Going into E3, Sony had the strongest lineup of games known. After seeing the Microsoft press briefing on Monday, Sony had to turn it up a notch to win the war of the Big 3 this year, especially after the major leaks last week. How well did the deliver? Hit that jump.
The stage was immense at The Shrine Auditorium with a 40′ x 80′ screen. After a sweet montage intro video, Jack Tretton spouted off some sales figures before bringing Naughty Dog on stage to give a demo of Uncharted 2. Holy dogshit, Batman! This game looks utterly amazing and will be a strong Game of the Year candidate. Next up was MAG, with Zipper Interactive demoing a live 256 player online match (8 players on stage, the rest back at Zipper’s offices). The map was enormous and the action was intense, but not overbearing as I expected.
Jumping over the PSP, Sony unveiled the PSP Go, which had already been leaked all over the world. To go along with the new release, they showed off Gran Turismo Portable, sporting over 800 cars. Hideo Kojima took the stage to reveal Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, set 10 years after MGS3. The trailer wow’d a lot of press as it looks like the best portable Metal Gear to date. Capcom’s Resident Evil Portable was announced before Sony showed off yet another montage of PSP titles for this year, including Fat Princess and a new echochrome, which got me excited.
Back to the PS3, Tretton announced that Rockstar is developing a new game franchise, Agent, exclusively for the PS3. Given the clout that Rockstar has, I can see this being a huge seller. Ubisoft took the stage and gave a demo of Assassin’s Creed 2 that made my pants move a bit. This is one of the games I was anticipating the most for E3 and I was disappointed that no gameplay was shown at the Ubisoft press event on Monday, so this was a pleasant treat. After showing a gameplay trailer for Final Fantasy XIII, Tretton announced Final Fantasy XIV would be coming in 2010 exclusive to the PS3, which caused a lot of “WHAT?!?” and “OMFG” statements from the crowd.
Sony rolled out their tech demo for their upcoming motion controller that is used on conjunction with the PS3 Eye camera. The demos shown were very impressive and I think this could have some solid immediate impacts on games once it’s released in 2010. Next up was user generated content with the announcement and demo of Mod Nation Racers. It looked solid, albeit a very early look (releasing in 2010).
The tail end of the press briefing made me go from six to midnight rapidly. First, The Last Guardian was given the trailer treatment (previously known as Project TRICO), followed by a trailer for Gran Turismo 5. To close it all out, a gameplay demo of God of War 3 was shown that blew the collective minds of everyone in attendance.
Based on the performance of the games and the motion controller tech, I’d say Sony delivered exactly what was needed for their E3 press conference. The lines on the show floor for Uncharted 2, God of War 3, and MAG are some of the longest I’ve seen, so they definitely have a huge buzz going.
Stay tuned as we recap all the major conferences and call our winner for the Big 3 of E3 09.
