankly not possible. Or it’s just the fact MI5 have not told us yet and there is an underground base somewhere with Robots serving special agents tea.

Where am I going with all this blabber? Well I thought it was a bit weird that Microsoft in all their Kinect glory over this years Electronic Entertainments Expo, didn’t in fact show, mention or give us a glimpse of Milo. They didn’t even say, hey guys remember Milo from last year? Wasn’t he swell!

This all got me thinking. Was I right? Was it all just some flashy hoax with a woman in front of a widescreen telly carefully timing what she said to a video of a Computer Generated Small boy on a TV screen? Well yes and no. Yes because she was probably timing everything perfectly, and No because according to Microsoft and Lion head, this thing is still in development.

Now that's expert timing!

But here is the catch, After reading a little bit here and there across the internets. I actually found out from Kotaku.com. That Milo isn’t planned to head to retail. That yes, it is still in development but we are not planning to bring it to market.

Basically Lionheads big plan now is to perfect the “Milo Technology” and bring it to future game releases. So they want to integrate full on character interaction into games now? As opposed to having a single game where the aim is to sit down and interact with your new imaginary friend.

I have no idea why but this is again triggering off alarm bells in my head. But it might be something to do with the fact that this is stepping on stupidly dangerous territory. Take this from an RPG perspective, if Lionhead wanted to integrate it into say, Fable IV and have you as a character come up to someone in the street and fully interact with them, Not only would that take possibly five million more hours of game play just to get round one town and do the first quest. But you would be taking peoples lives away. Us humans have an addictive personality. I only say this because I once heard about a guy who has about 36 world of war craft accounts so he can go on quests by himself with a party of all of his characters, I could even go into the controversy that is Second Life and tell you about how that has swallowed about half of humanity and left a good portion of the human race dribbling and gawking into their PC screens as the virtual version of them selves gets all the handsome people and swims in a bath of money. But that would take at least a Novel and a Half to write, and I got to go to work in about half hour.

This Is How 1 Guy Plays 36 WoW Accounts....*Facepalm*

So to some up all this blabber I have been typing. It turns out that our old friend Milo will never be born and be brought to retail, He was just a tech demo at E3 last year and that’s how he is staying. Lionheads plan now is to integrate all this new “Milo Technology” into other games, and basically take over all the lives of us gamers out there. Take it from me, this idea is probably going to get too big for its boots.

Garv

Now E3 2010 is here a year later and Microsoft have now revealed the full name of Project Natal and then some. We now have a definitive list of what games will come out with it and what to expect from Microsoft’s new creation.

Now Dubbed Kinect the Microsoft uber camera from the future will come with games such as:

Joy Ride

If you ever wanted to take your Xbox LIVE avatar on a tour of the world in a mixture of vehicles and flying machines, well here is your chance to do so. Joy Ride is a game where you hold an imaginary steering wheel and take your Avatar for the ride of its life, in a mixture of planes and automobiles, even full on flying cars. I have been told that if you shift you body and wave your hands, you vehicle will do a host of crazy stunts in the air. True Story.

Dance Central

Just Dance on the Wii is no match for this game, Brought to you by MTV Games (the lovely people who bring you Rock Band) Dance Central lets you dance till your heart’s content. By following prompts on the screen you are free to dance the night away. Kinect will pick up every single move you make and grade it, if you do rubbish the music will slow down and a voice will help you apparently. I can just imagine the voice to be like the Gate Keeper from that really old board game which you had to play with the Video tape… “DANCE BETTER MONKEY!!! YOU CALL THAT NIGHT FEVER!?”

Kinect Disney

there will be some sort of Disney game coming out of this. All we know is that it involves Tinkerbell and Cinderella’s castle…. You never know it maybe a new kingdom hearts game, or Microsoft showing off again. Only time will tell.

Kinect Star Wars

Now this sounds damn exciting, Microsoft showed the people of E3 an interesting demo where a Jedi was fighting hordes of enemies. Each light saber movement was controlled by the player, and we are talking some intricate stuff here, also there was a force push motion where the player would thrust his hand forward and push enemies out-of-the-way, much like Star Wars force unleashed. Then the player confronted Darth Vader in an epic light saber duel. If this works smoothly it will be one hell of a title. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for this one.

