More geekish thoughts on geekish stuff, probably shared in a geekish matter. By a geek.
Nintendo’s press event was earlier, but I missed most of it. I’m going back to watch it now. Meanwhile, Sony went on and on and on, so it has to be a post all by itself.
Sony – It’s all about the ‘synergy’ and the ‘entertainment hub’ and every other douchey industry term for one device that does everything. And apparently it’s all about the damn 3D. I’m not convinced that’s so much a path to sales as it is a path to technology people really aren’t willing to invest in yet.
A few minutes in, and 3D has been said at least 317 times already. I wonder what Sony’s theme is???
Okay, they’re doing a live demo of Killzone 3. Why do these companies talk up how good the opponents are in their shooters, then run around in god mode? Kinda hard to see challenge when your guy can eat 7,300 bullets and pistol whip everyone. Game looks decent, but I don’t see anything here to really separate it from every other ‘Musclebound steroid monkey with guns and his tough sounding buddies kick alien ass’ shooter out there. Why does the future seem to be full of chain guns and RPG launchers? You have hoverships, yet the bad guys are firing the same sort of hardware that Somali militia members have now?
He can kill aliens with 3 or 4 rounds, but it takes half a mag to clear 2 boards from a doorway???
You’re 15 minutes in, and the CEO is already trolling for more applause? This may not bode well…
And now we’re on to Sony’s much better named version of Kinect/Wii, Sony Move. Or…maybe not. They’re back to 3D stuff? Holy crap Kaz, it’s called a consistent direction! So…and the stream has crashed. So full of scorn, but nobody to direct it at. I hate you Sony. Okay, we’re back. Jack Tretton again declaring Sony King of the Earth…and NOW we go on to talking about Move. 3D, Move, 3D, now Move again. Nice planning, Sony.
That Move controller still looks ridiculous. It’s like Sony decided to one up the silly names of Wii and Kinect with an infantile piece of gear.
The Move controller looks ridiculous. How can I take this thing seriously? It looks like a gay ice cream cone!
Okay, stop talking like being ‘in the game’ with motion controllers is something you just invented, Sony. Seriously.
Wow…okay, a Move version and non-Move version of the game being sold in the same box for one price is pretty damn cool. Props for that. And on to the games.
A game called Sorcery. You alone can stop a growing evil from engulfing the land in darkness. Paging originality…originality?!
Okay, premise is lame and ‘been there done that’, and the controller looks awful. The thing has really good motion sensors, though. It seems to actually do a fairly solid job of registering a user’s arm movements, and I don’t always feel like the Wii-mote does that. An interactive motion-based magic spell system looks like it works fairly well, too. Flick forward with Fire in use and you launch a wave of flame. Draw across the screen in front of you and create a defensive flame wall. Spin it up and turn that wall in to a firestorm. Looks pretty neat, actually.
GOOD! You make a joke comparing yourself to Ryan Seacrest, your mic SHOULD go down!
Sadly, it started working again a few seconds later. Old Testament God woulda kept that dude mute for awhile.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 with real motion…no pre-canned animations, it’s all about what you do with the controller. In other words, if you can’t actually swing a golf club this game is going to blow. It goes so far as making you twist the controller in your hands to turn the club face before you swing. Impressive realism, but only golfers are going to have any fun with this thing. Also, is there a real motion ‘after the course’ event with you helping Tiger score some cocktail waitresses? It’s in the game, EA…or it should be!
And now Heroes on the Move…which looks like a Super Mario Bash Brawl rip off featuring Sony characters (Sly Cooper, Ratchet, Clank, etc.). Has Sony just lifted Nintendo’s E3 show from two years or so ago and given it a Sony sheen?
I like Kevin from the Sony ads, but that really felt like 5 minutes of filler.
Jerry Lambert plays the Kevin Butler character in the Sony ads. I like the ads, but…man…this just came off like “Shit, we have nothing to do for 5 minutes! Uhhhh…get that Butler guy in there to make okay jokes!” However, the bundle and pricing announcements for the Move just killed Kinect…MS should have actually perhaps mentioned what their product will cost. It seems like Move has a more varied set of titles in the line-up, too. They didn’t have to subject us to another damn fitness game.
And Sony suddenly remembers they have a portable system and decides to squeeze that in here!
Oh yeah, we sell a portable system! We should really try to push that…
And we’ll do that with an obnoxious stereotype mouthy black kid. Yeesh.
Clearly, Sony’s mailing in any continued interest in the PSP, and the general public doesn’t give a damn. Let it die and move on.
Big problem with this press event…most of it consists of Jack Tretton naming games. Then he moves on. We never see any of them. Apparently Sony decided to key on the fact that Jack Tretton is capable of listing things.
An HOUR in to the show, Sony decides to talk content.
Sony pushing user created content on the console. They actually do this quite well, so it makes sense to push it and expand it. They have a 4 player multi player battle going in LittleBigPlanet 2, and must have used 3 designers and 1 guy pulled off a short bus, because one dude has no points and is just sort of hopping against a wall in the corner.
And now EA showing off their stuff for PS3, so a fair amount of repeated material from their show yesterday. Points to the Dead Space 2 guys, though. Rather than repeat what footage they showed at the EA event, they’re actually showing a continuation from the EA stuff. So it’s new to anyone who has watched both, but someone who didn’t see the EA presser won’t be lost. Very nice. and much appreciated. Also, a lot of PS3 versions with exclusive extras. Dead Space Extraction for the Move with Dead Space 2…Medal of Honor Frontline with Medal of Honor. With fewer console exclusives, landing more exclusive extras is a nice touch.
Well…I guess Gabe Newell officially doesn’t hate the PS3 anymore.
Portal 2 coming to PS3. Valve’s been pretty vocally anti-Sony console for awhile, so this is a bit of a surprise. What the…Steam cloud support for the PS3 version of the game?!
And yet another Final Fantasy is shown. And I think I’ll catch up on my Google Reader stuff for a few minutes…
Honestly, do we need another of these? Let me guess…you’re a spiky haired whiny girly dude with a mysterious past, armed with a bizarre combination of melee weapon and firearm, fighting with your friends (a cheeky girl, a big guy who grunts a lot and another dude more mysterious than you) to stop some terrible force from doing something awful. Weeeeee…
Oh look, Gran Turismo 5! This is…what…the 3rd or 4th E3 this has been shown at now? There was more hope of Chinese Democracy coming out than there is for this.
Gran Turismo 5! We’re hyping it up…again…it isn’t as dead as Duke Nukem Forever. Please believe us!
Why are they putting in interview bits of people talking with music playing so loudly in the background that nobody can actually hear them? I can mix sound better than this!
It has a release date? Holy crap, miracles do happen.
Did they seriously just describe Twisted Metal as a STRATEGY game?! Are you fucking serious?
Honestly…what? Picking which weapon power up to mount on your goddamn ice cream truck doesn’t make for a strategy game! Just fuck right off with that. Oh yes, look at the strategy…”I’ll choose the strategy of strafing everything in site.” Adding helicopters and sniper shots doesn’t make your car combat game part of the strategy genre. That’s like saying because I can choose my weapon load out in Call of Duty 4, it’s an RPG.
HOW LONG IS THIS SONY EVENT GOING TO GO ON FOR?!
It’s been an hour and 45 minutes at this point. This isn’t a press event, it’s a re-creation of the Bataan death march.
Sweet merciful fuck, it’s over! All in all, not bad. Way too long though.
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