Monday, June 11, 2018

E3 2018: Sony Press Conference Impressions

Shawn Layden started the show off.  First thing I noticed, their venue is small!  They can't be hosting the show from this tent, could they?  He seemed a bit nervous when speaking, and then he talked about mixing up the presentation a bit.  Never a good sign. So, presentations appear to be coming from other places.

Shawn invites Gustavo Santorea on stage. He's playing a banjo and I'm guessing this is a prelude to Last of Us 2. Yes, after the banjo was over, the trailer for Last of Us 2 plays. It starts off with Ellie at a party and an Asian character named Jesse walks over to her and talks to her.  Ellie is pulled away by another woman, Deena. She starts slow dancing with Ellie.  This is a very interesting trailer to lead off with....and they kiss. Then it fades into a scene with Ellie slitting a guy's throat, so obviously the previous scene was a flash back.  What a weird transition.  Now we're in full on game mode. Ellie moving stealthily through bushes, which look unbelievable.  Everything looks unbelievable.  There's a woman hanging from a tree. Ellie comes across another hanging and the victim is being stabbed. The group is four deep. They get alerted by a noise and start to investigate.  Ellie moved to a parking garage and begins to take them down with a bow and arrow. She tried to sneak up on another, but got seen by someone else and now combat broke out and it went south so she's running.  She's now hiding in the grass, then crawls under a truck. She shot someone poking under the truck, then got pulled out by another. She shot and killed him then just keeps running and killing while she goes. Now she's holding one as a human shield. She runs into a building and takes cover behind a counter. She crafted an explosive arrow and took out two guys. Now there's more melee combat and she just executed someone with a machete. One thing I noticed is that all the animations and reactions are incredibly lifelike.  For instance, one of the enemies who fell, you actually see the arrows fall out of her quiver as she falls.

Sid Shuman and Ryan Clements talking during an intermission. They talk about things of which I'm not really paying attention to, but I did here New Game+ confirmed for God of War. They also rattled off some Call of Duty news that I don't care about. They then wasted time revising last year's E3.  What is going on with this format?  They are wasting so much time with this intermission.

A new video plays.  It looks like Destiny and it is.  It's the announcement for their forsaken Expansion that releases on September 4. 

Intermission again. "Why keep people waiting?" Exactly.... 

There's another music intro.  Someone is playing some kind of flute with footage of a field blowing in the wind. The video finally plays.  There's the flute music. A samurai appears with his horse.  There's some text that says "Mongol Invasion - Day 9" that flashes.  The samurai is now walking through the land and it's breathtaking. The new land is called Otsuna Grassland. He calls his horse Nobu and rides into the forest, then hops of his horse and runs.  He comes across some bandits as they kill someone.  He chops of one of their arms. The sword combat is awesome and looks pretty authentic to actual samurai swordplay. He impales one on the ground and twists the sword. An enemy almost snuck up on the player, but then he got shot in the back by a woman. They're moving together now. This looks like the Assassin's Creed in Japan game we always wanted. Now he's sneaking on the rooftop, does a surprise drop down and starts killing everyone.  He killed someone as they were blowing a horn for reinforcements. He wanted to save someone, but the person got shot by the woman, Mosoku. I don't really understand what's happening here, but then they go into a stand off with his partner. Now they're dueling. Enemies are coming and setting the landscape ablaze with fire arrows.They stop fighting.  The title is revealed to be Ghost of Tsushima.  I'm really impressed by this game! 

A new video plays showing a banana with a guitar. I don't get it. I thought they were going to show a game, but I guess they didn't.  

Another video starts to play showing a woman with a gun.  There's a futuristic setting and the imagery kinda reminds me of Inception. It looks really interesting. Control is the title and then Remedy logo follows.  It comes out in 2019.

Next is a video of player sneaking around in a storeroom. There's some commotion going on, and then a shelve falls on you.  It's revealed to be a rat. Then you see an officer being eaten by a zombie. The zombie then gets shot. We then see Leon and immediately, I recognize it as Resident Evil 2 Remake!  It looks amazing! It releases January 25th. I'm so getting it! 

There's another weird music video short.

A video by Squanch Games shows some weird trippy game called Trover Saves the Universe. I'm guessing it's being made by the Rick and Morty creator. It's also going to be a VR game.

