Sony’s conference was a far cry from last year’s effort
where they spent forever talking about how 3D was going to revolutionise the
way we play games. This year there was no mention of 3D and there was an actual
focus on games.
Whereas Microsoft kicked off with their ace of spades Sony
trickled them out bit by bit and had a much more balanced conference to show
for it. After the typical long-winded montage opener we’ve all come to expect
from Sony, Jack Tretton emerged onto the stage to give his spiel about how Sony
loves the fans and how great they both are together. Seriously, he was either
trying to get laid or attempting to farm more money from them, probably the
latter in fairness.
Anyway, Sony started off with an exclusive title called
Beyond, a new game from the developers behind Heavy Rain, Quantic Dream. The
game seems to be done in the same style as Heavy Rain again, which I’m not sure
how I feel about considering Heavy Rain did get tedious for me, I got a bit
bored of taking the shopping from my wife and laying the table… However on the
face of it Beyond does look pretty special! It’s new, different, atmospheric,
dramatic and features Ellen Page as the leading lady. This was probably the
first game I saw this year that I actually got excited about!
Everybody gets a car!
What I liked about Sony’s conference was that they focussed
on games whereas Microsoft focussed on ‘entertainment’ and web browsers. Sure
Sony also spoke about how you can watch Hulu and Baseball on PS3 but they
literally mentioned it in passing whereas Microsoft spent a good 15-20 minutes
wasting our time. This is E3, people are here for the games, the people who are
going to care about Internet Explorer on Xbox 360 simply aren’t watching and
they’re certainly not in attendance in the arena. Why go on about it then?
Okay, Tretton did go on about Playstation Network a little
much but he at least rewarded the people who came to see their conference by
going all Oprah on them. Everybody gets a free one year subscription to
Playstation Plus! Doesn’t have the same ring to it really…
Lil' bit of Vita
Once they’d finished telling us about PSN Tretton quickly
moved his attention to the PSVita which it truth was decent enough but didn’t
really reveal a great deal considering it’s only just come out. There were two
main games revealed, the first being a Call of Duty game, which I struggle to
conjure up much enthusiasm for seeing as I am sick to the back teeth of
shooters in general nevermind Call of Duty games. The second however was a
little more interesting, an Assassins Creed game sitting under the Assassins
Creed 3 umbrella where you play as a female assassin. It actually looked pretty
decent but the chances of me playing it are fairly slim seeing as I just can’t
justify buying a PSVita.
Third party
Just like Microsoft, Sony had their own handful of third
party developers to welcome onto the stage, the biggest being Ubisoft who, not content
with having their own conference, decided to muscle in on Sony’s to show off
Assassin’s Creed 3 and Far Cry 3. Something about threes…
They decided to show a bit of gameplay off for Assassin’s
Creed 3 which featured the hero, Connor (I know, worst Assassin name ever), in
a raging battle at sea. It was a decent little section of the game, but if I’m
honest, it wasn’t very Assassin’s Creed-like. It could have been any other
game, seriously I could make some up and you could apply what was shown to it.
Here’s a few: ‘Arthur’s great shipping adventure’, ‘Muppets Treasure Island 2’,
‘The Sims: At sea expansion pack’. Assassins Creed is all about sneaking around
and stabbing people with your little stabby blades, I’m still unsure if I’m
excited about the third instalment or not to be perfectly honest.
As for Far Cry 3, I don’t really have a lot of interest for
it. They showed off some multi-player which wasn’t really done justice on one
screen considering they had to keep switching between four different people and
after a minute I had no clue as to what was going on. I’m sure there are a lot
of Far Cry fans out there who’ll be pumped for this, but unfortunately I am not
one of them so this is a miss for me.
Big exclusives
So that’s something they did that was like Microsoft, what
did they do that wasn’t like Microsoft? Well they showed exclusive content for
a start!
I’ve already mentioned Beyond, but there were also a few
others that will no doubt get the blood pumping for Sony fans everywhere. God
of War Ascension was revealed and was given a brief playthrough. It does look
good but I’m not a huge fan of hack and slash anymore. However saying that,
this could be a big hit for Sony as I know there are a lot of fans of this
series. Well done Sony, you gave your fans what they wanted. Get that notepad
out Microsoft.
