To treat this week’s update as a major occurrence Microsoft intelligently decided to spark up a little press invited launch event to get us, to get you, all pumped for its release. How does a four course,  TV dinner themed and live entertainment filled evening tickle your fancy? There, I’ve done my job.

It turned to be the event was a surprise within a surprise! The ambiguous invitational details were intentional so we’d be blown away by the event’s activities. I’ve got to give it to them, I was blown into bewilderment with intimate bed suites, tightly attired guitar grinders and paste filled macaroons.

Macaroons are colourful buggers! I mean, burgers!

Every meal that was had was then followed by a medium themed act of entertainment. So the first had been TV with an avengers theme, this had our tightly dressed dancer stroll in to do her business; that is to subtly dance and pose sensually to then pick up a guitar, not to strut, but to grind… with a hand saw. Yes, at the time it didn’t make too much sense either.  The second was a movie tie in, we witnessed an androgynously dressed man perform a one person drunken play. A pretend shower curtain played a part here and was harnessed proficiently as climbing apparatus, which was an impressive physical feat indeed. Our final performance conveyed Youtube with, what I think was, robot break dancing. The most ‘normal’ of the three performances, yet still aptly impressive – my first ever adapted macaroon experience proceeding this though may have just skewed the normality balance slightly.

Although I was scratching my head through at least the first of our three and half hour attendance this shouldn’t at all suggest negativity, it was ‘different’ and will with utmost confidence leave a lasting impression instead of joining a hazed blur of ‘once-upon-a-time’ press event outings. And that I promise wasn’t the result of an open bar.

A number of new dashboard feature articles will be posted following the update’s release.

This event rounded up all the popular XCN site/organisation staff members and send them to one place, the Wokefield Park Hotel in Reading. This sizeable mansion had the unlucky job of holding a mass of mainly city dwelling journalists who like to play loud, modern electronic equipment such as computer games. It was an unsuited match for the setting, but an invitation for two days of gaming related activity in what is simply just a ‘nice’ place to be I (and many others) just couldn’t turn it down.

The event wasn’t just a big excuse to play the latest Xbox games however, it involved plentiful developer insights into the upcoming late games of 2011 and the upcoming 2012 big hitters. I got to witness gameplay presentations of Halo: Anniversary, Mass Effect 3, Hitman: Absolution, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, Max Payne 3, Tomb Raider and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, just to name a few. You might be a little disappointed to know I only got my hands dirty with Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and Halo: Anniversary (most of the other unreleased titles just weren’t at a public playable state as of yet) but the majority of them were played by their developers.

Halo Anniversary in all its glory.

I like to cover as many details of the most exciting games from these events, but due to sheer volume I had prioritise the late hitters, thankfully they happen to be the most interesting of the lot. Gameplay previews of the brightened dark noire Max Payne 3, the reincarnated return of the revived Tomb Raider, and the long awaited Hitman: Absolution will be present at msxbox-world, make sure you check out my second hand thoughts on those games.

I apologise in advance for any pre-judgements, but at least you’ll get an idea for the game’s general directions. My preview’s preview; these guys have been playing some modern games.

Max Payne 3 Preview!

The game’s called ‘Unlucky Fred’ and looks to make a new entry into the modern arcade genre. I’m pretty excited about it as it’s a real cool concept that has some real potential.

Pop over to my design project page to have a look!

Left: Don’t worry, this pic was from last year.

I got sent to Eurogamer for the fourth year running. It’s hard to believe that I have been to every single one of those events, it’s also hard to contemplate how big it has gotten since its 2008 beginnings, now home to big announcements like the release date of Star Wars: Old Republic, wow… no I mean wow! But to be honest, I don’t think the current predicaments of there being a ton of massively popular games coming out really help.

I got to see a few big hitters that are soon, or very soon, to come out. Rage, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Mass Effect 3 and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim are all games I had enough time with to justify writing a preview for.

Check them out in their usual place;

Rage preview
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Preview
Mass Effect 3 Preview

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 soon to come!

It’s weekly, about 25 minutes long, and consists of a healthy rotation of msxbox providers. Make sure you look out for it.

Episode 4 and Episode 5 up now.

As always I had no idea what to expect from this event, but I think that’s where most of the excitement comes from. What I did know for certain though is that I’d be checking out some Marvel vs. Capcom 3 action before the release next year, and I – and whoever else managed to pinch an invite – would be one of the 1st to play the game, apparently. They also provided a couple of their recently released titles to add a sprinkling of flavour to an otherwise single purpose event, and also of course to help Christmas sales. The extras were the highly successful Super Street Fighter IV, the zombie fulfilling Dead Rising 2, and the quite surprising presence of Bionic Commando Re-armed 2 (which I originally thought was Bionic Commando 2, an easy mistake to make).

You guys take fancy dress way too seriously

The day was long, spirited (Christmas spirited), and eventful. There were plenty of people to talk to and the  Capcom PR staff were very helpful on the day, so a shout out to the event organisers for doing a respectful job, despite the misleading present package details!

Seeing as the finishing time was completely subjective and so technically limitless, I played plenty of everything and typed a few paragraphs of preview based thoughts about the upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and the aptly named Bionic Commando Re-armed 2. Have a look for yourself; Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Bionic Commando Re-armed 2.

I manage to be one of the lucky few to step on the media clean floors of Rare recently and I got to play their upcoming Kinect game, Kinect Sports.

Read my thoughts here.

This year it’s been all that but with the increase of attendance and of course a new line-up to get geekily ecstatic about.

Have a read of my little article that talks about a few of the Xbox 360 highlights; Fable III, Gears of War 3, and Crysis 2.