Microsoft Spring Showcase Report

With just two major releases announced for Xbox 360 in 2011, Forza Motorsport 4 and Gears of War 3 it would be easy to assume Microsoft would have some surprises prepared for their Spring Showcase in San Francisco. It turned out the surprise was - no surprises.

But even if there were no major announcements at the events, there was still reason to get excited. We were treated to a sneak peek into the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta, got to try out the Defiant Map Pack for Halo: Reach, play around with Age of Empires Online, be treated to a 20 minute demo of Batman: Arkham City as well as play with upcoming Kinect titles Child of Eden, The Gunstringer and Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster.

The first evening of the event was reserved for Gears of War 3 and the release date (September 20 if you've happened to miss it) was formally announced, the beta test that kicks off mid-April was also detailed. Buyers of Bulletstorm: Epic Edition already have an invite, and Epic are looking through options on how to allow others to join the beta. One interesting thing they are doing is giving beta testers exclusive in-game rewards for participating in the beta. These include a playable thrashball edition of Cole Train and a golden retro lancer.

We got to go hands on with a couple of modes including King of the Hill and Team Deathmatch on maps such as Trenches, Check Out, Thrash-ball. All very distinct levels and enjoyable in their own right. A favourite of mine, which I believe was called Overpass, featured a bridge in the middle with a turret in the centre (basically four glued together retro lancers). The exposed position of the turret made for some interesting encounters. King of the Hill took place in a cramped map and the action as the points were taken was extremely intense and the lancers and sawed-off shotguns came in handy. Getting violated by a retro lancer charge must be one of the most humiliating deaths in gaming, bull charging with a retro lancer is a lot of fun, but the drawback with the weapon is the kick which is hard to get used to. The Hammerburst now sports an ironsight which made it a favourite of mine, especially in Check Out a map based in an abandoned supermarket. Even if it's a small an intense map there are opportunities to shoot across the map and score kills from a distance.

There were also some more exotic new weapons such as the burrowing digger device and the one shot. The One Shot ruled the day on a map called Trenches, Cliff Bleszinski's favourite map of the ones you can vote for in the beta on Facebook. When the One Shot scans the map for victims you'd better get in cover as it will turn you into "pink mist" in an instant. Brutal and utterly satisfying. My favourite new addition, as a fan of shotguns, was the Sawed-off Shotgun which was useful anywhere above five feet from your opponent, but when in range it just had bodies explode. Getting a double kill with the Sawed-off Shotgun was probably the highlight of my evening.

Overall the experience felt very polished and slightly faster than that of Gears of War 2. Cliff Bleszinski made no effort in hiding that the main reason for the beta is commercial rather than gaining feedback and testing out the tech. Sure, Epic are going with dedicated servers for the beta, and day one on release, a change that will do away with host advantage, but the main reason for the beta is to stay in gamer's minds. "It's all about mindshare", as Bleszinski put it.

Prior to the event there was some talk that we might see some new games, such as the rumoured Halo: Combat Evolved remake, but the only Halo presence at the event was the Defiant Map Pack. Given that it marks the "official" departure of Bungie as the developer of the series, I'm sure fans of the series have somewhat mixed feelings as it launches on March 15 for 800 points. However, when we sat down with 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor, formerly with Bungie, he was quick to point out that both 343 Industries and Certain Affinity have a lot of experience with the franchise. O'Connor also assured us there were lots of plans for Halo during the year as the franchise celebrates its tenth anniversary.

With Gears of War 3 dealt with the evening prior, the big star of next day's showcase was no doubt Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham City. The Caped Crusader looked in stellar shape as we witnessed him on a mission to save Catwoman from the clutches of Two-Face. The expansive city, improved mechanics and a narrative that saw us tangle with four of Batman's most recognisable foes inside 20 minutes and there is no denying the attention to detail and craftmanship that has gone into the characters and voice acting. The developer seems brimming with confidence and the move to more of an open-world game feels just right even if there will be plenty of indoor environments to lurk around in as well. After liberating Catwoman (or did she liberate herself?) an attempt on her life courtesy of a sniper disrupts the reunion of cat and bat.

