It was my 18th birthday yesterday! It was slightly dampened by the fact I had an exam, but it was a good day nonetheless. I got a tonne of money as well as assorted gifts, including a Simpsons T-shirt, a Windy Miller (from Trumpton) T-shirt, chocolate and a Mr Bean DVD. Ghostbusters: The Video Game also arrived yesterday and I've already had a lot of fun playing it.

In other news, I've ordered Rock Band, and the Sony Band In A Box instruments for said game. Hopefully me and my friends will rock out on it at my birthday party next weekend!

Games
Well when Microsoft said about exclusives they first came out with two Xbox Arcade games - boring! Hardly exclusives to shout about. 'Microsoft have nothing for us today' I thought. But then came some notable games - Halo ODST and Splinter Cell: Conviction, Forza 3 - but nothing that rocked the boat. Then came Alan Wake, which for me was the only decent Microsoft exclusive as it looked ground breaking, in the way Heavy Rain is for the PS3. However, compared with Sony's stellar line-up this year, it isn't much to shout about. Oh, and they've got the next MGS - but not MGS4 as all 360 owners were bragging about. It's a bit of an own goal on their part.

Social/Other
Well Microsoft have always said that unlike the PS3, they focus on games rather than multimedia possibilities and internet interaction. However, today they turned that on it's head with their main announcements being not about games, but about Last.fm, Twitter and Facebook interaction with the 360. Ok it might please some, but to most this is mostly irrelevant. Okay you can now watch Sky on 360, but Wii and the PS3 can both browse BBC's iPlayer and any TV channel sites with live streams e.g BBC, ITV and also have PlayTV, which is cheaper since you won't need a Sky subscription. However, it was nice to see the video offering expand, even thought it's new name isn't very good.

Innovation
Well, today Microsoft made many claims about new ways to interact with the 360 with it's new (but already leaked some time ago) motion sensing camera, which worked with the menu system also. However, the system was shown to have it's flaws when the avatar they showed tried to do a back flip or something, when trying to imitate an action. Also, the guy doing it looked like a right idiot doing it. It's not much more than the Wii has done with it's control system, when it comes down to what it can do. I mean, hell, the Wii Balance Board can mimic a player's movements, and that doesn't even have a camera. Also, ever heard of the Playstation Eye, Microsoft?

In conclusion: they didn't do badly, but it could've been a whole lot better. Now it's just the wait for the other two to make their conferences.

I've reviewed Singtar: Queen, read it here: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/puzzle/singstarqueen/player_review.html?id=652182