[Arwin]

I haven't seen it yet, but apparently it was light on new content.

Link (one of many): http://us.playstation.com/e3-2012/

Only saw Beyond: Two Souls so far, but I'm liking what I've seen. If I'm getting it correctly, they're putting the performance of two different actors into one character in the story, which is a fairly obvious choice after the Kara test footage showing off performances from various actors/actresses/singers in the character in a single scene.

[Billy Idol]

Just watched Beyond two souls trailer! Not sure what it is all about, but graphics where again very good and modt important, it seems that face animation (mouth movement!) has improved compared to heavy rain!!!

[SedentaryJourney]

Quick impressions on Sony's conference:

The Beyond trailer was okay. My problem with it is we don't yet have a sense how the game will play. All I know is mocapped Ellen Page is in it, and there are explosions and action of some sort.

God of War and The Last of Us looked spectacular. The demos did their job.

Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale looks decent for a Smash Bros. clone though Sony's roster lacks the charm of Nintendo's.

Vita stuff left me lukewarm. Gravity Rush should have been front and centre even though it's already out in Japan and launches in a week everywhere else. It's simply the best showcase for Vita at this point.

Biggest letdown: Not a peep about The Last Guardian or Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
Runner-Up: The Harry Potter interactive book. I thought it was cool, and then they demoed it.

[pc999]

What a sad thing, this conference.

This is probably because of the financial trouble of Sony (as a whole).

Last of Us seemed very nice, thought.

PS: never put out a fire with your hands

[almighty]

They seem to have forgot they have a hand held called the Vita...

[Grall]

Another E3 without Last Guardian, very disappointing. Was really hoping we'd see something there, game stuck in development hell maybe?

[Arwin]

They probably need all the extra time they can get, but I would expect it to show up at TGS. They have also clearly chosen to save a few things for the European conference. For instance Fifa should have some extensive Move support in 13 if I remember correctly, and I think they'll have saved that for the EU conference as well (where it belongs ).

Above all however what I'm taking away from this conference (with the disclaimer that I haven't seen it yet) is that Sony has a lot of its teams working on PS4 now. In that respect, they're still not doing bad with the Vita - there have been a lot of announcements in the run up to E3, and if you make a balance sheet of all the news in the period between a few weeks ago and this week, it's a good list of stuff.

[ToTTenTranz]

I thought this would have been the PS Vita year, making the platform more appeasing than the PSP which is still outselling the new console.

I guess I was wrong?

[eastmen]

The lack of vita at the confrence has me wondering if I should sell mine now while it still has value.


The last of us looks amazing , I may have to borrow a ps3 to play it.

[crabbz]

Still nothing about The Agent from Rockstar. If they wait much longer they'll have to move it to ps4.

[mrcorbo]

My highlights were the fairly obvious ones.

Beyond was visually impressive (uncanny valley aside). We'll see about the gameplay, but if the story and presentation are good enough, it might overcome my disinterest in the typical Quantic Dream gameplay. Hey, I liked LA Noire, despite its flaws. Anyway, one to follow for sure.

God Of War Ascension similarly might have finally crossed the threshold where the impressive visuals overcome my dislike for aspects of its gameplay (I don't like how the action slows down to emphasize brutal finishes and I don't really like QTE's.). I've never bought a GoOW game before, but this might be my first one.

Last Of Us looked great, and brutal. It's hard for the violence in a game to have any impact on me, but this did and that's an accomplishment. I also saw lots of little touches that are what really set Naughty Dog apart. I was really impressed with what appeared to be contextual scripted events. Your companion coming out and attacking an enemy when you are incapacitated/disarmed, enemies reacting to you running out of ammo, etc. Very cool.

Wonderbook demo was....unfortunate. I suppose it's cool that there's something new to do with Move, but I don't really see this selling a lot of Move bundles or by extension PS3's. It would have been fine as part of the conference, but it really went on entirely too long relative to how impactful I expect it to be in the marketplace.

[jonabbey]

I'm looking forward to Beyond; Heavy Rain was great, but just too depressing as a father for me to make it much past the first hour or so in. That sort of game with better acting and a telekinetic Ellen Page sounds perfect.

[deathindustrial]

Originally Posted by mrcorbo

Wonderbook demo was....unfortunate.

That's an understatement.

What makes it worse is that it should have been a Kinect game since that system is far better suited for it and you could actually sell a *real* book with it. Instead of having to bundle it with an immersion breaking prop whose sole purpose is to act as a best case target for the image recognition software you could package the game with a real Harry Potter book. Kids get to play the game and (gasp!) read a book too.

The fact that this failed project made it up the management chain all the way to their E3 presentation shows how completely dysfunctional Sony are as a company.

