I hope you’re as eager for more information on the recently announced Fantasy Life (DS) as I am because Level 5 have responded to my wishes. What we have are two images of the games character designs (created by Hideo Minaba), each representing the twenty unique job-based “lives”. As explained before each of these “lives” have their own set of quests and a unique ending with their very own Nobuo Uematsu vocal theme.

Thankfully most of the hard work involved in guessing which job each character represents has been done by Andriasang, which posted a full list of the jobs that was first published in Japanese weekly game magazine Famitsu. Unfortunately you still have to match each job with a character from the picture, so put your answers on a postcard and send them in (e.g the comments section)! Some of them are obvious, like the fisherman, but others are a lot tougher to identify.

Hit the jump for the full list of jobs and a picture of them all.

(more…)

The main draw of an RPG is a storyline in which the main characters usually end up on some fantastic adventure, which may or may not involve saving the world. You usually pass through a whole variety of locations, from small villages nestled between a mountain range to magnificent castles. Sometimes they are only pit stops along the way, a place where you can pick up potions and weapons to equip your party with. Sometimes they play a major part in the storyline, while other times they’re just a spot to do a little character building. I’ve often wanted to stay in these places for longer than the developers allow. Sure, technically you can usually stay in a town as long as you want but you’ll run out of things to do eventually, moving on to the next place. While I do love exploring these worlds I also sometimes want to see how life goes on in these places. Enter Fantasy Life, which brings an end to a paragraph that has already gone on far too long.

Fantasy Life is being developed for the DS by the makers of Mother 3, which should already excite you enough if you know your RPG’s. The visuals don’t actually look that different to Mother 3’s, which is also a plus because I thought they were charming. Anyway, what is it you actually do in Fantasy Life? Well, apparently you just do what you normally do in your real life, and that’s living it.

You begin by creating a character, giving yourself a name, gender, appearance and job. You can pick between jobs such as a miner, dancer or a treasure hunter (there are 20 in all) and the objective is to complete daily quests based around the job you have chosen. Progress will be measured through how much money you have gained and how happy you currently are. They do eventually end, so your life won’t be going on forever. You will be doing all this while listening to the music of famed composer Nobuo Uematsu, my all-time favourite composer.

It sounds like a mix between a traditional RPG and Animal Crossing, especially as people can visit your town through both ad-hoc and online wireless functionality. I’m looking forward to hearing more about it!

Similar Games:

• Animal Crossing (DS)

Speaking to Bethesda’s Jeff Gardiner MTV Multiplayer was curious as to whether or not the level cap in the upcoming Fallout 3 DLC ‘Mothership Zeta’ would again be raised. ‘Broken Steel’, one of the previous DLC releases, raised the level cap from 20 to 30 due to player demand; but would this be happening again, or is there no actual need for it?

“I know from the outside this seems like a fairly simple proposition, but doing this could unbalance the game in a variety of ways.” - MTV Multiplayer

Gardiner says that the game was meant to be played with a variety of different character set-ups, so if someone really wanted to continue their Fallout 3 experience they should think about starting from scratch and creating a new character. However, he does say that future games may change their approach.

When I hit level 20 I immediately downloaded ‘Broken Steel’ (I had periods where I wouldn’t play Fallout 3 for a long while, which explains why I was only reaching level 20 after ‘Broken Steel’ was released) so I would continue gaining experience from the tonnes of things I still had to do in the Capital Wasteland. When you reach 30, however, there’s no real need to continue gaining experience because you’re pretty much set to overcome any challenge the game throws at you. I don’t believe another increased cap would add anything to the game, because it’s all about the experience of new content than being allocated a two number level that has ceased to mean anything. I’d rather just enjoy the new quests, stories and characters than worry about where my experience is going. It just doesn’t really matter like it did when I first stepped out of Vault 101 as a relative n00b.

Fallout 3 is more than a level cap, it is one of the best experiences I’ve had in a video game. I loved the setting and the stories, so ‘Mothership Zeta’ just means more of what I love regardless of whether or not I gain another level

‘Mothership Zeta’ is set for release 3 August on PC and Xbox 360.

