Over the week of June 6th, Microsoft fired the opening salvo of videogame news to kick off E3 2011, and it was quite explosive!

The company focussed heavily on its upcoming offering of Xbox 360 Kinect titles, revealing details on motion games catering to all types of Xbox owners, from the hardest of the hardcore to more family friendly fun.

Details on upcoming highly anticipated games that make use of Kinect were also revealed, while the welcome announcement of Kinect Fun Labs was made to further diversify the range of entertainment opportunities now available on Xbox 360.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Microsoft gaming event without a few Halo announcements… let’s dig into some of Microsoft’s key reveals at E3 2011:

Known only as Codename Kingdoms until now, Ryse from Crytek (Crysis 2) is a Kinect-exclusive action melee game that allows your combat movements to be translated into in-game actions. Swing an arm or a leg and you’ll attack. Arm yourself with an in-game sword and shield, and you’ll be slashing and barging enemies in no time!

Another title to make use of Kinect is Turn 10’s upcoming Forza Motorsport 4, which will employ the motion-sensing device to track the movement of your head, allowing you to look around the cockpit of your car as you race down speedways and around corners. Kinect will also be used to more closely examine the cars included in the game when you’re not racing – of course, Forza 4 is looking amazing!

Two sequels to Kinect-exclusive games were announced, namely Dance Central 2 and Kinect Sports Season 2, both of which will build on their previous (excellent) iterations with brand new content and features – not a bad thing at all in our books!

A few other unique experiences that the Kinect will enable soon include the upcoming Kinect Star Wars game to finally let us wield the powers of the Force using nothing more than our own body movements, while Kinect Disneyland Adventures will let families explore the world of Disney and interact with classic characters from their favourite Disney animated movies.

Kinect Fun Labs, on the other hand, is a brand new opportunity for entertainment, allowing you to use Kinect to create special Gadgets in a sandbox virtual world that blurs the line between fantasy and reality by augmenting your surroundings and recreating them in cartoony ways on-screen!

While Kinect was a major focus for Microsoft during E3 2011, so too was the company’s Halo franchise – no less than two ‘new’ Halo titles were formally announced, as both Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (a high-definition, feature-packed version of the original Halo) and Halo 4 (the start of the next trilogy in the epic Halo series) made their debut at the show.

Another blockbuster game, Mass Effect 3, was also revealed to be making extensive use of Kinect to let you speak directly with in-game characters and issue voice commands to your combat squad, thanks to the device’s voice recognition functionality.

It wasn’t all pure fun and games for Microsoft at the show, as new functionality is being brought to Xbox 360 – a box that is now going on six years old! Xbox 360 will soon support Microsoft’s Bing search engine to make finding any and all content much easier, while YouTube is also coming to the box.

Finally, Xbox LIVE TV is coming, too, to help you control your media with simple voice commands.

Miscellaneous other interesting Microsoft reveals and announcements were made at E3 this year, with new information on the company’s support for Windows Phone 7 emerging as well.

After reading El33tonline’s editorial on how Kinect has grown up thanks to this latest showing at E3, you can flick through these extra morsels of information below:

• Trials Evolution revealed, raucous debut screenshots and trailer included

• E3 2011: Minecraft announced for Xbox 360, out this year

Windows Phone 7:

• E3 2011: Windows Phone exclusive: Hasta La Muerte is going to be to die for?

• E3 2011: Exclusive Windows Phone Games coming soon: can you ‘handheld’ the truth?

• E3 2011: Xbox LIVE anytime, anywhere - Windows Phone 7 gets connected

• E3 2011: T1me to take3 teh Z0mb1es on teh go!

• E3 2011: Tentative Tentacles to exclusively take Windows Phone?

• E3 2011: Expect a different type of chicks and flicks only on Windows Phone