X10 Highlights
X10 is somewhat bittersweet this year, coming hot off the heels of Microsoft's announcement that it will discontinue Xbox LIVE support for Xbox 1 games in April. In the wake of putting another nail into the original Xbox's coffin, the Xbox 360 grows even larger in importance to the company, and Microsoft certainly never misses an opportunity to toot its own horn.
Bungie revealed the multiplayer beta plans for "Halo: Reach," most likely the final installment of the series on the 360 (or at least, the last one created by Bungie). The beta begins May 3, and players looking to participate will have to own a copy of last year's "Halo 3: ODST." This method of restricting beta participants is disappointing, but it falls in line with Bungie's track record of rewarding its loyal fans. Considering this will probably be the developer's last hurrah for the series that made it famous, it's an apt gesture.
Microsoft also continued in its journey to sway "Final Fantasy" fans over to the Xbox side of the fence by announcing an Xbox 360 "Final Fantasy XIII" bundle pack. It is, for all intents and purposes, the "FFXIII" version of last year's "Modern Warfare 2" bundle: a 360, the game, two controllers, and the meaty 250 GB hard drive for $399. Most people expect Sony to follow suit with a similar PlayStation 3 bundle for North America, so this 360 bundle probably won't court too many "Final Fantasy" fanatics already loyal to the PlayStation brand. Also, there is some delicious irony in reaching out to fans of a single-player Japanese RPG by saying, "This version comes with TWO controllers!"
The long, long-in-development psychological thriller game "Alan Wake" finally completes its journey on May 18. "Splinter Cell: Conviction," the reinvention of the dormant stealth-action series, releases April 13. Two sequels from Capcom: "Dead Rising 2," a new zombie-infested slaughterfest from Canadian studio Blue Castle Games, arrives Aug. 31, and you may commence with the cooperative mech-piloting and giant-bug-slaying in "Lost Planet 2" on May 18. An enhanced version of the beloved Nintendo 64 shooter "Perfect Dark" also hits Xbox LIVE Arcade in March. (Dude: laptop guns.)
Finally, Lionhead Studios showed off "Fable III" (due out this holiday) for the first time, and it looks surprisingly far along in development. We've barely finished digesting "Fable II" from late 2008, but Lionhead has clearly been working hard. It takes place in the same world, only during a more industrial time period and grimy, dirty atmosphere. The game also looks to tweak the action-RPG formula in some interesting ways, such as through removing on-screen health meters and basing character evolution on the number of followers you gain through your deeds instead of superficial experience points.
"Fable III" surprised most people not with what was revealed about it, but with what was not revealed. Lionhead's leader Peter Molyneux has been the most outspoken proponent of Microsoft's upcoming body motion tracking peripheral "Project Natal," yet his newest game shows no traces of mechanics utilizing the camera technology. In fact, X10 was strangely devoid of information about the technology that Microsoft has been pitching as a radical new beginning for their console. Perhaps Microsoft has chosen to wait for E3 to blow the lid off their Natal plans, but any scrap of information would have been appreciated.
