Microsoft just announced at its Gamefest 2008 event that the company is now making all of the Live functionality for the Games for Windows platform available at no cost. That includes Achievements, TruSkill matchmaking, 360 cross-platform support, friends lists, and voice and text chat. The move is effective immediately and will affect all current and future Games for Windows titles, too.

In other news, Microsoft says it will be introducing a Games for Windows marketplace in the fall, which will offer both free and paid game content, trailers and other content similar to what is currently offered on the Xbox 360. 

There were some big announcements, like the news that Final Fantasy XIII will be hitting the Xbox 360, too, but for the most part we saw a lot of stuff that we’ve been seeing for months. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a tremendous lineup of games slated for this year, and it was great to get our hands on games like Fallout 3, Fable 2 and Resident Evil 5 (even if that one drops in 2009). It’s just that with so many gamers days and other press events over the past few months, we’ve had the chance to see so much of it before.

Much of it’s a matter of poor timing. By July, companies have to start getting their marketing plans and strategies in shape if they want to make a holiday release, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to make big announcements this late. Companies are also taking advantage of those gamers days to get their messages out. If you have a captive press audience that’s there just to cover your company, it’s easier to manage coverage than trying to be heard in the din of a larger gathering.

Who were the winners of E3? Microsoft had a fairly impressive lineup, and the next system update looks great. I’m still not exactly sure why we need Avatars, but as long as they don’t get in the way I’m OK with them. Sony wowed us with its crazy-expensive looking set, but the actual content of its press conference was pretty dull. Both companies showed off more games designed to ensnare nontraditional players, but don’t expect anyone from the mainstream press to take notice. They’re all over there gushing about Wii Music. It’s great that Nintendo is going to be able to deliver on the promise of accurate motion-sensing controls, but it’s a drag that people are going to have to buy another peripheral to get that functionality. I’d be willing to be that the only people who’ve noticed the Wii’s control shortcomings aren’t the same people who are going to want to sharpen pencils with swords or throw a Frisbee at a puppy.

We were pretty stoked about Dark Void after seeing it demoed at Capcom's press event last month in Las Vegas, and that feeling is even stronger after getting our hands on it. The playable demo area was the same level featured as before, but it gave us the opportunity to see how the rocket pack fared in the hands of a nondeveloper.

If you play a lot of shooters, you're going to feel right at home. The game features a Gears of War style cover system that works well. It also has the vertical-cover areas, in which the hero scales up a cliff face or ledge while hiding on perpendicular surfaces. It was intuitive and responsive, much to our relief. It seemed like it could have been a little gimmicky, but it definitely added some extra variety to the gameplay.

The flying sections were great, which wasn't that surprising--it's being developed by the team that made the Crimson Skies games. After hijacking a UFO, we got to take out a similar fleet in some fast-paced dogfighting action. 

We only got a small glimpse of Dark Void, and we can't wait to see more. 

Keiji Inafune wanted to take Mega Man back to his old-school roots in his latest outing, and that's immediately obvious; the game looks exactly like it was transported here from the NES era. Capcom says the game was surprisingly expensive to develop despite its deliciously low-grade visuals and classic MIDI soundtrack. (The development team had to reverse engineer many of the antiquated tools required to develop the game through software, which was apparently no easy task.)

We played a couple of the levels, and it's exactly what you'd expect to see in a Mega Man 1 or 2 game. He doesn't have any kind of dash move, and it's brutally difficult. If you've gotten soft in today's age of checkpoints and quicksaves, prepare to face the game over screen repeatedly. Familiar elements like disappearing platforms and bottomless pits are back. Even old-school graphical hiccups and other glitches have been included to complete the authentic-seeming experience.

If you like old Mega Man games and you want to keep your skills sharp, look for it as a download on the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 in the next few months.

If you've always wanted to get together with your friends and make music that sounds like a marching band falling down an escalator, Nintendo has something just for you. Wii Music lets players pick one of more than 50 virtual instruments and play along with predetermined tunes.

We played through a few performances, and we're still not exactly sure if what we did was fun. First, we jammed along to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." Our ensemble consisted of a toy piano, human beat box and sax. As we moved our controllers to approximate really playing the appropriate instrument, Wii Music produced a variety of notes. Even when we kept up with the tempo it sounded pretty terrible. Perhaps it was our choice of instrumentation.

