Crackdown 2 Xbox 360

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• Over-the-top Action: Leap across rooftops, throw vehicles like toys, blow up entire streets! Take on all the city, and have a blast doing it!

• Ultimate Multiplayer experience: Play alone, or cooperatively with 3 more friends in true jump-in/jump-out co-op, or with 15 PVP adversaries (*Xbox LIVE Gold membership required for online multiplayer).

• Open-ended: Take any objective in any order, at any time. You decide how to play!

Number of Online Players : 2-16 Players
Number of Players : 1 Player
Online Modes : Co-op 1-4

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Microsoft had a lot to offer their audience at this year’s E3. They showed off some highly anticipated games like Gears of War 3, and Metal Gear Solid: Rising, but the real star of their show was Kinect, formerly known as the Project Natal.

Kinect will allow for full body motion control of Kinect-enabled games. It uses two different cameras to capture your image in 3D, and determine precisely what movement you’re making. Most of the games they showed for Kinect were simple minigame collections, similar to the type of things you would typically find on the Wii. Kinect sports lets you control a variety of different athletic activities with your arms and legs, while Kinect Adventures puts you in some more exciting scenarios, like what water rafting down a river. Lucas Arts is working on a Star Wars game that takes advantage of Kinect for some awesome lightsaber battles, but other than that, nothing they had to show looked terribly innovative. It was kind of neat to see how you could control the dashboard with hand gestures, but we’re having a hard time justifying a new peripheral just to control the 360 Minority Report style.

New Black xbox 360 Console

Microsoft also showed off the new black xbox 360 that hit store shelves just days after their press conference. The new black xbox 360 console features a 250 GB hard drive, more USB ports, built in wifi, and a sleek new form factor. Expect to see some steep discounts on current 360 models to coincide with the launch of the new SKU.

Core gamers weren’t ignored completely. Microsoft showed off some Gears of War 3 gameplay that showed off the game’s four player co-op, as well as some interesting new enemies. Microsoft also showed off an extended trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Rising in which protagonist Raiden chopped everything in his path in half. Pillars, cars, and watermelons alike met their demise at his hands.

Microsoft and Activision announced a deal whereby all new Activision DLC would hit the Xbox 360 first, much the same way the Modern Warfare 2 DLC did. To celebrate, they showed off some footage of Call of Duty: Black Ops. It looked like a pretty solid shooter up until the player got in a helicopter, and took off, at which point it started looking like an extremely awesome shooter.

Sports fans (in the US) are going to have good reason to love their 360. ESPN is bringing a wide variety of sporting events straight to the 360, and the best part is, XBL Gold subscribers won’t have to pay an additional fee.

Microsoft’s E3 press conference was very Kinect heavy, but aside from the focus on motion controls, they had a strong presentation. Wigh games like Halo Reach, Gears of War 3, and Metal Gear Solid: Rising on the way, gamers everywhere have a lot of good reasons to be excited about the new black Xbox 360.

Speaking at his studio, Dave Jones, the founder of Realtime Worlds stated that development of the Xbox 360 version stopped because “it just didn’t feel right.” He continued to state that “we [Realtime Worlds] wanted to make it absolutely right for PC first before thinking about anything else.”

APB is due out at the start of July in Europe and it differs greatly from the original concept. Look forward to our preview in the coming days to find out more about the new APB.

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Hell, even the most popular video game characters are mostly male.

For whatever reason, female gamers are marginalized, and often mocked. However, thanks to the increase of notoriety of serious female gamers like The Frag Dolls, the voices of the ladies who love to game is growing stronger every day.

One such lady gamer, is Dana Pirkle (also known by her gamertag: J for Jade) who’s 19, and from Cumming, Ga. Dana’s one of three finalists on the reality show, WCG Ultimate Gamer 2 (airs on SyFy) in which she’s hoping to be voted in by viewers for the chance to compete for $100,000 in cash, a bunch of Samsung related prizes, and to become the face of the World Cyber Games. Which essentially would be like wearing a badge that says, “I’m the best all-around gamer, and I will ruin your shit.”

Dana *ahem* excuse me, J for Jade, took some time to answer some of my questions about getting on to the show, and what it’s like to be a hardcore female gamer.

BLAST: When did you REALLY get into gaming seriously, and what was the game that got you hooked?

