BEST @ E3 2011

Glitz, glamour and games—this was the flavour at this year’s E3 convention in Los Angeles, the biggest gaming fair in the world. It all started with Microsoft’s impressive press conference a day before the convention started. Present at the event were the who’s who of the gaming arena. Thousands watched as Microsoft honchos launched new games for the Kinect and Xbox 360 and showed integration with Xbox Live accounts. To make searching simpler, Microsoft Bing will also be integrated with your Xbox Live accounts. But what interested us most were the Kinect games.

These have definitely moved a notch up from the first games such as Kinect Sports and Kinect Adventures. The news from Los Angeles is that soon we will be able to playaction games such as Tom Clancy Ghost Recon without the controller. You will use hand gestures and voice commands, yes you read that right, voice commands, to play the game. You can fire weapons with hand movements, zoom scopes and change weapons with a few voice or hand gestures. Another action game that will ride the Kinect will be Star Wars. Kinect Sports and Dance Central will also have their second editions. And chil- dren will love this one—Disney is going to bring Disneyland for the world on the Kinect platform. This means that you will soon be able to roam around the fantasy park and meet all your favourite Disney cartoon characters.

All this was fun, but the crowd went mad when Microsoft execs demoed the trailers of Gears of War 3, Forza Motorsport 4 and Halo HD. The first part of the extremely popular Halo is making a comeback with new, improved hi-resolution graphics. There was, expectedly, a mad rush at the convention grounds that had every major maker from the gaming and peripherals industry. Hollywood stars also made their appearances and tried their hands at the new games. Serpentine lines stretched out in front of the stall, with everyone wanting to get their hands on the fresh offerings games and the new gaming devices like the PS Vita and the Nintendo 3DS.

Microsoft’s stall was popular with the people, who crowded its Kinect pods, where they played some of the cool demos of the upcoming games on Kinect. However, the main attraction was the lifesize figure of Gears of War’s Marcus Fenix. Sony and Nintendo, the two other major console makers, too attracted crowds. Both showcased their new consoles. Capcom, Square Enix, WB Games, Ubisoft and 2K Games put up good shows too. Popular games on the game floor included Deus Ex Human Revolution, Dance Central 2, Hitman Absolution, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Ultimate Fighting Championship, Bioshock: Infinite, Forza Motorsports 4, Street Fighter Vs Taken, Need for Speed: The Run, Uncharted 3 and Battlefield 3. These were attractive offerings, but it seemed like the masses were really salivating over two well-awaited games—Batman Arkham City and Gears of War 3. These were easily the crowd favourites.

The glamour did not stop here. Men and women dressed as game characters, combatants on real tanks of World War II vintage, and lumbering robots were everywhere. E3 2011 was quite an experience—and will continue to be talked about, having forecast what is in store for the coming months.