X'06 Canada
Seeming a bit smaller than last year, likely due to the dearth of games for the original Xbox, X'06 was still a good chance to get a look at some titles shipping for the holidays and next spring.
Electronic Arts were showing several titles, including FIFA 07, which looks amazing and has great new ball physics. The game I was most looking forward to though was Need For Speed Carbon, which has a huge city for you to take control of with your racing crew. The cars and buildings look great, but some of the destructible objects such as phone booths are looking a bit last-gen.
Ubisoft had a few titles as well, and both Splinter Cell Double Agent and Rainbow Six Vegas are looking really good. R6V uses the Live Vision camera to let you digitize your face onto your character, and your friend's faces can be used on your squadmates as well. Splinter Cell is looking better than ever, though the demo level had a section where you need to swim, and the controls could still use some tweaking.
Both Bioware's Mass Effect and Silicon Knights' Too Human were MIA, which was a bit of a surprise, since they were both somewhat playable at E3. Neither is shipping by spring though, so that's likely the reason. Other games that would have been nice to see include Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed and Electronic Arts' Army of Two.
As far as new info from Xbox Canada, they revealed pricing and details on the new accessories. The steering wheel will sell for $159.99 and can detach from the base for lap use, the wireless headset has ten times the sound quality of the original one and comes with an eight-hour battery for $69.99. The HD-DVD player was also there, and it will retail for $199.99 with a remote and a copy of the King Kong film. There will also be an adapter coming to use Xbox 360 controllers on a PC. No mention was made of the new 256MB memory unit or 100GB hard drive that seemed to be revealed at X'06 Korea, but two new Canada-exclusive hardware bundles were announced.
A bit less than expected in the way of quantity, but since developers are into their second generation of games on Xbox 360, we're starting to see some real improvements in graphics and gameplay.
Electronic Arts were showing several titles, including FIFA 07, which looks amazing and has great new ball physics. The game I was most looking forward to though was Need For Speed Carbon, which has a huge city for you to take control of with your racing crew. The cars and buildings look great, but some of the destructible objects such as phone booths are looking a bit last-gen.
Ubisoft had a few titles as well, and both Splinter Cell Double Agent and Rainbow Six Vegas are looking really good. R6V uses the Live Vision camera to let you digitize your face onto your character, and your friend's faces can be used on your squadmates as well. Splinter Cell is looking better than ever, though the demo level had a section where you need to swim, and the controls could still use some tweaking.
Both Bioware's Mass Effect and Silicon Knights' Too Human were MIA, which was a bit of a surprise, since they were both somewhat playable at E3. Neither is shipping by spring though, so that's likely the reason. Other games that would have been nice to see include Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed and Electronic Arts' Army of Two.
As far as new info from Xbox Canada, they revealed pricing and details on the new accessories. The steering wheel will sell for $159.99 and can detach from the base for lap use, the wireless headset has ten times the sound quality of the original one and comes with an eight-hour battery for $69.99. The HD-DVD player was also there, and it will retail for $199.99 with a remote and a copy of the King Kong film. There will also be an adapter coming to use Xbox 360 controllers on a PC. No mention was made of the new 256MB memory unit or 100GB hard drive that seemed to be revealed at X'06 Korea, but two new Canada-exclusive hardware bundles were announced.
A bit less than expected in the way of quantity, but since developers are into their second generation of games on Xbox 360, we're starting to see some real improvements in graphics and gameplay.