Microsoft's E3 Press Conference - all about *you*

Burn - the live demo of the underwater mission just had a Controller Disconnect error! 

However, the game is looking, well, Modern Warfare-like. Lots of SERIOUS BIDNESS and black ops lingo. Hard to judge the graphics,  but it looks like an improvement.

9:35am: Wow. Great sound as a submarine maneuvers over you, kind of like the Star Destroyer in the opening of Star Wars. You attach a mine to the sub, it blows and surfaces, then we get a cutscene of it breaching before you board it - there seems to be a real return to the squad-based stuff of earlier CoD games.

Must say, the game is looking really quite tight. During one moment, you breach a door, and as you go thrugh the game drops into slow motion. Your squad arms and launches the sub's missiles, before you escape on a boat through what looks like a carrier battlegroup in the harbour of some large City. What follows is a classic Call of Duty vehicle sequence, as the missiles you launched from the sub take out its surface group.

9:40am: Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer dudes: "The biggest, most exciting and epic CoD ever." Of course. 

9:41am: Don Matrick, Xbox dude: "Thanks for making last year the biggest year in Xbox history." and he's hinting at a big television reveal.

9:43am: Tomb Raider. The demo shows off the beginning of the game, and man it looks amazing. And very, very brutal - she just fell onto a pile of bones and had one driven into her ribs. She's diry, covered in blood, and limping...

The camera movement seems very naturalistic, more like a real cameraman following Lara than the classic floating camera. The use of closeups in enclosed spaces like an underwater cavern makes the game very claustrophobic and intense. 

The puzzles seem all very physics based and quite complex.

Also wow, this really should be called Lara Croft's Pain Adventure. She gets hurt a LOT. Being her origin story, more or less, it really shows a Lara that is being pushed to her limits.

9:49am: EA Sports' Peter Moore: Four EA Sports games are getting Kinect support. Huh. Tiger Woods Gold, Madden and FIFA are getting motion and voice control... here's hoping Australia gets it soon!

The Sims is also getting Kinect support.

9:51am: Ray Muzyka, from Bioware: MASS EFFECT 3 HELLS YEAh. Sorry, got carried away.

"You choose the path in this all out war." And yes, Kinect support has just been confirmed - but its voice support. Interesting.

Let's see how it plays... So, you speak out the conversation choice to choose it. However, the voice control also extends to squad commands, which seems to work very well. Also, the engine looks fantastic, and I may have had an accident when a mecha that looked suspiciously like a Battletech Warhammer dropped into the fight.

9:56am: Ghost Recon: Future Soldier: The trailer just made me giggle in glee. It's looking like military sci-fo porn, seriously.

Yves Guilemot is on the stage, from Ubisoft. And he's talking Kinect. Sigh. Looks like Ghost Recon will have motion support, too.

The demo shows off some serious detailed weapon customisation, called Gunsmith which works with gesture-controls and voice. Annoyingly, it looks really sexy... like the way Tony Stark controls his CAD designs in Iron Man. The gun customisation even features instant testing of weapon configs in a testing environment. Sexy.

And all future Tom Clancy titles are going to be Kinect enabled.

10:01am: Mark Whitten: Xbox Live: On making Xbox technology invisible...

The demo is of integration with voice control in entertainment. "Using the Kinect you can watch movies, listen to music... " It's basically a whole online media center, combining external and your own content. And it looks like an App Store is coming along, too.

YouTube is coming to Xbox Live, meaning cat videos can be watched even easier!

And to find all this content, the Xbox is getting access to the Bing search engine, which combines with voice control to make search super easy. You do sound like an idiot, a touch, though: "Xbox Bing X-man" is one demo search.

Oh wow - Xbox is getting live TV, partnering with US and OS broadcasters, including Foxtel in Austraia. Nice!

10:08: Dana White, the head of UFC!

UFC on 360 - big, sweaty men hugging each other on the floor in higher def than ever before!

Looks like UFC will be integrating with Xbox Live allowing social networking in live bouts, like calling the result of a fight.

10:10am: Phil Spencer, Xbox Studios. "Xbox is transforming televsion. But at our core, Xbox will always be about games."

