Our E3 adventures continue. Like every year, at this point of the event, the excitement begins to wind down slowly. Eventually I calm down and start acting less excited about stuff.

I just ended a pretty extensive appointment with Microsoft. I already went through most of the stuff they had prepared for the show after the media briefing, but this was a sort of 1 on 1 chance to check out all the games they had on display.

Games for Windows meeting went as well as I could expect. I got to see the same footage I've already seen a number of times, Alan Wake, Shadowrun, and the rest of those PC and Xbox 360 titles. But going beyond that, the guy that was demoing the stuff is pretty high up in MS as far as Vista design and video games are concerned.

So I've learned that we pretty much haven't seen anything of DirectX 10's capabilities at the show. Every game that is marketed as DirectX 10 optimized on the show, at the moment, is actually running on DirectX 9 code, and is optimized to squeeze every bit of performance out of it. That goes for Crysis, Age of Conan... and basically any game that was marketed as a Vista launch title.

On the other hand, I got to check out the latest build of Vista. Most of you guys have already heard about Live Anywhere, and this integration only became more clear and significant to me when I got to experience it first hand. Gaming-wise, Vista will offer the same type of features, interface and connectivity as Xbox 360 gamers are getting, and also, in terms of the actual way we play games, it'll get very close to the way we launch console titles. I should stress that you won't be able to just put the disc in and play right off the bat, but the installation process has been streamlined a lot and redesigned so that you'll certainly feel like there's no work to do as far as game installation is concerned.

After the Games for Windows stuff, I got to see the Casual Games, which I'm going to skip and go right to the Too Human presentation (check out the screenshots here). This is another action RPG for the Xbox 360 that many people are seeing as a promising contender on the market. Deeply rooted in Norse mythology, but with a futuristic fantasy twist, Too Human is a game that sort of integrates the cinematics into the gameplay itself, making the game experience a highly immersive and dramatic one. The developers wanted to stress that although the game might play like Devil May Cry on the surface, it's actually much closer to games like World of Warcraft and Diablo, with an extensive talent tree, epic items, etc. The developers are about 50 percent done with it, which means that the code was pretty chunky and there was a screen lag, but if you look past the unoptimized code (which will surely run smoothly before the launch), Too Human offers an extremely impressive range of motion captured combat moves. I was watching our guy kick ass with a staff and a katana-like sword, and the choreography of the various fighting styles was smooth and just seemed very fun.

The art style is unique as well, so this is another very promising title coming out for the Xbox 360.

OK, I'm likely off to enjoy Spore and BioShock now. I hear both games are very good. I have a pass for that Unreal Tournament 2007 screening, but I think I'm just gonna pass. I've seen footage of it, and while it looks great... well, it's Unreal Tournament, man. It ain't like the game is leading a game design revolution of any sort.

Twolions signing off for now...