Johnny Lee, the man who showed the world the secrets of the Wii Remote, has set his eye upon a new gaming peripheral as the motion control king. "Natal", he says, "...provides a very different set of input capabilities than your typical game pad. To really take advantage of those capabilities, new kinds of experiences will have to be explored."

If Johnny Lee has shown us anything about how cool body tracking looks like in video games with his simple head-tracking video long since dispersed throughout the internet, I think we can certainly takes his word on this. 

Source

Here are the NPD hardware and software sales for May 2009.

"The video games industry continues to struggle with difficult comparisons to last year, and this is the first month that industry sales have dipped below $1 billion since August 2007. Unit sales declined less than dollar sales did. The dollar sales decline was exacerbated by a decline in average retail prices for almost all of the categories. Every category declined versus a year ago with the exception of portable hardware sales which was bolstered by the continued strong sales of the Nintendo DS including both the DSi and the Lite. While there were some very strong new releases this month along with continued strong sales of evergreen games, this month's top 10 games sold 2.6 million units combined, whereas last year the top 10 sold 3.7 million units. Again, this illustrates how tough the comparisons are to last year." - NPD's Anita Frazier

The shows wrapped up, everyone's exhausted and this year's crop of games have all made their appearance. All that's left is to highlight some of my favourite games from E3, so here is the top ten games that got my excitement running high. I'll be limiting my list to games that we saw gameplay from.

10. Dragon Age: Origins

Spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate? Where do I sign up. Ever since BioWare revealed this project I have been slowly building in anticipation, and with each new bit of info I get more and more impatient to play the damn thing.  

9. Assassin's Creed 2 

Assassin's Creed had its flaws, most significantly repetitive quests, but the dev team seems to have listened to these complaints to build a better experience this time round. All through the demo the team stressed "diversity", showing a number of new and interesting ways to do the age old task of killing a dude. 

8. Shadow Complex

When Cliffy B was rolled out this year I let out a groan. I was expecting some boring announcement about Gears that I just wouldn't have cared about, instead I got a very fresh and entertaining side scrolling shooter that took the best elements of games like Metroid to provide something very, very promising. 

7. Final Fantasy XIII

Sure we've seen it all before, but the demo shown at the MS conference still had me salivating. I'm sure most people didn't feel like this, after all I'm a huge Finat Fantasy nut so any footage at all will make me happy.  

6. Project Natal

Yes I'm putting this on my list even though I said "games", but Natal was one of the true stars of MS's press conference. It blew away the wii-mote with its potential, and if that potential is lived up to then I expect some incredible games to surface. 

5. TMNT: Turtles In Time Re-shelled

One of my favourite SNES games was Turtles in Time and, even though I would have preferred an HD version of the original sprites, Re-shelled looks to rekindle that love on the 360. With the original's simple idea taken and slightly altered I know I'll be getting a new experience, and I can not wait.

4. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Yes, we only saw a trailer. Yes, there isn't much to go on at the moment but come on, it's Castlevania and it looks amazing. The trailer looked like it was showing off a lot of gameplay, and what was there looked like it would stick true to Castlevania themes whilst also taking a new approach. Plus, who doesn't love Patrick Stewart.

3. Alan Wake

Finally, Remedy's psychological thriller made a physical appearance. Popping up at the conference with an intriguing demo, Alan Wake looks like it takes a more action orientated route than I thought, something that certainly increased my anticipation.  

2. Mass Effect 2

Is there any need to explain? The original Mass Effect was a stunning blend of action and RPG, with the stronger elements addmitedly being the conversation system and story. However, this year BioWare have taken huge leaps forward in the combat sections of ME2, with new location specific damage and a silky smooth framerate. It looks better in every way. 

1. SplinterCell: Conviction 

This demo was, quite simply, badass. There's no way around it, Sam Fisher is Jack Bauer, John McClane and Jason Bourne all rolled into one. The new mark and execute mechanic makes the player feel like a secret agent god toying with lives, and the projector technology offers an awesome way of presenting key story elements or objectives. Finally everything about Sam's environment and his movement has been augmented, different routes and strategies making choice a key componenent of Sam's latest installment.

This year's ethos was to show, not tell. To show exclusive games, to show newly integrated XLB enhancements, and to show new ways in which we interact with the medium. It paid off in a big way. This year Microsoft went all out to produce their best E3 Press Conference in years; a conference that delivered on what we as a fan base expect from the tech giant. 

Lets address the new announcements quickly; a few new games were shown, including a couple of sequels (Left 4 Dead 2, Crackdown 2) and new games in old franchises (Halo: Reach). However, the biggest announcement in my opinion was Kojima hopping on stage to reveal Metal Gear Solid: Rising. 'Lightning Fast Action' pretty much alludes to what you'll be getting with this, and as a huge MGS fan I'll welcome a new installment happily. For Microsoft to have gotten a Metal Gear game on 360 is quite a coup, it may not be the port of MGS4 that everyone was looking for (never gonna happen) but it shows a dedication from MS to listening to the fans and responding with new games.

In terms of demos 2009 was a treat for fans; SplinterCell: Convictions, Halo 3: ODST, Alan Wake, Modern Warfare 2, Final Fantasy XIII and Rock Band: Beatles all took to the stage and impressed. Before this conference Microsoft didn't have a lot to show for late 09 through 2010, but we now have a plethora of stellar titles on the way. I will be particularly interested in watching SplinterCell and Alan Wake develop, both of which present strong exclusives. It's nice to see Ubisoft bringing a new direction to Sam Fisher's adventure's. The visceral combat and unique narrative elements are intriguing enough, but include the re-vamped movement of Fisher in his environment and SC:C excites the hell out of me. The same can be said of the finally emerging Alan Wake, which looks suitably atmospheric.

With the new dashboard features I feel Microsoft are finally becoming a fully realised social experience with the 360. By adding Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and a few of the other smaller additions like joint movie viewing they have created a compact way for users to connect and share. This type of scheme is a much better idea than gimmicky titles meant to cater towards the entire family. The 360 is now a social powerhouse beyond games; and even though much of it will not be utilised by a lot of the install base, the finising touches are nice. 

And then there was Natal. The entire internet knew a motion controller was going to make an appearance this year, but I don't think many knew how it would work. Instead of a blatant wii-mote rip off, Microsoft have come out with something slightly more interesting, though still clearly inspired by Nintendo's sensor bar. The use of Natal to scroll through menus, play specific games (Burnout was shown) and scan objects (though scanning a skateboard in seconds as shown seems ridiculous) is a promising prospect. Natal combined with the social integrations could prove to be the attractive features that allows for the casual market to jump on-board with Microsoft's machine. Natal itself may seem exciting but the demos they showed were underwhelming to say the least, kicking balls about and painting aren't exactly my dream games for motion control.

For years now Molyneux has been talking about Artificial Intelligence and his hopes for it. Yesterday he unveiled Milo, an interactive boy who you could seemingly hold conversations with. Milo was one of the games there that I instantly wanted to play around with and test the boundaries of. To call it a game might be a bit light, but at the moment we just don't know how scripted those events were, or how much leeway we have in situations. Molyneux seemed optimistic for the future of Milo, as is his normal outlook, and I have to say that I'll be closely watching how he turns out. If you saw Iron Man and remember Stark's A.I. servant then you get the idea of where I think Natal and Milo could conceivably go.

After the two hours of all things MS, stars had been rolled out, games announced and boards exploded. There isn't much doubt in my mind that this was one of the best conferences MS has had in recent years, it certainly had hiccups (through some of the Natal demos) but overall it promised a bright future for 360 owners.