After such an alienating performance, Sony barely had to show anything – only that it cared. And in a keynote that played it largely by the numbers, it did.
There are more numbers now, of course, because this is a console with a new boast: “It only does everything.” That meant a rather bloated evening which slumped at the point Nintendo’s meeting – a masterstroke of bait and switch if ever there was one – fizzed. Coming from that with a nostalgia trip like none E3 had seen before, heads swimming with classic mascots and games, the audience was ready to ask serious questions about 3DTV – its cost, particularly, for the quality of PS3’s upcoming slate.
Important news first, though: Jack Tretton and Kaz Hirai are still smiling. The flagellation years are over but their humility remains. The audience warmed, then, before the arctic freeze of Killzone 3. Due in February 2011 and demoed in 3D – glasses required, of course – Guerrilla’s sequel finally returns, it seems, to the eclectic environments that made the first game more fun, if less polished, than its dreary sequel. There’s a nicely designed jetpack, all the better for sniping those exploding barrels. A mounted gun sequence shreds a giant industrial platform against a backdrop of fractured glaciers and giant waves. Epic cinematic action, then, made of old, recycled parts.
If you’ve seen 3D done properly at the movies – think Avatar, not the cut-and-paste nonsense peddled elsewhere – then multiply the wow factor by two and remove the sense that it’s ultimately just a marketing gimmick. If you’ve seen Wipeout HD in 3D, you’ll know very well that it’s not.
There was plenty of showing and telling in the show to come. Big numbers for movies and TV episodes available on PSN, and 7.3million PS2s sold in fiscal 2010. An incredible statistic. The next step: PlayStation Move. Describing the ultra-precise motion controller as “future-proof” seemed presumptuous: it has to survive the present first. But the videos and presentations, full of sideswipes – “it’s got what we in the future call ‘buttons’, which is really important” – and talking heads, were convincing enough. Just.
Apparently, traditional and Move-enabled versions of PS3 games can, thanks to Blu-ray, come on a single disc. Did anyone expect otherwise? Next they’ll be cramming on subtitles.
Christian Busic of The Workshop introduced Move exclusive Sorcery, describing “total sense of immersion” as “the grail of development.” It’s Harry Potter in all but name. There’s a fairy realm, a nightmare queen, and a potion that turns you into a rat. The Move controller’s ball changes colour to tell you the potion’s ready, and you ‘drink’ the controller to use it. All very convincing from a technical standpoint, and the lighting in-game wasn’t bad, either. Not quite the “wildly unique” interface declared, though.
Equally convincing was a Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 demo, Move support coming as a PSN patch. “Power is important,” said EA’s Andrew Wilson. “It’s not just about flicking your wrist.” Sure enough, the same thing struck us during our first hands-on. Other games announced included Heroes On The Move, an ensemble piece starring Ratchet, Jak, Sly, Bentley, Clank and Daxter. It shouldn’t be dismissed; these characters each inhabit worlds full of freewheeling control systems and gadgets, ideal for breaking in Move’s versatility.
When the controller launches in September [the 15th in Europe, the 21st in the US], it’ll be joined by “one of the biggest advertising partnerships” Sony has ever launched, with soft drinks giant Coca-Cola using it to promote active, positive living. If that isn’t doublethink, we don’t know what is. The price of the controller was announced at $49.99, prompting a cheer. Then we learned that the Navigation Controller [the, ahem, Nunchunk] would cost an extra $29.99. No cheer.
An unexpected stand-up routine from Kevin Butler [fictional alter-ego of actor Jerry Lambert, part of Sony’s PS3 Slim ad campaign] wasn’t so much a charm offensive as a blitzkrieg of flattery aimed squarely at the gaming hardcore, firing occasional nukes at Microsoft. “I love gaming. Gaming is having a ridiculously huge TV in a tiny one-room apartment. Staying up until 3am to earn a trophy that isn’t really... but is. It’s girls who know the way to a man’s heart is through a melee attack.” We chuckled, then looked around and stopped.
