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E3 07 Midway Press Conference

by: John -
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Midway held a press conference right after Activision and I was able to sit in on this one. With John Woo's Stranglehold being a must see title for me, I was very happy to get in.

If we're not going to get a sequel to Hard Boiled in the theater then John Woo's Stranglehold is the next best thing. The graphics since the last time I have seen it is much improved with a lot more detail in the characters and environment. The action is over the top John Woo style of course.  In development fortwo years, you get to live a John Woo movie as Detective Tequila. The demo will be available for the Xbox 360, PC, and PS3 soon with the game due out in August. For online play, there will be Tequila Time which I want to see how they pull that off withmultiple players. Some multiplayer game modes include Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch.On the PS3,the movie Hard Boiled will also be on the single Blu Ray disc making it the version I will be picking up. Players will be able to destroy every piece of the environment. A cool part was seeing Chow run up the wall a few steps, jump back and shoot a few guys.  Little bright lights will mark items you can use in the environment to help you get by areas. To demonstrate, ascene of Tequila was shown blowing up items around laser trip bombs in order to set them off. Another few scenes showed Tequila hiding behind columns to avoid gun fire and you would see pieces of the column explode off around him.  The game definitely redefines explodingdestructible environments at it seems everything could be blown apart to some degree. John Woo's Stranglehold looks intense and looks like a great title for Midway.

A quick news item on Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar was #1 selling game in April. More updates are soon to come.

Another wrestling game is coming and this one is  based on TNA. The game comes from the creators of Blitz and NBA Jam. It won't be long before you'll be playing as Kurt Angle, Sting, or Jeff Jarrett. TNA is coming to Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, and Wii.

Wheelman is back and being developed by Vin Diesel's Tigon Studios. Will we get Vin Diesel as the Wheelman? We'll find out in the near future.

A few Nintendo only games will be coming out for the DS and Wii. Both systems are going to be getting Cruis'n and Game Party while the DS also gets a very nice version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat. Ultimate MK for DS looks just like the arcade on a small scale. MK Puzzle will also be included as well. You can fight wireleessly against others and Ultimate Mortal Kombat looks like a good translation of the game to the portable system.

Blacksite: Area 51 is another first person shooter but there are some aliens that look to have some impressive scale. Powered by Unreal engine you fight an alien insurgency. Realistic settings are depicted in the game. A teaser demo was released in May but a full demo will be up for August for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC with the full release scheduled for September. There's an AI morale system which can control the moods of your guys depending on how well you are doing. Nothing on screen will show what the morale of your group is but you can see how they are doing based on their comments and facial features as well as their bodylanguage. If your squad has low morale they will hide from combat more and not be as effective. Multiplayer is included with a full co-op feature that I am excited to see. You can play through the entire story with one other person. To control the squad you can easily point to an area on the ground, hit a button, and send them there. The pointing is context sensitive so you can do things like open doors, use turrets, or move with just one button. Blacksite: Area 51 surprised me and this will be a title I have to check out in person in the near future.

Unreal Tournament 3 is a timed exclusive for PC and PS3 in November. As usual, the game will come with tools create your own content. As said at the Sony press conference, the PS3 can use the same mods as PC. The video showed the fast paced action we all know from the UT games as well as some updates to the weapons and vehicles we've used in the past such as the Paladin and flack gun. The video was pretty much the same one that was shown at the Sony Press conference and it looks damn cool.

In my eyes, John Woo's Stranglehold was the title that had the most impact in the press conference with Unreal Tournament 3 close behind. Blacksite: Area 51 also looked solid and that's the message from Midway. They have a very diverse lineup that appeals to many and they all looked high quality.