ArtisticallyChill

Despite a boring Modern Warfare 3 intro, Microsoft put out a pretty good conference this year, highlighting new innovations that Kinect will be used in a few games (though hopefully they won’t be required), new dashboard updates, new games for the Kinect and exclusive titles that we are all itching to play now. Here is a list of the things I am excited about:

• New Tomb Raider game looks stunning!
• Mass Effect 3 will feature the ability to use the Kinect to engage in dialogue with the other characters as well as give out commands during battles.
• Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will utilize the Kinect for customizing your weapons with voice and hand gestures. Hopefully, I can still play the campaign with a regular control pad as pushing your palm toward the Kinect to shoot looked kind of silly.
• I’m not that good at racing games but FORZA 4 looks absolutely sick and will feature headtracking with Kinect.
• Dashboard updates this FALL! YouTube and Bing with voice search commands, and LIVE TV!!
• Gears of War 3 is looking more and more polished and epic with each gameplay video shown.
• HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED ANNIVERSARY! Remastered, Campaign Co-op, Online Multiplayer with the 7 original maps remastered too! Foundation Remastered = ROCKETS and SWORDS Remastered!!
• Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster and Kinect Fun Labs: Now I have to get a kid so I can play these games.
• Dance Central 2 is a bit premature, in my opinion, since there hasn’t been enough DLC released for the first one. But 2 player co-op sold me.
• HALO 4. New trilogy. ‘Nuff said!

Corporate Vice President for Microsoft Game Studios Phil Spencer told IGN that, “There’s no explicit strategy that says we’re to ship a Halo game every year. I will say I think one Halo game every three years — which was kind of our old cadence – is probably not frequent enough.”

Phil Spencer has it all wrong. One Halo every 2-3 years just enough for fans like me. The last thing the fans want is a Halo game every year that doesn’t have the story, gameplay and the PASSION that takes 3 years of development, in house testing, and closed and public betas to get it done right.

Activision’s model of an annual release (i.e. Call of Duty) may work for them but that’s Activision – all about making money and not about the quality. Modern Warfare 2 was plagued with bugs, glitches and exploits that made the game unenjoyable for me. Now with Treyarch and other studios working on the franchise after the Infinity Ward Debacle of 2010, the next Call of Duty probably won’t receive much fanfare as when Infinity Ward was developing the games.

With Bungie no longer handling the development for future Halo titles, Microsoft could very well run this beloved franchise into the ground if they think an annual Halo game is a good idea.

~ LoneWolf