DANA PIRKLE: Gaming has always been apart of my life, growing up with 5 older brothers, but when my gaming career seriously was around 2005. I was 16, an attended my first ever tournament for Halo 2. I am an avid Halo gamer and when Halo 2 became a huge nation wide game for tournaments, my gaming career changed completely. I dove immediately in to the gaming industry and never looked back.

BLAST: How did you get chosen to participate in the WCG?

DP: Before the airing of WCG Ultimate Gamer Season 1, I had the opportunity to meet WCG Prod1gy x through Empire Arcadia (gaming organization). He was Season 1’s second place finalist and shortly after the air of the show I met Dante, who was also another cast member from the show. Once I met them and watched the entire Season 1, I was determined to make it on the next Season, so I kept up with WCG until they released news about the Season 2 casting calls in my area.

BLAST: Any story behind your tag “J for Jade”?

DP: Yes. The name mainly originates from a Mortal Combat character and because my favorite color is green. Although, what sparked me to get the name “Jade” was because I had a close friend to me online named Jaded and it seemed to fit.

BLAST: What do you think of games that are marketed specifically at girls? Such as fashion and dress up games?

DP: I consider them to be more for the casual female gamer, but I would also encourage girl gamers to reach out to more games that they maybe interested in. Although, I do on occasion love playing the Sims 3, I also believe that many other female gamers would enjoy getting involved with FPS, RPGs, RTS, or other games rather than dress up. With that being said, I believe the gaming industry shouldn’t target female gamers as just being casual and only enjoying fashions games.

BLAST: When you play games online, how are you treated?

DP: Normally, I try to play with people I know and enjoy playing with or other female gamers like myself, but I do get a lot of harassment. Just by being a female gamer in a room with all random guys, there is always a point to where someone has to make a rude comment just because of my gender. But once I show them my skills and give them a beating of a life time. They don’t have much else to say.(laughs)

BLAST: As a follow up to that, I’ve noticed some of the comments on your voting page. Why all the hate? And is there really a jealous ex that’s trying to sabotage you?!

DP: Probably, I’m not really all that sure. I figure its other gamers who are jealous of the fact that they want to be on WCG Ultimate Gamer, but I am not letting it get me down. There are always haters in the gaming community and you just got to be the mature one and not let it get to you. I have been around the gaming community for quite some time and the drama that surrounds it has become over rated.

BLAST: What do you think of the Frag Dolls, and the image they portray?

DP: I personally think the Frag Dolls are doing good things in and outside of their community. They are helping portray a better image for female gamers and I am always supportive of other females, organizations, and communities that work for the same common goal of female gamers.

BLAST: If you win this thing, what’s next for you in the world of gaming?

DP: I first would like to further my education in college and hopefully one day get my masters, but a portion of my success by winning WCG Ultimate Gamer Season 2 would go to attending more tournaments, conventions, giving back to children’s help organizations (such as Gamers for Giving), and getting more females involved with the gaming industry to work on making female gamers a norm in society.

BLAST: Last (and somewhat silly) last question. As an attractive female gamer, let’s say that you’re hypothetically in a relationship with another gamer like yourself. If he asked you to dress up as your favorite female video game character, who would it be?

DP: Probably, Bayonetta. That game was badass! Plus, she is sexy and can kick anyone’s butt!

Either way wish her some luck, or better yet, vote for her to be the finalist on WCG Ultimate Gamer 2. Voting ends at Midnight Sunday.

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However it turns out Natal isn’t quite as unique as first appeared. Yesterday TechCrunch ran a post about Omek Interactive, an Israeli firm that’s building a controller-free system, too. Omek’s Shadow 2.0 SDK interfaces with a 3D camera that measures depth and filters out background info so that it can track a person’s movements, very much like we’ve seen Natal do. Hand, foot, head and body movements are all tracked pretty accurately. Omek has a demo boxing game that it’s using to show off the technology.

Omek’s market isn’t the Xbox 360 for obvious reasons. Instead they’re targeting other set-top boxes, smart TVs and media center PCs. No specific names were mentioned yet, but Omek says the technology is ready to launch now. I’ll embed a brief video recorded at Techonomy below, but for a longer interview check the TechCrunch article.

Omek wants to keep their product open to third party developers and available on a variety of platforms, and they hope we’ll see “Fueled by Omek” on the front bevel of our future set-top boxes. The idea is that third party developers will make (and presumably sell to us) apps, including games, that you’ll play on your set-top box via Omek’s software.

