Admin note: This will close out Dan’s E3 2009 grading. He has been a champ this week grading these conferences in text form.
Welcome to the home stretch of these week’s output at Grading the Games. After this, I promise to take the rest of the week off, and spare you my ranting for a while. But before that, I must address the Sony E3 press conference. In order to give you an authentic feel, go do something else for 10 or 15 minutes, then come back to see if this column has started.
Opening Montage
I know I eviscerated Nintendo for it’s use of montages in my previous piece, but I liked Sony’s opening montage. I have one simple reason for this, it was comprised entirely of game footage. Games are the reason people watch and attend these press events. Take notes Nintendo, there will be a quiz at Tokyo Game Show. The montage featured tons of great looking game footage, and didn’t linger too long on anyone one game. It was a solid way to get everyone primed for the start of the event. ‘B’.
Stage Presence
Jack Tretton came out to start the press conference for Sony, and was immediately more comfortable on stage than any of his counterparts from the Nintendo event just hours ago. He walked out and immediately made a couple of legitimately funny jokes about the PSP Go leaks. Then he told us Playstation platforms were getting 364 games this year and 35 exclusives for PS3. Congratulation, you know have my attention Jack. This was a vast improvement over a couple hours ago, ‘B’.
Uncharted 2
Holy crap, this game is beautiful. The live game play demo looked fantastically fun. There was lots of platforming and some Gears of War-esque cover combat. In addition to the demo, a multiplayer beta was set for release at midnight following the press conference, so people can get their feet wet in that aspect of it already. This was a great selection as a lead in game, and really captured the audience’s attention. I give it an ‘A’.
MAG
After Uncharted, Sony brought out developers to show game play of the generically titled Massive Action Game. We were shown a live game play demo of a 256 player battle, focused around a particular squad of 8 players. The game appears to be generally squad based, with every possible character, including support characters, being controlled by a human player. The demo also gave the impression that this game is highly focused on finite objectives, in this case destroying a bunker and anti-aircraft weapon. It looks potentially interesting, but I think I would need some hands-on time with it to really get a feel for how it would work. Hopefully we’ll see a beta at some point in the future, but the game is releasing this fall, so I’m not sure there is time. On the strength of an interesting concept and logistically challenging demo, I’ll award a ‘B’.
PSP Go
Kaz Hurai was invited out on stage to reveal the worst kept secret in the industry, the PSP Go. The new device has a tiny form factor when closed, appearing slightly larger than an iPhone. It will feature 16 GB of internal flash memory, and no UMD drive. Kaz talked about a few new features in the Sense Me technology for dynamic music selection and additional video partners for the PSN store. He also revealed that the cost of PSP development tools will be dropping, which is encouraging in terms of the software we may see in the future. Kaz revealed that PSP Go will release on October 1 of this year, for $249. And this is where he lost me. I was ready to march out and buy one of these things right until the price point was revealed. This handheld is now more expensive than a PS2 or an Xbox360, and as expensive as a Wii. When you also consider that the PSP Go puts more potential revenue in Sony’s hands due to the money they won’t lose to retail markups (after all, the games won’t get any cheaper just because you download them), it really is a bit offensive that they want to charge consumers significantly more to increase Sony’s cut.I was ready to grade this fairly well, but the price point killed the momentum. I give it a ‘C’.
Gran Turismo: PSP
Sony then had the head of Gran Turismo out on stage to reveal Gran Turismo: PSP. A brief trailer was shown, and you would never have guessed this was a portable title. Apparently this game is running at 60 frames per second on a PSP. That’s a pretty intensive portable game. This title will also be released alongside the PSP Go on October 1. This looks pretty impressive, I’ll go with a ‘B+’.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
After his turn on stage at the Microsoft conference yesterday, Hideo Kojima was right back on stage at Sony’s press event to discuss another new game, Peace Walker. This is a PSP title that represents a true sequel to the story of MGS 3, set 10 years later. Apparently it will be a true canon story, rather than a spin off story. A very entertaining trailer ran, featuring some of the trademark MGS trappings that we all expect to see. Another good looking software title for PSP, I grade this out as a ‘B’.
PSP Software Montage
Apparently there are a ton of games forthcoming for the PSP. It looks like Sony has finally decided to support their portable platform in the way they always seem to be talking about. We also heard about a new Resident Evil title for PSP, to be released next year. The future looks bright for PSP software, ‘B+’.
PSN
There was a brief discussion of the games available on the PSN following the PSP segment. 50 additional PSOne classics are coming to the PSN, which is well overdue. In fact, they announced the release of Final Fantasy VII for PSN that very evening, which drew applause. There was also a video of Home, which would be exciting if I had logged into Home more than once. But I like the increased PSOne classics presence, so I’ll give out a ‘C+’.
