Sony Press Briefing: E3 2011 recap
After a long and somewhat disappointing night of E3 (really Microsoft?” BUY KINECT AND HALO 4. BUY IT NOW”) it was Sony’s turn to wind down the evening with their E3 show. And all fan girl-ism aside, I’ve gotta say I think it was a fairly good showcase of Sony’s capabilities (even if they proved they were just as capable of overloading us with movement titles as Microsoft. “Move! Move! Look at these titles for the MOVE and then buy the MOVE and then MOVE around in front of your tv and have fun using the MOVE!”)
The focus of everything this year seemed to be 3D. Certainly Nintendo capitalised on the technology, and this year Sony was no exception, announcing many 3D titles that we can expect to see this year or next. Big names included God of War and (get ready fan boys) Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Seeing Kratos disembowel people in 3D might not appeal to some people, but damnit, it seems pretty impressive to me. (Even if it does mean I’m gonna have to grow some balls so I can play it).
It wouldn’t be a 21st century conference without the mention of movement devices, so I feel the need to talk about the new titles on the Playstation Move. Those who heard the E3 Groovy Gamer podcast last week will know that I am actually quite keen on the Move; I just want it to have more games. Unfortunately for Sony, the line-up they presented this year doesn’t excite me all that much, but perhaps for you guys it’ll be different. Rolling out on the movement controlled red carpet we can expect to see a pretty kick ass looking Medieval game (sword fighting, yes please) as well as Resistance 3 and Infamous 2 as well as Move capability for Bioshock Infinite. Along with a bunch of other crap but lets be honest, chances are a lot of that won’t be seeing the inside of our houses any time soon.
As much as I want to hurry up and talk about the PSVita (even though it makes me crave crackers) I first have to mention some of the new titles we can expect to see for the Playstation. Dust514 was received especially well by people at the conference and online. I’m not a fan of FPS games, but I’ve gotta say the footage of this one seemed quite well done. However, truth be told, to me, it just looks like an every day FPS title, and they’re all the same at the end of the day.
A cute little title that seemed appealing to me was Sly 4. Having never played any of the Sly titles before (don’t judge me) I didn’t have any expectations about the series itself, which meant this new release was able to exceed them all. With its cartoonish art style and simple humour I was laughing and grinning the whole way through the footage. Titles like these are ones I can certainly sink my teeth into (even if it is just to satiate the child within).
The last title I’m going to mention is, of course, Uncharted 3. This game has been highly anticipated for a very long time, and the footage we saw of it did not disappoint. I didn’t think it possible, but Drake looks even more stunning the third time round, and I can’t wait to get my hands on him (you can take that literally).
Of course, more Uncharted news was announced with the release of the PSP Vita (or PSVita for short). Anyone who listened to our podcast last week will have heard us talking about it, and it was declared yesterday that we will definitely be seeing it perhaps by the end of this year (but don’t quote me on that). Not only does the handheld itself look amazing, but line-up titles like Modnation Racers, Street Fighter v Tekken and even a Bioshock project announced (as well as Uncharted, as I mentioned before) the PSVita has a lot going for it already, and I haven’t even spoken about the hardware yet!
The PSVita showcases two analog controllers as well as the d-pad and the usual action buttons. It features shoulder buttons and a lightweight design, crystal clear OLED screens (with touch pad technology). But now onto the features we REALLY care about, listed in a handy dot point list for your convenience!
- O-LED screens
- Dual touch pads
- Front-back camera
- Continuous client (able to stop playing the PSVita and pick up where you left off on the PS3)
- Sixaxis controls
- Wireless Model retailing at US$249
- 3G capable model retailing at US$300 (not much word on AUS prices as of yet)
- Social Networking hub
Ah Sony. You dealt with the elephant in the room early (hello PSN hackers) and ended your conference on a buzz note. Sure you didn’t mention whether or not the PSN was any safer, but who cares when you have this snazzy little handheld that truly IS like having a console in your pocket? (Well, I kind of care, but sshhh).
As a true fan girl, my post cannot be complete without mentioning the Final Fantasy XIII-2 trailer we were all privy to. Sure I haven’t finished the original XIII yet so this new trailer didn’t make that much sense to me, but it still looked amazing and sounded great, as we’ve come to expect from Final Fantasy titles (since lets be honest, the last one didn’t offer us much more than that). I ragged on Microsoft for forgoing originality in the face of money grabbing (once again please direct your attention to HALO 4) but it seems my favourite company has done it again. Except they did it with a prettier game, and so therefore, win at life.
Overall, this conference wasn’t the most exciting of them all, but it certainly wasn’t a flop. The PSVita is something I’m definitely looking forward to, especially since I’ve been showing my PSP some love lately by enjoying Final Fantasy 4 on it. Though Sony didn’t undo the damage that had been caused by the PSN outage, they certainly took a step in the right direction, and I’ve no doubt that if they keep moving forward they’ll have consumers back on board in no time.
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