For Sony, It's Back To The Drawing Board

Sony took stage last night and we here at Illegal Games, didn’t expect much from them. They were quiet leading up to E3 and with that, the gamer in me thought that they might have an ace up their sleeve with what they were showing at the event. Man was I wrong. Last night event was dull and boring. They came unprepared to impress the audience in any kind of way and I say that from knowing what the last game of the conference was going to be. Allow me to run down the events last night, so you can understand where I am coming from. Keep score.

They started with the first look at Quantic Dream new game “Beyond”. Beyond looks fantastic. The realistic look to the characters and the Sci-Fi elements that was shown makes this game look interesting. QD also announced that the main character “Jody Holmes” will be played by actress Ellen Page. If you don’t recognize the name, she has played in such films like Juno, X-Men: The Last Stand and Inception. This surely wowed the audience with visuals but there was one problem. There wasn’t any gameplay in the real time presentation until the very end, with an action packed cut scene. I am a big fan of Quantic Dream, but I need to see more about this game before I can talk fairly about it.

Next up to bat was “Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royal”, presented by Chan Park of SuperBot Entertainment. I will not sugar coat anything to you guys, this is a direct rip off of Super Smash Brothers. So direct that it if you put the screen shots side by side they look exactly the same. Now they did do something interesting as they played the game. They showed the power of the Playstation Vita. Two of the four players that were playing the game were playing on the Vita playing against players on the PS3. They call this feature “Cross-Play”.  Awesome, now back to the game. We could hardly keep up with what was going on while PS All-Stars was being presented. I would guess that the presenter had a hard time as well, as he said, “I’m not sure who is winning… let’s see who wins”. It was Fat Princess by the way, I don’t fully understand how but I guess I have to play it. Chan Park ended his presentation with the announcement that Nathan Drake from Uncharted and Big Daddy from Bioshock will be playable characters as well.

Now let me state something. We are 30 minutes in to this presentation and they have shown two games. One, which didn’t have any gameplay and the other, is a rip off of Super Smash Brothers. Lets continue.

During intermission, they started to talk about PSN. A redesign? Nope, Playstation Plus stuff. Everyone in the audience got a free year of Playstation Plus. This doesn’t help any of us, so I’ll keep going. No wait, I forgot if you join Playstation plus you can download Saints Row 2 for free!! Not Impressed by that, this one will make you harder than a hand full of Viagra. PS Vita will get PSone Classics, like Tomb Radier 1 and Final Fantasy VII!!! Its 2012 and yes they are classics, but you are almost at the end of a console cycle. It is time you show something new.

40 minutes, 2 games.

Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified was announced with no game play so we can skip that. They did show the spin-off game to Assassin Creed 3, titled “Assassin Creed 3: Liberation” which features a female assassin. The game comes bundled with a White PS Vita (I will pick that up). Sony showed some more gameplay of Assassin Creed 3 proper and the multiplayer campaign to Far Cry 3. At this point Sony has lost me. Here is why.

1 game with no gameplay, 1 rip off of smash brothers, 1 spinoff to a game that isn’t out yet that belongs to a handheld that isn’t selling and 2 games that was shown twice already. Moving on.

To discuss Playstation Move, Andrew House appeared on stage and gave the longest presentation of the new interactive “Wonderbook”. Wonderbook uses the Playstation Move and Eye camera to interact with books on your lap. J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame, gave “The Book of Spells” to demo along with the new interactive IP. It looks cool for what it is worth. You can open a book and practice spells and interact with the words on the page. This doesn’t need a fifteen-minute presentation and you just put everyone to bed.

God of War 4 was shown and it’s more God of War. Not much to say about it. Kratos does have a new power that allows his enemies to float in the air for a period of time and he did fight a half man half elephant and that is always great.

The last game in this presentation pretty much saved Sony. Lucky for them, this is the only thing they will remember from this long dry conference. “The Last of Us” is and will be a pure success. From the makers of Uncharted, Naughty Dog has shown that a mixture of “I Am Legend” and “Resident Evil” does work. Along with their story telling and unique gameplay, The Last of Us stole the show.

I hope I didn’t bore you with this post as much as Sony bored me last night. Die hard fans of Sony will come together and say that this won E3 but take that with a grain of salt. Microsoft conference wasn’t much better but comparing that to this, Sony made Microsoft look like they knew what they was doing. I came with a math equation for this.

1 game with no gameplay + 1 rip off of smash brothers + 1 spinoff to a game that isn’t out yet + 2 games that was shown twice already + 1 storybook that no one cares about + 1 a milked God of War + an impressive Last of Us Demo = a failed E3.

 Sony has lost E3.

