Live blog starts at 9:30 a.m. Pacific, 12:30 p.m Eastern. Refresh this post for the latest updates.
LOS ANGELES — Microsoft will likely unveil new games for its Kinect motion controller during its E3 press conference Monday, and we’ll also go deeper with Gears of War 3, the company’s big shooter scheduled for release later this year.
What else will the maker of Xbox 360 show the world?
Probably Halo 4, Kinect Star Wars, Dance Central 2 and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, if an early morning update on the Xbox.com website is to be believed. Those game titles appeared on the site briefly Monday in an apparent publishing error, according to Kotaku.com.
We’ll know for sure at 9:30 a.m. Pacific, when Microsoft’s E3 presser begins. Check back here for Wired.com’s live coverage.
9:27 — We are here! The briefing is scheduled to start in just a few minutes. There’s a “content warning” on the big screens here at the Galen Center; we are warned that the videos will about to see contain images of intense violence. Awesome.
9:30 — The music has changed. That means it is starting, I think. “Everything is so green,” Jason says sitting next to me. Jason has never been to an E3 before apparently. He missed the Cirque du Soleil thing where we were all in light-up ponchos.
9:31 — Things kick off with a video of Modern Warfare 3. Oh no, it’s actuajly a live demo. Somebody is on stage playing it. AHAHAHAH the controller got unsynced and it paused. Don’t laugh, it’s happened to you. Just not in the first two seconds of a Microsoft press conference. Unless you’re Peter Moore.
9:33 — The army men are swimming through water. Then they reach a checkpoint. “Checkpoint reached,” it says.
9:34 — They are swimming after a submarine. They plant something on it. They leave! They see the ruined Manhattan skyline. They’ve been in the Hudson River or something all this time. Gross. That’s never gonna wash off.
9:36 — Now the submarine is above the water and they are infiltrating it, shooting the other men. Pow pow pow! go their guns. The demo skips ahead to a new section, and water is filling the submarine. They find more men! They shoot them, too.
9:37 — The army men jump in a big inflatable pool toy raft and go zipping down the river, shooting with wild abandon. Navy ships and things are all over the place. Everything is either on fire now or was in the recent past. They steer the pool toy into a helicopter and it takes off. Majestic war music plays. The end!
9:41 — Reps of Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer intro the game, and then Xbox’s Don Mattrick takes the stage to welcome us. On behalf of Microsoft, he’s like to thank the fans for making last year the biggest year in Xbox history.
9:43 — Crystal Dynamics takes the stage to show us a demo of Tomb Raider.
9:45 — This is the same demo that has been described in Game Informer, Official PlayStation Magazine, etc. Wired.com will have our impressions of the Tomb Raider demo during E3 week. For now, the audience is watching as a young Lara Croft slowly moves her way through a scary-ass cavern, trying not to die.
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