Learning from that mistake, we next played the Super Mario Bros. theme song on rock drums, taiko drums and vibraphone. While it made a different sort of noise, it still was eerily similar to what you'd hear in an elementary school band's practice room. Maybe it sounds better when you stick to appropriate instruments. If Nintendo's all-star show at their press conference was any indication, though, that's debatable.

At least it gives musically inclined families something to play together in a noncompetitive way. Even junior can contribute to the racket.

That’s a pretty tall order, but after seeing the game in action at our E3 demo, it looks like Ebbert and his team is set to deliver on those promises. As the game’s lead designer, he’s trying to build upon what made the first Dawn of War such a success while tackling some of those little issues that have been bugging him about the genre for years.

A new mission interface allows players to move throughout space, defending the sector from an Orkish invasion. As they move around, players will be able to pick up distress signals from various planets, read about their specific problems and choose to land and attempt to solve them.

Earlier this week, Nintendo announced their new peripheral Wii Remote Plus. The small attachment adds a powerful gyro to the button of the remote to give it true-to-life motion sensing. After trying it out a bit with the new Wii Sports Resort Frisbee game, we were impressed with how it felt. Even the most subtle wrist movement was reflected on screen as we did practice wind-up before tossing the disc to our trusty fetch dog. As with anything like it, it takes a few shots to get the fell but eventually it becomes pretty easy to control and make great shots. We also had a chance to check out the jst ski game. Unfortunately, it did not control as well as the Frisbee game and as anyone knows, holding your arms straight out in front of you for an extended period of time can tire quickly.

It remains to be seen whether or not developers will latch on to the new system. While the accuracy of the new system is appealing, Nintendo told us that they do not have plans at this time to pack the Remote Plus in with new Wii consoles. Consumers will have to buy Wii Sports Beach or buy it separately.

As for the second question, first things first. Her name’s Sheva, and she’s African. The demo plunked us both down into a shack seconds before the infected attacked, so we didn’t get much time for small talk or expository dialogue. We did learn, however, that she kicks all kinds of ass. Unlike 4’s Ashley, Sheva isn’t the type to hide in a crate during a fight.

Whether you liked Ashley’s character or not, she was a great NPC in many ways. She was helpless in fights, but she generally stayed out of the way and tried to avoid getting into too much trouble. Capcom has built upon that kind of interaction in 5, adding a support character that actually pulls her own weight. Chris Redfield can order her to help out by pushing objects to block doors or call for backup when he’s in trouble. If she has any healing items on her, she’ll know when Chris is low on health and heal him automatically. Players can also order her to pick up items or weapons and trade with her as needed.

Better still, she can be played by a friend cooperatively, which is a first for the series (if you don’t count Outbreak). Whether or not your companion is controlled by the AI or a flesh-and-blood human, the levels we played featured several splitting paths designed to break up the zombie-slaying action a little. In one section, Chris boosts Sheva onto a roof, where she takes out infected from above. Meanwhile, Chris snakes around the back of the building, picking off any enemies that she may have missed. A short while later, and they’re rejoined. In another area, she dashes ahead and Chris has to protect her from advancing zombies as she tries to figure out how to open a blocked door.

The aliens in Flock! are either very shy or very lazy, doing their herding work from the comfort of their UFO. The version of Earth that they’re getting is considerably cuter and textile based than the one most of us are accustomed to, also. The ground looks like a patchy quilt, with shag-carpet-like grain fields and other craft-looking features. The animals themselves are round and adorable, looking like Weeble Wobbles sewn out of cloth.

Though they may be cute to look at, after playing for a while you’ll begin to curse their very existence. Each level tasks players with herding a specific number of animals into the alien HQ. There are usually more animals on the field than required, giving novice players a little room for failure and experts the opportunity to get some bonus points.

So how does a UFO herd animals? You see, they’re all afraid of the thing. If you think about it, a spinning, hovering ship is a bit freaky, especially when it’s flying so close to the ground. Regardless, players fly their ship behind their targets, and they run away in the opposite direction, presumably toward the goal.

In practice, however, it’s not exactly that easy. These critters seem to have minds of their own, and they’re not about to eagerly file into the mothership in an orderly fashion. To further complicate things, each of the different varieties of animals—pigs, chickens, cows, sheep—has their own special abilities and quirks. Chickens are able to fly across short gaps, for example, but they also seem to scare easier than other animals. Cows can break through fences, but they’re also a little…messy. Pigs love that mess, and will eagerly go out of their way to find it so they can roll around in it. Sheep, on the other hand, hate getting their wool dirty, so they’ll do their best to avoid cow manure.