So what do you think? Should Microsoft be worried? The demo in this short video is a little bit shaky but the technology seems much more solid in the longer TechCrunch video. Of course Omek is leaving out the voice component (which Natal includes) at least for now. Presumably adding voice recognition wouldn’t be an insurmountable challenge for them. So is this a significant challenge to Project Natal? Are you even excited about controller free gaming? Please leave a comment!

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In Japan, that play chance will likely come at the Tokyo Game Show. In an interview with Nikkei BP, Japanese Xbox head Takashi Sensui hinted that Natal will appear in playable form at the September event.

“It was in limited form, but we introduced Natal in advance at last year’s Tokyo Game Show,” said Sensui. “This year, we’d like to ready a space for a wide audience to experience it.”

(Regarding last year’s show, Sensui is likely referring to a Natal panel that featured Hideo Kojima, Toshihiro Nagoshi and Keiji Inafune.)

TGS, to be held this year from September 16 through September 19, will be business only for the first two days and open to the general public on the last two days.

As Natal is due for release later this year, it’s presumable that Sensui is aiming for the device to be playable for the general public in addition to business partners.

Sensui’s comments came as part of the latest in Nikkei BP’s ongoing “keyman” interviews, where the site speaks to top execs at Japan’s biggest game companies. (Last week, Tecmo Koei CEO Kenji Matsubara was in the hot seat).

Outside of the playable TGS showing, Sensui answered a few more general questions about Natal’s technology.

He first corrected the site’s use of the term “camera” to describe the camera that the interface uses to capture your movements. The correct term, he said, is “sensor.”

Asked if Japanese players might have trouble with Natal due to smaller living environments, he said, “There’s need for a certain amount of space, but we believe the general home will be able to enjoy it — and that includes Japanese living environments.”

Nikkei also asked Sensui some pressing questions about areas outside of Natal.

Asked for his thoughts on 3D gaming, he said that the key for the technology spreading in games lies with the spread of 3D televisions based off content outside of games. Sensui noted that while Microsoft is currently keeping its eyes on how things go, the 360 hardware is already ready for 3D games.

Unrelated to Xbox 360, Sensui had some positive comments about Nintendo’s 3DS. “I think it’s an extremely good experiment. The play environment for portable machines is suited for 3D games. Because the perspective and distance to the screen are pretty much fixed, it’s relatively easy to realize a 3D environment.”

Sensui unfortunately skirted a question about the release of a slimline Xbox 360 model. Instead, his answer was more related to an Xbox 360 followup system as he noted that there would be a change to new hardware only when something emerges that cannot be done with the current hardware.

As a closing message, Sensui said “As was announced by Microsoft on a worldwide scale, we’d like to make 2010 the biggest year ever for our games business. One of the big chances to realizing this is, of course, Natal. However, parallel to that, we’ll continue offering high end quality titles and a variety of services for Xbox Live.”

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When pegged with a couple of questions that desperately needed some answers, Xbox 360 product manager Aaron Greenberg only defaulted to old Project-Natal news from X10 heard earlier this year. Clearly, Microsoft is holding back on any major revelations until June.

Where was Sony hardware? Marketing director, John Koller, and I shared our own very intimate moments when we talked shop, and their contender for the “Motion Controller Wars” the PlayStation Move. He laughed at all my awful jokes, but he was a straight shooter when I asked him the most important question … Is the PlayStation Move better than Project-Natal?


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His reasoning is that both the Wii and Move controllers are so alike, and the fact that the PS3 will allow to play games in HD and the Wii doesnt, basically means that Playstation Move is the Nintendo Wii HD that many gamers have been waiting for. Well he isn’t entirely wrong is he?

Eurogamer: What happened with The Agent?

Michael Pachter: When Microsoft paid Take-Two to make GTA IV non-exclusive… In other words, GTA IV was going to be a PS3 exclusive, but Microsoft paid Rockstar and Take-Two to make it a non-exclusive, and they paid them a lot. The number I’ve heard, and I’m sure this is right, is $75m, and that probably includes the funding for the first DLC packs too. It’s more than the $50m that people talk about.

