E3 2011: Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Trailer and Gameplay Demo


I’ve never been a big fan of Ubisoft’s tactical shooter franchise series. I know many who absolutely love the Ghost Recon franchise and I’m sure this latest entry in the series will be a hit with them as well. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier was first announced at last year’s E3 and some of the advanced tactical gameplay shown by Ubisoft were interesting enough that I was intrigued.

I’m not sure if I’ll be buying this title on it’s release date, but the gameplay demo shown during Microsoft’s E3 Press Conference really built on some of what interested me in the first place. The game looks to make use of the Xbox 360’s Kinect motion controller and it’s voice recognition capability. The important thing is that the player doesn’t have to stop using the regular controller, but just use the Kinect as a nice option and complement to the regular 360 game controller.

With the game still months from being released there’s still ample time for Ubisoft to continue to try and win over non-fans of this series such as myself and from the past year since they first announced this title they’ve done a good job. The only problem this title may run into is the glut of war shooters (first-person, third-person and tactical) that will be flooding the market from now til early next year that it may not find a place for itself. There’s only so much money a gamer has to spend at any given time and with the economy the way it is even gamers like myself with jobs may still have to forgo titles like this to get those were more fans of.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has a tentative release date around the Q1 2012.

E3 2011: Mass Effect 3 (Trailer Deluge)


To say that Mass Effect 3 is one of the most-anticipated titles in the next 9 months would be an understatement. The franchise has been one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed video game series of the past five years and this third game looks to cap off a trilogy that many consider the Star Wars (original trilogy) of video gaming. The third game was highlighted not just in the Microsoft E3 Press Conference but also in EA’s own Press Conference which just goes to show how  much this game means not just to EA but to Microsoft (even after the franchise finally became available to PS3 users I still consider it an Xbox 360 franchise).

In both conferences so many trailers were unleashed on those who were in attendance. Whether it were gameplay trailers, more trailers hinting at the story, trailer’s showing the game in demo right up to certain gameplay changes made for this final leg of the trilogy. One piece of news that was interesting was announced during Microsoft’s press conference and that was Mass Effect 3 having Kinect (the hands-free Xbox 360 controller system) capabilities.

One piece of news that every fan of the game was waiting for and finally got was this: Release Date – 03.06.2012. I may end up catching a virulent case of the blahs and call off work on that date and the rest of the week.