The ad campaign for PSP, which curiously featured older models rather than PSP Go, bears the slogan ‘Step Your Game Up’. All well and good had PSP actually practiced what it preaches. Really, though, the line-up of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, God Of War: Ghosts Of Sparta and niche titles like Parasite Eve spin-off The 3rd Birthday feels like a flashback to years gone by. PlayStation Home had to be reintroduced before quickly moving on, this low point of the event stumbling towards an obvious headliner, LittleBigPlanet 2. Far too nuanced a sequel to be crammed into a keynote, it justified itself with an effective medley of games drawn from Media Molecule’s recent overnight game jam.
Then came PlayStation Plus, a frankly bizarre subscription package with ominous similarities to a mail order book club. For $49.99 a year or $17.99 every three months, you’re spoon-fed demos, promotional content and choices from PSN’s back catalogue which expire along with your membership. It “elevates the experience”, apparently, while appearing instead to control it.
As suggested by its own keynote, EA had booked a special segment of Sony’s show – or did Sony do the booking? - to continue its demos of Medal Of Honor and Dead Space 2. It was a prescient piece of multiplatform propaganda. Sony has boasted of its success with offering exclusive content for games like Batman: Arkham Asylum, and appears to have chosen its weapon in its fight against Microsoft – a fight which, when it comes to the actual quality of multiplatform games, it’s all-too-often lost.
So, while the new Medal Of Honor couldn’t look more like Modern Warfare if it tried – which of course it has – PS3 owners will get the substantial incentive of an exclusive HD update of PS2’s Medal Of Honor Frontline. That pales, however, compared to the bonus for Dead Space 2: an oft-rumoured PlayStation Move version of the criminally overlooked Dead Space Extraction.
And if that was a cathartic highlight to Sony’s event, words fail to describe the next one. “I’d like to thank everyone at Sony for not repeatedly punching me in the face,” said Gabe Newell, stunning the audience with his arrival on the stage. Not, from what we could tell, under the influence of voodoo magic, he upped the ante by promising “the best version of Portal 2 on any console”, the PS3 version bringing live updates and Steam Cloud support. The trailer looked adventurous, escaping from the Aperture headquarters. “I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster,” it concluded.
Coming at the point where, minutes earlier, we feared the conference might coast to an end, this set the scene of a quick run of games which, while customary for an E3 keynote, was especially welcome after Microsoft’s. Final Fantasy XIV isn’t quite the seismic event it would have been had Final Fantasy XIII not existed. Its screen time suggested that someone agreed. Then Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, which again promises exclusive PS3 features, including access to its multiplayer beta. “Exclusive has become my new favourite word,” jokes Tretton.
A quick video of thirdparty titles kept itself busy, highlights including the Sly Collection and the new Marvel Vs Capcom. Saying that Gran Turismo 5 “has long been one of the industry’s most anticipated titles” is like saying The Bible has long been one of the world’s most popular books, but the trailer looked stupendous. The Stig was in it. On November 2, we’ll finally learn what currency The Real Driving Simulator has left. And if Infamous 2 can hold a candle to Crackdown 2, we’ll eat our hats.
The rumoured Twisted Metal was the big final reveal, though the landscape has most certainly changed since its heyday. So too the landscape of E3, it seems, as we don’t remember the last time a car was driven on to stage with David Jaffe in tow. Made by the same key members of the original creative team, it offers 16-player online deathmatch incorporating four-player splitscreen support. Everything seems destructible, there’s a helicopter, and there was constant reassurance that the twisted humour is back. In new game mode Nuke, a dilapidated city climbs from low-lying slums to huge skyscrapers. You have to destroy a giant effigy of your rival leader by feeding them into the ‘mouth’ of a mobile rocket launcher, guiding the nuke to its target without enemies shooting it down.
Saying his goodbyes, Tretton offered a touching thanks to the loyal PlayStation fans – even the ones who wished death upon MGS4 reviewers? – tacitly confirming that no, there wouldn’t be a Last Guardian demo. It wasn’t really needed. While ostensibly playing it safe, Sony had made its distinction: while Microsoft’s events seemed arrogant and gaudy, so bereft of core games as to snub its own user base, Sony’s struggled to cram everything in.