And Sony – I’m not sure if they had a firm agreement but they may have had a handshake – said to Take-Two, “You’ve got to give us something else.” And the “something else” was a zombie game that Rockstar wanted to work on. But while Rockstar was in the planning phase, Dead Rising came out and Left 4 Dead was announced. Rockstar realised they were up against a saturated market and Valve, and, “What can we possibly do that will be any better than what Valve’s done?” They started again and that’s when they came up with the idea of The Agent, which nobody actually knows what it is. That is the back story.

There’s stuff that’s in the pipeline now, of course, but a publisher would be foolish to sign an exclusive deal. A developer could do it. I’ve told the Insomniac guys repeatedly. They don’t own the Ratchet & Clank IP or the Resistance IP but they’re such good developers. I’m like, “Why aren’t you guys doing multi-platform? Your games would sell.” As if those guys couldn’t create something – of course they could. It’s not like Sony came up with the art and graphics on Ratchet & Clank. The Insomniac guys are nuts not to do multi-platform. But they like their deal with Sony, so they’ll keep doing exclusives. LittleBigPlanet guys, Media Molecule, I feel the same way. What were they thinking selling to Sony? They must be Liberal Democrats!

Eurogamer: Let’s talk about E3. Who would you rather be: Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony?

Michael Pachter: It really depends on this 3DS and how good it is, because I don’t think Nintendo has anything else. Nintendo is on the verge of – certainly not dropping into third place or anything – losing its dominance, because I really truly believe that Sony Move is the Wii HD. I really believe it. That’s been my quote: I told everyone a Wii HD was coming this year, it just happens to say PS3 on the box. It is the Wii HD.

That’s a very easy upsell for Sony to say, “If you have a Wii and you really want to play high-def games on your new big high-def TV, we’ve got ‘em.” Sony is a winner and Nintendo is a loser on the console side, because the Wii Vitality Sensor isn’t going to excite anybody. But the 3DS will. If you look at Nintendo’s line-up, everything we care about is either out or known by now.

People are going to like Microsoft more than we expect. Microsoft isn’t concerned about the gaming community with Natal, they’re concerned about the gaming community’s mothers and girlfriends. I really do think the gaming press has completely missed the mark on this one, that Natal is not intended for you to get up there and pretend you’re holding a rifle and playing Call of Duty. It’s intended for your mum to use the frickin’ 360 to download a movie or watch Netflix and to make it less intimidating. The cool thing about Natal is the voice command. “Xbox on.” I mean, that’s cool. People will really like it when they see it and they begin to appreciate what it is.

But I will say Sony up, Microsoft neutral and Nintendo down on the console side.

If the 3DS is anything like those little 3D point-and-click cameras, because that screen technology is pretty cool and I’m sure it is that, it will really get people excited. Question is: what does it cost? If they get $189 for a DSi XL, do they think they’re going to get $300 for a 3DS? I don’t know. Maybe they will, but that’s a tough purchase for me. The 3DS is coming along at a really good time for them. I don’t think it’s good for the DSi XL. If they launch the thing [the 3DS] prior to holiday, I can’t imagine why anybody would buy a DSi XL this holiday.
Longer term, Nintendo does really start to look bad as Apple really starts to push the iPod Touch as a gaming device, and that’s happening this holiday. Again, the gaming press hasn’t figured it out. The gaming press doesn’t really understand the 12-year-old customer, nor do you guys care. Who plays DS games? Them, not us. Nintendo’s got problems this year but the 3DS will make them look great at E3.

That’s the manufacturer side. On the publisher side: Microsoft looks really good, they have a lot of content this year. People get psyched about Halo and Alan Wake will have just come out… Fable III. They have good content. I’m not sure who else anybody cares about. It’s all sequels: this year’s Call of Duty, etc. We’ve had a front-end-loaded year. We might see the Call of Duty action-adventure game but I don’t think anybody is going to get excited about that.

This is more a hardware show than in the past.

Eurogamer: Is Microsoft going to unveil an Xbox 360 Slim?

Michael Pachter: I’m certain that that is happening, I’m just not certain when. They told me a year ago, when I got my private Natal demo – a week before E3… I said something like, “Is this going to cost a lot of money? The big problem is retro-fitting every 360 and how are you going to get people to buy it?”

They said, and they said with great confidence, “We are going to pack it in every single Xbox 360.” A bundle? They said, “No, we are going to force people to buy it with every single Xbox 360.” And I said, “Oh that’s brilliant. That’s a great idea. If you could do it at a competitive price then the first year you’ll have eight million of them, the second year 16 million and after a couple of years it’ll be so ubiquitous everybody will make software for it. That’s smart.”