The ability to do this on Kinect? Yes Please!

Kinect: Adventures

Another one of the quirkyer titles. You are put through a series of Indiana jones style adventure scenarios and you job is to survive them. It’s an on the rales game where you have to grab certain targets infront of you in order to progress. You also have the opportunity to strike awesome poses and get your photo taken. Sound a bit odd and crazy but oh well.

Kinectimals

The name says it all. Think Nintendogs but with better animals. Kinectimals is basically another virtual pet game where you get to interact with your new pet. Yes it is tamagotchi of the new generation, you can feed it, pet it, throw it a ball. Even teach it new tricks. You get to have pets like Tigers, Lions and Bobcats. Could be ok, maybe not my cup of tea though.

Kinect Sports

Need I say more? Yes this is Wii sports for Kinect, sports shown were football, track and field, volleyball and of corse bowling. I don’t really need to go into too much detail here as we have all played Wii sports sometime in our lives. Just think that without a controller and you mimicking all of the sports. Got it? Good.

Kinect Yoga & Tai Chi

If you’re looking for the perfect yoga and tai chi gamer you have found it. A female instructor will take you through the moves all you have to do is mimic them. There is a silhouette of what move you should be doing on-screen, if you snap to it then you get the points, or whatever it has.

Kinect Apps

Microsoft also showed off its new kinect dashboard, where apps can be selected by just pointing at them, things like Facebook and netflix were there at the point of a finger. There was also a new photo sharing app where you can show photos to other party members in real-time while video chatting. Nice.

Kinect to me looks like it has a couple of new features over the Wii. And to be honest I am really excited about that Star Wars game if it works well. Be sure to stick around Plus XP for some more E3 news as we get it.

Garv

So after downloading several gigs worth of demos onto my hard drive, I came across Halo Waypoint. Now me being the journalist I am, I personally have not heard much about this new addition to LIVE. Which is quite surprising really, seeing as I live and breath all things Halo pretty much. You could probably imagine my excitement when I saw the words, Halo, Download and Free pop up on the screen, so without hesitation I proceeded to download this interesting little gadget.

Now I approach games in two different ways. The casual way, which is for things like beautiful Katamari and Guitar Hero, these games I am not fussed about getting 100 percent completion, I am there to enjoy the game and what it has to offer. Then there is the completionists way, where I approach a game and want to milk it for every little thing it has to offer me. Halo for me is a completionists game, I have owned Halo 3 for years now and still have not got all the achievements.

This is when Halo Waypoint steps in and gives me a helping hand. For those of you out there who have no idea of what this little gem is I will fill you in. This is a Halo dashboard that links all your Halo games together in a nice neat little package as well as updating you on all things Halo.

So how does it go about wrapping all you halo games up? Well what it does is it calculates your overall achievement score on Halo 3, Halo Wars and Halo 3 ODST. It then takes that number and applies it to its own unique scoring system giving you an overall Halo Career score and set of awards. It even shows you how many achievement points you have gained over the corse of your Halo gaming career.

Before I get to carried away with my excitement let me give you some examples. Waypoint says I have an overall Halo achievement score of 1405G. That is all my gamer points added up from Halo 3, Halo Wars and Halo 3 ODST. It then takes that number and applies it to Halo Career Milestones. At the moment I am on Milestone 25, for hitting the 1400 gamer point mark. I can progress through these milestones by unlocking more achievements from any of the three games. But thats not all, you are also granted Waypoint Awards. These are medals given to you based on elements of gameplay thought the Halo 360 series. For example I have 8 out of the 15 awards which include: Special Weapons, Explorer, Halo 3 A.C.E, Halo 3: ODST A.C.E and so on. These awards are given to you depending on how many achievements you have unlocked in that particular bracket. So if I were to go into Explorer, it will show me the achievements needed to unlock that award, like finding all the skulls in Halo 3 or finding the audio tapes in ODST. The more achievements you unlock for that award, the higher your award tier. So I have a Tier 4 Explorer award because I went out my way to find the skulls in Halo 3 and stuff like that.