First Screen Shots Of NBA Live 2013

Fans of Sony After The Press Briefing

Microsoft's E3 Press Conference Coverage - Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2

 
     Call of Duty.  The franchise that everybody loves to hate, but also according to sales records, the one that everyone loves to buy.  For the ninth installment in this long running, wildly successful, and now annual series, Treyarch will be releasing Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.  While the title is not much of a surprise, some gamers may or may not be surprised to find out that the setting is in the not so distant future with mechanized war machines a la Metal Gear.  Earlier footage of the game even showed off men riding on horseback into battle.  While many have been clamoring for a change to the tried and true, yet aging, COD formula, few can honestly say they expected this.

    
In this E3 demo, we were given a glimpse of some gameplay from the campaign of Black Ops 2.  To be honest, despite what seems to be a big shift in the setting of the game, the gameplay seems to be largely unchanged.  Still presented in the ever popular first person view, Black Ops still packs the realistic weapons with extreme detail down to the brand of holographic optics and slots of the picatinny rails.  Another thing we've gotten used to is the modern, and sometimes seemingly futuristic, support weapons and gear that we're able to play around with.  This demo was not short on those either.  We saw the player take control or aircraft, and order small arms fire from small drones on the fly just to name a few.  While many players may have been turned off by the news of the new setting at first, I think they can rest assured that the COD they know and love is still intact.

    
However, I think that some may argue that the series still hasn't evolved enough.  The gameplay is still largely an adrenaline packed, blockbuster film worthy sprint from set-piece to set-piece with some shooting and story delivered to you on the fly via radio chatter.  The campaign of these games seem to be more focused on presenting itself as a feature film more so than the realistic combat shooter that it appears to be with so much attention to detail.  But then again, who plays COD for the campaign right?

     Well, I'll be quick to admit that I do.  I'm the guy that everyone yells at for sucking on team deathmatch.  I enjoy the short lived thrills that the campaign delivers, even if they are a bit cheesy and fantastic at times.  Also, with Treyarch at the helm, it's been confirmed that the popular Zombies mode will be making it's return on the newest release.  With what seems like something for everyone, it's hard to find fault with Treyarch's approach.  Even if the gameplay is still inching closer to its expiration date, it's promising to see that Treyarch is at least trying to do something to keep this franchise firing on all cylinders.

Microsoft's E3 Press Conference Coverage - Resident Evil 6

  
 Not many game companies these days can brag about having a franchise as long running, or with as many entries, as Resident Evil.  Capcom is planning to continue to breathe life into the series with its latest installment, and official sequel, Resident Evil 6.  At E3 we were shown a demo which included a good bit of gameplay following series veteran Leon Kennedy trying to make his way through a zombie infested city.  He's accompanied by a female protagonist along the way making it somewhat reminiscent of Resident Evil 5.

     The series seems to be continuing to move away from its survival-horror roots in favor of a more action oriented play style.  This might come to the dismay of some fans who wish that the series would return to it's roots.  However, Capcom has promised that each of the three playable characters will have distinct playstyles which will allow them to blend fast paced action and survival horror between character plotlines without it seeming too out of place.  Chris Redfield has been rumored to have the more fast paced gameplay of the three characters, though after watching the E3 demo, it seems that Capcom is still going for a more overall action thriller theme altogether.

     RE6's E3 showing brought pretty much what fans were expecting.  The graphics look good with crisp textures and detailed backgrounds and the lighting is dark creating a fitting atmosphere for it's horror based plot.  Capcom has been listening to fan feedback, albeit slowly, and has made some changes to the controls that are quickly evident.  Finally, moving and shooting will be a possibility as the series slowly catches up on incorporating mechanics that seem to almost be a requirement these days.  Close combat from RE5 also makes its return in the form of prompted quick time events that allow the player to escape enemy attacks and deal damage to enemies without expending ammo.

   
     Speaking of quick time events, there were plenty throughout the short demo.  With Capcom pursuing a more cinematic experience within the game, they seem to be overdoing the quick time events in an attempt to keep the player feeling like he's in control.  I personally am not a fan of excessive use of QTEs, but my personal pet peeves aren't a reason to write this one off.  Resident Evil is a much beloved franchise and with a growing library of titles holding the brand that were not so good to be honest.  It's nice to see an official sequel trying to get the series back on track.  However, with Capcom trying to do so much to turn the series into something completely different from what it started out as, only time will tell if fans will be so willing to try what the developers plan to serve.

Battlefield 3 Premium Announced

Peter Moore and Patrick Bach took the stage to give the new about the upcoming expansion packs for Battlefield 3. With that, they announced Battlefield Premium, DLC pack that will give you all they content of Battlefield at the price of $49.99.

The DLC packs includes the expansion packs Armored Kill, Close Quarters, Back to Karkland, Aftermath, and End Game, along with exclusive items, deeper customization, unique events, new dog tags and other features.

You may purchase the DLC pack today with the other expansion packs to be released later in the year.

Peter Connected Just As Well As Microsoft Did