Tretton still holds himself well – even after a slightly rough dubstep introduction with more logos and hardware you could wish for – and PlayStation’s Never Stop Playing mantra seems to be resonating harder than ever this year. Jack’s brought some buddies though, and they all had games to show.
First up, Quantic Dream’s David Cage, and his new IP: Beyond, subtitled Two Souls. It’s a brave new title, based on fifteen years of a girl’s life through happy and difficult times, and played by Ellen Page, which explains – perhaps – why Naughty Dog recently changed their lead role in the Last Of US.
It’s visually stunning, of course, way beyond Heavy Rain and with some breathtaking animation. Lead character Jodie’s actress seems to fit perfectly, and the mystery and intrigue given off by just a tiny snippet of the game was enough to sink those hooks in.
It’s this that Sony does well – new experiences – and Quantic Dream’s exclusive new game kicked off a smart, intelligent E3 presser that only – largely – attempted to maintain that impact. Cage was in no-nonsense mode, but his confidence worked well, and the PS3 clearly still has some life left.
Indeed, Battle Royale – next to the stage – garnered a solid reception, and rightly so. It might well carry echoes of Nintendo’s Smash Bros but these are convincingly rounded characters at play, and there’s literally loads of them here, all bundled into one game.
You have to feel for SuperBot though, thrust into the limelight with huge weights on their shoulders, but studio lead Chan Park’s Vita confirmation – Cross Play compatible with PS3 – warmed the crowd up instantly. Cross Play is brilliant, and the 2D brawler worked well across the two platforms.
The demo perhaps lingered a little longer than it should have, building up to a third level ‘super’ for character Sweet Tooth that didn’t really connect as strongly as it might have done, but the fan service on display is ridiculously rich, and the gameplay looks solid.
And the reveal of two new characters – Drake and Big Daddy – didn’t really have the impact either, given that the official Facebook page had already spoiled the surprise earlier today.
The brief section about using the Vita as a controller for LittleBigPlanet 2 felt a little bit flat though – the DLC concept seemed to ask a simple question – why? And what about LittleBigPlanet Vita? This one needed a bit more discussion, unless that’s just me and the fact that it’s late.
Moving onto PlayStation Plus, Tretton confirmed that a dozen PS3 titles would be free – including the likes of inFamous 2 – with more games rotated in and out down the line. The generous twelve month Plus voucher code seemed to connect well with the audience, and the announcement that PS1 titles such as Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy would be appearing on Vita should sit nicely with fans when it finally appears – no date was given.
Was it the Plus announcement we were expecting? No.
A few Vita announcements included Hulu Plus and Crackle apps, in addition to the already confirmed YouTube. Call Of Duty was locked down as “Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified” which Tretton said was “triple A” – it’s a side game, sure, but at least it’s tied into Black Ops. Third party publisher support like the showcased Assassin’s Creed Liberation shows that the portable has some big titles coming, and bundling the (white) Vita with the title this October is a powerful move.
Indeed, it seems that Sony are really behind the Assassin’s Creed brand, with a demo of III showcasing some new elements of the game live. It looks great, but more importantly Sony are being smart hooking into games that already have a loyal following, attaching the PlayStation name to something that’s likely to sell anyway.
Whether that’ll translate to console sales we’ll have to see, but a new hardware bundle should hopefully shift some units. Far Cry 3, another Ubisoft game, will see a great-looking new four player co-op game (developed by Ubisoft’s Swedish studio Massive) as part of the deal. It’s not exclusive (although some DLC will be) but it was a nice surprise.
PlayStation Move‘s position might not have been the easiest sale, but Tretton’s introduction of Andrew House, in his new role, was timely even if it didn’t really work for me personally. Discussing Wonderbook, from London Studio, House showed off a neat video that showed exactly what the Soho based guys are really good at: Eyetoy with stories, but it went downhill from there.
So whilst Moonbot’s Diggs Nightcrawler might have promise, there was a lull here that threatened to kill the atmosphere even once J K Rowling’s name was dropped. Book Of Spells will be Wonderbook’s first title to be published, a Potter tie-in, but the lullaby music was perhaps a little too much and although the demo had potential, memories of Eye of Judgment (and considerable buyer’s remorse) spoiled the effect.
It’s tempting to dismiss Wonderbook entirely, but kids will likely love this, especially Potter fans, even if the conference crowd seemed well and truly bored by the time ‘exit door’ jokes were fired out. Perhaps a little more rehersal time might have avoided the awkward pauses, and the quote from Rowling seemed daft – will this ignite your Move controller? We’ll see.
House then briefly discussed PlayStation Suite – which will, from today, be called PlayStation Mobile. HTC will be the first non-Sony hardware partner that’ll play host to PlayStation Certified branding.
