E3 2006 console gaming - Xbox 360

An E3 of this magnitude doesn't come very often. Two new consoles made official playable debuts, while a third finally hit its stride. All told, though, there was plenty to complain about; being a three-year E3 vet, I've learned to see the bad in the greatest gaming show on Earth. To that end, I've compiled the biggest mistakes of the biggest compa ... Read more
As a six-year E3 veteran, I've seen it all--from the moneyed excess of the Sony party to the yearly appearance by the Scottish development community. That being said, I was still not prepared for a $600 PlayStation 3. Tossing in that little bon mot at the end of a two-hour press conference, just before the lights came up, was akin to calling your p ... Read more
Eidos is a publishing house revitalized. Tomb Raider: Legend is the comeback story of the year, and the company's E3 titles look to continue the momentum. Reservoir Dogs is a title that's very reminiscent of one of last year's most pleasant surprises: Rockstar Games' The Warriors. It's based on a rather old license--almost 15 years, at this point- ... Read more
Amid all the space-based shooters and sword-and-sorcery slash-fests on display at E3, one of the quirkier standout titles was Viva Piñata. Microsoft is planning a major push for this family-friendly Xbox 360 exclusive. Taking notes from sandbox games such as Animal Crossing and The Sims, the whimsical setting of Viva Piñata is a garden wh ... Read more
Activision secured its reputation with comic book fans by bringing everyone's favorite mutants to life in the action RPG titles X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends 2. If a dozen or so superheroes was good, the thinking goes, then 50-plus comic book characters must be great--and the upcoming Marvel: Ultimate Alliance brings together a huge roster of her ... Read more
If there's any publisher that's living in the future, it's Ubisoft. While a couple of its titles will be available on the PS2 and Xbox, every one of the games on display in the company's booth are being developed, first and foremost, for the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, and the Wii. Assassin's Creed was probably the best game available in the Ubis ... Read more
Logitech has introduced two new steering wheel peripherals: the high-end G25 Racing Wheel for PC and PS2, and the DriveFX Axial Feedback Wheel for Xbox 360. The G25 is an elaborate peripheral that consists of three sections: the wheel itself, a six-speed gearshift, and a weighted foot pedal base that sports an accelerator, a brake, and a clutch. Th ... Read more
At the pre-E3 Microsoft Press Conference, we got some hands-on time with Gears of War, the eagerly anticipated third-person shooter for the Xbox 360. The live game looked as good as the video clips presented earlier in the week, and the buzz surrounding it makes it one of the standout games of the show. Despite the massive artillery, huge explosi ... Read more
To say this isn't Namco's--or as it's called now, Namcobandai's--E3 on the console front is a bit of an understatement. Namco's lineup of roughly a dozen games can be broken down into three categories: mech-based games, cartoon licenses, and substandard racers. The best Namcobandai console title is, surprisingly, a Mario Kart rip-off called Pac-M ... Read more
Capcom hasn't thrown any curveballs this E3, but it's still churning out interesting games, including two big Xbox 360 titles that should put some kick into the next-gen platform's not-so-spectacular game library. Lost Planet is a sci-fi shooter where the player must fight for his life on a harsh icy wasteland of a planet. It might seem like a sta ... Read more
At first glance, the two biggest console titles at EA's booth seem to be par for the course for a company that's often derided for unoriginality. One could argue that Army of Two is just another of the countless futuristic war shooters--as an aside, where's my Revolutionary War FPS?--while Superman is yet another licensed game set to suck alongside ... Read more
At a pre-E3 press event, Pioneer showed off its new HTS-GS1, a home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) system that's specifically designed to match the Xbox 360. The HTS-GS1--which has been available internationally as the HTP-XGS1--emphasizes style and aesthetics, utilizing a white design (with gray speaker grilles) that will perfectly complement your Xbox ... Read more
Pity poor celluloid hero Indiana Jones--very few matinee idols have been adapted for game screens as often, but the results have always been, to be generous, rather mixed. LucasArts takes another stab at this evergreen property in a new game, currently saddled with the working title Indiana Jones 2007. Intended for next-generation consoles, the p ... Read more
Behind closed doors, Sega showed off an early version of The Club. This third-person shooter for the Xbox 360 and PS3 wears its cinematic influences on its sleeve, mixing Fight Club and The Running Man with the over-the-shoulder POV made popular in games such as Resident Evil 4 and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. In The Club, gamers join a secr ... Read more
Gamers hold certain legendary titles in high regard, even if they appear terribly dated to modern audiences. Next to Goldeneye for the N64, the game most often mentioned in this context is the PC game System Shock 2, which was a first-person shooter with a deep plot and stealth, adventure, and RPG elements. Behind closed doors, 2K Games showed off ... Read more
I had an opportunity to get a closed-door look at two of 2K Games' next-gen heavy hitters, The Darkness and BioShock. We won't see either game until 2007 at the earliest, but both were complete enough to be shown running in playable, real-time form on an Xbox 360. The Darkness is a genre-bending action shooter with some heavy horror elements: name ... Read more
Bethesda Softworks may be hush-hush about Fallout 3 this year, but the company still has a ton of things to say about its upcoming titles, Star Trek Legacy and Pirates of the Carribean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow. TV and movie tie-ins tend to be mediocre at best, but these two games just might earn the coveted title of Surprisingly Good Licensed Ga ... Read more
Building on its early-mover advantage, Microsoft today unveiled plans for the second half of 2006 and beyond. Unlike rivals Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft has no new console to unveil this year at E3, so the buzz was muted, and the presentation lacked the lead-story punch of the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. Instead, Microsoft used a highl ... Read more
If you can wade through an 18-paragraph HD-DVD ad, the first details of the external HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 have been revealed on Xbox.com. Essentially, all that's been confirmed so far is that the add-on will connect via the USB port, "enabling it to harness the power of the Xbox 360 console for the HD video outputs and digital surround so ... Read more
Despite the hype surrounding the new wave of game consoles, one fact remains--Microsoft's Xbox 360 remains the only next-gen system on the market, an exclusive status it has held since November 2005. While Sony and Nintendo will be the media darlings of this year's E3 show, Microsoft hopes to gradually build on its first-mover advantage to gain mar ... Read more