If it isn’t obvious by the lack of frequency of the articles here – or the absence of anything resembling timeliness or exclusivity – you may know that writing for the enthusiast press is not my full time occupation. That said, I was hoping that this year would have been my first E3. I had the time allotted and a shoe-string budget to make this the year that I made the trek to the other side of the continent and found a friend’s couch and a rented car to make the E3 Experience a hands-on one for the first time. Alas, such a thing wasn’t in the cards with the insanity that life can take at times, and I am once again destined to be a distant observer to the madness of the whole experience. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t been ready to carefully follow the events that are encompassed by the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the once crowned-king of video game information and announcements. I’ll be doing my best to wrap-up each day with some of the more pertinent announcements and doing my best to hold back from talking on end about my dream coming true: Alan Wake has a release date.

So, Alan Wake, the follow-up to Max Payne from Finnish studio Remedy, has finally been shown after many years of silence and dated after a long standing “when it’s done” indicator. Spring 2010 will bring the psychological thriller to the Xbox 360 and PC, where you will take the role of a fiction writer in a sleepy town who is on a quest to find his missing wife, all the while trying to solve just why his latest supernatural thriller novel is coming to life all around him. Microsoft’s press event was filled with big game announcements and exclusives like this, with a quick trailer of Crackdown 2 being shown to much applause, as well as Splinter Cell: Conviction, with an extensive makeover that gives the game significant promise as you take on the role of a broken Sam Fisher hunting for vengeance. Yes, that sounds cliché, but all the elements of sneaking/takedowns that made the series what it is have returned in a big way, and the whole game plays out like a frenetic action film with fast-paced narrative and dramatic combat. And the big surprise for Microsoft was the announcement of an exclusive Metal Gear Solid title, Rising, coming to the system that follows the story of Raiden.

Also from the Microsoft press event comes a couple of cool additions to Live platform. Twitter will be joining your Xbox Live account in the fall, along with Facebook, giving obsessive compulsive players another point of contact with their social networks. Popular music website Last.fm will also be integrated into the Live network in the fall, giving users the ability to listen to online radio stations and search for their favourite bands as well as new, related groups. All of these will be available to Gold subscribers for free, which is a nice touch. For our neighbours to the south (that’s you, US of A) Netflix will now allow you to queue up movies directly on your Xbox instead of having to go through the web interface. Full 1080p video will also become available in the near future, which is a big bonus for us e-snobs. For the European crowd, Sky TV will be available through your Xbox 360 without the need for additional hardware, truly drawing in the integration of the living room. Some pretty cool stuff!

In the tech world, Microsoft showed off Project Natal, their rumoured 3D motion capture camera that will allow you to interact with your Xbox without the need for a controller. With built in voice recognition, the camera system lets you bark commands, flail wildly and control the system using gestures that seemed to be rather well realized in the demos that were shown. Peter Molyneux, the creator of Fable and Black & White, was part of a tech demo for an AI character named Milo that allowed the player to talk to and interact with in a virtual world. Your vocal inflections, facial expressions and demeanour can be recognized and change the way the character interacts with you. It is a very difficult thing to describe, but the tool basically allows your actions to be directly reflected in what happens on the screen, turning your body into a full 3D model and making you into the controller. Facial recognition also means the system knows who you are and all the terrible things that you do.

Outside of the Microsoft press event we saw the announcement of a remake of The Secret of Monkey Island, a point-and-click adventure from Lucas Arts for the PC. One of the true classics of the genre, the game will be released for Xbox Live arcade and fully remade in 3D with full voice over work. Telltale Games, the makers of Sam & Max and other great modern point-and-clicks, will be taking on a new set of Monkey Island games for the Wii, as well. Episodic, monthly and hopefully following the same great tradition of the original games, this is either great news or terrible news for fans who have such fond memories of a game that’s humour seems untouched in most modern games.

Some other quick notes include Gears of War 2‘s new map pack no longer being offered at retail and no seeing a drop in price due to pressure from fans, which is good news for anyone looking to grab the whole set of DLC for the game and bad news for anyone hoping for a free poster. Halo: Reach, a prequel to the Halo trilogy was also announced by the series’ creators Bungie, alongside gameplay for their upcoming Halo 3 expansion ODST. The living half of the Beatles made an appearance today to show off The Beatles: Rock Band, which looks like a painstakingly meticulous fantasy retread of the Beatles illustrious career and has a lot of great features, include vocal harmony.

It was a huge day, and it’s really hard to condense all of the great stuff that happened into such a small space. There are a lot of videos out there and a lot of great live coverage to check out, and tomorrow’s press conferences involve both Sony and Nintendo so it should be a huge Tuesday. Microsoft definitely hit one out of the park, though, so it will be a tough act to follow in the coming days.