I’ve never heard them say that since. They didn’t say it at E3, they’ve never said it since. I don’t know if they still plan to do that or not. If they plan to do that, it makes sense to have… A current 360 costs them about $250 to make and the Arcade probably costs them $210 and they sell it for $200, so they’re right at break-even on the Arcade and making money on other SKUs.
If they can knock another $20 or $30 off the cost by using smaller components and smaller fans and cooler running components, get that cost down to $200 or $210 and then the Natal camera probably cost them $50 to make – they can actually bundle that whole thing and sell it at $299. That’s a pretty compelling offering. A lot of 360 owners will – especially guys who have the original – consider buying a new one. It will help them sell 360s.

I am certain that they’re working on a thinner model just to save money. They’d like to bundle Natal if they have the guts to pull it off and announce it at E3.

Eurogamer: What’s Apple up to?

Michael Pachter: The iPad, even though it looks like a super-large iPhone, actually has a pretty powerful processor. So the iPad is a PC. The quality of games you could offer on that are pretty amazing. The problem is, I can play Tetris on my laptop now, so I don’t really need to go buy another dedicated device to do that. Apple is not quite as ambitious as others think; they don’t think they have to dominate gaming tomorrow. They’ll work handhelds first. And then as all the kids who get iPod Touches graduate to iPhones and then to iPads, then they’ll start trying to encourage game development.

Problem is, Steve Jobs – who is certainly one of the greatest geniuses of our lifetime – has this odd phobia of buttons. Great. Guess what? We’re not going to be able to play flight sim games with no buttons. You have to provide the gamer the tools he needs to play the game. Nintendo carries it to the extreme with the Wii zapper and steering wheel and all that stuff. The controls have to fit the game. And the iPad can’t do that.

Michael Pachter is an analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities.

Do you agree with Pachter’s views or not?

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All invitees got an e-mail on Thursday morning informing them that the Natal event will feature a “spectacular live performance imagined by Cirque du Soleil.”

That kind of makes sense, given that Project Natal is a hands-free motion controller, and I can’t really think of a better group of people to put the new system through its paces than a bunch of Cirque performers. Of course, we don’t know if they’ll be using Natal or just getting the crowd fired up with their amazing gyrations, but here’s hoping that they do something with the device.

At the same time, Microsoft said in a statement on Thursday saying that MTV Networks will be offering an exclusive look “inside the spectacular controller-free games and entertainment” Natal offers.

Note the fact that the word “spectacular” was used in these two separate instances. One might draw the conclusion that Microsoft is trying to build up expectations for the Natal event and for the system itself–which is expected to be released in October.

Cirque du Soleil will put on a special performance at the Project Natal E3 event. (Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

SPIKE TV will play host the broadcast of the briefing while other MTV channels will show the Cirque Du Soliel preformance, with the briefing to be held on Monday June 14th at 1:30pm EDT and ‘The World Premiere Of Project Natal’ to be shown one day later, and commercial free, on Tuesday June 15th at 3:30pm EDT.

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If the hype is to be believed, it could change the way we game, use computers, and possibly live our lives. Or it may end up in a discount bin as another in a long line of gimmicky pieces of gamer tech. It is still too early to tell which, but now we know when we will be able to decide.

Microsoft’s much discussed Project Natal has been given an unofficial release date of late October. GameIndustry.biz is reporting that Microsoft’s Sauid Arabian marketing manager, Syed Bilal Tariq, has claimed that the Natal will be released in Saudi Arabia in October to coincide with a planned worldwide launch. This supports earlier suggestions of a late fall release.

The statements are still unofficial, but the upcoming E3 in June should give us an exact date, and possibly a new name for the device. Since its announcement at last year’s E3, Microsoft officials have been quick to point out that the name “Project Natal” is simply a project codename, and was never intended to be the production name. That may change since the name has taken hold, but we wont know for sure until next month.

The Natal uses voice and facial recognition, as well movement and depth to register and react to the user’s movements. The technology also has numerous applications that could soon make their way beyond the gaming world and into the world of computer hardware.

A video of the interview was posted Monday to Gamertag. Syed Bilal Tariq, a marketing manager for Microsoft’s operations in Saudi Arabia, told TV station KSA 2 that the date will be confirmed after the Entertainment Electronics Expo (E3) next month.