After God of War, a far more interesting title was revealed
(at least in my opinion): The Last of Us developed by Uncharted creators
Naughty Dog. I’m not really sure how to describe the game in terms of plot, but
it appears that two people are seemingly alone in a town and have to get from A
to B for whatever reason while fighting off random thugs with guns. I’ve not
really done it much justice there but I really can’t make out much of what it’s
about off of one little snippet. There also looks to be a lot of prospect for a
good bit of co-op action too, not the supermarket... Basically it looks like a
much better version of Resident Evil 5 without the zombies. Yay!
Not all good…
I’d like to say that was it for Sony, Jack Tretton came out
and waved goodbye as he walked slowly off into the sunset… but I can’t.
Unfortunately there were some bad points to Sony’s conference. One is pretty
poor and the other is downright DIABOLICAL!
Okay let’s get the lesser of two evils out of the way first:
Wonderbook. Playstation Move took a back seat at this conference, there was no
Kobe Bryant on stage ‘shootin’ hoops with the boys’ or anything like that;
instead Wonderbook was revealed. Wonderbook is an augmented reality Playtation
Move game where you have a physical book in front of you and a camera picks it
up and shows all sorts of goings-on on the TV.
It isn’t the worst thing in the world but Sony spent 15
MINUTES looking at this thing which was far too much. It makes it even worse
when you hear that apparently they wanted to show more Vita titles but ran out
of time…
The big game they looked at for Wonderbook was Book of
Spells, a Harry Potter tie-in promoted by JK Rowling herself. Now, if you fancy
getting absolutely bladdered one evening, load up the Wonderbook section on
YouTube and take a shot everytime they namedrop J.K. Rowling. Believe me, you
will have the biggest headache in the morning!
All you essentially do is make spells using the Playstation
Move controller as a wand. That’s it. Why 15 minutes was needed to show it off
was beyond me. I think if it went on any longer the audience would have started
booing for crying out loud!
Anyway, I’ve avoided talking about the next game up until
now and it looks like I’m going to have to just bite the bullet and get it over
with. Early on in the show Sony revealed more on their new game Playstation All
Stars Battle Royale which may remind you a little bit of another game that you
might find on another console…
IT’S SUPER SMASH BROS! Yep, this game is a copy of Smash
Bros and represents the biggest shameless copying of someone else’s idea I’ve
ever witnessed in the gaming industry! Taking inspiration from another game is
one thing, but this is a straight up carbon copy of Nintendo’s all star
beat-em-up. Everything from the style of the fights, to the layout of the life
meters, to the colours of the life meters, to the arenas, even the finish where
the winner gets announced is EXACTLY the same as Smash Bros.
Now, I’ve checked out a few videos of this game on YouTube
and if you look in the comments it really is 99% statement of the obvious with
people saying “yeah, this is Smash Bros.” No one can defend this! When they
came on stage and said: “when we revealed this game back in April, we were
overwhelmed by the positive response.” ARE YOU SERIOUS!? If you count everyone
pointing at the game case for Super Smash Bros Brawl then yes you had quite the
positive response. The only people who defend this title are the die-hard Sony
fans, and I’m talking level 100 fandom here! These are the people whose first
words were Playstation, before the PS1 was ever thought about. It is absolutely
shocking and definitely puts a dent in what was otherwise a good conference for
Sony.
It’s such a shame that this exists as it makes Sony a
laughing stock. I really doubt this game will sell well, I mean c’mon, they
don’t have nearly enough characters to make this game… Fat Princess won the
fight they played, I don’t even know who she is! What are they going to do take Pikachu and put a fake moustache on him or something... incognito Nintendo characters, I wouldn't put it past them.
Putting this game aside, which is very hard, Sony had a very
good conference at this year’s E3. Microsoft were well and truly put in their
place by their big rival. This could be a very successful year for Sony as they
have some pretty good exclusives coming up and Microsoft doesn’t have nearly
enough going for them.
Perhaps they're both winding down before they reveal their next generation consoles, however if this is the case it's clear who's going out with a bang and who's going with a whimper.
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