Sony E3 2012 Press Conference Reaction
Abdul’s Take:
Sony started off extremely strong with Beyond (Quantic Dream’s follow up to Heavy Rain), Assassin’s Creed III Liberation, and a new gameplay demo of Assassin’s Creed III for PS3 which involved one of the best renditions of a naval battle I’ve ever seen in a video game (Pirates!, eat your heart out!). The press conference lost a ton of momentum in the middle when they started to talk about Move and PlayStation Suite, a couple of things that most people couldn’t care less about. However, they did finish strong with the first full gameplay demo of the Last of Us. I have to say, Sony is doing a good job of making the Vita attractive even in this post-smartphone world. I’m not sure if its enough to make the Vita relevant in the mainstream audience, but I’m sure its turning some heads in the hardcore community right now.
Grade: A-
Ed’s Take:
Starting off the show with Quantic Dreams Beyond was a good choice, the video was impressive. We can safely assume that the visuals are the gameplay but what type of gameplay will follow is up in the air. It looks more action oriented but we didn’t see any gameplay. I knew going into Playstation Allstars Stars Battle Royal that it was inspired by Super Smash Bros but after watching that footage it was as if they copied the code and added Playstation characters. It’s neat but really they don’t have the first party characters that Nintendo does and have to reach into the well of third party much sooner. Which wasn’t long because they announced Bioshock’s Big Daddy at the end. They mentioned that the game with be cross compatible with Vita so here’s hoping they don’t make you buy two copies of the same game just to play multiplayer in your home. Assassin’s Creed III’s naval battles didn’t interest me at first but then once they got deep in the battle with the dynamic weather it was quite the sight to see. The God of War Acention footage was nice and looked “cleaner” than III did. It really reminded me how I need to go back and finish III. As Abdul said, once they hit the part about Playstation Mobile and the Move information is where everything just kind of died out. I think I might have actually heard snoring when they started talking about Wonder Book. I remember the comment the presenter made about how he was surprised this one was kept a secret and my comment was, “You’ve kept this a secret because no body cares” which is a sentiment shared by some other games industry people I’ve heard. As with everything else we’ve seen with the last of us, it looks amazing was probably the best way they could have ended the show. Overall a good showing but there just was too much time spent on Mobile, Move, and Wonderbook.
