E3 Games Highlights

Aside from the conferences there where obviously several trailers, gameplay footage videos and more being shown at the summit. And since some conference were somewhat lacking on the game front I’m going to share what so far has gotten me most excited.

Best Trailers of E3:

• Star Ocean – The Last Hope. This one looks really really nice and has got me much more excited than Last Remnant or Infinite Undiscovery.
• Dawn of War II. I’m not really a Strategy fan but this trailer is very nice.
• I Am Alive. Now this trailer took me by surprise and wow! of course this could translate into a nice game or complete crap with a 50/50 chance. But the trailer is sweet.
• Singularity. Looks promising, we’ll have to keep an eye on this one.

Now we all know trailers in the end….don’t mean anything, a great trailer can precede a great game and a crappy one. Likewise with a bad trailer. So I want to share what I’ve seen so far that has gotten me really pumped! either entirely new or something announced previously that I though was “OK” but now looks freaking amazing (I’m looking at you Prince of Persia!)

Best Excitement of E3:

• Prince of Persia!! When Ubisoft unveiled the new PoP with the new design my main thought was “why not”. It looked nice but didn’t appeal to me much more than this. Now this demo looks amazing! the design is sumptuous, the gameplay looks fun and engaging without being frustrating, it’s open world…
• Braid. An XBLA title that looks really nice and reminds me of what games ought to strive to be: fun! again it looks challenging without being frustrating. the Graphics are completely charming and the gameplay looks very fun and intuitive. The game should be comprised of 5 stages with 4 levels in each stage.
• Far Cry 2. Looks might sweet! The graphics look amazing and that’s on the 360!! Very impressive. One aspect that has me excited also is that they dropped the whole mutant/alien gig and now it’s entirely human enemies! Yes!
• The Force Unleashed. It already looks great but it keeps getting better and better. Sweet timeline, sweet Lightsaber grip, awesome physics and now sweet lightsaber/force hold/lightning combo, character leveling and lightsaber customization a la KotOR… I can’t wait!
• Lego Batman. Yay! I’m a huge Batman fan so I’m very excited about this game. Seems to bring all the goodness of the Lego games with the roster of the Batman universe, the gritty feel of Gotham, the insane feel of the Joker funhouse and a soundtrack by Danny Elfman!!!

I will add more as I come across them.

Special thanks to GameSpot for their awesome Stage Demo feature which I discovered during last year’s E3 (or Entertainment for All Expo, whatever)

E3 2008 – Sony Press Conference Summary

E3 2008

If there is one thing that Sony is good at it is producing trendy tech designs. From the very first minutes with the buttons symbols shining all over the room to the Little Big Planet genius presentation it was in my opinion the most professional presentation delivery of the 3.

Here is what they announced:

• New PS2 bundle with Lego Batman including DC New Frontier DVD announced for $149, sadly no Batman logo. New PS3 80GB Core Pack announced for $399.

• New PSP Entertainment Pack including the Silver PSP, Ratchet & Clank – Size Matters, National Treasure 2 UMD, 1 GB Memory Stick and a voucher for Endochrome. All this for $199.

• Several news for the PlayStation Network (PSN). Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty announced for $14.99 (the game should be about 3-4 hours long) coming out this summer. Several other titles include Siren, Eden, Fat Princess and more. Gran Turismo TV (not to be confused with the other GTTV), showcasing auto news, reviews, shows and more in SD and HD through the PSN starting August 1st. The Ratchet game looks really nice especially for this price and the GTTV looks very interesting if you’re into cars…otherwise…

• A bunch of improvements for Home as well. Home will start featuring many more TV Shows in SD and HD starting at $1.99. Likewise with movies starting at $2.99 to $5.99. All these will be transferable to your PSP through either the PS3 or your PC. Content will also feature progressive download so you can watch as soon as you start the download (similar to online videos).

• As far as games go it was a bit underwhelming. Some very nice footage from Resistance 2 (it’s all in the scale!), and a new game announced for the PSP Resistance – Retribution. For the PS3 God of War III was confirmed which isn’t a big surprise, Infamous was also confirmed for spring 2009. For PSP they confirms Valkyria Chronicles, Patapon 2, LocoRoco 2 and more. SOE unveiled DC Universe Online with Jim Lee as a speakers and even though the speech was nice, the footage wasn’t very impressive (and I have to say I’m doubtful as to how this game will work out in principle).

• The big game announcement that could become great was MAG (Massive Action Game) which seems to take the idea of Battlefield and Socom and expand on it, with 256 players at once, squads of 8 players and a system of RPG-like character growth. The game looks really interesting and the trailer was nice, now we’ll need to try it out to make sure.

Overall I thought that for the delivery the Sony conference was the best. The BIG highlight of the conference was the Little Big Planet presentation which quite honestly made everything else look stale. Sadly as far as games go, aside from a few good things like God of War III, Ratchet & Clank on PSN and the promising MAG, there wasn’t much to look forward to.

But on the hardware side this might finally be the time when i go to the store to get a PS3.

You can watch the full coverage of the conference here.