Microsoft's recurring Xbox media event series, appropriately dubbed X10 this year, allows for a sneak peak at exclusive games and technologies set for release in the near future. This week's X10 in Toronto was of particular interest not only for the all business demos of Massive Incorporated's in-game advertising models, but for the much anticipated body-motion sensing technology called 'Kinect,' set to debut in November.

Amongst all that were forthcoming Xbox 360 games, of course, and here's what stood out.

Halo Reach
Halo Reach is the latest addition to the Halo franchise, long regarded as a cornerstone to the success of the Xbox 360 platform.

Bungie Studios' producer, Joseph Tung, said that 2.7 million people took part in the beta program. He demoed some of Reach's features by showing some stunning segments of the game's initial campaign. Halo Reach also introduces new game modes such as Invasion (Spartans vs. Elites) and an improved Firefight mode that offers online matchmaking for players wanting to battle the covenant units.

"We've also got a deep player rewards and customization system where you can go in and customize every part of your armor, Tung explained. "This is all tied to a deep credit system, so whatever you are doing in the game, you are earning credits. You can use credits to customize your own Spartan,"

Also demoed were the deep customization features of the "Forge" level editor, which gives users the ability to design their own structures and entire levels ("maps"). In turn, user created content can be shared with other users.

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Coming to PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on November 9, 2010, Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops was clearly the showstopper during Microsoft's X10 event.

Activision producer John Sweeney ran a demo showing a rag-tag team of elite commandos skulking through the Vietnam's jungles and brutally offing enemy soldiers with knives, rifles, pistols and grenades. Graphically, the lavish environments as well as the non-stop action of this demo was impressive.

Stealth and cunning are essential components of Black Ops as the demo illustrated infiltration, assassination and ambush situations that are suited to jungle warfare. it appears that Activision really went the extra mile in creating extremely convincing environments with a tropical rainforest feel and accurate sights and sounds.

Part of the fluidity of movement and realism of Call of Duty: Black Ops can be credited to new motion capture technology that accurately recorded mannerisms and even facial expressions of the characters.

Dialogue between characters, meanwhile, comes off as snappy, maintaining a good flow with the game while the musical soundtrack draws you in and keeps things tense. Call of Duty aficionados will likely love the games new weapons, including crossbows, ballistic knives, dragon's breath rounds (short-range flamethrower) as well as the SR-71 Blackbird that can also be piloted during the game.

Fable III
As a widely anticipated role-playing game (RPG) follow up, Fable III is set in Albion, an industrial revolution-y, Victorian England-esque town set some 50 years after the events of Fable II. It's a world on the cusp of violent change, where progress is attained at great cost and poverty and injustice are the norm.

Clearly a grand scale production, Fable III features such notable British actors as John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg and even Sir Ben Kingsley lending their voices to the game's main characters.

Unlike in earlier Fable chapters, you don't begin your quest as a child but a young adult prince, brother to the King you will eventually have to overthrow to restore order and ascend to the throne... if thrones are your thing.

As always, choices are presented to your character constantly, and these choices yield specific arcs in the story and affect the entire kingdom and its future. If you push your character to become greedy and tax your subjects unfairly, for example, you will see your people become visibly poorer and their surroundings will begin to degrade.

Fable III hope to be a more emotionally involved game than its predecessors as you now have the option to adopt children, raise them and give them better lives. This definitely adds a new dimension to the usual simulator formula.

Along with improved fight mechanics, better graphics and a more engaging interactive world around you, Fable III is looking like a true sequel, a bona fide new chapter in a saga as opposed to a mere spit-polished version of the previous titles with mere variations on a theme.

Kinect for Xbox 360
And lastly, taking a page from Nintendo's Wii and ditching the controller altogether, Microsoft's Kinect system for Xbox 360 turns you, the player, into the perfect remote. Using advanced scanning and tracking technology plus a couple of digital cameras, Kinect generates your on-screen self and mimics your every movement as it pertains to the game.

The most popular demo space in the X10 event, the Kinect area offered users a chance to try River Rush, a mini-game from the Kinect Adventures suite shipping on November 8, along with the Kinect hardware, a $150 bundle (a complete, 4GB console with Kinect and game will also be available for about $300).

In River Rush, you try to sway from side-to-side to avoid obstacles as your raft charges down steep rapids. You need to jump and steer at the opportune time in order to avoid pitfalls. People can play solo or in pairs which requires some degree of cooperative coordination.

To play it, Kinect was accurate and the whole experience came off as seamless. Despite the marketing hype insisting as much, this really could be the peripheral that finally gets gamers off their butts.
 
 

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