MechWarrior fans will be pleased to know that the teaser trailer released earlier this week (see below) was indeed for a new MechWarrior game. The title is in development at Piranha Games and is said to be a “reboot” of the video game arm of the BattleTech franchise, the previous game being MechWarrior 4: Vengeance way back in 2001.

Piranha Games doesn’t need any fancy titles and has simply gone with the name of MechWarrior for the game. If that doesn’t tell the fan what it’s all about then I don’t know what does. For everyone else a giant robot on the front of the game packaging should pretty much do it.

The game will be set on the planet Deshler circa 3015 (so that’s pre-clan for those that are taking notes) during an invasion, and is planned to feature a full single-player campaign, four-player co-op player and a range of other multiplayer options. The budget is still being discussed at the moment, largely because the game hasn’t found a publisher yet. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

Apparently the game will have a sense of “information warfare”, allowing the player to use unmanned drones or light scout mechs to survey the battlefield. Following this you can pound away at your targets in a variety of mechs, and sticking in one mech will reward the player through experience. This experience translates into, for example, better accuracy and damage from your mechs weapon systems. The game will also be different depending on what type of mech you choose.

The BattleTech franchise has never been that popular here in the UK, but that’s largely because most of the gaming equipment 0r books aren’t widely available. However, the games were released here so it shows there is some demand for fighting in giant robots. I was only introduced to the franchise when I was on holiday in Florida and I bought three BattleTech novels. They’re great fun if you manage to get hold of any of them.

Finally, some other good news to come out of this announcement is that MechWarrior 4: Vengeance is to be released for free alongside its expansion packs in the near future.

The game is being developed for the PC and Xbox 360, but there’s no word on a release date yet as the developer is yet to find a publisher. For more information and screenshots check out IGN’s article on the reboot.

(Image Source: IGN)

Shouldn’t every post begin with an ass shot? No? Just me then I guess.

Here are a few new screenshots (click to see them at full size) of the upcoming first-person shooter/RPG Borderlands fresh out of E3. You may remember that the art style for the game took a drastic change in direction since the initial reveal, with many saying that the game was now ‘cel-shaded’. Gearbox president Randy Pitchford was quick to deny this in saying “No, Borderlands is not cel-shaded — it’s a gritty and serious world after all,” (Source). While he may be technically correct in saying that Borderlands isn’t cel-shaded it has far more in common with Crackdown then, say, Fallout 3.

To be honest I’m loving the new art style, just as I loved the art style in Crackdown. The new screenshots look like something I would see if I opened a well-drawn comic book, until I remember that these screenshots will actually translate to motion. Hopefully we will see some gameplay video pretty soon.

Head on over to Kotaku if you want to read some hands-on impressions of the game. Apparently it’s a cross between the shooting elements of Fallout 3 and “Diablo-esque looting and weapon generation” with four player co-op thrown in.

Borderlands is coming to PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 and has planned release date of later this year.

UPDATE: Gearbox has told Shacknews that they’re planning an October release date.

(Image courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk)

As I mentioned in my Wii press conference report Sony also had the job of trying to top Microsoft, especially as they are currently third in the market. Thankfully Sony did an excellent job, with some new exclusives and new hardware to boot. Read on for the full story.

Jack Tretton kicked off the press conference by announcing that an impressive 364 games will be coming to Playstation platforms this year. He also mentioned that Sony is dedicated to continued support of the Playstation 2 even after its ten year anniversary passes. It’s nice to see Sony still supporting the PS2, considering it’s still a console that’s in millions of homes worldwide.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune 2 was the first game to be shown, making sure that Sony started on a spectacular note. The visuals are looking stunning, with humongous draw details to boot. The action that made the first game so fun to play is also very intact; with Drake running along rooftops, sliding down zipwires, using everything as cover all while evading a persistent helicopter that likes to shoot machine gun rounds and missiles. The demo ends with the helicopter taking out the building Drake and his companion are in, with the two characters sliding through rooms as the building slowly topples, before finally leaping out into an adjacent building.

Next up was MAG, which was determined to show why it earned the title ‘Massive Action Game’. Sony pulled off a live demonstration of 256 players playing simultaneously while the audience looked on. The emphasis was on the tactical action, with players securing a forward base to allow their main command to move up and establish themselves further up the map.