Bonus points also go to Ross McGrath for fooling folks into singing up for PS+ by his Twitter post:

https://twitter.com/drof1337/status/204939117212082176

Great way to teach folks to never trust the Sony blog Ross!

At least Last Of Us looks like fun.

Cheers

[RobertR1]

The Last of Us good and should be fun. The rest, not so much. People spent over $300 on Vita's. Feels bad man.....

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by RobertR1

The Last of Us good and should be fun. The rest, not so much. People spent over $300 on Vita's. Feels bad man.....

Lol. Vita's some of the best gaming money I've spent. If I didn't play any second more than I have so far, it'd already have been worth the price of entry. So spare me your sympathies, because I'd buy one for LBP Vita alone, and that's not even out yet (but the beta is, and it's awesome by all accounts)

[RobertR1]

Your enthusiasm doesn't seem to resonate with various gaming forums and the press regarding the vita showing and future prospects based on what is being shown today. It's clearly not showing up in sales numbers either.

[Nesh]

What exactly are the complaints for Vita in forums? The only problem I see with it is lack of games

[BoardBonobo]

Originally Posted by Nesh

What exactly are the complaints for Vita in forums? The only problem I see with it is lack of games

There aren't any real complaints, other than the lack of games. And that's not much of an argument any more. The majority that do complain haven't actually got a Vita or, it seems, actually gamed on one for any length of time.

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by RobertR1

Your enthusiasm doesn't seem to resonate with various gaming forums and the press regarding the vita showing and future prospects based on what is being shown today. It's clearly not showing up in sales numbers either.

Actually most people that have one seem pretty happy so far. By the time this console has been on the market, it will have a pretty impressive line-up that I doubt many consoles have been able to match in history. And it will be interesting to see what happens once Playstation Mobile launches. Being in the beta, I have pretty decent hopes for it. You don't see too much abut it now, but as soon as the store opens and people can sell stuff, that will change a fair bit. And then suddenly you have all these nice small experimental games and remakes that can take advantage of dual analog sticks.

I am also surprised the number of people who discount games that are coming to both PS3 and Vita. They don't seem to realise that is quite similar to complaining that for some of these games you're getting a version for iPhone and iPad. Who cares if you have both of these platforms, when you have the choice to play it on both? Exclusive isn't a good thing by definition.

The only thing the device is right now, is too epensive for mass market appeal. So what. Again, it just came out four months ago.

Anyway, finished watching the conferences finally, and pretty happy with what Sony showed. Overall I feel Microsoft has their shit together best at the moment, and Nintendo is like a breath of fresh air, but Sony still brings out the stuff I am most interested in so far. I was also surprised by The Last of Us. I still have that title filed under 'not for me' but the game is very impressive regardless and it has won me over a little bit. God of War seemed like a remake of the first one, not sure yet how I feel about it but I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end, as part three was just lovely. I am definitely happy with where Beyond is going, and the book stuff I'll have to wait and see. It is clearly EyePet Next, but I like the idea that basically everyone can make books for it. If it works without having to move the camera too much and it is properly localised, I will probably bite for my kid. The lego game for Wii U is now a potential system seller though in this household, so Sony needs to do more.

Assassin's Creed's sailing section looked pretty awesome by the way.

Ubisoft imay be the stealth winner of this years conferences.

[Graham]

I have mixed feelings on Sony's conference.

I was a bit dissapointed by the lack of Vita news at E3, and I've been really dissapointed by the reaction this has had. Although I certainly see high potential in PS Mobile.
Wonderbook was interesting. I've been involved in similar projects in the past and my experience is that the market is exceptionally difficult (people just don't 'get' these things) so having a huge name attached to the first release is a good thing. However that demo went on far too long and felt incredibly unprofessional. Introducing the project with "I'm amazed it didn't leak!" was just a bogglingly unprofessional thing to say on many levels.
The level of violence on display was a bit off putting. God of War really went too far with the elephant - the game has completely lost its impact for me, I just have no interest in it at all. :/

I know this is off topic, but I want to address the 'vita is dead' reaction that I've been reading (not necessarily on this forum).

I own a Vita, and I work with it ever day. I admit I haven't played it a huge amount recently but...

But I really do like it. In some ways, I see this launch as having too many good products. Sony didn't space the releases out very well - and now we are feeling the drought kick in a bit. It's a natural problem for every platform early on but it seems to be worse on Vita despite (what I believe) is a strong catalogue.

I believe the problem is that most of the released games fall into very well defined categories or existing franchises - and therefore have very well defined demographics. New platforms typically release with new IPs, which encourages more diversity in the player base - and encourages people to experiment more, blurring the demographic a bit more. I believe the majority of the games are of high quality (especially for handheld), but they are also easy to ignore if they aren't from a franchise you enjoy (etc). The inconsistency with demos / unlockable trials also doesn't help.