Agent
After the PSP segment of the show, Jack brought us back to PS3 content. He announced a new PS3 exclusive title, Agent from Rockstar North, the developers of the GTA games. We didn’t get a trailer or demo of any sort, but we did learn that it is an espionage type game set in the 1970s. It should be interesting to keep an eye on the news regarding this title, but there was precious little info, so I’ll give it a ‘B-’.
Assassin’s Creed 2
Sony used their press conference as an opportunity to debut a game play demonstration of the multiplatform title Assassin’s Creed 2 from Ubisoft. This holiday 2009 titles looked stunning during the game play demo showed on stage. The demo included a Davinci inspired glider for navigation through the city, and the use of smoke bombs as an escape mechanic. It looks like an entertaining title, and Sony managed to have a major 3rd party game appear in their press event as opposed to Microsoft’s. ‘B+’.
Final Fantasy
The Final Fantasy segment of the presentation did not quite go as I had anticipated. A new localized trailer for FFXIII played, and looked as stunning as usual. The real surprise was afterwards, when FFXIV was revealed immediately after with a trailer of it’s on. At the end of the trailer it was revealed that XIV will be an online MMO in the vein of FFXI. This game is scheduled to arrive in 2010. Given the surprise announcement of a new Final Fantasy exclusive, I’ll grade this portion a ‘B+’.
Playstation Motion Controller
Not to be out waggled by the other two platform holders, Sony also introduced it’s own motion controller. Interestingly, it seems to be a blend of the Nintendo and Microsoft systems, using a camera to track the motion of a wand like device. The mapping shown was one-to-one motion tracking, and a variety of tech demo type applications were demonstrated. As I said about Microsoft’s Natal, the effectiveness of this control scheme will depend entirely on the software support made for it. Unlike Natal, it does have a release window of spring 2010. Overall, I was a less impressed that I was with the Natal demos, so I’ll give it a ‘B-’.
Play, Create, Share
Sony has started to push games of the Little Big Planet ilk as the “Play, Create, Share” genre. They did discuss continuing support for Little Big Planet here, with the upcoming PSP title and additional licensed content coming to the PS3 version. Also revealed in this segment was the upcoming PS3 exclusive Mod Nation Racers, which essentially looks to be the love child of Little Big Planet and Mario Kart. It looks as thought it could be an interesting downloadable title, but no information about it’s release was offered, save for a 2010 release date. The live demo looked quite fun, and the track editor looked pretty intuitive. I’ll be curious to see how the release is handled for this title, but I’ll give this press conference segment a ‘B’.
The Last Guardian
The latest game from the creators of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian had a trailer debut during the press conference. The trailer featured a giant cat/bird type animal companion for a small boy, and seemed to feature cooperative platforming. Very little information was revealed, but we were treated to a first official view of a gorgeous looking platformer from a team that has already delivered two fantastic PS2 titles. A dearth on information costs them a bit, ‘B’.
Gran Turismo 5
Despite discussing Gran Turismo PSP earlier in the press conference, Sony saved the Gran Turismo 5 trailer until close to the end. Unsurprisingly, the trailer is a graphical powerhouse, but other than that, we didn’t see anything really new. We also didn’t get any release information, which is a bit disappointing, as we haven’t had a proper GT game in five years. For teasing me but not delivering anything concrete, I’m giving it a ‘C’. It is still a new Gran Turismo, after all.
God of War 3
And finally, Sony finished up it’s press conference with the megaton, God of War 3. We were treated to a game play demonstration, and in a familiar theme, this game is gorgeous. The combat looks as satisfying as previous entries in the franchise, and it looks to be fantastically brutal. Unfortunately, we will not be playing this game until March of 2010, but the other God of War titles have also released in March, so it isn’t all that shocking. This is the crown jewel of the PS3 lineup, and may very well be a system seller in March. I would have liked to see more of a titan than just one in the background, but that’s a nitpick. I can’t give this anything but an ‘A’.
Overall
There was definitely both good and bad in Sony’s press event. On one hand, we saw a lot of games, many of which look great, but we didn’t get a much information about several of them. The motion controller component seems a bit unnecessary for what is generally a “hardcore” console, but everyone seems to want one these days, so I was hardly surprised. The PSP Go segment took my excitement and beat it to death on the floor with that price point, but the PSP software lineup looks fantastic. In general, it was more up than down, but the disappointments were definitely there. Where was Heavy Rain? One would think a big PS3 exclusive title like that would be prime press conference fodder. And there was no talk of a price drop, which doesn’t particularly bother me as a PS3 owner, but will bother those who would like one and software developers alike. All in all, it comes to down to games, and Sony showed off some big ones. The final tally comes out to a ‘B+’ in my book.
That’s all for this week, try to keep yourselves out of detention.
