Sony started off with quite an explosive, somewhat lengthy montage of the different games they may be showing off at E3, with music blaring for a good several minutes. And they truly earned all the glamour, as we will see with their anticipated reveals, the revealing of the PS4, and with some incredible surprises along the way.
To start their conference, Sony discusses what they are doing with the PS3 and the Vita. The Vita, while certainly not a console to be underestimated, is being blown out by the Nintendo 3DS. They share several of the future upcoming games for Vita, including a new Killzone game, Batman: Arkham Origins, Terraway, and some HD remakes of games including God of War, Final Fantasy X, and Final Fantasy X-2. Why FFX-2 needed an HD remake is beyond me, but that is on Square's end. As with Microsoft, Sony announces that they will still support the PS3 with several titles. However, unlike Microsoft, Sony does it right by giving a lineup of new games, like The Last of Us (although I honestly only have a slight interest in it). They announced a game called The Puppeteer, which all I gathered from was a stylized platformer. Next was a game called rain, which seems to involve a storyline about ghostly children.
Of most interest to me from this fast montage of short, ambiguous trailers was one for Beyond: Two Souls, made by the makers of Heavy Rain and Kara, a tech demo but a beautiful one nonetheless. Ellen Page stars in this game apparently as a psychic military soldier... not too sure on other details
Next they show Gran Turismo 6: Another Racing Game. After Ubisoft's incredible showcase of The Crew, it's pretty hard to get excited for "a new physics engine" and better graphics. I guess hardcore racing fans like my uncle might get excited for this, but I just wish that they can give us a twist when it comes to a new racing game. It's not that hard, either; just look at Nintendo. Thankfully they didn't make this game a highlight, unlike Microsoft and their ridiculous showcase of Forza 5.
Other conferences mentioned it, but Sony was the one who decided to show off the new Batman: Arkham Origins, with Bane and a whole crew of interesting titled villains. We see Batman use a Tony Stark-esque mapping system to recreate a crime scene. Of course, we also see the Joker, my favorite villain ever. The president mentions some details about exclusive DLC from Arkham (along with a crack at the old 1960's Batman television show), and announces some exclusive bundles from GTA V, like a set of apparently GTA themed Turtle Beaches.
So after Jack discusses the Vita and PS3, Andrew House, President and Group CEO of SCE comes up to talk about the PS4. He starts off by saying, "We know players can't wait to see the Playstation 4." This scares me because usually lines like these are followed with a "please wait a little longer," but he actually does show it off instead! It looks kinda like a bulkier, sleeker PS2 to me, but I'll let you Readers see for it yourselves.
Unfortunately, Sony slumps a little by bringing Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment to talk about how the PS4 will offer features on music, movies, and television shows. I feared how long this segment was going to be, but you have to give them some slack as it was the unveiling of many details for PS4. Still, E3 at its core as about gaming, and any time off from discussing games will strike against the company who has the floor. Just look back on Microsoft's hideous conference back in 2010, which their Xbox One reveal echoed. House comes back on to discuss that the PS4 will offer several entertainment features such as Netflix and Redbox Media, which was previously only known to be available on Xbox One.
Following House is Shu Yoshida, President of Sony Worldwide Studios. He discusses the several first-party developing studios for PS4 and shares some information on future titles for the PS4 titles. He says there are over thirty titles being developed for the PS4, twenty of which are exclusive, and twelve of such will be brand new IP's. The first they show is a game called The Order: 1886. Unfortunately, we only get a full trailer of cutscenes. We see some officers in London approach some intersection in a carriage, but with apparently advanced weapons for its time. The carriage approaches a stop, where some unseen monster snatches the driver off-camera. Then we see the officers fend off these monsters, climbing off walls and appearing only as silhouettes in the mists. It kind of looked like a type of BioShock to me, but I'm sure actual gameplay will stray far from it.
The next game shown is Killzone: Shadow Fall, which I can't say much of other than it looks really pretty. Then they show another racing game called Drive Club. Then they show inFamous: Second Son, which looks very story driven with still some interesting, action packed gameplay. What I especially noted about the graphics were the very detailed facial animations, which is surprisingly still a challenge to pull off correctly these days (read: Dead Island). Then there was another game called Knack, which honestly looked like some kind of Mega Block action-puzzle game, but I am probably way off.
