I’m not quite sure how I feel about the last hour and a half of the Sony press conference. Maybe it’s late or maybe a lot of the more exciting things have already happened today. It felt really dull. Jack Tretton is a great speaker, if not one of the best who grace the stage at E3, but even he couldn’t ignite me. Maybe because I wasn’t able to be in the audience and be bribed with a free Plus subscription.
The only real interesting hardware news is the “Cross-Controller” concept which is aimed directly at Nintendo’s Wii U. I’m not sure how hard it hits across the bow because that is one mighty expensive controller and we have yet to see any information aside from it’s possibility and a few titles. I think it is just another expensive gimmick that is a neat feature if you own both systems and a pass if you don’t. Nothing screams must have.
Speaking about shooting across the bow, during the Sony briefing Ubisoft showed more Assassin’s Creed 3 game play, featuring a pretty lengthy naval battle across the open seas. I have to admit that looks pretty neat (although I hope it only happens once in the game otherwise I could get a little sea-sick of it). It’s late, excuse the bad humour.
Moving right along to some original content. Quantic Dream’s new IP features actress Ellen Paige in the roll of the protagonist. I like how Quantic Dream pushes real time cinematics. It really is quite breathtaking. While the characters in game look great, I’m not sure if I’m feeling the concept just yet. I’m also looking forward to the mechanics of the game as well which were not featured. Will it be more of the same vis-a-vis Heavy Rain or is there some new ideas lurking in this beautifully rendered world.
This one surprised me. Obviously there will be comparisons between Uncharted since it is from the same developers. And they wouldn’t be completely wrong. However, it’s not a clone at all. The first thing I noticed is that you have a health bar with no regeneration and what looks like very little ammunition. So it is more down the lines of survival horror. Making every bullet count. I am also very impressed with how smoothly the action and scripted scenes play out. It looks like you’re playing a well choreographed movie fight scene. Very impressive.
I’m not sure who writes up the script for the celebrity hosts of the Ubisoft press conference but it’s bad. Really bad. It never feels natural, the comedy always falls short and it is just wrong. Just hearing the the term “girl wood” feels so wrong in all the wrong ways. It’s like watching a train wreck with actual good games falling out of the windows of each train car. But let’s not dwell on the bad and get right into some of the trailers.
Far Cry 3 rocked us last year with the “insanity” trailer and this year is more of the same. This time it starts off with you hunting the antagonist and right from the get go it shows off that this is a very edgy game. Animated boobies people! This game looks great in the jungle setting with great visuals. I’ve never been much of a fan of the Far Cry games but how can I not check this out? Great in game trailer.
They then showed off the Splinter Cell: Blacklist trailer. Not much more to say about this since we saw some gameplay during the Microsoft briefing but I wanted to show it because it looks like a lot of fun.
The conference was short on details with a lot of games. Without knowing anything about Avengers: Battle for Earth, here is the trailer. It’s exciting only because it looks cool but there is no in-game footage and nothing else was mentioned about the game except for it giving more “girl wood”.
I have to admit I really like this trailer. However, it wouldn’t be the first time a great zombie game teaser trailer failed to deliver. This is a “Mature” Wii U title, I guess to show that the next generation of Nintendo console is for grown ups as well. Hard to say much about the game but enjoy a very cool teaser.
Next up is Assassin’s Creed 3. Finally set in a different setting. Looks very cool, but we all knew that. The in game demo shown was a winter forest setting that looks great. I just want to show the trailer though. It is really good. No doubt Ubisoft has great talent in studio when it comes to animation and cinematic trailers.
The best thing I’ve seen at E3 and not only because it is the only non-sequel to be shown so far. The idea is great, the visuals up to Ubisoft’s standards and from what I’ve seen of the gameplay it looks very interesting. The internet is going to be buzzing about this for awhile and as of right now it is on the top of my to play list.