In his detective mode Batman traces the trajectory of the bullet and we were shown an interesting route to the shooter's vantage point in a bell tower. Our hero hitched a ride with a helicopter, and descended onto the henchmen in front of the tower going straight into a throat grab. It looked very pleasing. Of course, it wasn't as simple as finding the Joker hiding out in the bell tower, and we were forced to make a quick exit as the Joker pushed a remote trigger to set of the explosives he had hidden up in the tower. I may not fully do the demo justice trying to retell it, but let me assure you Arkham City looks absolutely stunning.

With Kinect becoming a storming success, Microsoft now hope to deliver content that will raise core gamer interest in the peripherals. Microsoft's Kevin Unangst was quick to point out the potential of improving the game experience with Kinect. "Just think of what voice recognition could to a game that uses a standard controller, or head tracking", he said. He mentioned Forza Motorsport 4 as an example of marrying a core game with Kinect functionality. But other than this mention, Turn 10's racing game was suspiciously missing from the event. Our interpretation: Don't expect it to arrive anytime soon.

On hand at the event was three Kinect titles, Twisted Pixel's Xbox Live Arcade offering The Gunstringer, Q Entertainment's Child of Eden, and Double Fine's interactive story book Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster.

Starting with the last of these, Q Entertainment's Nathan Martz was on hand to explain how it came to be that Double Fine is working on a licensed children's game. In fact it started out as a project that was meant as a happy game for kids to enjoy with their parents, then when Kinect was announced it seemed like a perfect fit and the final piece of the puzzle was when Warner was looking for developers to do games with the Sesame Street license. The end result is a fun little interactive story book adventure that's extremely accessible and built to support drop-in/drop-out co-operative play throughout. Fans of Double Fine with younger family members they can enjoy the game with should look into this one as it releases this fall.

A game that featured surprisingly solid controls was Twisted Pixel's XBLA effort The Gunstringer. With your left controlling the movement of Gunstringer, the undead cowboy marionette and your right used for lock-on aiming and firing the gun. It's a nice change of pace when it comes to Kinect games, and I'm sure core gamers looking for something else to do with Kinect is the target audience. That said, The Gunstringer, did have a forgiving and very casual feel to it. The signature live action cutscenes and humour of Twisted Pixel was also ever present through the 15 minute demo we played.

Finally Q Entertainment showed off the Beauty archive from Child of Eden and more importantly they showed off improved Kinect controls where the latency issues we experienced with the game at Tokyo Game Show seemed to have disappeared almost completely. The HUD was also in place and we were given a better idea of what the full experience would be like. According to Q Entertainment's James Mielke there was about a month worth of work left to do on the project and it's being targeted for a summer release to the delight of all Rez fans.

The free-to-play Age of Empires Online may not have gotten much attention from the press at the event, but the game that is now being developed by Chris Taylor and Gas Powered Games, does bring an interesting first to Microsoft's game division with its free-to-play model. Set to release later in the year it sat next to Lionhead Studios' PC version of Fable III in the locales. As far as that game goes Lionhead's Josh Atkins explained that the extra time in development was necessary to make sure it played like a proper PC title, and that there wasn't the feel of a shoddy Xbox port. Remains to be seen if Lionhead has pulled that off, but there are certain gameplay benefits such as being able to strife around in first person perspective which makes sense on PC. Atkins also showed us the shuffleboard Windows Phone 7 title Fable Coin Golf in which you can earn gold to spend in both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game.

While there were plenty of strong titles on display in San Francisco, I think it's fair to say that there was an air of disappointment among the attendees as Microsoft really didn't shed much light on their plans for the second half of 2011 and beyond. It looks like we're going to have to wait until E3 to find out more...