Microsoft never fails to impress me. Starting off with a bang with the world gameplay premiere of Halo 4, which featured new enemies and a new story, with the return of classic protagonists Master Chief and Cortana. And to end it off, Treyarch premiered new gameplay footage from its new futuristic spin on the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops II.

So all-in-all, how did Microsoft’s press conference turn out? Well there were definitely a lot of high points in this year’s conference including the unveiling of the new Xbox Smart Glass tablet, a device that will connect the console to a tablet.

As well, we saw a brand new trailer for the prequel to the popular Gears franchise, titled Judgment, in which you take control of classic ally, Baird.

Personally, I became very excited for the new Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Tomb Raider premieres, both of which played beautifully and look to impress. Tomb Raider’s graphics, voice acting and overall audio quality was through the roof, and Lara Croft has definitely got her work cut out for her in this new game. Other smaller, less popular unveilings included sports and music for the Xbox console, Fable: The Journey’s premiere, and the world premiere of three new IP titles: Ascend New Gods, LocoCycle and Matter, whose teaser trailers felt completely out of place and didn’t add much to really lifting audiences out of their seats.

Tomb Raider was definitely at the top of my list for best looking games at this year’s Xbox conference

But by the time Harmonix came around with its unveiling for Dance Central 3, and Usher took to the stage with his new single “Scream”, the crowd was definitely on their feet.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, co-creators of South Park, came out with the unveiling of South Park: The Stick of Truth. A true RPG-style new title in the classic comedy franchise, and not only will players feel like they are taking control of a paper-thin South Park character, but the movements and graphics are reminiscent of the series as a whole, bringing players into the small town of Colorado for real this time.

Resident Evil 6 looks to bring the horror back, but still hold true to its newfound action angle.

I was very excited for when Capcom took to the stage with the gameplay premiere for Resident Evil 6, one of my biggest anticipated games of this year. I was glad that Capcom has listened to the hardcore fans a little bit, and it looks like they’ve pulled back in terms of action gameplay and re-introduced a darker element of survival horror into this game. But I do feel that they’ve finally found a spot in the middle, although the action is still over-the-top, I’m glad that they’ve pulled back and elements of horror finally feel like they’re returning to the limelight.

I may be bouncing around a lot, but I’m just summarizing various highlights of the conference. The Kinect played a very small role in this year’s conference. But there was almost no mention of any body recognition games except for the new Fable: The Journey, and only voice recognition for titles like FIFA 13, Madden 13, and Splinter Cell Blacklist. So will there be any shortage of Kinect games? We’ll have to wait and see on that part.

Check back on GTA Gamers for after-thoughts on the Sony conference later tonight, and the Nintendo conference tomorrow.