Sony Presentation Breakdown [E3 2012]
After Microsoft made their big announcements earlier today, it was Sony’s turn in the spotlight, with President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America Jack Tretton taking the stage.. Like Microsoft, Sony made no mentions of any future console plans, but they had plenty of other things to announce to make up for this absence. With that being said, what better way to start a conference than to announce a new PS3 exclusive game?
Beyond was announced as a new game being developed by Quantic Dreams, the people who made the smash hit Heavy Rain. It stars a girl named Jodie Holmes, who seems to be on the run from government agents because of the psychic and telekinetic powers. According to David Cage of Quantic Dreams, you’ll be following Jodie as she grows up over 15 years, from a little girl all the way to an adult who just wants to be left alone. Though there wasn’t a whole lot revealed by either the trailer or by David, it was said that the game has to do heavily with death, and about what might even be “beyond”, so to speak. Ellen Page was used as the model and voice actress for Jodie, so it looks like they’ve put quite a bit of talent into this.
After focusing on Beyond, we got to see a real-time game of PlayStation All Stars Battle Royal being played. While it looks pretty much exactly like the Super Smash Brothers series, there are a few differences. Super attacks can be unleashed once a character has built up enough energy from hitting other people to fill up the bar. You can fill up the bar multiple times, to unlock higher levels, with level 3 being the “ultimate” level where your character can unleash their best super attack. The game also supports Cross-Play between the PS3 and the PS Vita. From what I can tell, it looked like the PS Vita could be used as controllers for the PS3 version of the game, however it might have been that the players on the Vita were playing the full game on the Vita and were networked with the PS3 players. Either way, though, it’s pretty neat. The game also supports saving between the PS3 and PS Vita version, where you can transfer saves from one system to another. The characters they showed included Sweet Tooth, SLy Cooper, PaRappa the Rapper, Kratos, Fat Princess, and two new unveiled 3rd party characters, Nathan Drake and Big Daddy. It doesn’t look half bad, despite looking like a clone.
At this point, Sony switched the focus away from big games for awhile, and started talking about the PS Vita. Focusing on the theme of Cross-Play, Sony announced special cross-controller DLC between the PS Vita and Little Big Planet 2. The new DLC offers a bunch of stuff, including a new story mode, costumes, stickers, and more. After that announcement, Sony talked about how the PSN has over 1,500 downloadable titles, and that 200 new games will be made available to the PSN in the next few months. Their PlayStation Plus program will be receiving several new games available for free tomorrow, including Infamous 2, Little Big Planet 2, and Saints Row 2. And, if you were one of the lucky people at the press conference, you received a free year of PlayStation Plus membership.
Once the cheering subsided, it was back to pushing the Vita. It was announced that 60 new games will be made available for the system in 2012, on top of the 40 games already available. If you’re looking at some older games, you’re in luck as well. It was announced that PS1 classics will be released on the Vita sometime this summer, including Tomb Raider and the Final Fantasy games. If, however, you’re looking for a newer game, you might just like the PS Vita exclusive Assassin’s Creed: Liberation. It features a female assassin as she has to kill templars in New Orleans. With AC: Liberation there will be a special bundle available where you can get a new Crystal White Wifi Vita and a 4 GB memory card as well as the game.
More Assassin’s Creed 3 info was released as well, as it appears that sea battles will be making their way into the game. You’ll be the captain of a boat as you hunt down British ships. The gameplay demo was especially brutal, as your cannons made short work of several British ships in quick succession. A PS3/Assassin’s Creed 3 bundle will be made available as well, and both AC3 and AC: Liberation will be released on October 30th, 2012. Assassin’s Creed wasn’t the only Ubisoft game to have additional information released about it, either, as Far Cry 3 was revealed to contain a 4 person co-op multiplayer, which seems to be its own story mode. The co-op isn’t just 4 people shooting at everything, either, as it was shown how some members will need to carry out certain tasks to complete the mission. Also revealed is a competitive multiplayer, a map editor, and exclusive PS3 DLC as well.
After getting away from the Vita and the Ubisoft games, Sony moved on to their PS Move, and one of their newest technological achievements, the Wonderbook. The Wonderbook is a book that has what looks like grey and white square that come out from the middle of the book. The PS Move looks at the books location using these squares, and makes the story appear on the screen in place of the book. Sony demoed a game that’s going to come out sometime in the holiday season, a J.K. Rowling-involved title called “Book of Spells”. While it wasn’t perfect, as some of the demonstrators seemed to have a few problems here and there, you had to admit that it looked pretty good from a technology standpoint. However, this is a product clearly designed for younger people, so I don’t expect to see too many adults playing with it, unless it’s with their child.
Once the Wonderbook demo was completed, Sony made a couple of announcements regarding their efforts to put PlayStation gaming on mobile phones. First, it was revealed that HTC would be the first mobile manufacturer to carry Sony’s “seal of approval”, so to speak, when it came to their PlayStation Suite. The second announcement was that it’s no longer going to be called PlayStation Suite, but rather, PlayStation Mobile. I think “PlayStation Mobile” gives people a much better sense of what it really is.
As the conference wound down, Sony showed off some gameplay footage of two of their biggest games that will be coming out: God of War Ascension and The Last Of Us. Kratos begins his little quest by what looks like the Colossus of Rhodes, under construction at this time. Goatmen show up to try to stop him, and as he defeats them, a giant Kraken comes out of the sea and knocks off scaffolding to impede Kratos’ progress. However, he puts the scaffolding back together using magic to continue his reign of destruction, lobbing off heads and splitting people left and right. Towards the end of the demo, he meets up with a giant elephant man who gives him a pretty good fight. However, Kratos isn’t having any of that, and takes his sword and plunges it into the elephant man’s head and splits open the skull, revealing its brain. At this point, he leaps onto one of the Kraken’s tentacles and leaps towards the mouth as the demo ends. Bad ass.
They saved the best for last, however, with The Last Of Us, set in a post-apocalyptic future. It showed Joel and Ellie, the protagonists of the game, as they made their way through a building in ruined Pittsburgh. You hear a lot dialogue between the two as they react to the scenery, until they notice some other people who are out to kill them. At this point, Joel doesn’t have any ammo for his gun so he has to sneak up and choke out people survive. At one point, his cover is blown, and he has to engage in a shootout with the bad guys. Enemies will hide near doorways, so if you’re not careful you can be hit with a pipe wrench from out of nowhere. You’re also able to take hostages, and use people as meat shields. At one point, Joel runs out of bullets, and one of the enemies hears the empty “click” of your revolver and says something to the tune of “I know you’re out of ammo!” and charges out at him. Luckily, Ellie hurls a brick at his head, and Joel is able to beat him to death. The demo ends as you walk into a room and a guy with a shotgun nearly blasts Joel away. Joel manage to wrestle it away from him, and though he starts to beg for mercy, Joel blasts him in the fact with the shotgun, ending the demo. Overall, it looks really sweet and it makes me wish I had a PS3 to play it.
So, that’s the Sony Press Conference in a nutshell. It was decent enough, I suppose. The Vita stuff was actually kind of neat to me, and of course the gameplay demonstrations were awesome. However, I was a bit underwhelmed by the Wonderbook, but that might have to do more with the fact that it’s not designed for people my age. If I had kids, I might be willing to buy it, but when you consider that you have to buy the Wonderbook, a PS Move, and the actual Wonderbook games, I feel like it’s going to be a bit too expensive for most people. Now, we’ll see what Nintendo has to offer tomorrow!
