Microsoft Previews Xbox 360 Games

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Microsoft Previews Xbox 360 Games

Games for the upcoming console show impressive graphics, sound, and
details.

Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
Monday, July 25, 2005

Microsoft showed in Tokyo on Monday some of the latest previews of
games being worked on for its Xbox 360 console. The Xbox 360 is
scheduled to launch in Japan, North America, and Europe before the end
of this year.

Headlining the game previews at the event was Bizarre Creations'
"Project Gotham Racing 3." The Liverpool, England, games house showed
a stunning preview that was quite unlike any current computer game in
terms of graphics, sound, and level of detail.

The game includes a number of circuits based on real streets in real
cities. Shown on Monday were clips from New York and Tokyo, the latter
of which is based on the city's Shinjuku district and looked just like
the real thing thanks partly to the console's high-definition graphics
and partly to the use of thousands of reference photos that enable the
game to include the same shops, road signs, buildings, and other
features as the real Shinjuku.

The higher performance hardware enables improvements in this and other
games. Nick Davies, design manager at Bizarre, said each car is made
up of 80,000 polygons versus 10,000 in previous generation games. It
also enables the company to offer authentic engine noise for 80 types
of car.

Another groundbreaking feature is Gotham TV. Looking just like TV
coverage of a motor race, Gotham TV allows users the ability to watch
race replays of their own races--but it doesn't stop there. Through
the Xbox Live online service, users can watch live races being played
by other people and switch between circuit cameras, in-car cameras,
and views from helicopters for a totally new experience.

Also on Display

Another game based on the streets of Tokyo, Genki's Tokyo Metropolitan
Expressway Battle, also displayed an impressive amount of realism and
a level of graphics that, like Bizarre's "Project Gotham Racing 3"
will soon make existing console games look tired by comparison. One
other racing game under development, Namco's "Ridge Racer 6," was
mentioned but only a handful of still images of cars were displayed.

Other big names games on show included "N3 Ninety Nine Nights," the
action strategy game co-produced by Tetsuya Mizuguchi of Q
Entertainment and Lee Sang-Youn of Phantagram. The two showed video of
live game play of the game and revealed some of the characters. They
also named two of them: a brother and sister called Inphyy and
Aspharr.

Yoshiki Okamoto from Game Republic took the stage to reveal details of
a new title he's working on. Called "Every Party" (the title is a
shortened version of 'everybody's party') the game attempts to meld
the world of board games with that of video games. Character design
was by popular Japanese designer Momoko Sakura, who is known to
millions in Japan for the "Chibi Maruko Chan" TV animation series. It
may not excite North American or European audiences but it's the kind
of game that could go down well in the local market and help
Microsoft's chances in Japan.

Among action titles several were shown including Namco's "Frame City
Killer" and Capcom's "Dead Rising," both of which contained large
amounts of death and destruction. The latter title perhaps more than
the former because the vast majority of characters are zombies awoken
from the dead.

Several sports games were also shown, including Konami's soccer game
"Winning Eleven," women's wrestling game "Rumble Roses XX" and
professional baseball title "Proyakyu Spirits." Namco also showed
short clips from its "Love Football." And for beach volleyball fans
everywhere, Tecmo said it is working on "Dead of Alive Xtreme 2" that
should see Kasumi-chan and her friends playing volleyball and an
unspecified number of other sports--presumably in bikinis.

Tecmo is also producing "Dead or Alive 4" and "Dead or Alive Code:
Cronus" for the Xbox 360 and demonstrated the former of the two titles
at Monday's event.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/articl [...] 05X,00.asp


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