Well, E3 “officially” starts tommorow, but as per tradition, Microsoft holds their conference the day before. This year was not lacking in terms of new announcements, although some could argue about the quality of what was announced.  We had new games, new parternships and even new ways of playing games announced;Hit the jump to see what.

The Big Announcements

• Crackdown 2[X360]
• Left 4 Dead 2[X360/PC][November ‘09]
• Shadow Complex[XBLA][Fall]
• Halo:Reach[X360][Fall 2010]
• Netflix expansion
• Last.fm partnership
• Facebook partnership
• Twitter partnership
• Metal Gear Solid:Rising[X360 exclusive?]
• Project Natal[Controller-free gaming]

Press conference notes

10:29-WELCOME, a voice says. Xbox 360 logo comes onscreen

Rock Band Beatles game. Do we really need to advertise this? It’ll probably sell itself.

10:35-More Beetles still.

10:40- Yoko Onno comes on stage to pimp the game.

10:41- “Nothing that you see here would’ve been possible without the Beatles” , then Paul McCartney with Ringo comes on stage.

10:41- “Game is good”- Paul McCartney

10:42- Well, that lasted 2 minutes. Corprate VP Donald Shepard is coming on stage to talk for a bit.

10:43- Shepard just welcomed us to E3. “People want to have fun”

- Ten world premiers?! Exciting innovations.

10:44- Tony Hawk Ride. Tony Hawk is here  to present the controller. Apparently he’s wanted to make a skateboard controller for a long time.

10:45- Hawk goes off stage, a video with a lot of other skaters pitching the game comes onscreen. Nothing really about gameplay itself.

10:48- Call of Duty trailer. The old one that was on Youtube earlier.

10:50- 2 Infinity Ward devs come on stage to show some footage. A snow level.

-Shimmying. Some scripted animations.

10:52-Some falling off of mountains. Your partner comes to save you

10:53-First bullets fired. Apparently you have a radar on one of your guns. This is also the first CoD to not have respawning enemies.

10:54-A change of pace, switching over to a high action scene. A lot of cars driving around. Maybe this’ll mark the first CoD since the first one’s expansion to have vehicles.

10:56  Running down the side of a mountain while being chased by enemies. The dev just took a snowmobile. Vehicles confirmed. Very smooth indeed.
10:57- End of presentation. the VP comes back on to talk about XBL and how CoD4 did so well. 2 of the MW2 map packs.

- Square Enix time. Director of FFXIII on stage. Japanese with english translation

10:58- the Director is talking about the history of FF. 85 million units in 20 years.

10:59-Showing of  english FFXIII voices. He’s playing through the boss of the PS3 demo. The interface has changed a bit.  There are 4 Active Time gauges this time, similar to Xenosaga’s.

11:00-Summoning of Odin. It seems to work like in X, where you can control the summoned monster. FFXIII has a spring 2010 release in the USA.

11:02- Epic Games time. Probably some sort of DLC announcement.

- XBLA game announcement. Donald Mustard has a mic problem.

11:03- Shadow Complex. A 2.5d action game. Seems like a castlevania-style game with a lot of action and physics. 100 hours of gameplay?!

11:05-Some tachikoma-like  boss. Shadow Complex is out for summer.

11:06-Announcement of a racing game with Avatars for Xbox Live:Joy Ride. There is a huge amount of jumps, reminds me more of Trackmania than anything. Winter release.

11:07- Crackdown 2 announcement!Or it looks like it. Seems like an open world game with some virus infection, with zombies.

11:08-Crackdown 2 logo on screen.

-Explosions everywhere. Zombies are everywhere.Seems like a Left 4 Dead clone.OH GOD LEFT 4 DEAD 2.

11:10-Ubisoft announcement. Splinter Cell:Conviction, it seems. Much darker tone in this trailer.

11:12- Ubisoft team members on stage to talk about Conviction. Exclusive E3 demo. The hand-to-hand combad seems much more develloped in this.

11:13- We’re in environments with civils. This game might get messy. you can seem to gramp up in a very Assassin’s creed sort of way.

11:16-You can hold your own in action this time around, which wasn’t very true in the other games.Game is X360 exclusive for fall(probably timed)

11:18- Forza 3 announcement. Very beautiful looking, on par with Gran Tourismo 5.

11:20- There seems to be a large amount of driving aids available(notably rewind and one-button driving).

11:23-Video creator for Forza demo. Looking very, very smooth. Let’s hope that it’s that good.

11:25- Halo ODST demo time. You’re in an airdrop. You can see the player’s hands, so the character’s probably not in a suit. Some drop just went horribly wrong.

11:26-You’re on New Mombassa, a couple weeks before Halo 3.  You have suppressed weapons and night vision.Maybe this will be more stealth oriented.

11:27- return of the Halo 1 pistol.  He found a “clue” that explains the death of one guy.

11:28-Flashback to that  dead guy. Apparently ODST is more story oriented. You switch between several ODSTs[the name of the troops I guess] during the course of this game it seems.

11:30-Another Bungie team has been working on top secret project. Seems like prequel. Halo Reach confirmed.  Fall 2010 release.

11:32-Buying ODST gets you a beta pass for Halo:Reach.

11:33-Gameplay of Alan Wake! OK, just a  preview video for now.

11:34- Now we start the gamplay gameplay. It feels somewhat Silent Hills-esque. Very nice graphics. There’s an internal narrative during the game.

11:35-Flying boxes!  Some strange supernatural things are happening.More screaming.

11:36- There seems to be a couple Zombie-like monsters appearing, complete with axe-throwing. Seems very RE 5-like in gameplay .

11:39- Spring 2010 release for Alan Wake. The VP comes back onto the stage, getting ready to make an announcement about Live.

11:40- Last.fm partnership with XBLA(Gold users only). Sky TV partnership for the UK(live TV)

11:42- 1080p streaming for everything on the XBL marketplace.

11:43- Live party mode. You can watch shows and movies with your friends online.

11:44- Partnership with Facebook. Some person from the Guild comes onstage to talk awkwardly.

11:48- Another partnership. You can hookup your 360 with twitter.

11:49-  Don Mattrick comes on stage. This man doesn’t really know how to seem enthusiastic I think.

11:50- Hideo Kojima comes on stage. He’s talking in English. MGS is coming to Xbox 360. MGS: Rising is coming for the Xbox 360.

11:51-    new subtitle of Lightning bolt action, with Raiden.

11:53- Talking about history of Xbox 360. Announcement of “no-controller gaming”. Seems like a really, really advanced eyetoy clone.

11:59- George Spielberg comes on stage to talk about this eyetoy clone(called project Natal).  “It’s not about reinventing the wheel, it’s about no wheel at all”.

12:02- Kudo Sunota, lead of project Natal. Showing the full body motion sensing.

12:04- Some motion-sensing game is shown, where debris is thrown continually at you. Seems very very tiring. Not waggling, but full body flailing.

12:07-This time a paint game is shown, pretty boring really.

12:11- Molineux comes on stage. He shows a Hey you pikachu!-esque game, except with a boy. Using the Natal, the boy can “read” your feelings.

12:18- A recap of all the advances in the XBox, conclusion.