Not only did Quantic Dream have a trailer for Beyond: Two Souls for us to see, but also another tech demo: The Dark Sorcerer. As with all tech demos, this was a very highly detailed tech demo showing off how powerful the PS4 graphics can run (note that in actual gameplay, as I've said time and time again, these kinds of graphics might not actually be achieved due to framerate). What I love about this tech demo was how they only showed a part of it and cut it off at some point, showing the scene as some kind of actual shot being made in a movie. I mean, the background graphics get cut out and reveal themselves to be "green screens," with the goblin and the sorcerer as actors. The scene is cut due to the sorcerer forgetting one of his lines. I appreciated this use of real humor in a video game, as opposed to that silly trailer for The Epic Quest. Sadly, this is just a tech demo, which means it'll never be a real game and is therefore ultimately a bunch of wasted effort. As the great Blue Highwind put it, it's like an author writing the first chapter of a book to show that he can write, and then scrapping it and writing an entirely different book.
Next on the floor was Adam Boyes, Vice President and head of Third Party Relations at SCEA, who shared information about games being made by developers outside of Sony, namely the indie developers but also some major ones as well. This was another strong point for Sony's conference, revealing several indie games for the PS4. The first they showed was a game called Transistor, developed by Supergiant Games who are known for making Bastion. I never had much interest in Bastion, but what they have shown in Transistor interested me. In a futuristic city, "influential voices" are disappearing one by one, and now red-headed, sword-wielding chick named Red is being hunted down. Not sure what is going on, but this trailer does show some gameplay. The game seems to be an action-based, stylized top-down and sidescrolling view of the game. I'll have more information about this game in a future post, as I believe there was a specific showcase for the game during the week. Boyes continues Sony's endless beatdown of Microsoft by announcing that Sony will continue to allow self-publishing from indie developers, taking no respite from killing the Xbox One before it launches.
The next several games they showed for release on the PS4 included Don't Starve, Octodad (hell yeah!), Oddworld Inhabitants and a new remake of the first Oddworld, and several other games as well. As many as nearly ten games were shown, and much more were promised. Boyes stated many of these indie games will make their exclusive console debut on the PS4.
Following news included a release of Diablo 3 for PS4, along with several PS4 exclusive items. However, the greatest part of this conference came when Boyes shared a video from Tetsuya Nomura from Square Enix, who in my opinion seems to be the most competent director currently available. I'm telling you now, this really needs its own paragraph, so let me get to that.
Nomura begins by once again saying he can't share many details about Final Fantasy Versus XIII, further perpetuating my notion that the game will never be made. However, they show what is probably the most in-depth trailer they've shown in years, integrating both story driven cutscenes (which are notably outstandingly beautiful) and action-packed gameplay (which is also beautiful, but with some awkward framerate at certain moments). What I love about what I've seen so far from the gameplay is that they seem to have blurred the line between regular gameplay and cinematic action where players tend to lose control in the past, like the quicktime events in FFXIII-2. Noct is fighting on walls, jumping onto zeppelins, fighting behemoths, fightingg a Leviathan! It all looks really awesome. However, the main part of this reveal wasn't just that they were still working on the game. At the end, with FF Versus XIII's title onscreen, a small exchange of dialogue between characters explains that the world is changing and that a "fifteenth coming" is, well, coming. Then, the title changes to Final Fantasy XV! I knew this was coming, but it is still exciting nonetheless! This means that Square has to make this game now. I mean, of course they could either just scrap this game entirely and make a new one. Or they can stop making Final Fantasy altogether. However, as awful as Square has been lately, I doubt they would go so far as to end a game that appears to be nearing completion, much less end the franchise that pretty much grounds them and makes them who they are. And with Tetsuya Nomura at the helm of this game, I can bet it will be pretty damn awesome.
