E3 2008 Rundown: Thursday, July 17th’s Events

Yesterday was the beginning of the end for the 2008 E3. All the major announcements from developers and industry leaders have already been covered, but there were a few nuggets and granules to glean from Joe Gamer’s hands-on experience with the new offerings. Plus, a few other news-related items that seem to fit in perfectly. Though the official subjective decision is still out, Microsoft seemed to have the strongest showing at E3 this year, with a number of Microsoft-specific news items to round out the final day.

-Insomniac will be creating a community website for Resistance 2: myresistance.net. The website is essentially the same concept as Bungie’s bungie.net for Halo 3.
-Spore will have exclusive content available to AT&T customers. Spore Origins will be AT&T-only until Sept. 4, and AT&T will have a special edition Spore Creature Creator, too.
-Mirror’s Edge will fight simulated motion sickness by placing a blue reticule in the center of the screen. Players that are unaffected by the pseudo-illness will have the ability to turn the blue dot off.
-Flower, a PSN game made from the creators of Flow (Thatgamecompany) will be released this year. The developer says that at least part of the game will involve growing flowers.
-KOTOR MMO is in development from Lucas Arts and BioWare.  I’m fairly certain my old roommate just soiled himself.
-WoW: Wrath of the Lich King will have achievements much like the 360 and the coming trophies for the PS3.

Microsoft news:

-XBLA games shown at E3 will be available on Marketplace within the next 6 weeks, says Microsoft’s Scott Austin. Games include: Bionic Commando Rearmed, Castle Crashers, Galaga Legions, Braid, and Geometry Wars 2.
-Microsoft’s gaming division reported a profit of $426 million for the its fourth quarter. This is the “result of increased Xbox 360 console sales, video game sales led by Halo 3, Xbox Live revenue, and Xbox 360 accessory sales.”
-Gears of War 2 had several new playable multiplayer modes and weapons. Xbox Live friends will now be able to play together as a unified party, unlike the original Gears.
-Lips, the karaoke game for the 360, will have the ability to stream music from your Zune or iPod as long as the music isn’t DRM-protected. The game will even be able to score you on your own songs.  A second player can join in the jamming by shaking their microphone.
-Major Nelson of Xbox Live Radio informed 360 owners that all themes downloaded prior to the new dashboard update would still be usable.
-More 360 dash details: Multi-disk games, like FF XIII, can be ripped to and played from the hard drive like single disk games.

Overall, some big announcements, a lot of unsurprising news, and mostly mediocre rocking out to The Who. Now we’re off to the truly big event of the week–The Dark Knight.