SHADOW

The entire time I was just shocked by the absolute lack of excitement.

• They didn't show anything substancial from Fallout 3.
• The Gears 2 'demo' was very short. And if they hadn't told me it was number 2 I would've thought it was just footage from the first one.
• All the trailers seemed really boring.
• What the hell were they doing with Fable 2? I never played the first one but does this game actually have anyone excited? I literally was watching and thinking to myself "What the **** is this? The Sims?".
• MS seems to be repeating Sony's failures. They seemed really smug and produced a lot of mis-leading statistics. The funny thing is when Sony did this they had something to be smug about. MS, not so much.
• Avatars look stupid. That simple. It's like MS stuck home and Mii's in a blender. They look perfect in SceneIt! but on the dashboard they look very out of place.
• A new live interface is a great idea. If you do it right. MS is repeating their own Vista mistake by making something that looks good but forgetting to include usability. Then again they didn't really show the new system getting used just how it will look.
• The MS people all sound like friggin robots. Absoulutely no sense of emotion in what they said. Peter Moore is missed.
• The FFXIII video, no matter what side of the debate you are on, seemed like the only remarkable thing to come out of this press conference.
• That concert thing was a joke. I have never heard that song before. Was she singing it? Were they playing the song in the background as she sang it? That's the way it sounded. Was she playing Lips? Cause it looked like she was using a normal microphone. Is the song supposed to sound that way? If so my respect for the music industry ha dropped once again.

Note that I am viewing this from the eyes of a PS3 owner. Do you guys feel this way? Or did I just not "get" it?

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To all the fanboys: "Sit down. Take a deep breath. And while you have your mouth open, stick your d*** in it. That way I don't have to hear from you and you can finally get a little satisfaction." (Adam Sessler)

The Benny (Macho)

There wasn't much to it really, mainly going over things we already knew. As I said in another thread I think the main 360 interface could do with an overhaul, so hopefully they're taking it in the right direction. Some of it seemed to be a bit of a kneejerk reaction to the Wii (as well as offering an alternative to the Sony versions), with the karaoke, movie, quiz and gameshow games.

Lionhead seem a bit fixated on a couple of features in Fable 2, but there should be much more to the game. The Fallout 3 bit was mainly to mention the exclusive DLC more than show off the game, Bethesda have proper events sorted out for the press to get their hands on it.

All in all there are plenty of exclusives that I'm excited about, but they've all been talked up through most of the year already so there wasn't much surprise here, apart from the obvious.

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Luan

Completely, The only "exciting" piece of news is the FFXIII part.
I honestly hate how most 360 games out there are about war or firstperson shooters...
but what the hell...i hated Microsoft since I first touched a Windows 95.
i didnt mind the old Xbox though...i thought it was pretty good...but the 360 is just a piece of plastic that i couldnt hate more...actually...i could...if they bring FFversusXIII to the platform that would be the end of my very little liking i have for Microshit

SHADOW

I also just realized that all that money that people have spent on dashboard themes is now officially a waste. (It kinda was before but now its official.)

__________________


To all the fanboys: "Sit down. Take a deep breath. And while you have your mouth open, stick your d*** in it. That way I don't have to hear from you and you can finally get a little satisfaction." (Adam Sessler)

The Benny (Macho)

The "360 = shooters" argument stopped being valid long ago, if it was ever valid post-Xbox. How many genres does the PS3 have more exclusive games in than the 360? Which console has Resistance and a sequel on the way? Warhawk? Killzone? SOCOM? Haze? Shooters are very much in vogue right now and both sides have dipped their finger in that particular honey jar.

Shadow, as far as I can the entire existing dashboard blade system is accessible from the guide button. From Major Nelson:

So the themes might still be there, with a full dashboard accessible from in game.

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SHADOW

oh ok. That kinda kills the point of a makeover though doesn't it? anyway good news for people dumb enough to buy dashboard themes.

__________________


To all the fanboys: "Sit down. Take a deep breath. And while you have your mouth open, stick your d*** in it. That way I don't have to hear from you and you can finally get a little satisfaction." (Adam Sessler)

The Benny (Macho)

Well the makeover looks like it's aiming for a sleek, fairly resource-intensive theme that obviously wouldn't be practical in game. The old dashboard is basically just text and buttons, meaning it should work well even with a game running.

Essentially, Microsoft's answer to Sony getting a few decent in game features to the XMB is to make the whole system accessible from within any game. These features will also apparently work in every existing game because of how they took charge of a lot of the functionality from the beginning. So technically it's all pretty neat, but it's not really the kind of thing that translates into big headlines.

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Superjew

I don't really have much to say about the rest, but I would just like to say that the first Fable game sucked. I actually stopped right before the end because I realized this game as about as deep as a kiddie pool. I can't imagine why anyone liked that piece of garbage that passes for a game, seriously, I can't. Everything about that game, except maybe the graphics, was absolutely mediocre. The story was nearly nonexistent.

What gives? I seriously don't get it. I'm pretty open minded but if that is something to be excited about MS is in a lot of trouble.

The Benny (Macho)

I couldn't get into Fable at all but my brother loves it. He's played through it again and again, including another play through fairly recently. It seems to be one of those that either clicks for somebody or it doesn't. In theory the sequel should take care of a lot of the things the original failed to deliver on, but Molyneux hypes it all up to such a ridiculous degree that's it's impossible to tell from any previews.

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Superjew

Well, I guess I'll put it this way. The last game that Peter Molyneux made that I loved was Syndicate, which is almost as old as I am.

Fable just does not have the elements of an all around game to me I guess. Combat isn't good enough to be an action game, the story isn't good enough to be an RPG, the housebuilding and stuff on the side isn't good enough to be sims-like, so I feel like there's a lot of mediocre all around.