Today, Sony released a brief video revealing a blurry look at the new console. It doesn’t provide much information (other than the time and day of their E3 press conference), but it was enough to whet our appetites and get us counting down the days to June 10.
We’ll have a robot on the ground at E3, so keep an eye out here for more info as it becomes available.
If you were lucky enough to grab some of the preview tickets for their major launches, the folks at Capcom gladly treated you to pre-play experiences. After the battle of the line we were lucky enough to dive in, believe it or not, the Devil May Cry origin is good, and is not a bastardization of something I really loved. Through the limited information given it isn’t a remake of DMC 1, it is Dante discovering who he is. The combat system hasn’t developed much from DMC 3 and DMC 4, except they added a reach system. Similar to utilizing Nero’s glove in DMC 4, Dante can use his chain whip to pull himself closer to the enemy, or pull them closer to him.
He is also given an air dash to navigate levels quickly and efficiently. I was glad to see that the cockiness of Dante wasn’t taken away with the origin. For example (please cover your children’s eyes). In the demo boss battle against the giant slurm alien, (yes the one story element that I found ridiculous, it’s comparable to Futurama’s Slurm episode.) Anywho, that aside as you beginning battling the Slurm producing alien, she begins telling you to fuck off, to which you reply, “no you fuck off”, she then gets angry and says, “fuck you” and of course you reply because the last one to speak wins right? It was not the highest point of writing I’ve experienced but it kept the cocky and youthful feel to Dante, even with the new hair color.
I really think that if Capcom can keep their balance of difficulty to combat well put together the game will receive a warm reception. The pre-play definitely made me excited.
Zombietron and I had a chance to play a four player Far Cry 3 co-op mission with a couple random other guys on the show floor, and it was an absolute blast. You have a choice of a handful of different loadouts, these were preset for the demo, but will be fully customizable in the final game. You’ve got your standard fare assault rifles, shotguns, heavy machine guns, whatever. But there are also a set of special co-op skills you can choose between: battle-cries with different effects like damage boost, defense boost, and area of effect heals. These encourage the team to stick together and work as a group instead of everyone running off on their own. The co-op really forces you to stay together and work together; positioning becomes really important when heavy armored enemies show up, because someone needs to get around behind them. Far Cry 3 will rock a a six-hour co-op campaign completely separate from the single-player story.
The first section of the demo was pretty straight-forward: storm a compound with gun-wielding “bad guys” dug in all over the place, repair a train with a magic welder to get it out of a tunnel you need to pass through, and shoot everything everywhere. If you take too much damage and fall to the ground bleeding out, an ally can revive you Borderlands-style by walking over and picking you up—don’t think about it too much, just accept the mechanic and move on. The second section was a sniping competition to see which player could get the most sniper kills in a handful of minutes—bonus points for headshots. The third and final part was most interesting (and the one we got a look at during the pre-E3 press conference). the team has to work together to haul three heavy bombs to key points on a bridge then demolish it. The bomb-carrier can’t sprint, can’t crouch, and can’t shoot, so the team needs to work together to defend the carrier from waves of enemies swarming in from both sides of the bridge. Far Cry 3‘s co-op mode isn’t exactly breaking new ground, but it’s a damn fun co-op experience which is always good in my book, they’re too few these days.
As you’d expect from a Far Cry game, it looks gorgeous. The lighting and atmospherics look great, animations are just a tad wooden, but the textures are gritty and impressive. The enemy AI was pretty good, the enemies were good at tactically positioning themselves, and often popped out unexpectedly waving a machete at you—this was a beta build, so the AI is probably still being tinkered with. Far Cry 3 is set to hit shelves September 4th for PC, PS3, and X360.
Screenshot gallery for your viewing pleasure:
[Connor Cleary is an author, video game columnist and critic, and a freelance web-slash-graphic designer. He is a reviewer at GameShark and an occasional opinion and analysis columnist at Gamasutra. His freelance design business is Four Stair Multimedia and Design. You can follow Connor @The_Blue_Key, or at fb/TheBlueKey, or check out his writing archive on tumblr, The Blue Key.]
