E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Sony

Well, we’ve had a terrible Microsoft presentation, a well presented but somewhat vacant EA press conference, and then Ubisoft’s travesty with a surprise ending. Well, now we have the (so far) best presented one. Sony definitely knows what to do when trying to sell their products. That is to say that they try to sell stuff hard between talking about games. But what of these games?

Beyond: Two Souls

Quantic Dream, you’ve hooked me already. Ellen Page as the main character with some beautiful motion capture, impressive graphics, some weird psychic/paranormal shit, amazing atmosphere and some dodgy looking SWAT team. I love it. Everything seems great. Oh, and there appears to be branching paths.

Not much has been shown of this game, but the game looks to be dark, mature and have some pretty cool action. This is one to keep your eye on.

Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale

Super Smash Bros. for the Playstation? Well, I was previously sceptical, but now I have to say that this game looks pretty damn interesting. The action is easier to see than the Super Smash Bros. games, making things less of a clusterfuck, and the characters are more my kind of characters. The levels seem to change as the matches go on, with games crossing over (the level was meant to be from Ratchet & Clank, but suddenly the God of War Hydra appeared).

Sadly, I can’t quite understand the health system in the game. The HUD doesn’t seem to show what health your character has or if they are using the stupid Super Smash Bros. damage percentage shit. I suppose we’ll find out more as they release more information.

One interesting development with the game is that you can play with both PS3 and the PS Vita at the same time.

Other Stuff

Then the presentation went onto all kinds of other stuff. Cross-controller Little Big Planet 2 DLC was announced, allowing people to play co-op with both PS3 and PS Vita. Seems to be a big focus of the Sony team now. PUSH THAT VITA!

They also announced more things about PS+, which will have new downloadable titles. Also, people in the audience got 1 year free for PS+.

And then we have more PS Vita pushing. Black Ops Declassified has been announced for it, not that we were shown any gameplay, and PS1 classics are coming to Vita. On top of this a new Assassin’s Creed game will come out for the Vita, Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation. This game has the first female assassin and utilises touch screen controls and the in-built camera. Not sure how well this will work, but it looked good.

Assassin’s Creed III

Ah, this again. Surely they aren’t going to show more stuff for this and will just show a trailer. No? Oh, well it will probably just be more of the combat and stuff. No? Well, what is it- Oh my God naval combat!

Okay, this was very gimmicky but it looked good. It looked fun. It looked pretty. Assassin’s Creed III has recognised naval combat as an important part of the American Revolution, and so now you can fight at sea in a ship you control with cannons you can fire yourself. It all looked very good and seemed to imply you can also dock ships, which should be fun.

I almost forgot to notice they were still showing you only fight the British...

Far Cry 3

BOOBS!!!

Wait, no boobs? Huh, odd.

Well, they did show some 4 player co-op. Again, it looked pretty but it doesn’t seem like anything particularly new or innovative. Just your basic co-op. Nothing much here.

Wonderbook

What the hell is this? Why can’t we just read books? This is gimmicky as hell and will probably be overpriced.

But I am somewhat intrigued. It seems to be some sort of virtual pop-up book utilising the Move controller and the PS Eye. “Books” have games or something in them which kids will probably have quite a lot of fun with. Especially with their first title coming from JK Rowling: Book of Spells. It looked fun to an extent, but is definitely something you’d become bored with quickly.

Just read a book.

God of War: Ascension

It’s just more God of War. Not that this is a bad thing. God of War is always fun. Not much story was hinted at, but a new power that reminds me of the Sands of Time from Prince of Persia was shown. It seems to have uses in both combat and platforming/traversal. Looks good.

The Last of Us

If you aren’t excited about this game then I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Naughty Dog have made something absolutely spectacular. If there’s anything I can say good about Uncharted then it’s that the games are gorgeous to look at, and The Last of Us is just that. The environments look absolutely stunning.

But games aren’t all about the graphics. They have gameplay! So what is the gameplay in The Last of Us? Well, amazing, really. There is a stealth element involved which seems appropriate as when the character got shot he took a lot of damage. There are many enemies to contend with, and you need to go about it in an appropriate fashion, especially as bullets seem greatly limited (the guy had 4 bullets, which only went up to 6 when he picked up someone else’s ammo).

So, to combat this you have some hand to hand stuff going on and it looks brutal. Not in a God of War sense, but more so causing you to go “ooh”, “ouch” and “bloody hell” when he dispatches of enemies by repeatedly smashing their heads against a desk or beating them in the back of the head with a revolver. This creates a sense of tension and desperation. This is not from choice; this is for survival.

The AI seems greatly intelligent too, searching for you and attempting to ambush you. The Ellen Page looking companion is also effective, jumping on your enemy as he attempts to strangle you to death and stabbing him in the back.

The game is hard to put in words, so I recommend looking at the demo that they showed.

Ending Thoughts

Kudos to Sony for probably being the only one of the main 3 to actually include new IPs (Nintendo aren’t going to give out anything new). There may not have been too many games on show, but what they did show they showed well and in a way that makes you want to see more. Definitely best presentation so far, and probably the best for all of E3.