E3 – Sony Conference Review

The third and final press conference kicked off with Queen’s One Vision which got the show off to a good start and fired up a great crowd. The package showed the three Playstation consoles and PSN with footage of all the things we can enjoy on them, typical show-opening stuff made better with added Queen.  Out comes Jack Tretton, one of the most likeable guys out there, to flaunt Sony’s massive and impressive screen. He talks about all kinds of things with Heavy Rain getting a big reaction out of the crowd.

Uncharted 2

First game of the evening and Naughty Dog get stuck into the action with a frantic demo. The game is very beautiful as we all knew but they way it holds up when the proverbial hits the fan is the most impressive part. It focuses around a big set piece with a helicopter attack. It’s a chase sequence with plenty of running and gunning to boot, the environment takes a beating from the chopper resulting in a whole building partially collapsing as Nathan Drake and British accomplice narrowly escape. “We were almost in that!” Drake says as the demo ends. Good showing from Naughty Dog solidifying the game as a day one purchase for many people.

Massive Action Game

Another exclusive followed with a demo of a 256 player online match. Crowd loved that they would be seeing this and the screen showing the 128 players on each side got a good reaction before we ploughed in. It’s made clear that every fire fight you can hear is happening somewhere on the massive map as we’re shown a few of the game’s many features. Graphically it wasn’t amazing but I never expected Killzone levels of graphics with so many people playing online. It still looked reasonable enough though as the player moved around the map, calling in helicopters which can be used as respawn points. The demo peters off into not very much before ending.

PSP Go

A very large part of the conference was dedicated to the portable device with PSP Go finally announced by Kaz Hirai who made his return to E3. The main points brought up were that it will have 16 GB of internal flash memory, Wi-Fi built in with all PSP games available for download. Kaz also announced that the PSP development tool kit is being reduced in price by 80% which is a great way to expand the variety of games for the platform. They also showed off a Last.FM style application for the device called Sense Me and said that the video player is coming to PSP as well, all good things to back up an impressive showing

Gran Turismo PSP

Two dudes come out to talk about the game, finally proving its existence. They claim it’s a full scale GT game before announcing that cars will be tradable between devices which is a nice feature but not that impressive. They go on for a bit making everyone think they weren’t going to show footage before they finally showed off a video. No gameplay was shown much to the disappointment of the crowd but they were fired up again when an October release was announced making it a launch game for the PSP Go.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Kojima arrives to announce the other game coming out, MGS: Rising is related to the Raiden image from the countdown site and this is related to the Big Boss image. It’s set in the 70s with you playing Big Boss in Costa Rica at the height of the Cold war. It’s described as a “true sequel” for the franchise which was either negating the MGS: Rising announcement or solidifying its own. I presume it was the latter. A trailer comprised of mainly gameplay is shown and graphically it’s very impressive stuff, a true third person MGS game. The MGS4 team is working on it giving it a lot of gusto before it was dated for a 2010 as Kojima exits the stage. Hilarious piece of slapstick at the end stemming from the multiple snakes shown in the trailer which one would assume means co-operative play. Then there’s the announcement of Resident Evil game coming to the platform named simply Resident Evil Portable. Nothing but an image is shown but it’s a nice surprise. My guess is that it’s an online game either in the vein of Outbreak or on a smaller scale like a co-op game like the original trilogy.

Final Fantasy VII

Wow, big announcement here as the classic was released during the conference on PSN which got a huge reaction from the crowd. Nothing was shown but it doesn’t need to be, so many sales garnered already from many people watching.

Home

It failed, get over it Sony. No amount of crappy video packages can make up for something that no one actually gives a damn about.

Agent

The Playstation 3 half of the show begins with a montage before a Rockstar game exclusive to PS3 is announced called Agent. It’s a game about spies set in Europe in the seventies and from Rockstar that’s a nice prospect because if anyone can get the feeling and vibe of an era down to a tee, it’s them. The surprise was that this wasn’t LA Noire which poses a lot of questions about that. Hopefully this will be done with tongue firmly placed in cheek as I’m sure it will be coming from that team.