Kaz Hirai then came on to show us the PSP Go, getting one out of his pocket and showing it to the audience. I’ve already covered the PSP Go’s features so I won’t get into too much detail, but it’s 50% smaller and 40% lighter than the PSP 3000. Sony will also be releasing software called ‘Media Go’ which will help users manage their PSP’s content on their PC. Another feature called ‘Sense Me’ also promises to analyse your music library to play music based on the mood of your choice. Finally, the price will be $249.99/€249.99 (there’s no word on whether it will be the same for pounds or not) and will be released on 1st October.

A surprising announcement was Gran Turismo for the PSP. It’s a fully fledged Gran Turismo game that will apparently run at 60 fps and boasts 800 cars and 35 tracks. You can also swap cars from your garages with other PSP users, and its release will coincide with the PSP Go’s release on 1st October.

Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker for the PSP was announced next, which takes place 10 years after Metal Gear Solid 3. The visuals are looking really nice for a PSP game, and stealth seems to play more of a part than ever before.

Also announced was a Resident Evil game for the PSP, although that’s all the information we’ve got right now.

Finally for the PSP announcements Final Fantasy VII (as I already posted about) will hit US PSN stores for the PS3 and PSP at midnight tonight. However, there’s no word on a European release as of yet.

Sony also briefly mentioned Rockstar North’s PS3 exclusive Agent, which takes place in the 1970’s. Um, that’s pretty much it.

Gameplay footage from Assassin’s Creed II showed why Ubisoft neglected to show any in their utterly boring press conference yesterday. We already know the setting, so we saw Ezio walking through dancing crowds at the Venice Carnival. Ezio used the famous flying machine invented by Da Vinci, swooping over the canals of Venice, and also pulled a jaw-dropping two-fisted assassination on two guards. It’s looking pretty good at the moment, but we still don’t know if there’s more variety to the missions than the first game.

New gameplay footage of Final Fantasy XIII was shown, with the English voice acting already done. Tretton then announced one of the most surprising things I’ve heard all week. A Final Fantasy XIV trailer was shown, something I didn’t expect to happen for at least another year. The game will be PS3 exclusive and the ‘online’ part of the announcement alludes to the game being an MMO like Final Fantasy XI.

Now it was time for Sony to show off their previously rumoured attempt at motion control. This now means that all three big players will offer some form of motion control.

Sony’s attempt is currently still in the prototype stage, so the two wireless wands are little more than a stick with a ball attached. It’s clear that Sony is attempting to better the Wii’s Motion Plus, with a tech demo showing that the technology has incredible precision. The wands can turn into a virtual representation of anything on screen, the demonstrator switching between tennis racquets, swords, guns, flashlights and even stop signs. The most impressive parts were writing with the wands and using it as a bow, pretending to pull a bow from an imaginary quiver on his back to rearm himself.

While the technology on display was impressive Nintendo has own thing going for it that Microsoft and Sony don’t – they had motion controls from launch. Wii was built on the idea of motion control, enabling developers to support it from launch because they knew that everyone who owned a Wii also had access to motion controls. Are developers really willing to risk releasing a game with only motion controls when most of the console base may not even own the perhipials that are needed to play such a game? It’s more likely that the motion controls will be an afterthought tacked onto games that are built with standard controllers in mind. It’s all about money in the end, and a company would be more likely to go for the safe bet of the Wii then risk losing sales because people didn’t own the controllers their game required.

A game called ModNation Racers came next, a kart racer that was inspired by the ‘play create share’ genre that was apparently created by LittleBigPlanet. You can design cars, racers and even tracks and then upload them for others in the PSN community. The track editor was demonstrated, which was looking both simple to use and incredibly detailed (sort of like the Far Cry 2 map editor). In only five minutes the demonstrator had created a small track running through hills and rocky terrain; with trees and villages placed around the track and even sheep milling around. The creation tools for the game are great, but will it actually be fun to play?

Next was The Last Guardian from Team ICO. The video for this had already been leaked in the form of Trico, but the trailer on show was an updated version of this. It looks beautiful, following the story of a boy and his, um, big pet cat thing? I’m not actually sure what it is, so you’ll have to check out the video yourself. Basically the game looks like a cross between Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.

