I’m not a fanboy of any console, in all sincere, complete honesty. I’m not. But man, Sony brought their A-Game to E3 in their late evening conference. The important thing they did that another company should not have done, is they did not drop two MORE consoles! The only hardware they offered was hardware that mattered/is popular right now: Playstation’s VR headset. Is it expensive? Duh, all VR stuff is right now. But did they offer some REALLY solid titles to go with it? Of course! But I’ll get into my thoughts on that before too long. Sony talked about what mattered: Games and Gaming. Not to mention they had a damn orchestra to play people on and play the music for the games, which was just incredible. From God of War to a Batman VR game, a lot of amazing hits were shown tonight. But nothing is perfect. But Sony showed off what matters to me: STORY. So many intense, story-driven titles. LIKE DAYS GONE. Man. I can’t talk about everything, but I do want to!
Hardware:
+ Only hardware they showed was the PS VR: 399, drops in October. 50 games at least will be usable with it between launch and the end of the year. Some notable titles for it:
- Resident Evil
- Star Wars: Battlefront
- Batman: Arkham VR
- FFXV VR Experience
I’m not big on VR because it makes me a bit nauseous sometimes, but they really put a lot of effort down, and I’m really excited to see what comes of it. I might even get one. But here’s the big worry/complaint I have:
– How long are these games going to be on the VR? If it’s a 400 dollar piece of hardware, and the games are only a few hours long a piece, I’m going to be VERY upset. But luckily I can just wait it out and find out beforehand.
Games:
+ Resident Evil: Resident Evil’s going to be first person, AND be an actual horror game? Not borderline racist, not boring, but a legit psychological survival horror game. From the bugs crawling on your hand, to the dimly lit buildings, to “Demon Zak Galifianakis”, according to Colton, the game felt surreal and intense.
+ Horizon. Dawn. Zero: OH. MY. LORD. This game is so gorgeous. A world where machines are corrupt and man has to resort to ancient technology to slay the robots and farm their parts for their own devices? It’s not cavemen, but just reasonable men and women who have to take a step down in their technology. They aren’t dumb; the woman you control takes over a robotic creature and rides it around, and fires arrows at weak points after scanning an enemy machine.
In the Middle: A gorgeous new Spider-Man game by Insomniac?! YES. Not the Spider-Man suit I prefer, but at least it’s Peter Parker and not Ben or Miles. BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT. A GOOD LOOKING SPIDER-MAN GAME FINALLY.
+ Crash: I’m not a Crash Bandicoot fan. When it got popular, I was hip-deep in riveting, well-written RPGs. So I missed this boat. But everyone I know practically, shit themselves at this announcement. So it deserves a spot right here. Crash, Crash 2, and Crash Warped are getting remasters, and will probably look very beautiful.
– Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare: We can compete with Battlefield, honest! I knew it was CoD because of the name “Reyas” and all the videos I had to watch earlier today. But.. it comes with CoD4 Remastered! I’ve never been less interested in a CoD game, even if it was really quite pretty.
– Watch Dogs 2: This came on before the main show, but I just want to know this: I only know one person who played the first and enjoyed it. Are they trying to manufacture hype for this game? Why is it about “Anonymous”? That’s what it is. A militant version of Anonymous, Hurr Lookituswe’rerelevant. The edginess almost made me need a bandage.
– Square-Enix: No Kingdom Hearts 3, no Final Fantasy VII? Do we have to wait for the regular Square-Enix announcements/conference? I won’t lie, I’m bummed that we didn’t get that last night. It would’ve made a hype night so much more wonderful.
Honorable Mentions:
+ The Last Guardian: We saw this last year and it was beautiful then. I don’t know too much about it, but I do know ONE thing: Oct 25th, 2016 is its release date.
+ Hideo Kojima: Kojima’s back! He’s releasing a new game onto the PS4 and apparently it stars Norman Reedus’ bottom. All we know is that it stars Norman Reedus, has a lot of dead fish, and his character was very very nude. I’m sure we’ll know more soon enough. [Death Stranding, title]
+ God of War: Not a fan of the God of War series, but it was interesting to see Kratos develop as a character, grow a manly beard, and head to the Norse Pantheon. He’s really just killing all the Gods in all the pantheons I guess.
+ Detroit: I LOVE THIS GAME IDEA SO MUCH. Your choices matter, you’re an android capable of lying and doing so many cool things; but if this is a ten hour game I’ll cry. There’s so much potential for beautiful, compelling, gripping story here.
– Skylanders: Crash will be in it I guess? Okay. . .? You can draw your own Skylanders for Skylanders: Imaginators I believe the title is. I think it’s going to be amazing, but Skylanders is a cash grab game! How can you make your own characters for a cash grab? I’m really confused here. So it doesn’t bear mentioning on the main list.
So what did we learn? Sony knows what people want. Story, beautiful games, and VARIETY. That’s what I want, anyway. Sony gave me everything I wanted. I hate to say someone “won” e3, but if there’s a winner, it was them. This is a succinct way to describe it, a conversation between me and Colton:
Me: Sony brought the thunder. Lol.
Colton: No, they brought video games.
