E3: That’s a Wrap!

This year’s E3 was just about perfect. Gigantic booths with tons of amazing new games, huge and significant new announcements, and hallways that were full of excited gamers, but not so busy that you couldn’t get hands-on time with the games.

We got to look at many more titles than we had time to stop and blog about at the show. Check out the Xbox.com Games page starting next week for many more hands-on looks at upcoming games. In the meantime, here are a few more highlights from the show.

Halo 3 ODST: I got a chance to play the new Firefight four-player co-op mode, and it was a total blast. Firefight pits you against wave after wave of oncoming enemies. Unlike some other recent titles, though, you can respawn if you die. Well, up to a point. You start with a limited pool of seven respawns that are shared by the whole team. As you advance, you’ll build up additional respawns in the pool. However, if you have a newbie on your team who keeps falling victim to covenant troops, you’ll want to protect him, because otherwise he’ll eat up your extra lives. We played a night mission that included the new ODST visor hud, which had the nice feature of outlining friendlies in green and baddies in red. You’ll have a few Firefight modes available when you start the game, and you can unlock more as you play through the main Halo 3 ODST campaign.

LucasArts Three-fer: At the LucasArts booth, I got a look at three games that are going to be fun to play along with the younger members of the household. Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes is a action game that lets you play as a Jedi or clone. It has drop-in, same-console co-op support similar to Lego Star Wars, but there are competitive sequences as well. The game uses the actual 3D assets from the Cartoon Network show, and looks fantastic.

Jedis can “droidjack” enemy droids.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Adventure Continues is the most ambitious LEGO game yet. It covers all four movies, but doesn’t reuse any levels from the first LEGO Indy game—all the content is new. There are some much-appreciated gameplay additions, such as an automatic split-screen when one player moves off the edge of the screen. No more screaming “Will you please follow me!” Most intriguing of all, though, is the level builder. Yes, you can finally play with the LEGOs. And when you finish your custom level, you can even insert it into the flow of the main game!

Create your own LEGO levels

Finally, there’s The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. Fans of the classic game will find the full, original game here, but you can also play it in a new HD mode with full redrawn (but faithful to the original) graphics, voiceovers, and a new controller-optimized user interface. Great way to show the kids how great the classics were.

Madballs in Babo: Invasion: I’ll admit this game was probably the biggest surprise of all the titles I saw at E3. With the name, I expected it to be yet another match-three puzzle game. But it’s actually a fast-paced Xbox LIVE Arcade shooter that’s easy to pick up and play, but packed with features that by all rights should make this a hit even with the hardcore shooter crowd. At its simplest, you’re a heavily armed ball, rolling around and shooting at other heavily armed balls. But then you dive into the feature list: team-vs-team deathmatch and capture-the-flag with up to 16 players, four-player co-op play through the challenge mode, a huge variety of weapons, and even the ability to turn your avatar’s head into a character in the game. Most intriguing, though, was the team-based map building. Using a set of preset tiles with paths, ramps, bases, and so on, you and your team build half the map at the start of the game. Your opponents, meanwhile, are building their own map. Can you confuse the enemy and navigate your way through their own confusing, trap-laden map setup? Imagine the replayability this will add. Madballs will be coming to Xbox LIVE Arcade this summer.

Play as a classic Madball, or turn your avatar’s head into one.