It’s E3 time and the craziness began in earnest last night with Microsoft teaming up with Cirque Du Soleil to present their Wii rival Xbox Kinect, formally known as Project Natal, in a live interactive ‘experience’. Over 3000 journalists and VIP guests had to dress in white ponchos to watch the extravagant performance and see some game demos. The show will air later in the week on MTV and Nickelodeon in the USA, and will no doubt end up on the internet as well. Games shown included Kinect Sports (which features Yoga and Martial Arts), Joyride (an arcadey driving game where you use your hands instead of controller/steering wheel, Kinectimals (where you look after virtual animals), Kinect Adventures (multiplayer obstacle courses) and Dance Central from the makers of Rock Band, where you Dance for the camera. You can also use Kinect to navigate the Xbox dash, waving your hands to go through lists and reach out to select. No price yet or date yet, but Microsoft has a proper E3 press conference tonight from 5pm. We’ll have full details on where you can see all the press conferences later today.
We had the movie pitch earlier this week, now we have the details on the new Mortal Kombat game! The new title is named simply ‘Mortal Kombat’ and will feature fighting on a 2D plain like the originals and will use an all new graphics engine – goodbye Unreal Engine that was used in MK vs DC. New modes include 2 on 2 tag team battles and a co-op Arcade mode.
“We are bringing the Mortal Kombat franchise back to gamers with the talented NetherRealm Studios team creating the game fans long to play,” said Martin Tremblay, President, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Re-establishing the brand with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Mortal Kombat innovates on past games while staying true to the brand’s legendary characters and fighting style.”
“We can’t wait for players to get their hands on Mortal Kombat,” said Ed Boon, Creative Director, NetherRealmStudios. “This game really is a response to what players have been demanding: mature presentation, reinvented 2D fighting mechanic and the best, most gruesome fatalities ever!”
Long wait till 2011, will it be better than Street Fighter IV?
Someone wants to make a new Mortal Kombat movie. Do we want to see it? The above clip appeared on YouTube yesterday causing mass confusion – was this for a new Mortal Kombat game or a new movie? Warner Bros have the rights to the franchise and have been using live action trailers for F.E.A.R. 3 so a game teaser was not out of the question. Now it seems that the clip was directed by Kevin Tancharoen as a pitch for a new Mortal Kombat movie, and this has appeared online to gauge interest in order to attract funding for a full feature. Hopefully if made it will be better than this effort:
Something weird is going on. Just the other week some USA based tech blows were raving about the ability to do video calling on new Android handsets, now we have the new iPhone boasting video calls as a big feature – “People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality” . Haven’t we been here before?