Assassin’s Creed 2

Yay! Gameplay! About time we saw something from the team but boy was it worth it! This game looks staggeringly beautiful set in the Italian Renaissance. Our demo is at night and looks like typical AC stuff until our lead character reaches the rooftops and finds DaVinci’s flying device.  This section was very nice with some great interaction with people on the crowd as they’re either picked up or picked off before our hero reaches the rooftop of his target. They show off some new kills the first of which looking like it was just from a greater height but the second was just plain brutal! Two guards taken out at once, with blades in both of the player’s hands plunged up through the throats of the enemy. This got a nice reaction from the crowd. Ubisoft told of improved AI before a fight sequence begins which showed off the ability to take and use the weapons of the enemies. We’re told there will be 30 different weapons in the game as the assassination takes place. In the following chase sequence we’re shown the smoke bomb which is a great device. They also tell of interaction with AC game on PSP also coming this Christmas. They didn’t address the main fault of the original though which was the lack of variety in tasks but I’m sure it will be. The inclusion of the flying device is a step in the right direction though.

Final Fantasy XIII is shown off in a typical Square Enix trailer which included gameplay dating it for 2010. Then came the Megaton, Final Fantasy XIV is announced and not only is it a PS3 exclusive MMO but it’s coming next year as well which is a major news and certainly a blow to Microsoft.  Some footage is shown of this as well but understandably, no gameplay.

Motion Control Wand Thing

Uh oh! Here we go again. It’s basically motion plus and the whole segment (while hilarious) was obviously thrown together at the last minute. It wasn’t even the last design which was used on stage. Much to the relief of the crowd that dildo looking device was a prototype. The two people showing it off were clearly nervous but in my opinion they made the most of a poor demo. To be fair to Sony it does appear to work just as well as Motion Plus but after Project Natal was shown at the Microsoft show it all seems a little meaningless. They stressed they apparent need for buttons and something to hold for the player opposed to Microsoft who decided to go balls to the wall with a device that involved no controller at all held by players. There’s a demo room where the player picks up various objects including a gun which they shoot which blows away the objects, all very sub-par. They also did a sword fighting demo and threw ninja stars which looked pretty fun but then they showed Archery. What the hell were they thinking? Not only was it done earlier today with Nintendo but they did it EXACTLY the same way as well. I’m not going to think of this as the low point of the conference but as a small intentionally funny comic skit thrown in to please the crowd. Errr, yeah that’s it.

Modnation Racers

Stemming from the LittleBigPlanet phenomena, the crowd sighs as what is basically LPB Kart is announced. Initial facepalms soon fade as the track editor is demoed which won over a lot of people. It looks wonderfully simple and the quality of the track they made in less than five minutes was fantastic. This has massive potential.

The Last Guardian

And here comes the good stuff. The art formerly known as Project Trico was shown off in its current form.  It was the same trailer with updated graphics and while the leaked footage didn’t do all that much for me this totally won me over. Then there was new footage at the end showing off the child’s interaction with the guards who will form the enemies of the game. It just all looked so staggeringly beautiful especially the shot of the platform collapsing as the Griff-Kitteh (which now looks a lot better). The trailer just had me in awe more than anything else shown so far at E3 on a whole, not just this show. Cannot wait for this game.

Gran Turismo 5

It turns out it did make it to the show and they showed off a new trailer with some major news in it. The game now has the licenses for Nascar and the World Rally Championship which is huge news and just confirms the game as the biggest racing game on the planet. No release date though which is a bitter disappointment.

God of War 3

It’s coming March 2010 and we got some gameplay which was actually pretty underwhelming. It didn’t look as good as I hoped it would and more like God of War 2.5 in HD which isn’t that much of a bad thing because it will no doubt play like a dream just like the first two games. It certainly looked epic and brutal. When Kratos ripped open the centaurs stomach I was reeling because while the game is famed for its blood I wasn’t expecting guts. Another wonderful part of the demo was the camera which looks as good as it’s ever been but on the whole this felt a bit flat.

And that’s that for the Sony conference which was pretty good on the whole despite the absence of Heavy Rain which would have got a great reaction from the crowd. My ratings for the three conferences would be as follows, I’m going to use a letter grading system because I think it works better like this.

Microsoft: A-

Nintendo: B-

Sony: B+

So all round a great showing from the big three with Microsoft taking the victory with their huge conference yesterday. There’s no doubt in my mind that Milo and Project Natal made all the difference here, it will be the main talking point long after the show has finished in a matter of days. As for my blog I’m going to do a roundup of all the other announcements coming out of the show as well as my game of show in a few days before some more detailed thoughts on Project Natal amongst other things. It’s been fun and I never thought I’d write nearly 6,000 words on E3 but for today at least I bed thee farewell.

~ by Ben Skipper on June 3, 2009.