The all-white décor of Sony’s booth marks a change from previous years’ all-black schemes, and there’s a definite freshness about many of the titles on show here.
Gomibako (literally, ‘Rubbish bin’) is one of SCEI’s intriguing new PSN games, a trash disposal take on any number of falling blocks puzzle games, but with bonus points for clever rubbish placement and combo chains for incineration tricks, which can be pulled off by the strategic dropping of cigarettes.
SCEA’s Flower and Q Entertainment’s Lumines Supernova are looking predictably accomplished, and Supernova highlights the superiority of the Dual Shock 3’s d-pad after so many missed drops in the Xbox Live version. Of more interest, though, is Keita Takahashi’s neon-on-black Noby Noby Boy, which is also destined for the PlayStation Network and looks reassuringly offbeat.
In the PSP corner, a hat-trick of noteworthy PSP sequels are playable on PSP-3000 hardware: Patapon 2 and LocoRoco 2 look like offering more of the same, which is what we all want anyway; ditto the sequel to last year’s 8-bit-styled Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaiki da, which will launch in Japan on the same day as the PSP-3000 (October 16) and will be available in a cheaper downloadable format, as well as on UMD.
Third-party PSP offerings on Sony’s booth include The 3rd Birthday, a gothic Square Enix game with character design by Tetsuya Nomura that looks like a blend of Parasite Eve and Tarantino’s Kill Bill; and a PSP version of Namco Bandai’s The Idolm@ster, which will inevitably sell millions in Japan.
On the PS3 front, Western titles are being given the strongest promotion here, with Resistance 2, Motorstorm 2 and LittleBigPlanet taking up plenty of floor space. PlayStation Home, too, is being promoted as something that Japanese consumers should take note of – Sony clearly isn’t shying away from shouting about wares born in foreign lands.
Meanwhile, Sony’s Japanese wing brings to the event a horribly clichéd DMC rip-off in Demon’s Souls, and an update to Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (ominously suffixed with Spec III – lord knows how many more increments GTSP will have to travel through before the Prologue thing is dropped).
On this showing, Sony’s greatest vitality is in the PSN and PSP spheres, although third- party developers such as Square Enix, Capcom (with the solid-looking PS3 port of Street Fighter IV) and Sega (Yakuza 3) are contributing their titles to reinforce the PS3 area of Sony’s booth. The PlayStation Hall – essentially an open theatre – is looping new footage of Final Fantasy XIII (confirmed as being “For PlayStation 3 ONLY”, in a local sense) and its Versus spin-off, the latter of which features the most impressive computer-animated leather gloves and boots we’ve ever seen.