Shortly after Nintendo’s press conference, Sony started unveiling thier new products and gadgets to everyone watching.
At the start of the presentation, Sony Computer Entertainment of America President and CEO Jack Tretton walked out and gave a brief intro, and flaunted the massive screen behind him in which images and trailers for Sony’s presentation would be shown. I didn’t notice the scale of this screen until they zoomed the camera out, and I must say, it was MASSIVE. It dwarfed him, and anything else in view.
After the rather boring sales figures Tretton was spitting out, explaining how many consoles were sold in year X, he began talking about the game featured on the screen above: Uncharted 2. Citing his great relationship with the development company Naughty Dog. The President of Naughty Dog then came out to give a game play demo of the game, and it was fairly stunning. A mix of Assassin’s Creed like structure scaling, and duck for cover combat, all bundled together in a 1st/3rd person shooter.
After that display, a new game was unveiled, MAG. A first person shooter. This game is truly revolutionary, as it flaunts a massive 256 player maximum possibility. Thats right, you can play with 255 other players in the same game! Seven more people came out and they all played as a squadron that was a part of a massive battle with 248 other employees/testers across the US in which one team invaded the base of the other. Truly epic if the scale of players matches the game’s fun factor.
After some groundbreaking game introductions for the PlayStation 3. The conference started to turn towards the PlayStation Portable (PSP). A new design for the PSP, the PSP Go, was revealed which is smaller, lighter, and as described, more targeted for anyone who wants more digital media, rather than hard copies such as CDs and DVDs. You get free Wifi as well as a free connection to Sony’s network to purchase any content you wish to download to your PSP. The PSP Go is set to retail at $249.99. New games were introduced for the PSP such as Gran Turismo. The creator of the series appeared to discuss the game. He doesn’t speak english, so he needed a translator by his side. In this game, you have a garage with all of your cars. You can also trade cars with other players to collect them all.
After game discussions for the PSP, the presentation then turned to new programs for the PSP, such as a new media manager called Media Go. Media Go allows you to manage your downloads from your PSP as well as your PC, much like the Xbox’s relationship to the PC.
I’m not sure exactly what the call the following, its not quite a game, but imagine it to be a social utility. A new utility Sony is working on, allows for socialization among users. You create an online person, alter their appearance per your desire, then you can walk around a virtual city and interact with other users.
Next, Sony unveiled a prototype controller that seeks to directly challenge the Wii, a motion censored controller. This controller, much like the Wii one, can detect motion, angle, and other various movements the holder makes. Applications such as moving objects around, picking up a gun and shooting objects, picking up a sword and hitting objects, using a bow and arrow to shoot enemies in an arena, and sword fighting were displayed. Although it is a prototype, this has great potential to directly challenge the Wii’s mechanics, especially since I could tell while viewing the differences between the Bow use here compared to that of the Wii, Sony’s version is much more gamer oriented rather than conventional things such as hitting a target.
Other game previews then followed.
Jack briefly discussed a new game from Rockstar, famed creators of the GTA series, called Agent. Agent is exclusive to the PC, and is set in the 1970s in a world full of assassins. Not much was revealed, at least what I can remember, other than that, so my guess is that it is still early in the development stages.
The President of the company that made Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, came out to discuss the new game. He too didn’t speak english and required a translator. He reiterated that the same staff who made the previous Metal Gear Solid games made this game, so it a full fledged game, not a spin/knockoff.
A preview of Assassin’s Creed II was also featured. Two employees of Ubisoft presented a game preview of an assassination mission, and giving a slight background of the game. In this game, Desmond, the main character of Assassin’s Creed I, revisits the Animus to experience the memories of another one of his ancestors. This time though, instead of assassinating Arab and Templar alike in the Holy Land during the Crusades as Altair, you instead are thrust into the Italian Renaissance as a man who, at first, has no clue what it is like to be an assassin, but is taught throughout the game’s progression. New fighting methods are introduced, such as taking enemy’s weapons, a smoke bomb, 2 assassinations at once, and various other methods that bring death. All in all, an amazing preview.
A trailer was also aired for Final Fantasy XIII as well as a preview of Final Fantasy XIV, which is exclusive to the PS3 and set to come out in spring 2010.
Two makers of God of War III came out to discuss the game, gave a brief outline of it, and played a game demo which appears to be the first level perhaps of the game. One of them lead the infamous Kratos through a fight with bunch of minions, then fight a centaur and minions, and finally a fight with a demonic four legged creature before time ran out and they had to cut their presentation off, even though a huge lava titan was nearby. I wanted to see some Titan pwnage, but I guess we will have to wait either for additional trailers, or for the game’s expected release in March 2010.
Two makers of a customizable racing game, aptly called ModNation Racers, based on the principles of Little Big Planet, came out to discuss thier game. Its a Mario Kart like game and you can customize your driver, the car, and even make your own racetracks. One of them made a track in literally 5 minutes and played briefly on it. Although it wasn’t a great quality track, it was still impressive what you could do with that time, and if more time was spend on it, an epic track could be made.
ModNation Racers Footage from E3 via Gametrailers
If I had to pick one press conference to skip today, it would have to be Ubisoft, they aren’t bad, and had some exciting game announcements, but it was extra long, they are from Montreal, so they all pretty much had a French accent, which was hard to concentrate on for the 2 hours. The beginning was really slow, they talked about a joint effort for video games and movies, it was very difficult for me to understand so I will try to find story about it and link it.
EA’s announcements were mind blowing. It started off slow, but ended with a BANG!In the beginning, they showed a trailer for Dante’s Inferno, and followed by EA Girls…yawn. At that time I was wondering why they were showcasing games for pre/teen girls, I thought this was a big game deal.