Another year, another E3, and another Microsoft Press Conference come and gone. After starting off with a lot of chest thumping (what else is new?) about how the Xbox 360 is the be-all-and-end-all platform for the casual and the hardcore gamer alike and a whole bunch of stats about how Resident Evil 5, Fable 2 and Gears of War 2 will represent more than half a billion in sales for the platform , we finally got to see a hands-on of BethSoft’s eagerly anticipated post-apocalyptic RPG, Fallout 3.

After demoing the game, which involved half of a mock trailer for the game (the other half will hit Xbox LIVE Marketplace as part of the E3 2008: Bringing it Home downloads later), an Eyebot (singing patriotically, of course) roving the ravaged Washington DC landscape and some time spent with the PipBoy 3000 before kicking lots of ass with the VATS system, the sniper and laser rifles, regular and EMP grenades and turning an enemy chopper and its hapless cargo into superheated vapor with the Fatman, Todd professed his love for the Xbox LIVE Marketplace by announcing that players can extend their 100-hours+ gameplay time with a slew of DLC which will be available exclusively for the Xbox 360 and the Games for Windows platforms.

Oh, joy, now I can pay 150 MS Points on the Xbox 360 and $4.99 on the PC so I can get some sort of horse armor, or better yet, a scratch-guard for my PipBoy! Hit the jump to check out the E3 Microsoft Presser demo and the “Perfect Life” trailer.

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Long before Mass Effect hit the shelves, developers Bioware had announced their intentions of it being the first in a trilogy. Now, with the runaway success that Mass Effect has proved to be, the sequels are pretty much a certainty. Microsoft’s glee at the prospect another franchise to milk is palpable, considering the game is an exclusive for the Xbox 360. Add to that, the fact that the game in itself is one of the best titles out there, what with gamers in their third and fourth playthrough of the game and still enjoying it. It only means that there is more money waiting to be tapped in form of downloadable content (DLC).

As expected, Bioware has announced “Bring Down The Sky”, the first DLC for Mass Effect, scheduled to be released on March 10. The DLC will be available for download at Xbox LIVE Marketplace at 3:30 PM IST (2:00 AM PST) for 400 Microsoft Points. With around 90 minutes of completely new gameplay, fans have much to cheer about. Achievement Whores will also have a reason to smile with new Achievements worth 50 Gamerscore points for them to loose their sleep over.

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They dropped multiplayer gameplay, and vehemently shot down hopes of seeing a System Shock 2 style co-op mode, but it looks like Irrational 2K Boston isn’t about to let BioShock sink to the bottom as Halo 3 and The Orange Box fight to stay at the top. PC gamers who snooped deep into the game when it launched had unearthed a bunched a new Plasmids that were marked off as DLC.

Talking to the Games for Windows magazine in a post-release interview, Ken Levine said that he preferred expanding a game experience with replayability, instead of just slapping on some new content or more narrative.

Diablo II, to me, was a great model for an expansion, because it enhanced the original game, but also extended the game, too. I’m not a really big fan of expanding things just by linearly adding to the experience, adding a new campaign, as much as I am of enhancing the original experience and adding replayability to that experience. I think that certainly BioShock’s combat experience is great, but it could be broader. I’m a little more confused as far as how to expand the narrative experience.

Since the team had to cut a lot of Plasmids down during development, it’s quite possible that we’d soon be seeing new Plasmids and Tonics in a DLC rather than filler for the game. With PC owners already screaming bloody murder over the activation fiasco, it’d be nice to see how they’d react on the Cult of Rapture and TTLG forums if this was made a paid or an Xbox 360 exclusive download.

So it didn’t answer any of the questions that Legend threw up, but Tomb Raider: Anniversary was a shining beacon as far as the franchise was concerned, thanks in full to Crystal Dynamics’ brilliant efforts. With PC, PS2 and PSP owners getting their action a long time back, Eidos had announced that the game would be made available to Xbox 360 owners as DLC on Marketplace sometime near the end of the year.

As of yesterday, though, all that has changed. People who were hoping for a retail release, like yours truly, will be happy to know that Eidos will release the retail version of Ms. Croft’s adventures on the Xbox 360 come October 23rd in the US, followed by a European release three days later. A DLC pack, split into two pieces, the first of which will contain the first two major areas and Croft Manor, will be released over Xbox LIVE in November and will require a retail copy of Tomb Raider: Legend to run.

That’s right, one more game that threatens to make me go flat B-R-O-K, broke, in the next three months. (sigh) Check, please!