Based on what I’ve seen so far, they got it right. They got it very, very right. Sadly, only Gearbox employees were allowed to play as the Aliens at the Colonial Marines set-up, but I did get a chance to play as a marine alongside five other E3 attendees. First let me say that the atmosphere of the level we were playing was Aliens to the core. The atmosphere, the tech, the structures, it all fit perfectly into the Aliens universe.
There were four loadout options (severely limited for demo purposes), two assault-rifle based and two shotgun-based, and every weapon felt exactly as it should. There were a few different Alien types swarming over us and the Xenomorphs could climb up walls and along ceilings like in previous games. The smallest Xenos felt like the perfect mix of easy to kill but impossible to hit; lose track of one of these guys there’s no telling where they’ll be in half a second. The mediums were a little slower and a little tougher. The heavies were sporting big, armored skulls and took a lot of punishment before going down. A lone marine will always get wrecked, but if the marines can manage to stick together and work as a squad they have a solid fighting chance. When your teammates turn and start firing directly behind you, it is a legitimately scary experience. You spin around, knowing what you’re going to find, hoping, praying that you’ll have time to get a shotgun round off—but you don’t. And the Xenos tear you to pieces.
The final product, on top of the excellent multiplayer mode we got a chance to play, will also feature a full campaign with drop-in / drop-out co-op up to four players. Your friends can jump in whenever they happen to be around, a great move by Gearbox. I think the makers of Borderlands know a little something about getting co-op right, so you can count on a quality experience there. Aliens: Colonial Marines is set to release Feb 12, 2013 on PC, PS3, X360, and WiiU.
[Connor Cleary is an author, video game columnist and critic, and a freelance web-slash-graphic designer. He is a reviewer at GameShark and an occasional opinion and analysis columnist at Gamasutra. His freelance design business is Four Stair Multimedia and Design. You can follow Connor @The_Blue_Key, or at fb/TheBlueKey, or check out his writing archive on tumblr, The Blue Key.]
E3 has been great about providing new screens, trailers, and details about some really great games. The general consensus I’ve seen is that the “Big 3’s” press conferences were all pretty weak, but Ubisoft sort of stole the show, despite not really showing anything new (other than Watch Dogs). The show highlights for me are still Assassin’s Creed III and Liberation, and Beyond from Quantic Dream. The WiiU has impressed me just a little more, but I’m actually even less inclined to call it “next-gen” after seeing their lineup. My concern for Nintendo is that this still is not a core gaming console. The family-friendly grandparents console is a nice market, but it’s still a niche market. The crazy part of E3, even though it ended yesterday, is that we’ll still be seeing the fallout for weeks to come. Because of that, despite this being my round-up for the week, I’m still going to be missing something. I’m sure of it.
As the week moved on a little more information was revealed about Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls. We didn’t know the title going in, but the next game from the folks who made Heavy Rain was definitely one of the most anticipated announcements. Now, not only have we seen the game, starring Ellen Page, we’ve found out it will incorporate Move, just like Heavy Rain‘s updated version. Quantic Dream is a small studio, so leaks are easier to prevent, but they’ve obviously been keeping this one secret for a long time. Normally an announcement at E3 2012 means we’re going to see release in late 2013 at the earliest. Not for this one. Sony’s announced the game will launch in fourth quarter 2012. That’s a little tricky though, as they didn’t specify calendar or fiscal year. The difference being an October-December window or a January-March. Not a big difference, but someone will certainly freak out about the delay if it comes in February.
Another major announcement, one that was “leaked” slightly before the event, is Star Wars 1313. This is a pretty major shift for a 35 year old franchise, with a much more adult theme and grittier tone. Also, it’s not often you get a Star Wars game that doesn’t have you swinging a lightsaber as a Jedi. But, looking at their gaming history, those games are often incredibly fun. Think Shadows of the Empire, Bounty Hunter featuring Jango Fett, and Lethal Alliance. What has been released so far indicates this will be primarily a third-person, cover-based shooter. You’ll play a bounty hunter on scary-low level of Coruscant, level 1313 specifically. In the videos you seem to have a companion, and he’s kind of a jerk. Whether he’s with you throughout the game, or just the intro isn’t clear yet. The gameplay footage we’ve seen from the show is reportedly real-time, in-engine on a high end PC. Unfortunately they haven’t announced which consoles, if any, will get the game. Or when it’s coming out. LucasArts is much larger than Quantic Dream, so I’d expect this is still much further out than Beyond, or it would have been leaked by now. Depending on the planned release, I wouldn’t count on a console release being this generation.
