E3 2009: Sony Conference

They started late, way too late compared to the other press conferences, with a female announcer urging the audience to take their seats and switch off their mobile phones, twice!

While MS didn’t show any graphs or sale figures, Sony kept singing about the sales and the strength of the PlayStation brand. They dedicated some minutes to the PS2, praising its price and its long life. But seriously, if they want to place it against the Wii for casual, family gaming, why are there no worthwhile new games for it?

After the statistics, Uncharted 2 started with a big bang. This game is gorgeous. It simply looks amazing and with the most realistic, life-like animation I have ever seen in a video game. And you can actually like Nathan Drake, he is a cool guy with funny comments. The inclusion of a female companion in the demo confirms that the campaign can be played cooperatively with a friend.

Then came MAG (or Massive Action Game) which is a 256-player game. The demo showed a massive game, but you only get to see your squad and commander. So, while the game is huge, it’s manageable and easy to progress in. The commander was certainly playing in god mode because he was taking damage from everywhere and his health was at 100% all the time. But this is acceptable for a stage demo. This game has potential, but I wonder if I get it how it will fare with my slow internet.

I will try to forget what came next, until the moment Kojima came on the stage… What the **** was that Sony? You spent too much time… Way too much time on the PSP Go. The Polyphony dude with the translator was incredibly boring and his translator was incredibly stupid. I think he was really an amateur or he had what the guy was saying pre-written in the notes he was constantly reading. And then they showed the trailer, why not show the trailer from the start?! And what’s wrong with Sony, they are praising the PS3 for powering the massive 80x40 feet screens in the theater, but all the footage was shown from the inside of a screen on the screen, reducing the practical size of the screen to less than quarter. Great thinking Sony! Stupid!

Next came MGS: Peace Walker. I think it makes since to put it on the PSP considering that the MGS: Portable Ops game was also on the PSP, and both games have something similar, they both star Big Boss and are post-Snake Eater. The trailer was nice and it has the same self-conscious remarks that are found in all MGS trailers. But there is something I don’t understand, in the trailer, several clones of Big Boss were shown, with eye patches!!! I don’t understand this. The Les Infants Terribles project started in 1973 or 1974 which is after the 1970 setting of the game, and also how can you accelerate the growth of a clone that much? This isn’t Attack of the Clones, you know! And also, why would they have eye patches? The bullet that Ocelot fired at Naked Snake wasn’t coded in his genes, was it? I guess we will have to wait and see.

The PSN and PS Home parts were as boring as the PSP parts (minus MGS of course) and I simply don’t care about them. All I care about PSN is that it’s free! Oh, and I guess that the $250 price of the new PSP Go is way too much, compared the price of the existing PSP 3000 which is $170.

The new Rockstar PS3 exclusive game, Agent was given as a mere title with no footage at all. What about LA Noire?! Is it dead?

Then came the great Assassin’s Creed II, the game is simply amazing. I wish they just fix the boredom that I suffered in the first game, and it will be great, considering that the first had great gameplay mechanics but it lacked diversity and freshness (after a while, that is). The double hidden blades are badass! I can’t wait to play this on the PC.

A new Final Fantasy is announced, this time it’s XIV and is exclusive to the PS3 and is a MMO.

Then came the big surprise of Sony, the PlayStation motion sensing controller… I guess when MS showed Project Natal yesterday, an alarm went off in the secret PlayStation, and an announcer with a nice female voice like the one in Team Fortress 2 said, “Alert, the final checkpoint is being contested.” I guess Sony flew their prototype weapon straight from the labs to the conference hall, and with a lab rat to do the demonstration. If I have one word to describe the announcement, that it was RUSHED.

The technology is similar to Natal in some sort. You use the already available PS3 EyeToy as a camera and you hold two prototype sticks like the Wii controllers and whatever you do with them is translated on-screen. The tech demo showed serving tennis balls, with realistic physics, using sign posts and baseball bats! They also showed how the controller can be used as a gun, a sword and a shield, a whip and finally a bow and an arrow. The motion is swift. As I said, it’s basically the same as Natal, minus the voice recognition, but with you holding two sticks in your hand. So, it’s the same shit! Unless I see games on this thing, this is as nice a gimmick as Natal and Milo. Show me the games, dammit. And what proves that the whole thing was rushed is that the thing doesn’t even have a name or even a codename. But it was said that it will launch next spring?! Now, that’s strange. Launch to do what exactly, if there is no announced software to benefit from it.

So, now you see what I meant with motion sensing, it’s useless for the most part, and I still remain skeptical.

I think that Natal has an edge over the unnamed Sony tech demo, for the fact that it tracks your whole body motion. Sony seems to have created an ugly mutant from mating Natal to the Wii. Copying what others are doing isn’t the best way to go, Sony. But on the other hand, Natal is going to need some kind of trigger or controller to control some in game actions at some time. That’s why I hate motion sensing… It will force you to focus on way too many thing to streamline the experience rather than making a great game with traditional controlling.

At that moment I was desperate… The clock was ticking and they still haven’t showed up the big guns. Uncharted 2 and MAG are big, but they are not Kratos-big. So, when they showed up yet another PSN game about racing, I was close to giving up and calling it a day.

Then came the moment… The Team ICO announcement… Ueda’s new masterpiece is called The Last Guardian, and guess what, it’s the same game like the one I posted its video last month. But this time the trailer had better graphics for the creature with feathers. They are still using the same music from Miller’s Crossing. They also showed gameplay. The game is definitely more like Ico than Shadow of the Colossus. And I think we will be seeing the same relation between the little boy and the creature as that between Ico and Yorda and Wanderer and Agro. I am really happy. The creature reminds me of my cat a lot, you got that right, Falcon!

After that, they showed Gran Turismo 5. I felt real bad for the Forza 3 developer who claimed last night on the MS conference that Forza 3 was the most realistic looking racing game ever. Well, I guess he is crying in the corner now! Too bad I am not into racing games. Honestly, I did try, and I even own Gran Turisom 1 and 4, but racing is not my type of game. The graphics are photorealistic. Period. And the cars now show damage. There is still no release date…

Then came the angry Spartan. Kratos is back, baby. And this time he is angrier and stronger than ever. I mean, he has just killed a chimera with it’s own horn! Ouch! The game is coming next spring, and it will be the final game in the series. How cares now about Dante’s Inferno? I guess Wolverine is shitting his pants now after seeing this video… Kratos is not friendly with copy-cats, and he kills people with their own prosthesis.

And with that the conference was over.

Hold on a second… Where the heck is my price cut? Where is Heavy Rain? I saw it in the PS3 games montage, but why there was no demo for it. This is one of the AAA PS3 games. Strange! And where is the announcement for MGS: Rising for the PS3 as well as the X360. The game was confirmed to be coming to the PS3 as well as the X360 from external sources but I expected that Kojima will show something on the PS3, exclusively, for the sake of the good old days of developing MGS4.

That’s it ladies and gentlemen. Sony’s E3 2009 conference.