This is a fantastic tool for completionists, and general Halo braggers out there to really show off their achievements. But it doesn’t stop there, oh no. Waypoint gives you avatar unlockables. These unlockables are tied into Halo achievements, so If you say unlock a certain achievement on ODST the Orbital Drop Shock Trooper armour will be unlocked for your avatar. It’s little things like this that get geeks like us all riled up and wanting to unlock all Halo achievements, I mean c’mon, dress your avatar up like an ODST with guilty spark flying round your head? … Awesome!

Aside from the Halo career path, Waypoint updates you with the latest Video, images and news from all corners of the gaming globe. Wanna catch up on Red Vs Blue? or take a look at IGN’s Halo features? Or maybe you want to know the latest on Reach or the new Halo DLC? Well it is all here, plus it will be updating all Halo fans with the Halo anime series as well.

Halo Waypoint is, in a word, Huge and awesome (ok that was two words) but it does bring the games into a nice neat little package, packed full with its own achievements and awards, with a side order of news, videos and images on all things halo. This is a must download for anyone who has been bitten by the Halo bug.

But as I sat back and thought about it, will this be another gaming fad that won’t last the honeymoon period? Or will it actually take off, and bring a new element to gaming as we know it?

Now I am one of these picky gamers who feels right at home with a controller in my hands, the traditional but effective way of gaming has always appealed to me and if any of you out there know me, you will know I have this ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it attitude’ to life. The Wii for me is kind of on the border line with it, true it still has the controller but instead of traditionally pressing buttons, you are waving it around like some sort of crazy base-ball player, oh the stories I have heard about Wii remotes going through TV screens still make me chuckle.

For those of you out there who aren’t familiar with Project Natal, let me give you a brief explanation. Project Natal is a device that will plug into your Xbox 360, comprising of a black box with a camera, and a special motion sensor which in turn scans your body, letting you play games totally hands free, just by moving your body. Not only that, but the device also promises a new level of customisation to your gaming, say you have a really cool skateboard deck at home and you want touse it in Tony Hawk, apparently you can scan in your deck and hey presto, it is there on the game for you to use. Also, it will make clothes shopping easier as well, where you can, in some way, virtually try on the clothes that have caught your eye.

To me this sounds too huge for a November 2010 release date, I mean has our technology advanced that much? If so, then why aren’t PC’s and Mac’s doing it now with their webcams? I mean c’mon, Apple would have jumped on that shiny technology band wagon ages ago. Do Microsoft have exclusive rights to this technology? Or are they just going to bring out a half-arsed thing which is just akin to a glorified PlayStation EyeToy?

Take Milo as a shining example. Lion Head have come up with a game for Natal which centers around a boy called Milo and basically he talks to you, and you can fully interact with him. He is pretty much a friend you can buy from a store. Peter Molyneux and the Lion Head team have promised that you can pretty much interact with this character in almost anyway possible, you can give him objects which Natal will scan in, and he can read your emotions and basically get to know you inside out.I don’t know about you, but I think this type of technology would take years to make, maybe ten at least, you have to programme every single outcome, emotion and interaction and to be honest I’m dreading that most of the time Milo is not going to understand you and get bored. It was confirmed at this years E3 extravaganza in LA, and true, it won’t be coming out with Natal at its supposed launch, but if it was announced at E3 then it has to come out in a year or two…right?

The only thing that gives Natal a glint of hope is Playstation 3′s EyePet. This relatively new game that has hit the market uses the PS3 eye camera to film the gamer while the EyePet is on the screen, meaning that what you see in the screen is your living room with the monkey/dog thing inside it. Pretty cool in my opinion. After looking at the potential of this game and doing a little bit of reasearch, I can say I have a little bit more hope about Natal. Even though EyePet is basically a glorified EyeToy like I said earlier, it does mean Natal can up its game.

So for me I am very much sitting on the fence for this project. A part of me is hoping that Natal has the capability of blowing its competition out of the water, but then again I like my games with controllers, being physically able to push buttons is a thing that I enjoy because, without a doubt a button command 99.999999 times out of a hundred will do what you want, whereas hands-free gaming can be less reliable in my opinion.

Garv