However, this isn't even the best part of Square's micro-conference. The next thing they show was such a huge surprise it had my brother and I nearly crying. The second it starts, you see the Disney logo, which instantly made me realize that this was a Kingdom Hearts title as opposed to what I dreaded to be Lightning Returns. The video starts off with a montage of scenes from all the different Kindgom Hearts games, which almost led me to believe the trailer was for the HD remake of Kingdom Hearts 1, Chain of Memories, and scenes from 358/2 Days. However, all the other games are in there as well, so this had to be something else, and at this point, what else could it have been? Actual scenes pertaining to the new title began with what seems to be a shot of the Destiny Islands shore in HD, with vibrant colors and stronger detail to the models and environment. More importantly, pertaining to the story, we see Master Eraqus's keyblade washed on the shore of Destiny Islands, and none other than our at-first-seemingly-unlikely hero Sora picks it up and observes it. Then, it was the moment we were all holding our breaths for:
Kingdom Hearts 3!!!!!!!!!
This may sound ridiculous, but I literally shed a tear. It's like seeing the trailer for Harry Potter 7 and knowing a saga you grew up with is coming to a brilliant, beautiful close... Well, nothing is for sure about Kingdom Hearts 3 yet, but that still does not negate the fact that my brother, many other fans and I have been waiting for this since 2007. And many of us have literally grown up with this series; I played Kingdom Hearts 1 when I was in Elementary School, and then all the subsequent games (aside from Coded) as I progressed and graduated from grade school.
Getting back to the trailer, you'd guess they would end it with the title screen, but no! They even have the courtesy to show some gameplay, even if it's not much! We see Sora in Twilight Town as he takes on, surfs on, and clashes with a horde of what appear to be Neo Shadow heartless. I wanted to sob, it really felt like this day would never come... and then of course they quickly advertise the Kindgom Hearts remakes.
It would've been amazing to stick with these games a little longer, but the press conference quickly moved on to Assassin's Creed 4: Really Random Pirates. At least this time, they finally show some gameplay, which was great for Sony in this conference whereas every other conference only featured cutscenes... however, I wonder why it wasn't Ubisoft who showed off this demo? We see some expectedly beautiful jungle and island environments, and the beginning starts with the usual assassinations we've seen in every game. But then we see some explosive action and swashbuckling, with some "pirate music" thrown in, and I personally love pirate music, so that was a plus. Then there was cannon warfare, which also seemed exciting, and some sword fights with the use of the cutlass. However, the embarrassing thing about this demo was the humongous number of stalls and lag, and a really awkward, silent freeze near the end of the demo. It was pretty bad, and whether this was attributed to the game or to the system was a mystery.
The next game they discuss is Watch Dogs, where they once again show an actual gameplay demo as opposed to the other conferences. We start with the player having to stealthily drive past the police forces, pleasantly reminding me of the opening of the movie Drive. As he navigates, he uses his ingame cellphone to open some gateways and empty lots to hide from the police. He then uses the cellphone to hack several cameras successively to see a friendly NPC and help that NPC navigate away from some police officers, hacking other city devices while maintaining a view from the cameras. We see the player use a real world mobile device to hack and destroy some patrol vehicles. and then he pulls what was shown in a cutscene in the trailer: a hacked blackout of the city and a quick use of the advantage to dispatch the officers.
Next, they go EA Sports and show off the graphics of NBA 2014, using LeBron James of the Heat to advertise for the game. I liked the trailer, though, as they had a conversation between real-world LeBron James and Digital LeBron James, where James tells James who crazy it is that he looks so lifelike. This was charming, and was the only time Sony used a big-time star to advertise a product, whereas EA heavily relied on celebrities to sell their games. Sadly, the Heat will massively lose in the NBA game the following day, but that's a whole other topic completely.
Following NBA2K14 was The Elder Scrolls Online. This trailer showed off how wonderful the many different lands of Tamriel looks, and Sony announced "a new partnership" with Bethesda. From the bits of gameplay I've seen, this looks like it will play a lot like Skyrim, but what I really want to know is, will there be a monthly subscription? I hate the fact that I'm already paying nearly eighty bucks every half-year for World of Warcraft, and if I am demanded to pay another subscription I am going to ignore ESO altogether. I think payment plans, if there are any, would have been announced by now, so I'll go take a look. I'm assuming this game is also for the Xbox, so maybe you won't have to pay monthly for it along with paying monthly for Xbox Live - however, Square does make you pay monthly for FFXI and FFXIV on Xbox, so who knows. I'll look it up in a bit.
