Leveling Down

Major Announcements Include:

Left 4 Dead 2 -  with more of everything, exclusive to 360 & PC on November 17
Crackdown 2 – citizens turning into zombies (the hip new trend it seems)
Forza 3 – coming this fall with new graphics engine
Halo Reach – another Halo title, with free beta access w/ purchase of Halo ODST
Metal Gear Solid Rising – first Metal Gear game on the 360, starring Raiden

Xbox Live integrating with Last.FM, Facebook, and Twitter – allows you to upload in-game screens to your Facebook account, etc.

Project Natal – Microsoft’s answer to the Wii, which allows for motion capture with only the camera

The Microsoft keynote sounds pretty promising. The demo that was used for Project Natal was quite interesting, as it showed a woman looking at the screen and the boy in the game looking right back at her and reacting to her. I’m also a little surprised to see a Left 4 Dead sequel coming out in just a year, but I guess with the amount of success Left 4 Dead 1 gained since last year, it was inevitable. Looks like this fall is the year of monster sequels on the 360 for me: BioShock 2, Modern Warfare 2, and now Left 4 Dead 2 (I guess I’ll also mention Assassin’s Creed 2, Army of Two “2″, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Mass Effect 2 as well).

Microsoft’s E3 Expo Live Blog [Kotaku]

What else will E3 bring besides building sized ads for Final Fantasy XIII?

Punch Out!
This game is awesome! I’ve been spending the bulk of the week working through the normal game mode. After I finished that I started right on Title Defense mode, which features more difficult versions of all the original fighters. For fans of the classic, this game is a definite must buy. For those who aren’t diehard Punch Out fans, I’ll have a quick review up later this week. The game reminds me of a hefty old school challenge, in a good way.

Broken Sword
I finished this game and was a little disappointed by the ending. I guess in a puzzle point and click adventure it’s all about the journey, but the story got super convoluted and hard to follow at the end so that detracted from the experience a bit. This is definitely a good game, but it’s not gonna crack my pantheon of point and click favorites (Monkey Island, Full Throttle). It just doesn’t have the same charm and humor of those LucasArts titles.

Dead Space
I definitely think Bioshock is the superior experience. Dead Space is starting to feel like a poor man’s Bioshock to me, and I miss Bioshock’s “choose your own method of killing” gameplay. Like Bioshock, the game is pretty linear, which is what it is. I do enjoy the different weapons at your disposal and how they aren’t “conventional” weapons, it definitely keeps things interesting. I can definitely envision this being a game that I never finish though…

E3
Lookin forward to seeing what comes out of E3 this week. There are rumors there will be a new Mario or Zelda title (or both!), I’m dying to hear what Kojima is announcing (and tired of following his countdown to a countdown), and hoping Sony announces a PS3 price cut (I’m incredibly skeptical). Sometimes I feel silly buying into convention hype, but with this being such a boring time for console gaming, I’ll take what I can get!