Sony Press Conference
July 16th, 2008 Posted in GamesFinally, the last of the press conferences. Sony’s conference was about as long as Microsoft’s (that is, too long), but it was full of hugely impressive games, and some minor announcements. Of the three, I found it to be the most impressive, but that’s not saying much, as I don’t think there was much ‘impressive’ about any of the conferences this year. They all had their cool moments, but nothing super awesome. Sigh. Last one, let’s begin.
At first, as expected, Jack came out and did his thing about how good Sony is, which he didn’t need to, because the intro video certainly did his job there. He then went on (and on, and on) to describe a bit of the history of Sony and the PlayStation brand, which maybe went on a bit long… Not sure if it was the right place for this kind of presentation. Anyway… it got into the right kind of stride after the first ten minutes.
- Resistance 2: the first Resistance was fun, and this one looks no different. The huge monster that was being fought in the beginning of the demo actually took the wind out of anything that may have impressed me in God of War beforehand. A very impressive demo of a game I was already planning to get. Now I have no choice. 8-player online co-op, 60-player competitive multiplayer… Shit. That’s awesome.
- LittleBigPlanet: Still looks super awesome kick-ass fun, but why the hell is it taking so long??? Hurry up already! They used the game to present the stats for Sony, which was a great idea. Of course, it just made me want the game more, but it made the stats part of the presentation less boring. Kudos to Sony. Still — hurry up and release the friggin’ game already! Due out in October ‘08. My birthday is around then. Hint hint, world.
- Also mentioned was continued support for PS2, including various sports titles, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, SingStar titles, Yakuza 2, Warriors Orochi 2, and Mercs 2. Enough said for me.
PlayStation Network: Here, Sony introduced the Single Sign-on for the PSN. A good idea — it means you can connect to the PSN from anywhere, at any time, in order to send messages to your friends and the like. Not sure if it’s necessary yet, but it might be in future. Also:
- Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty- A short R&C title that will be available from the PSN. Sounds — and looks — like fun, and will probably be the first R&C title that I actually get into. It looks really sexy, in reality.
- A video showing lots of PSN titles was then shown, some of them very impressive, particularly PixelJunk Eden, some of them strangely enticing, like Flower — I’ve heard that game mentioned several times, but I didn’t know what it was about. I still don’t know what it’s about, but I’m intrigued… And it seems that Siren: Blood Curse will be available in episodes (I’d heard that before, but now it seems to be confirmed)… Nice… A few titles I want there… Dammit!
- GT TV: For Gran Turismo (starting with 5 Prologue), of course. A ‘channel’ accessed through the PSN, where you can access racing events and videos and all sorts of jazz. Looks interesting if you’re really into cars. Probably a pretty good idea. But not for me. Not sure on pricing…
- PlayStation Home: Looks to have improved a great deal since I last saw it, but nothing else was announced — in particular, no release date… Sigh.
- Video Delivery Service: Many big studios announced, offering lots of popular titles (movies/TV) available as rental or purchase from right now in America (bastards!), and no news for thee rest of the world, let alone here in Australia. Jerks. But the videos can be downloaded to the PSP for mobile viewing as well. Sigh. Sucks to be Australian sometimes. But only sometimes. Looks like another great service we will be missing out on. Super. That was all for the PSN. We moved on to the PSP.
Resistance: Retribution announced, a PSP 3rd-person shooter. It looks quite nice, and definitely has the feel of Resistance to it, including the new Resistance 2 feel that was demonstrated earlier. Interesting.
Next, a video montage of various PSP titles was shown, including Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, various sports titles, Locoroco 2, Super Stardust Portable, Lego Batman, Patapon 2, Buzz: Master Quiz, and Valkyria Chronicles. Some of those titles were very impressive, and demonstrate that there’s plenty of life left in the little fella. Then the presentation moved back to the PS3.
- DC Universe Online: Looks like fun, I always wanted to play City of Heroes, so I might have to look in to this title. Lots of geek imagery used, the important thing here being that you can design your own super hero or super villain, and release them into a persistent online world. Cool.
- Some little videos from from developers and their awesome-looking games were then shown — Far Cry 2, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Prince of Persia, Call of Duty: World at War, Fallout 3, Bioshock – this part was really just a way to have developers say nice things about the PS3, and show some sexy videos. I mainly paid attention to the sexy videos. Drool.
- More videos: LittleBigPlanet, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, MGS4, Quantum of Solace, SOCOM: Confrontation, Ghostbusters, Soul Calibur 4, Resistance 2, The Agency, Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm, Mirror’s Edge, Resident Evil 5, SingStar, Guitar Hero: World Tour, NBA 09, Buzz: Quiz TV, Killzone 2, Fallout 3 — Lots of WOW titles in there (and I don’t mean World of Warcraft, either… ewww, that’s a poo-poo game). So much money I need to spend that I don’t have… Sigh…
- God of War 3 trailer. All pre-rendered, but it’s God of War, so it’s OK! Yay!
- Infamous: The trailer didn’t show much, introduced the character using a comic-book style… Looks like another sandbox superhero (or anti-hero?) game, but I’m not convinced by this game yet… I just don’t know. But it looks bloody pretty.
- MAG: Massive Action Game. Wow- 256-player competitive multiplayer? How the hell can that happen without massive lag? I don’t know, but I’m interested… Lots of talk about squad combat and character growth, which probably appeals to a lot of players, but I just care about how it looks and plays. And it looks damned interesting. More on how it plays is still to come, I guess.
And that was the end of the Sony presser, and the point where my eyes were just about to fall out of my head. So I apologise for not popping any videos up tonight, and not popping other posts up here referring to the other news of today (particularly the gameplay videos of Street Fighter 4… nice), but I need my beauty sleep. Lots of it. Peace y’all.
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