Given that you don't even read the manuals that come with your games, we decided to boil down Microsoft's 90-minute press announcement into something that you can read in slightly less time.

The Beatles: Rock Band

Harmonix, makers of the Rock Band game, showed off the game by using it's in-house band to show off the new instruments, several of the included songs, new visuals and a three vocal track that gets players to harmonize. Of course, Paul McCartney and Ringo Star were on hand to tell you how much they loved the game.

Tony Hawk Ride

Skating legend, Tony Hawk took the stage to show off his next skateboarding adventure. Different than previous games, this one comes with a skateboard accessory that you ride like a board. It senses your riding style, lets you perform tricks (including, we assume, breaking crap in your living room) from ollies to grinds with ease. Of course a video of skating greats like Christian Hosoi, Paul Rodriguez, Ryan Sheckler, Steve Nesser and Rodney Mullen (no relation to the author, sadly) amped up the hype.

Modern Warfare 2

Based on the lineage of Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2 takes battle hungry soldiers to the snowy mountains for death defying ice wall climbing, snowmobile shooting matches and the promise of two early map pack releases for Xbox Live players.

Final Fantasy XIII

Motomu Toriyama and Yoshinori Kitase, speaking though a really cute interpreter, talked about the 20 year history of the Final Fantasy series and showed off, for the first time, Final Fantasy XIII running on Xbox 360. Watching two of the game's protagonists, Lightning and Suds battle against a mecha boss with spinning saw blades for hands sure looked nice (albeit painful). Kitase also unveiled a new four time gauge system that will make for more effective spell attacks. Final Fantasy is due during the spring of 2010.

Shadow Complex
Epic's Cliff Blezinski and Chair's Donald Mustard took to the stage to show off the Xbox Live-only game, Shadow Complex. Borrowing side-scrolling combat elements from such games as Castlevania and old-school Metroid, the 3.5D side-scrolling game lets you shoot foes or use parts of the environment (like power cords) to toast foes. Packed with loads levels, 10+ hours of play time and 120 items to find (including a foam gun that lets you reach higher floors), Shadow Complex looked interesting but on the same level as Gears of War.

Joyride
Yes, Microsoft is still trying to create avatar games you'd want to play (although you still avoid them like the swine flu). Joyride hopes to change all that by being available for free. Graphically, the family-friendly racing sports graphics that remind us of a blood and gut-less Team Fortress 2, where you actually pay for auto upgrades and maps. Most interestingly, the game lets you share any map with another player, even if they don't own the map. Look for it during Winter 2009

Crackdown 2
Starting with the uber tacky line, "The city is infected, you are the cure," Crackdown 2's heritage of infecting too few gamers during its first release wasn't apparent enough to kill the franchise.

Left 4 Dead 2

A scene from what appears to be Bourbon Street in New Orleans gets voiced over by an accented male speaker who says something about his grandmother telling him that he should have prayed for salvation. Then the people on camera turnaround to unveil their true zombie nature, while we were in the dark for a second, after seeking four players trapped by the undead... we knew the outcome. Left 4 Dead 2 is coming to PC and Xbox 360 on Nov. 17.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction

A man sits at a piano as he remembers his daughter, apparently killed by a hit-and-run. Then you notice the gun on the top of the piano and remember who the man is... it's Splinter Cell's Sam Fischer. This ain't the old same you knew though. Pissed by the death of his kid, he's gone mad with revenge to find who killed her and decides to go against everything he stood for (yeah, sounds like last season's 24, right). Interestingly, the game seems to ditch the high end video storyline vignettes for a mini-movies that project on the walls as Sam progresses. It sounds tacky but looks decidedly hip and cool. Sam goes bad this Fall.

Forza Motorsport 3

We too love Forza but apparently not as much as Turn 10's head of state, Dan Greenwald. Promising to running at a smooth 60 frames per second and boasting 450 cars from over 50 manufactures and several verbal makeout moments with an Audi R8 V10 on stage, Forza 3 appears to want to each Gran Turismo for lunch. Apart from nifty graphics, the ability to share car skins and a new movie mode where players can choreograph (car-eograph?) impossible car moments in HD, we'll find out who gets to rule the high-octane heap when it arrives (yes, even after all the on-stage boast, there wasn't a hint of when the game would arrive).

Halo 3: ODST

The upcoming DLC for Halo 3 stars the rookie and lets Master Chief take a vacation. In ODST, the base at New Mombasa gets attacked a few weeks before the events of Halo 3 begin. Bungie's Joe Staten showed off two level from the game and also unveiled that E3 attendees would get dirty with the game's cop mode Firefight this week. Also, Staten delivered the holidays early by announcing that ODST purchasers (9/22/09) would gain access to a build of its multiplayer beta project, Halo Reach, which is due for a 2010 release.

Alan Wake
Remedy's upcoming game sports moody graphics and a dark storyline where an author discovers that the horror book that he's writing appears to be coming alive all around him. After his wife Alice goes missing, Alan goes to search for her as he discover evil creatures are following him are wounded by his flashlight. While I won't pass final judgment, the excessive lines of dialog and leisurely pace kinda made it look like a Hardy Boys game with a hot graphics engine on a B-movie set. Of course, we'd love to be proven wrong.

Metal Gear Solid Rising

Hideo Kojima shocked the audience by unveiling the he, unlike 99% of other video game makers, can speak English! The shock only increased as he unveiled that Kojima Productions is already working on the game for Xbox 360. More shocking, it will be a completely new gaming experience... without Solid Snake and a hint in the trailer, "Raiden is back."

Project Natal: Motion Meets Xbox

Microsoft's worst kept secret was its Xbox 360 motion camera that's codenamed Project Natal, which will let players ditch their controllers and remotes. Tracking arm, leg and other body motions, it will track a player's movements in their real 3D space without the need for additional hardware (beyond the camera). Sporting voice recognition, facial recognition and a really boring painting game called Paint Party, the company gave little indication about when it would arrive. Without a killer game, it would be hard to get people to buy the camera, even after gaming legend Peter Molyneux used the device to create an in-game pre-teen boy who reacts to your voice and facial cues... yeah, scary. One interesting moment was during Natal's potential killer app, Ricochet. Hyped as a full-body version of Wii Sports soccer net game, producer Kudo Tsunoda (Fight Night series) delivered a message to Wii owners without apology, "this isn't a game where you end up on the sofa using some sort of pre-set waggle command."

Movies, Radio and Music
Sadly, Microsoft still didn't announce any progress in getting IPTV into the TVs of American households but has apparently done so with Sky TV broadcasts in the UK and Ireland. On the plus side, the company will convert all of its movies into 1080p format and will make all its movies able to start playing without the old download and store method (yeah, we're iffy about it too). Netflix users will now be able to scroll movies without the need for a PC and Xbox Gold members will get free use of Last.fm's list of music stations.

Xbox Getting Twitter and Facebook

The news, as delivered by actress, director and web movie award winner Felicia Day, the scarlet-coiffed gamergirl of our dreams delivered a list of Microsoft's upcoming social enhancements. Yes, a new update for Xbox will allow players to delve into the lives of friends, former lovers with the social surfboard known as Facebook. Of course, you'll be able to sort friends with Gamertags first. Most oddly, you'll be able to report your in-game efforts via a future version of Tiger Woods golf. Twitter is coming as well and while it looked nice, we're unsure about why it would appeal to XBL users (feel free to flame us if you think otherwise).