The Microsoft Xbox 360 Pre-E3 2012 Press Briefing in a Nutshell

The briefing then transitioned to trailers for the upcoming titles Ascend: New Gods, LocoCycle and the Kinect-focused Matter, after which Capcom grabbed control of the stage for a demo of Resident Evil 6, followed by a demo of the XBLA/Kinect exclusive, Wreckateer, put on by Xbox Live's Alex Ruiz. The game is a fusion of action-adventure and environment-destruction in the old school sense, with the player using their ballista to take down the enemy castle, using the Kinect to aim and fire each shot.

With the crowd absorbing that, animators and masters of sarcasm Matt Stone and Trey Parker took the stage to announce the next South Park game -- South Park: The Stick of Truth -- which will be arriving on Xbox 360 in March of 2013, and places gamers in the role of the new kid on the block destined to be recruited by the South Park gang in a sort of fusion of Lord of the Flies meets Lord of the Rings... Seriously... If that premise does not sound exciting to you, you really need to watch the trailer above!

It's Kinect but with Moves

The next game to take over the stage at the briefing was Dance Central 3, whose announce began with a simple video but culminated in a surprise as celebrity and songmaster Usher took the stage to perform live. That makes sense considering that Usher choreographed two routines in Dance Central 3, but the overall impact of his surprise appearance helped to give DC3 a level of energy very close to what Splinter Cell got, and how cool is that?

Saving the Best for Last

While it was an expected part of the briefing, the introduction to the next Call of Duty -- Call of Duty: Black Ops II -- began with confirmation that yes, again, Xbox gamers would get first crack at the DLC for what is arguably one of the leading games in the wargame genre -- and then we received an intro and demo of the next Black Ops that showed off the span of the different environments and abilities that we suspect will make this the best game in the series yet.

The game includes the military-centric vehicles and scenarios that we have come to expect from the CoD series, but the demo also included highlighting some new kit -- like the X-Ray Scope in the Sniper Rifle (you gotta have a Sniper Rifle in CoD mates), and the dynamic content that has the player switching modes on-the-fly without the need for lengthy load screens or being forced to sit through a CS that begins a new section. In fact the demo made it clear that unlike previous offerings in the series, which tended to follow the more traditional load-one-action scenario, the new Black Ops promises a much smoother and more enjoyable play experience.

The briefing ended with a screen declaring November 13th, 2012 as the official release date for Call of Duty: Black Ops II -- and a fair bit of excitement that lasted even as attendees were streaming out.

That is the Microsoft Xbox 360 Pre-E3 Press Briefing in a nutshell. Gaming Update will of course be closely following the games that were featured as well as the rest of the news that is important to the gaming community, and we encourage you to comment below if there are areas that you would like us to focus more light on, because hey, this is all about you after all!