Thankfully, though, the games returned at the end. God Of War: Ascension is naturally looking wonderful, with Todd Papy’s gameplay demo finally awakening the crowd from their slumbers. Kratos is back in fine form, and there’s a familiarity in the gameplay that hopefully means Santa Monica will have plenty of loyal fans ready and willing.
Likewise, the The Last Of Us gameplay demo showed that Naughty Dog still know to make a top tier third person adventure, the duality of the leads an obvious echo of that of Nate and Sully of past. There’s little diversion from what the studio have put out of late, but the concept is solid and the production values second to none. There’s a physicality to the camera that I personally adore, and the gritty action and free-flowing gameplay look amazing.
It’s telling, though, that games like God Of War and The Last Of Us have such massive appeal amongst PlayStation loyalists – and whilst the show desperately needed an injection of life at that point, is Kratos’ new game or the direction the Dogs have adhered to an indication of the safety net such brands and studios provide during the closing stages of a console’s life?
Maybe that doesn’t really matter – the games look fabulous and they’re clearly a smart investment, but more titles like Cage’s Beyond and indie title The Unfinished Swan (the latter sadly missing from the show) – that try to do something different on the platform – might excite more rather than playing things a little bit safe. The crowd lapped up Papy’s gameplay video though, and The Last Of Us will be huge.
Like Microsoft’s conference, this was an event that seemed to look and feel like the end of a generation, like everyone was just poised to talk about what’s next, what’s beyond what we already have. That’s not a criticism, because SCEA couldn’t really have done much else today, and the stuff they did have to show was mostly spectacular. But it’s clear that next year is going to be special and the lack of any real surprises was odd – Sony really did fire most of their big guns before the show.
And The Last Guardian? It’s gone, right?
In short, though, the conference started out strongly, the middle section was muted and a little bloated, but picked up brilliantly towards the end with the last two gameplay demos. A solid enough display, but one that just felt like there was another layer behind it all, a layer that ends with the number 4.
stueeeee
Well it was better than microsofts. I like the look of The Last of Us. Assasins is enough for me on Vita, even if I’m unsure of CoD being a sidetrack. Shame about Last Guardian though, this was the time to show it properly, and they didn’t :-(
OneDown
I agree with the whole “it sounded a bit flat” thing but partly because everyone kinda expected something huge with all the rumours floating about. Overall though I think Sony was by far stronger than Microsoft but Ubisoft was the big winner in my opinion. Some of the stuff they were showing looked amazing with Watch Dogs and ACIII actually looked like I would actually buy this one.
OneDown
Not to mention Far Cry 3 making every other military shooter look old hat now, congrats to them I say and I cannot wait till September.
RudeAwakening
Yeah i absolutely agree that Ubisoft are the winners of E3, with FarCry 3 looking better everytime i see it and that reveal at the end just blew me away, completely gobsmacked by Watchdogs.
BoyDay
I was really disappointed; I’m glad for the free games on +, but I have or have had all three they announced last night, so I’ll hold my excitement until I see the full list of the first 12.
I personally can’t stand God of War as I think they gameplay is just dull with button bashing until you reach a boss where it’s button bashing at a certain target until you have to get a button sequence correct, then repeated for the rest of the game.
Beyond looked great, but not my sort of thing. Battle Royale looked terrible. Wonderbook looked very clever but again, something I’d be impressed with but find dull. Couldn’t care much less about the PS Suite/Mobile stuff if I tried – I have an iPhone which I don’t play games on, I use my Vita for that.
Assassin’s Creed 3 looked very good, but as the 7th game in the series (if you count the PSP and PSV versions), nothing especially new outside of the boat battle which will probably play similarly to the stagecoach sections of previous games in the series.
I found the Far Cry 3 demo confusing as they were showing four players playing co-op and the camera flicking between each of them, although the camera never seemed to be on the one who was shouting at that point that they were seeing or doing something different to the others.
As for The Last of Us; I thought the whole time I was watching either Uncharted 4 or an expansion for UC3 until they showed the game’s name at the end of the trailer. I hated the single player on Uncharted 3 as I found it really dull and on rails, and I’ve never particularly got the hype with the series, the graphics are very impressive, but outside of that there’s nothing to make the games stand out for me.
All in all, I’m regretting sitting up until 3.30am watching it – especially since my nine month old niece stayed over last night and is teething so I’ve been awake since 7.30am because she’s been crying since she woke up!