Gran Turismo 5 then made a sudden appearance, but only in the form of another trailer. The graphics are looking spectacular, but the game really needs to be released sometime soon.

Finally a God of War III demo was shown, which was more than epic. We saw Kratos ripping through hordes of enemies; send them flying around the level. He also used harpies to reach higher locations, grabbing onto them and doing an uppercut with his sword to make them fly higher. The best part was when he gutted a centaur with a gigantic lava titan watching in the distance. It’s good to see that the gore will splatter more than ever, and a 20 minute demo at E3 will mean we’ll get some impressions as E3 continues. The game itself will be released in March 2010.

Overall Sony’s press conference was fairly entertaining, with some great exclusives and an intriguing motion control system. However, when it comes to summing up all three major press conferences I have to hand it to Microsoft. Project Natal is looking awesome and all the upgrades coming to Xbox Live and, of course, the exclusive games are making me wish everything would be released this week. I’m wrong of course, because then we would have nothing to look forward to.

This post concludes ButtonSmasher’s E309’s press conference coverage, but keep checking back throughout the week for more news and impressions coming out of the world’s biggest video games show.

 After yesterday’s dazzling Microsoft E3 press conference Nintendo really had to work hard to impress on the same level that Microsoft achieved. The announcement of Project Natal may have suddenly threatened Nintendo’s position at the top of the casual motion controlled market, so Nintendo had to have something at least equally as impressive. Unfortunately Nintendo didn’t rise to the occasion and delivered a pretty lack lustre presentation that only had a few worthy announcements.

Cammie Dunaway – whom I personally like to call Mrs. Smiley – was the first speaker to take to the stage. After getting through the business talk Cammie started to talk surprises, upon which she immediately revealed the first surprise of the day – New Super Mario Brothers for the Wii. Nintendo also confused people by saying they were taking Mario into the ‘fourth dimension’. Consequently this just turned out to be a fancy word for the four-player 2D Mario game that was demonstrated live on stage by Cammie and three others.

The game will see players working together to reach the end of each level, but whilst doing so they are also competing with each other for the familiar coins scattered around a level. At the end of each level the players are ranked from 1-4 depending on how well they managed this girl, Cammie predictably coming in fourth. While the view does pull back pretty far players can also get wiped off the screen if they fall too far behind the player in front, and dying will place the victim in a bubble that others can either free them from or leave them behind. It should be with us by Christmas 2009.

Next up was Wii Fit Plus, which seems to be Nintendo applying their tried and tested formula of milking something as much as they can after we’ve all just finished buying the one before. Wii Fit Plus will be arriving in autumn 2009 and includes six strength and yoga activities as well as fifteen new balance board games. Juggling and skateboarding are included in this, as well as a game called ‘Perfect 10’, which Cammie described as “Brain Age for the backside”.

Reggie and his perfect hair were next to take the stage, talking about Wii Motion Plus just like last year. Eventually he got on to showing a demonstration of Wii Sports Resort using Motion Plus, beginning with a sky dive. Moving the Wii Remote around would change the position of the sky diver depending on where you had the remote positioned. The demo also showed off archery; where you held the Wii Remote and Nun chuck like a real bow, and free-throw basketball; with Reggie and another guy competing to see who called throw more balls through the basketball hoop in the allotted time limit. It’s not as impressive as when we saw it a year ago, but it still looks just as fun to play as Wii Sports. Wii Sports Resort will be released on 26th July.

Reggie also announced a few upcoming games that would be compatible with Motion Plus; including Tiger Woods Pro Tour 10, Grand Slam Tennis (the former two will be bundled with Motion Plus), Virtua Tennis 2009 and Red Steel 2. Red Steel 2 was demonstrated live on stage, and the sword he was using in the game seemed to respond accurately to any movements the demonstrator made with his hands. The game will only work with Motion Plus, so I’m expecting it to lose a few sales because of that.