Thank fuck for that. And now some Gears of War 3.

10:12am: Cliffy B: "This is the best and most polished Gears game we've made to date." And he's just  introduced Ice-T. I am in the same room as Ice-T. Just saying.

So then Cliff and Ice (I call him Ice - we're like that) demo some co-op play. They're fighting off some giant mutant sea beast. It looks like classic Gears, and even shows off some mech-based combat. It's true - everything's better with mecha.

Huh... the giant mutant thing seems to like to eat crates. Good thing it's in a game world.

Ice-T announces... Body Count has reformed to record a song for Gears 3. BODY COUNT IN DA HOUSE.

10:17am: A video for some game based on ancient Rome, which looks oddly like HBO's Rome... now that would rock. But it's a game called Ryse.

Oh... Halo music. I just got chills.

10:19am: Remastered Halo: Combat Evolved! Now that's interesting - it doesn't look that much better, but we'll gladly play it.

10:21am: Dan Greenawalt, Turn 10 Studios on Forza Motorsport 4. Okay, we admit it... the graphics are kinda sexy. "Where the car community finds its home for all things automotive." And it comes with full Kinect integration, and monthly expansions. This is a whole new grade of racing game.

10:24am: Peter Molyineux, Lionhead Studios. You know, I'm still always surprised when he doesn't sound like a Frenchman. Anyway, here's Fable: The Journey.

"When heres are no longer born... they must be made." The live demo is of a carriage-mounted sequence... gaming needs more of those.

Then we move on foot, and get to see some motion control magic using - lots of casting gestures to create different spell effects. It's actually a neat use of the technology.

10:27am: Phil Spencer from MS is back. And all the following games are Xbox exclusives...

Oh dear... Minecraft is making its console debut on Xbox, and will have Kinect integration.

Here's news - Xbox is partnering with Disney, for Disneyland Adventures. It's a full recreation of the park... if you like giant rodents in white gloves, this is the game for you. 

MS is using the cutest kids that science can vatgrow for this ddemo, showing off a Peter Pan flying sequence and an Alice in Wonderland bit. Lots of flailing and child labour.

10:33am: Star Wars. 

Looks like a motion enabled game set in the Clone Wars era. Motion controlled lightsaber action: just say yes. To be honest, though, the actual movement in-game of these motion games - actualy getting from one point to another - looks like arse. It effectively takes movement like walking out of the player's hands, and that's something I personally find really disempowering in gameplay terms.

10:37am: Tim Schafer, Double Fine: talking about Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster. "Everything I learned about health I learned from Cookie Monster."

I'll say one thing, Kinect is a real boon for kids' games. And acid freaks and stoners, who will also appreciate the 'wiggle to make the sparkles happen' gameplay.

Schafer actually makes an interesting point, though possibly accidentally... 

10:42am: Kudo Sunoda, large jerk, talking up Kinect and wearing sunglasses in a dark auditorium. Oh, and he's talking up Kinect FunLabs, an array of Kinect apps.

And now Kinect Me, which uses Kinect to create to an avatar of yourself, from face and hair and clothing. The demo is impressive, and creates a good avatar, but it's likely canned. And the crowd loves it... I don't get people these days.

And yet... the new finger tracking tech combined with 3D imaging looks like some serious fun. Sunoda also suggests that finger tracking will allow games to track trigger pulls.

The funlab also lets you scan objects. At last, you can create a 3D image of your favourite sex toys, an integrate them in racing games. The age we live in! 

And Funlabs is available today - it's live right now.

10:50am: Kinect Sports: Season 2. Voice and motion enabled sports... good if you like gold in your lounge. The demo shows full body motion tracking for golf swings, and voice enabled club selection.

10:52am: Kasson Crooker, Harmonix. Kill me now, it's Dance Central 2. It has a campaign mode now. Yay. The big thing here is simultaneous multiplayer dancing.

Don Matrick is back at 10:55, changing living room entertainment forever. Or so he says. He might be right, too... But last a first look at a new project...

HALO 4. Coming 2012. It doesn't tell us much, but the Chief is back. 

And that's a wrap. In an hour or so check in for our EA coverage.