Sony E3 2012 Conference Thread

[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.

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]

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?

 

[Arwin]

Portal 2 will be updated for Move, and get the DLC that was designed for that PC controller that was so much like move and that had everyone expect a Move version of the game much sooner. FINALLY! Yes! My patience is rewarded. I'm probably the only gamer in the world that managed to not play this game in the hope that this would be coming one day, but hey, stoked!

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-06-06-portal-2-dlc-announced-for-playstation-move

 

[Arwin]

Interesting little tidbit on Eurogamer:

Yoshida blamed Vita's sparse showing on Sony's attempt to cut the length of its press conference compared to previous years.
"As far as how our conference went - it went as well as we thought it could," he said. "I'm getting lots of tweets from people saying, 'where are PS Vita games?' That was, in retrospect, our fault - not looking at every angle when we designed the programme for the show. We have 25 new games, Vita titles, playable on the show floor.
"We could have spent more time - probably we should - showing off those games coming out this year.

 

[Gradthrawn]

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.

I think that's well covered in the dialogue overheard as the protagonist approaches. It really didn't leave much question to me as to the intent of those guys.

 

[kagemaru]

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?

Well they did just say the game was experiencing technical difficulties

Sony's much-anticipated The Last Guardian was not shown during Sony's E3 press conference earlier this week due to "technical difficulties," Sony Worldwide president Shuhei Yoshida has said.

Talking to Eurogamer, Yoshida explained, "The team is back in Tokyo working hard, and there are some technical difficulties that the team is focused on right now. That's why we don't have an update."

When asked whether the game will definitely be released at some point for PlayStation 3, he responded, "When we have confidence in saying that, we will talk about it. But today, we are working through some engineering effort."

This is the latest hiccup in a string of delays, staff changes and publicity mishaps for the game. Last year Sony said that it was delaying the title, while retailer GameStop mistakenly told its customers that the game was cancelled.

However, multiple Sony studios are now working to get the project out the door as quickly as possible.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...campaign=Feed:+GamasutraNews+(Gamasutra+News)

 

[DJ12]

Nice to see the promised bonanza of free games for the US has actually translated to Europe, currently downloading a plethora of new games!!!!!!

 

[Ryan Smith]

Interesting little tidbit on Eurogamer:

They need to take a page from Nintendo next year and just hold two conferences. The smaller 3DS conference went very well from the look of things.

 

[Billy Idol]

Shifty, I can feel you pain man! I kind of agree...but then, I am currently playing Max Payne 3...which focus solely on its core gameplay...and makes tons of fun just playing it (up to now, story is meh...although narative style is superb)! My motivation to play this game is not to see how the story advances, but just to play it more because I like the gameplay so much...there is hope Shifty!!

 

[JB9861]

I think that's well covered in the dialogue overheard as the protagonist approaches. It really didn't leave much question to me as to the intent of those guys.

I don't get this sympathy. Even if we discount what they were talking about as far as "tourists" and Joel initiated the confrontation unprovoked. They tried to kill the protagonist with guns, pipes, etc. The grunt at the end attempted to hurt the girl. Additional context is required to kill them/knock them out?

 

[RenegadeRocks]

E3 has come and gone .......

Where's my new GG game, new sucker Punch game, New KZ Vita game, where's Overstrike, where's Respawn Ent new game, where's everything nice and good and warm and expected ....Waaaaaa !

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't get this sympathy. Even if we discount what they were talking about as far as "tourists" and Joel initiated the confrontation unprovoked. They tried to kill the protagonist with guns, pipes, etc. The grunt at the end attempted to hurt the girl. Additional context is required to kill them/knock them out?

Not in the gameplay clip I saw, but maybe I missed some stuff that was shown?

 

[Arwin]

From various impressions this is indeed not scripted. You can take different routes, you can be stealthy and not fight at all, etc. Someone likened it a bit to MGS4 etc

 

[patsu]

Just got out from WWDC keynote. Very very impressive !
Will buy an AppleTV tonight for AirPlay from both Mac and iOS. ^_^

I finally complete Sony's E3 last night. Very moved by NaughtyDog's show. It's inspiring to see them evolve slowly from ICE tech sharing days to Uncharted 1, 2, and 3 to The Last of Us.

I sure hope Sony share those technologies with Team Ico.... coz that catbird will need well integrated AI and animation also.

Not in the gameplay clip I saw, but maybe I missed some stuff that was shown?

Yeah, there were 2 presentations. The earlier trailer showed a group of men ambushing Joel and Ellie in a pickup truck. The second demo showed the skirmish with the same group of folks. They are hostile/dangerous. Then again, you can avoid them if you want.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Just got out from WWDC keynote. Very very impressive !

What else have you been doing? You've been gone a while. We missed you

 

[patsu]

What else have you been doing? You've been gone a while. We missed you

0. Work ! But I can't tell you what they are. 8^P

1. I asked a smart, rich and _old_ guy what his regrets are. He regretted not spending enough time with his family, so his kids grew up as strangers to him. That was like a lightning bolt through my head. 8^D
I have been spending lot's of quality time with my family. Will be visiting Alaska soon, with my parents before it's too late. 8^P

2. People probably see me (much) less on their PS3 friends list these days too. I moved all my game time to Vita because I couldn't and can't find time to sit down and play a long game. Amazingly, I still managed 130+ hours of game time on Persona 3 Portable. That means I'm not as busy as I thought, or those pockets of time can add up. ;-) (Actually I can game on Vita beside my wife as she watches stuff on Hulu Plus, so that helps a lot).

I will get back to my PS3 backlog some day but probably the end of this year.

 

[wco81]

Maybe they didn't have much on the Vita because they're cutting their losses.

Sony is heading towards Nokia and RIMM territory.

It's getting less and less likely that they will produce some kind of game changing product.

Pretty sad.