The next game that they introduced to the market is a game of a franchise I never heard of called Mad Max. All I see is a man begging another man to kill him, and so, rather than wasting shotgun ammo, the man runs him over. No opinion whatsoever.
Tretton comes back to continue discussing the PS4, recapping many of the things that have been discussed. Then, he takes this opportunity to strike at Microsoft, stating that there will be no restrictions on lending games or trading them in. He then gets into the rights of ownership once you buy a game, and the crowd goes wild. He continues the punishment by stating that disc-based games do not require a constant Internet connection or authentication (although that is still at the hand of developers). With all this, Sony has taken the sword and rove it deep into Microsoft's competition with the Xbox One. An interview with one of the higher ups from Microsoft I read states that they aren't worried about their competition, which sounds ridiculously bizarre. It's like you offered a defective TV as opposed to a fancy HD TV and said you felt confident you would outsell the HD TV. At first I thought Microsoft didn't care about their consumers, and maybe they don't, but I think there's more to it than that. I think they've gone full retard, like the owner of Abercrombie and Fitch who knows his business techniques are terrible and yet he sticks with them. I think everyone at Microsoft, or at least those in charge of the Xbox, have grown senile, demented, and might possibly have a case of Alzheimer's or schizophrenia. How can you look at not only the thrashings Sony is dealing but also the reactions from consumers and not be phased in the slightest bit.
Moving on from this embarrassment, Tretton discusses some new features for PSN, which include background gaming while the game is downloading, cross-game voice chat (which they should've had from Day 1 of PSN), and "transitions to a 'real world' friends network," whatever that is. And a share button. He continues by discussing Playstation Plus and announced that existing memberships with PS Plus will carry over to PS4. I was a little confused about whether online multiplayer would remain free, but it is apparently now a PS Plus feature. Still, with the "under five dollar a month" subscription as opposed to Microsoft's approximate fifteen dollar a month subscription, this is still quite the better alternative.
It's getting really late now, and I still have a bit to cover, but I can rely on my memory and my notes from this point forward. Destiny, the new IP from Bungie and being published/produced by Activision (ugh, the other EA), was shown off, and it looks wonderful. Of course, the graphics are nice and all, but what really makes it look good is that it appears to be a roleplaying version of Halo, where you control different classes of advanced soldiers with futuristic weaponry. It is set on a post-catastrophic Earth, and in the demo, the players are shown exploring a dark and abandoned structure. There appears to be enemy aliens, further feeling reminiscent of Halo, who have seemed to dominate most, if not all, of Earth. There was a little drone who retains the same sense of humor Bungie has implemented in their other little robot characters, from 343 to Cortana. All in all, while it looked like a further improved Halo experience, there are still several things about the game that feel different enough to be excited for, as with the role selection.
At the end of the conference, Sony outwitted Microsoft again by listing their console at $399, as opposed to Microsoft's nearly-insane price of half a grand. It feels all too much like the reveals for the previous generation consoles, where the Xbox 360 had all the glamour and took advantage of the PS3's initially ridiculous price of around eight hundred dollars. The sad thing about this current case, however, is that the Xbox One is nearing its launch in the market, while the PS3 back in those days was still under some lengthy development until it was released with a considerably lower price (not that that helped it much).
While I've outgrown the console wars by focusing my gaming experience on the PC, I still relish in witnessing the technological advancements of my time in gaming, and when marketing failures as huge as the ones Microsoft has been making come up, I cannot help but to relish in them... Well then again, I'm a big Microsoft hater, so that's expected. Besides, nobody wants to see a company like Nintendo make those kinds of mistakes. Nobody wants any company to screw consumers over like Microsoft has done, which is why I still feel empathy for those who believed Microsoft would deliver something as even more promising as the Xbox 360.
Again, Sony has driven the sword straight through the competition with Microsoft. It's like they plunged a blade into a pregnant woman and massacred the fetus, it's ridiculous how much they have trumped on Microsoft's shortcomings.
Tomorrow will feature what will probably a substantially shorter post on Nintendo, given that their Direct in lieu of a press conference is only forty minutes long. Stay tuned.
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