A new video for Kingdom Hearts 3 is being shown. At least it's a different trailer this time. It shows off Pirates of the Caribbean theme with of course Jack Sparrow. Gameplay is also being shown but my feed started going blurry, so I can't make out what is going on. They also show more Monsters Inc. footage. The rest is a mix of footage from the other trailer.  At the end, there's an announcement that there will be a package containing 1.5 Remix, 2.5 Remix and 3 all in one package. 

Another stupid music short. 

What the fuck... the next video shows a baby getting ready to come out of a woman.  It can only be Death Stranding.... Finally, more of this game is being shown! Norman Reedus's character is named Sam and is wearing a spacesuit.  The environment looks beautiful. He's got some kind of transport droid following him.  One shot shows him carrying a dead body on his back. The music is very melancholy and thematic. This is going to be a very atmospheric game.  There's lots of changes of scenery.  Seems like it will be a game of isolation. I am most intrigued by this game. Oooh, and there's an invisible creature sneaking up to him, leaving hand prints in the mud. He's got a woman next to him.  There's something about monsters who eat him that causes a "void out".  I guess he he's able to come back, but as he comes back it affects the environment somehow? He's doing something weird with this strobing equipment and now he can see them, but there's this baby in a pod he's carrying.  He's moving away from the building he was in and he's using the strobe to scan for these weird enemies. What a fucking game....

The next game has a samurai and it's revealed to be Team Ninja game. A samurai fights some demons, loses to them and then transforms. The game is Nioh 2.

The next video is SPIDER-MAN! He's taking a helicopter ride around a super max prison called The Raft.  We see Elektro blast the helicopter and it crashes into the prison where Spider-Man saves the pilot.  Elektro frees everyone. Combat ensues and it's impossible not to compare to Batman Arkham games.  Here's rhino and scorpion. Now he's swinging around the outside of the prison chasing Elektro. Next we see Vulture.  I'm guessing we'll be dealing with the Sinister Six at some point. Now he's back on track chasing Elektro. There's vertical running segments. Now he's on the rooftop with Rhino, Vulture and Scorpion. Then another villain, Mr. Negative, who I don't know who he is, joins them and Spidey gets stung by the Scorpion. He gets beaten up pretty bad. As he tries to crawl away he says, "I don't believe it... you?" and it ends.  What a tease!

Next there's a trailer montage of games and that's a wrap... I can't believe it was over already.

Wow... first off, the format was a mess.  Shawn was talking about how we'd be learning stories behind these games, which is why they wanted to do a different style of presentation, but it's almost like midway through the show, they gave up on it and just went back to showing videos.  The first intermission break really hurt them, because I almost closed out to do other things.  I'm glad I stuck around, though.  

There wasn't much of a bombardment of games in comparison to Microsoft's conference, but what was shown was EPIC.  Not just little one minute videos.  Some long, meaty videos.  Starting it of with The Last of Us 2 was a great choice and wow, what a video!  Of course, they had to get everyone talking with the Ellie and Deena kiss, but the gameplay that followed was intense.  Nothing really revolutionary, but just really well done.  I can't wait to play this game and experience the tension myself.  Ghosts of Tsushima  was another game that gripped my attention.  Absolutely stunning game. I just couldn't help but think this is the Assassin's Creed game set in Japan that I always wanted.  

Then, there was the Resident Evil 2 remake video and that game looks fantastic!  RE2 was my favorite Resident Evil of all time, and I can't wait to play it with modern day graphics!  I have to say, Death Stranding is probably going to down as one of the most unique and memorable games I'll ever play.  It's just so atmospheric that it's haunting.  Really looking forward to learning more about this game.  And lastly, Spider-Man!  What a great piece of gameplay footage!  This looks to be the most amazing (pun) Spider-Man ever made and seeing almost all the Sinister Six in the game really makes me believe that's what we'll be up against.  I've been waiting a very long time to fight the Sinister Six in a Spider-Man game.  I can't wait to start web slinging again!

There's just one glaring omission from their conference and that's no Days Gone.  I guess they didn't want to show it off again at a third E3, but really... It's one of their bigger games.  Surely, they could have shown something else from it.  Makes me wonder...

Overall rating: B

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