Meanwhile third-party games coming to both the Wii and DS included;

• Final Fantasy: The Crystal Bearers (Wii)
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS)
• Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (released this autumn for DS)
• Golden Sun DS (finally making its return on DS)
• The Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion (coming 13th October for DS)
• Cop: The Recruit (an open world game similar to GTA for DS)
• Style Savvy (a fashion game for DS)

After this came some games only for the DSi. Flip Note Studio, a sort of movie maker that was originally introduced as Moving Memo, will be coming in the summer. Mario Vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again features gameplay similar to earlier instalments in the series but also includes a level editor. Nintendo emphasised the sharing aspect of the DSi here, as levels will be able to be shared between friends over a Wi-Fi connection. Also emphasising the creation and sharing aspects was Wario Ware DIY, which allows you to create your own mini-games, and the ability to share the photos you take on your DSi on Facebook. It’s not on par with Microsoft’s Facebook announcement, but at least it’s there.

Satoru Iawata then came on to talk about the direction the games industry is heading in and how Nintendo can expand the gaming demographic. Apparently something called Wii Vitality will aid in this quest, a small device that fits onto your finger and lets you know what’s going on inside your body. Well, at least that’s what Iawata led us to believe. No software was shown making use of this device, so we will just have to take his word for it.

A late surprise was another Mario game, and not just any Mario game but a sequel to the excellent Super Mario Galaxy. Super Mario Galaxy 2 marks first time a fully 3D Mario game has appeared on the same console, and that may go some way to explaining why it doesn’t look like it’s doing anything innovating at the moment.

Talk then proceeded on to games we already knew about (The Conduit, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, Dead Space: Extraction) before trying to please the ‘core’ gamer with Metroid: Other M. I’ve never played a Metroid game so it doesn’t really interest me, but for what it’s worth it looked ok.

So, in summary Nintendo failed to wow in any areas. I’m sure they’ll make tonnes of money through targeting the casual market, but for the ‘core’ gamer there are only updates to already established franchises. Nintendo doesn’t seem to want to try anything new on the game front anymore, falling back on well known characters and the shovelware that populates every local game store.

Remember APB? The MMO in development from the same guys who brought us Crackdown? No? Well, I didn’t really expect you to. In fact I only really knew about it because I wrote about it last year. Realtime World’s haven’t exactly been forthcoming with new details on the game, but now they have chosen EA’s E309 press conference to unleash a new trailer on the unsuspecting world.

Without repeating much of what I said in my earlier post APB will throw thousands of players into a city split between the warring Criminals and Enforcers. After creating your character with the incredibly deep customisation options (I have a feeling that there’s going to be a lot of semi-naked women running around if players tastes are anything like the mohawk sporting woman in the trailer above) you take to the streets to carry out missions; which may mean robbing somewhere as a Criminal or trying to stop a robbery as an Enforcer. In the end I’m sure it will just boil down to one massive firefight.

Rumour has it that the game is no longer coming to Xbox 360 and will only be released for the PC in early 2010.

(Image courtesy of Kotaku)

I’m going to do things a little different this year and just write about the key points, along with my comments on each announcement (as opposed to the overall comments I wrote last year). I have a lot to cover on this amazing press conference so lets get on with it!

Games

This year Microsoft had much pride in itself by announcing that ten “never seen before” games would be coming exclusively to Xbox Live.  Although that statement wasn’t technically true there were some surprise announcments and, for once, Microsoft really didn’t disappoint in the games department.

Beatles: Rockband - Kicking off the show was the opening cinematic from the game, quickly followed by Microsoft lackey’s coming out to demonstrate the game live on stage. Six people took part in singing, drumming and playing the guitar. The top of the screen showed three voices, showing that you can sing in harmonies.

After the demonstration Yoko Ono appeared on stage (thankfully she didn’t speak) quickly followed by the two surviving Beatles; Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.

You can see some of the tracks that will be appearing in the game here, with more announced for downloadable content. ‘All You Need is Love’ will be an exclusive part of this dlc, with all proceeds going to charity.

Tony Hawk Ride - Tony Hawk took to the stage to show off the board we’ve been hearing all about recently. A video showing pro skaters enjoying the game was played, with them all looking extremely excited playing a game about something they’re actually pretty good at in real life. The board itself will be playable at E3, so look out for games journalists making a fool of themselves in public soon.

Modern Warfare 2 - At first they showed the trailer we have already seen, but this was followed by Infinity Ward finally showing us some live gameplay.

