E3 2003: Xbox Conference Report

Our thoughts and impressions from this year's Xbox E3 Briefing - plus all the new announcements.

Tonight, Microsoft kick started proper Pre-E3 proceedings at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. After last year's very slick performance, a lot was expected this year - and although this time it wasn't as glitzy, there is little doubt that it delivered what we were all there for - the games.

Microsoft's 'big three' Xbox staff - Robbie Bach, J Allard and Ed Fries - all took the stage together to indulge in a welcome speech that had more than a slight self-congratulatory tone to it. But really, what did you expect from these guys?

The first game to be shown was the breathtaking Doom III - running on Xbox and looking exactly like the PC title we're looking forward to so much - obviously apart from screen resolution. In fairness, it was impossible to tell what version it was - but frankly, it's bound to look great on Xbox either way. "Do you need any more proof that great games are at the heart of Xbox entertainment?", Ed asked the audience after the new Doom III trailer finished. Nobody replied...

Next up was Project Gotham Racing 2, which has added trillions of new cars (Ferrari heaven) plus Edinburgh, Chicago and Florence to its line-up of cities. The footage showed that the game is progressing swimmingly, with the emphasis still on Kudos earning and looking as cool as damn possible.

Rare's first Xbox title (not including Kameo) was shown - Grabbed by Ghoulies the sees gamers play the role of a kid on a mission to rescue his girlfriend, with cartoon-style visuals and a 3D action fighting theme.

Namco's Breakdown was an amazing video that truly reflects the quality of the developer's best work. As Ed put it: "It innovates on the FPS category with hand-to-hand combat that makes the game feel even more up-close-and-personal." This is definiteky one to watch, trust us.

Having started the conference with some DJ beats of his own, J revealed that the new product Music Mixer "unlocks the digital entertainment capability of Xbox." It connects gamers to other favorite activities of the "Digital Entertainment Lifestyle", enabling players to access DVD playback, CD playback, photo viewing, gaming, music storage, online gameplay, enhanced party visualizers and even karaoke. This was the first of two obvious steps to broaden Xbox's audience.

The second step was in the unveiling of some major Xbox Live enhancements - adding structure and useful features to the Xbox Live experience. You'll soon be able to set up tournaments and challanges with friends, scheduled and then sent to your mobile or PDA as an alert. Gamers will have a place to meet and can use voice chat to determine where to begin their gaming experience. They used a crap lifestyle video to demonstrate all this, but we got the idea - "normal people would do this, not just gamers", was the message.

J also unveiled the new XSN (Xbox Sports Network) brand - another integrated Xbox Live component that's basically the online focal point for all online sports play, stats, tournaments, rankings and such. Microsoft have obviously noticed that sport is pretty popular, and that's what XSN is here for - and with so many promising firstparty sports games on the horizon - such as Top Spin - it all makes sense really.

Of particular note in the sequence of other games shown briefly were Sonic Heroes, its first showing to the media at large, and Conker: Live and Uncut, which was well received by the audience.

Just as it started, the conference ended on a high, as Ed welcomed a guest from Bungie to play Halo 2 in realtime for about eight minutes. As expected, it looks absolutely immaculate. The quality of the environments, the set-pieces and the way you interact with the world around you, are all second to none. A cool new feature revealed in the demonstration was Chief's ability to jump onto a flying vehicle, and continue combat whilst airborne.

Halo 2's level structure, explosions, effects and weapons all point towards Halo 2 being the sequel that gamers expect - but with the game only in demonstration form at the show (as opposed to fully playable), we'll have to wait before we know for sure.

Robbie ended with a short speech to round up, stating: "the software and services expertise to make that vision come alive is hard-wired into our company. It's in our DNA. It's what we do."

The conference was a good one. As always it will be interesting to see what Sony and Nintendo pull out of the bag tomorrow. Stay tuned for full reports from those, as well as a lot more from everything mentioned here.

Adam Doree
Director, Kikizo.com