Microsoft's game plan seeks to extend frontiers of gaming community

The games industry is going through another fresh blossoming of expansion and creativity, writes JOE GRIFFIN

THE RECENT Xbox Spring Showcase for 2011 opened with a look at Gears of War 3, one of the flagship titles for Microsoft’s resurgent console.

It was an ideal choice – the Gears of Warseries is a confident, world-dominating franchise, and it also showcases one of the reasons why gaming has blossomed into an industry that generates billions of euro annually. The Gears of Wargames (violent, epic sci-fi sagas) are perfectly entertaining, but – perhaps more importantly – they also display a unique advantage that the interactive entertainment industry has over competitors such as movies, music and television: a level of interaction with their consumers that other media can only dream of.

For marquee releases such as Gears of War, online gaming explodes within hours of release. The team behind the new Gears of Wargame have invested heavily in servers to cater for the impending avalanche of online traffic and said they expect over a million gamers to try the forthcoming demo online.

Almost instantly, the developers know which levels are more popular, who's playing, how long they've been playing for and what they think of the product. It's immediate, detailed, test-group market research of registered Xbox Live users. To illustrate the magnitude of this, try to imagine a huge corporation (say, Coca Cola) getting over a million surveys answered by customers at once. Thanks to online demos and previews, many developers (including the Gears of Warteam) don't even have to wait for opening day to get their audience opinions.

The scale of online gaming is incredible, but it has been around for some time now. Other corners of the event, however, boasted some neat, low-key new innovations. Mobile gaming (on Windows-compatible phones) will soon be linking into gamers' Xbox accounts. So points or in-game currency earned on the forthcoming mobile Fablegame can be used in Fable IIIon the Xbox.

Every year the game industry seems to go through another fresh blossoming of expansion and creativity, and the collection of titles for Xbox 2011 reflected that nicely. There were mobile games, Kinect games, 3D titles (at least two of which looked fabulous), shooters, platform adventures, add-ons for existing hits (including Halo Reachand Assassin's Creed Brotherhood) and hands-on previews of hotly anticipated sequels, including the new Batman game Arkham City.

Two separate developers told me that although they love violent action games, there's plenty of room for more gentle and graceful endeavours. The non-violent projects included the utterly endearing (and strangely affecting) Sesame Streettie-in, Once Upon a Monster, and the new psychedelic Kinect game Child of Eden.

Speaking of Kinect, as one producer correctly pointed out, the hands-free control system has only been on the market for less than three months, so for once, the hyperbolic "tip of the iceberg" expression was appropriate. Back in November, Kinect's initial launch titles had a definite Christmas morning feel about them – they were toys that seemed to be designed specifically to compete with Nintendo's Wii. Some of these new titles are more distinctive and ambitious, and seem to be courting the more hardcore gamers that may have felt alienated by Kinect's early games. The aforementioned Child of Edenis a good example of the progress being made; a gorgeous, hypnotic shooter, it shows how intuitive controls and colourful graphics can make a combat game both beautiful and free of gratuitous violence.

Elsewhere, the irreverent marionette cowboy tale Gunstringerdemonstrated inventive shooter controls for the Kinect. Michael Wilford, chief executive of the game's developer, Twisted Pixel, said: "We had the idea of a marionette puppet game for years. It didn't really work with the Wii. Microsoft told us about Kinect before it came out. Once we saw it we thought this is finally the perfect time to make that game. We had the idea a long time ago, but it took Kinect for us to really make it click."The breadth of tone in the games was dizzying: mere moments after helping Elmo arrange a birthday party in Once Upon a Monster, I was having a bloody chainsaw fight in Gears of War 3.

With an inspirational gathering of creative talent under the one roof, Microsoft showed they’re finally mastering the balance of appealing to the mainstream family audience, and the more hardcore gamers that have been with Xbox since day one.

GAME CHANGERS: TITLES REFLECT BREADTH OF VISION

Gunstringer

Available to download from March, this Western revenge story makes great use of the Kinect: control your marionette puppet with one hand, fire from your six-shooter with the other.

Child of Eden

Typically imaginative title from Q Entertainment (and created by the legendary Tetsuya Mizuguchi), it's another promising Kinect title. Wave your hands to reload, select enemies or to fire, but this doesn't feel like another violent shooter – instead, it's a dizzying and captivating kaleidoscope of images.

Dishwasher Vampire Smile

This is a fun, but relatively low-fi title – a side-scrolling combat game that is mostly monochrome, except for splashes of blood. As a showcase for 3D gaming, however, it really is impressive – with the violence appearing to spill out of your TV screen.

Once Upon a Monster

Utterly adorable Kinect game that was made in collaboration with the Jim Henson workshop. The new characters are every bit as endearing as the returning icons, which include Grover, Cookie Monster and, of course, Elmo.