The demonstration opened in a snowy scene, with the demonstrater following a guy as you both climbed up an icy cliff. An obligotory cracking ice scene followed, with the controlled character nearly falling. After skipping ahead we got some walking around in a pretty intense blizzard, which makes it really hard to see very far in the distance. This should make for some tense moments, and I could see Infinity Ward making a multiplayer map out of this area of the game.

What followed was some intense shooting action around the snowy level, before jumping onto a snowmobile and racing down a mountain whilst shooting at enemies on other snowmobiles. It’s still pretty standard stuff, but if it’s exciting as the first game was then we have nothing to worry about.

To top it all off Xbox 360 will be getting two exclusive map packs for the game, so sorry to those with only a Playstation 3.

Final Fantasy XIII - All that was shown here was the game actually running on the Xbox 360 (it was a scene we’ve seen before). From what I could see it looks just as good as the PS3, but obviously I can’t really make that statement official until we run both versions side by side.

Square-Enix also announced a projected Spring 2010 release date.

Shadow Complex - So, no new Gear’s from Epic at the moment. Instead we get Shadow Complex, which is 2.5-D (basically part 2D part 3D) shoot-em-up that looks a bit like Bionic Commando: Rearmed. It will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade this Summer.

Joy Ride - A kart racer with dashboard avatars; which is free to download, apart from tracks you can purchase that can also be shared with friends. Enough said?

Crackdown 2 - Well, this was a surprise! Nothing but a pre-rendered video was shown, but the announcement itself made my head come off and fly around the room.

Left 4 Dead 2 - Another surprise, and it’s also a kind of odd move for Valve as Left 4 Dead itself didn’t have much content and many expected Valve to continue supporting it. The sequel may be a little too soon, but more zombies is still good in my book - especially as it’s set in New Oreleans!

Coming 17th November.

Splinter Cell: Convinction - Finally coming out of relative obscurity and giving us some gameplay. This includes smashing a guy’s head into a mirror, ‘marking’ a room of targets through a closed door, crawling around near the ceiling, shooting out the lights and generally shooting people in the face.

Forza 3 – We kind of suspected this was coming, but it was the first gameplay we’ve seen. There’s also more emphasis on customisation and community this time around; with more options for customising your car and a video editor to share your best moments with friends.

Halo 3: ODST – It could just be a re-skinned version of Halo 3, but from what was shown it does show at least a little improvement in the graphics department. There seems to be more emphasis on working as a squad, with your AI squad members defending while you detonate a bridge with a remote charge.

The game will be coming on 22nd September, but that wasn’t all. The previously rumoured Halo: Reach is also in development, which means we’ll hopefully be overloaded with Halo content come this time next year. You will also get an invite to the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta when you buy ODST.

Alan Wake – The final game was one we’ve all been waiting quite some time to see more of. After a “previously on Alan Wake” we get to see some actual gameplay. It’s clear that there’s heavy emphasis on story, with Alan narrating as you move through the game world. He also has a slight flashlight fetish.

After supernatural enemies turn up, flinging items at Alan, he goes on a rampage with a shotgun before getting out a flare gun and going into some sort of bullet time mode. It seems to have something to do with light, meaning that Alan will probably have to use light to defend himself. The demo ended with Alan stuck in a house while a bulldozer pushed it towards a cliff.

But wait!

Metal Gear Solid: Rising – Yup, the Xbox 360 is getting a Metal Gear game. It’s too bad it features Raiden though…

Spring 2010 was given as a release date.

Other announcements:

Last.fm – Last.fm will be coming to Xbox Live meaning that you can listen to personalised radio stations based on what you listen to while you play games. I love Last.fm, and considering I only have one LAN wire running into my room it’s either the PC or Xbox 360 that is connected to the Internet, so this means I can now continue using Last.fm when I have to sacrifice my PC connection to go on Live.

It will be available for free for all Gold members later this year.

Netflix – Unfortunately this is something that doesn’t concern us U.K residents, but Americans will now have the ability to add movies to their Netflix queue through Live. Previously they could only do it through their PC.

Sky – More relevant to us U.K residents is Sky bringing content to Xbox Live. Apparently the service will be similar to Sky Player, but will also include live TV such as football games. This is something that I am pretty excited about, especially as my team Burnley has just been promoted to the Premiership.