I bought the PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP and Vita all on the day they came out and I had a 360 which I sold shortly after I got my PS3; but when the PS4 does finally come around, it certainly won’t be a day one purchase for me. If I get it at all it will be after a price drop or two; but since Sony’s first party titles don’t really do it for me, and the 360 has Gears of War and Forza (which for me are much better and more enjoyable than Killzone and Gran Turismo), I’ll probably end up choosing the NextBox over the PS4 if I do even buy from the next generation of consoles; but my Vita is taking me away from my PS3 more and more lately, and I replaced my PC last year with a new extremely powerful one which I’m noticing myself gaming on more and more, and not just Football Manager and RTS games (Diablo 3 is incredible!) which I’d always told myself were the only games I prefer on PC. Truth is, with the 360 controller being supported by so many games (except for the COD series), and games costing a minimum of £10 less than their console counterparts, I’ve now got a collection of 162 games installed on Steam; and using Steam you can get even better bargains – I got Max Payne 3 for £29.99 which because I pre-ordered also included LA Noire; and then there’s the sales on Steam which mean I picked up GTA 4 complete with both DLC episodes for £6.24 for the lot!
Andrewww
I stayed up till 4.30h over here to see this through and it was interesting but hardly worth not sleeping. I was really most bored by this all stars thing, find it pretty surprising anybody above the age of 12 could possibly like playing this but obviously preferences are very different. Besides FC3, LoU and Beyond, the latter of which is difficult to judge at this stage, I really liked the ship scene of the next Assassins Creed, found this brilliant.
JBoo
Good show. I am HAPPY with the games that are coming which is the main reason i buy PlayStation consoles:P
But…
Sack! Jack Tretton! i say LoL:D
I saw nothing at SONY’s E3 that will make the PS3 overtake the Xbox 360 in sales each month in the US :-/ + Why no PS3 price cut?(just for the US at least) + MS got the best DLC(it is only timed anyway) for the biggest up&coming games to(not that i buy DLC anyway) There where LOADS of things SONY could of done(i.e get MGS5 to be PS3 Exclusive, well try anyway + make the PSVita like the Wii U controller thingy + show TLG + Agent? + FF13 Vs? + price cut to $199 just in the US etc etc) Oh well never-mind.
Megamoppy
First off that last of us gameplay demo blew me away, I have gone from not interested to fascinated (I think i’d rather watch the game as a movie the way that demo went).
God Of War had me excited with the similtaneous two weapon combos until it devolved into the familiar Blades Of Chaos combos, so that was dissappointing.
All Stars it seemed all Sweet Tooth did was spam mine dropping so i’m wondering how much move variety there is in the game.
Still i’m tempted by that AC vita bundle if they price it reasonably.
gazzagb
I was a bit disappointed by it, it had been hyped up too much (PS+, Streaming etc) and then there weren’t really many surprises. The AC and FarCry bits were the best for me, nothing else really interested me.
They didn’t push Vita at all though, they pushed Move more with that 10min bit on wonderbook. I was hoping for a price cut to be announced with that bundle, but it seems sony have other ideas.
hazelam
a good solid show for sony, no megaton announcements that many were expecting, myself included.
Beyond looks amazing, as good as the graphics were in heavy rain, this looks to be better, less of that uncanny valley thing.
and Ellen Page is a great actress.
how did they manage to keep her involvement secret until the day of the announcement though?
especially given how poor sony have traditionally been at keeping secrets.
AC III looks cool, the ship to ship combat actually looks like it works pretty well.
and the Vita AC game looks great, it’s the full AC experience unlike previous portable games, and finally, a female assassin, yes, as somebody suggested, i am very pleased by this. ^_^
actually, i think with a different lead character in the animus it could refresh the series.
the fact it’s a women is a bonus for me.
God Of War looked solid, and no doubt it’ll be another quality iteration in the series, but there was no real wow factor for me, it just looked like the previous games.
except Kratos now seems to be able to control time.
when could he do that?
and if this is a prequel, why couldn’t he do it in the previous games?
The Last of Us looked amazing, very reminiscent of Uncharted but with a more gritty feel.
the melee takedowns looked like more of a struggle instead of just running up and quickly snapping the guy’s neck the guy, i forget his name, looks like he’s having to struggle.
kind of like the difference between old bond and Daniel Craig’s bond.
i just hope the ai for Ellie is up to scratch, because if you’re going to be escorting her through the game she could get annoying if she’s an idiot.
but from the video it seemed like she’s pretty on the ball, and she actually managed to be useful in the combat.
the Wonderbook thing should be great for kids, and the Harry Potter series is still pretty popular so they probably chose the right product to start out with.
not really my thing though.
though i’d love to see what could be done with some kind of astronomy book.
The Lone Steven
*sprays his coffee everywhere* HOLY CRAP! A HEALTH BAR!? I thought that had gone extinct. :O The last of Us looks good and actually seems to be doing horror much better then actual horror games. I wonder if the Last Of Us will feature an exploring aspect or be linear?
Beyond:Two Souls looks good. Wonder if it will use QTEs?
InternationalGamer
I still had hopes for Agent…
but…
no…
No Agent this year again :(
Hopefully next year?