I personally have played through uncharted, wipeout, unit13, blobs, rayman and stardust. The thing is, most of these games are an easy fit in genres that I have typically enjoyed. The biggest risk I took was Rayman - I rarely play platformers, but this was by far my biggest surprise and it is an absolutely fantastic game - perfectly suited to the hardware and simply a joy to play. And having now played the 360 demo, I genuinely prefer it on Vita.

Perhaps had Sony focused less on established IP, then they may have seen more success. And yes, I do see the incredible irony in what I'm saying

[kagemaru]

Beyond looked great, but I would liked to see some gameplay. LoU looked amazing, but just like many other demos at E3, seemed very heavy on the scripting.

AC3 also looked great, really need to catch up on that series.

Very disappointed and surprised by the lack of PSV announcements. I figure they would have dedicated at least half, if not most, of the conference to PSV since that is their newest platform. They have a great product, and while I don't think it's dead, I do think they should have given it more attention at the show.

Originally Posted by Grall

Another E3 without Last Guardian, very disappointing. Was really hoping we'd see something there, game stuck in development hell maybe?

IIRC Sony already confirmed that it would not be at E3, though I agree it would have been nice to see.

[Laa-Yosh]

Beyond is obviously using the workflow from the Kara demo, but with even more polished assets. Interesting how well they can sell the characters considering the actual tech behind them isn't that advanced in reality, though. Once again the quality of the artwork is the decisive factor.

Last of Us is a similar case in terms of graphics, but what impressed me most was the visceral feel. The gunfight was fare more intense than any other shooting games, felt a bit like a certain scene in the Drive movie. The moral aspects are also interesting, killing to survive and all. Looks like they've listened to the criticism about Drake murdering hundreds of people in Uncharted and still acting like an easy going funny guy. One step ahead of everyone else again, especially after seeing a young Lara setting countless people on fire in the Tomb Raider demo...

[Arwin]

I don't have that much problems with Tomb Raider in that regard. She started out, as we saw in last year's trailer, in a pretty traumatic fashion. But the problem I have with this year's 'gameplay' section, is that it is extremely badly paced. It's on at 11 all the time, for far too long. Uncharted mixes sections like these with exploration and gunfights, and the action is much better focussed. But Tomb Raider was a long sequence of different types of 'tunnels'. I would expect that the end of the demo probably starts a more open section, but so far, this has been my major issue with the game, which otherwise has looked quite promising.

But I fully agree on The Last of Us. I was immediately uncomfortable with the killing of other survivors, and they are very convincing in being desperate to survive themselves, so I feel sorry for the people getting killed, and am morally uncomfortable with killing them (and the ammo being wasted, lol). The fighting is a very big step up it seems from Uncharted 3, and the camera work is clearly improved too. And as you say, the fighting had a very realistic intensity, very different from most other games.

[Shifty Geezer]

The set-up for the Last of Us was wrong, because it presented the protagonists as cold murderers. I'm assuming these guys they killed had started the feud and the protagonists were acting in (vague) self defense. In Uncharted you knew the faceless people you murdered were baddies, plus they would shoot at you on sight. This LoU demo didn't explain that.

So other than the fact I have little interest in playing cold, evil, selfish bastards (my idea of a survival game would be finding people and growing a community to work together to recover ), it also felt like Uncharted and I expected the guy to talk with Nate's voice - he looked like the same guy with a beard! I didn't see any superhuman jumping, but if that's in then it's 100% 'no' from me.

In fact, what I really miss is the old days when games were games and didn't try to be something else. these days it seems everyone is trying to create a Hollywood busting cinematic story experience. There's nothing wrong with cinematic experiences and some of the best games ever have gone that route. But we don't also have just games to play. Star Wars Battlefronts last gen was just running around shooting, no story. This gen that game was dropped in favour of character-led interactive stories.

How many games are getting shown these days where the developers presenting them smile and boatst, "this is so much fun"? It's like Saturday Morning cartoon creators have all turned their hands to creating feature-length Cannes-winning stories and ditched the notion of fun entirely. PlayStation's mashup game, whatever it's called, comes to light as one that's about story-less fun, but it's with characters mostly based in story-driven 'gritty' games.

[Grall]

Originally Posted by kagemaru

IIRC Sony already confirmed that it would not be at E3, though I agree it would have been nice to see.

Maybe the reason they're not even re-showing what they've already shown previously is that they're re-tooling the game for PS4/orbis?

...Well, one's entitled to dream at least, right?