Video Store – HD content will be getting upgraded to 1080p, while also doubling the amount of countries that have access to the video store. You will also be able to watch videos with friends (it’s a virtual living room with a massive TV, with your avatars sitting watching it), something that didn’t make the original dashboard upgrade.

Facebook – Xbox Live will also be getting Facebook integration; allowing you to post status updates, view those of your friends and their photos. You can also see who on your Facebook friends list is also a member of Xbox Live.

Facebook Connect also allows you to capture a screenshot in-game and send it to your Facebook profile.

Coming this autumn.

Twitter – View your Twitter stream from Xbox Live, while also being able to Tweet straight from your console. As someone who spends a lot of time on Twitter I’m looking forward to seeing this come autumn

Project Natal (motion controller) – It has been rumoured but now we get to see it for real. Microsoft says that you are the controller, meaning that all you have to do is make the motions to play a game. So, for example, playing a racing game would have you pretending to hold a wheel; while a football game will have you kicking a ball by the doing the motion you would while kicking a real ball or pretending to jump like a goalkeeper.

I can’t really stress how much more advanced this looks compared to the Wii, so you will really have to check out the videos for yourself. To give you a picture though the ‘controller’ also has voice and facial recognition, meaning that the Xbox 360 will recognize you and you can also shout out your answer in, say, a quiz game. Your avatar also mimics the movements you’re making in real life.

Also shown off were a kickball breakout style game and a painting mode; the latter of which had two people bent down trying to form an elephant while the Xbox 360 took a snapshot of the shape and added it to the painting. Microsoft really intends to take on Nintendo with this one.

Finally Peter Molyneux came out to show off something that, if it works like intended, could be pretty revolutionary. A video was shown about a boy named Milo, a virtual boy that was literally talking to a woman stood in front of the TV. He answers her questions and, at one point, threw goggles towards the screen which the woman pretended to catch and place them on her face when Milo asked her too. Next she bent down towards a pool of water, her reflection shown on the screen and any arm movements towards the screen making ripples in the water. Finally she drew a picture of a fish on a piece of paper, which she then handed towards the screen. The paper appeared on the screen in Milo’s hand, amazingly showing the picture she had drawn.

Apparently this works today and is not just a concept, and could be one of the most amazing things to come out of Lionhead so far. Lets not forget that Molyneux has a habit of making promises he later breaks, but I hope that isn’t the case here. It will be shown behind closed doors at E3, so we should get some press impressions up soon.

That’s it for the Microsoft E3 Press Conference coverage, but check back tomorrow for Nintendo’s and Sony’s. You can also continue checking ButtonSmasher for the latest news coming out of E3.

Although rumours (and leaked video footage, although Relic have now said that this came from a cancelled game and parts from it have been used for this game) have been circling around on the Internet for a while now THQ and Relic have now officially announced the existence of a new Warhammer 40k game. Warhammer 40k: Space Marine will be an “Action RPG” for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

The new game puts you in the incredibly huge boots of the Emperor’s glorious genetically engineered Adeptus Astartes (which are sometimes referred to as Space Marines, hence the title of the game); whom are fending off thousands of Orks that have decided to attack an Imperial planet. There’s not much more information apart from what you see in the video above; but apparently you will be engaging in large-scale conflicts whilst using devastating weapons like chainswords, bolters and even orbital strikes. All this will be splattered with WH40k’s trademark gore, but it wouldn’t be the dark evil future without it.

The 40k universe is a favourite of mine, but I do have some issues with the largely generic title that Relic have chosen. Yes, Games Workshop largely created the bald space marine types we see in a lot of video games today but I can’t help thinking that Relic could have chosen a more attractive title, considering how many similar games are out there for your average consumer. Similarly calling the game WH40k: Adeptus Astartes would appeal to the fans of WH40k, but the average person wouldn’t have a clue what that title meant. It’s a bit of a conundrum, but I hope that they rename the game before release.

Despite my concerns about the games name I am looking forward to this. Relic have a great history, having already used the 40k license in the excellent Dawn of War games, but are largely focused on the RTS genre. However, if they can channel the rich lore of the 40k universe into a decent action game then it may just be one of the biggest releases of the year - at least in my eyes!

Pre-E3 2009: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine First Look - IGN