Speaking of cover-based, third-person shooters… Ubisoft’s big surprise of the show wasn’t Assassin’s Creed: Liberation (though that was a surprise). It was actually Watch Dogs. This will be open world, but guns are not your only tools. How and why your character will have control of traffic lights, power grids, trains, and other tech isn’t clear, but you can use all of those elements to take down your enemies. You can actually cause a horrible car accident that sends destroyed vehicles into the group of thugs that have you pinned down in an alley. While the screens we’ve seen look gorgeous, like 1313, platforms and date are unnannounced. So, most likely, what we’ve seen is a high-end PC. If it’s coming to consoles, again like 1313, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re talking PS4 and neXtBox.
So you want a little information about Halo 4‘s Spartan Ops mode? We’ve got that, but not much more:
“The story of the UNSC Infinity intersects with the Halo 4 campaign, and then continues on in a brand-new, story-driven experience known as Spartan Ops.
“A first-of-its-kind, exciting new addition to the Halo franchise, Spartan Ops is an episodic adventure that blends immersive storytelling, high-quality cinematics and action-packed gameplay to deliver an unprecedented serialized experience.
“Through a weekly series of cinematic episodes, Spartan Ops will tell the continuing story of the UNSC Infinity, following the events of Halo 4. These episodes will center on the UNSC Infinity leaders and crew as well as a new team of Spartans—Majestic Squad.
“These cinematic episodes will provide the backdrop for the weekly Spartan Ops gameplay missions. Playable in single-player or cooperatively with up to four players, Spartan Ops lets you explore the corners of Requiem in objective-based missions and help uncover the secrets of the mysterious Forerunner world.”
Personally, I’m a little sketchy on the whole weekly episodes thing. Is this story-based multiplayer? Are you really going to be watching cut scenes between matches? Do people want that? Altogether, the game looks like a good entry into an established and loved franchise, but anything they tweak is going to fall under serious scrutiny.
If you haven’t checked your PlayStation Store this week, and missed the announcement at E3, PS Plus is getting a whole mess of new value! Starting this past Tuesday with the store update, 12 full games are available for free to Plus subscribers. These games will be rotated through on a regular basis, with plans to give subscribers 45 titles per year. The first set is nothing to sneeze at:
PS+ runs about $60/year, and it is a subscription service like Netflix. That means you can access these games only as long as you have a membership. Just like cancelling your Netflix service means you can no longer stream your instant queue, letting your Plus subscription expire means these games will no longer be playable. Some people take exception to this model, but the way I see it, you’re spending that much on 360 per year just to play online. Maybe I’m a Sony shill, but I thoguht Plus was worth it even before they added this kind of value. Something to note is that the North American and EU stores don’t match on titles. I would guess that some of the games on the EU version (Darksiders, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD) will cycle in as part of the annual 45 games, and vice versa.
When the name Dead World was trademarked recently, speculation was that we’d be seeing the sequel to Dead Island very soon. And we are, but that’s not actually the name. It’s actually being called Dead Island: Riptide. Despite Deep Silver saying it was not in production last month, Techland’s Facebook has a blurb about the game: “The next battle between life and death will be waged in Dead Island Riptide, currently in development for consoles and PC by Techland. An extensive reveal of the thrilling new perils that players can expect from this new entry to the Dead Island franchise is planned for later this summer. Stock up on zombie survival guides, water, ammunition, and watch this space!” A nice logo was also revealed:
The “Dawngaurd” DLC we’ve been anticipating for Skyrim has been given a tentative release date. Todd Howard says it will be available on June 26th for 1600 MSP, assuming everything works according to plan. Due to timed exclusivity, PS3 users can expect “some time” after that.
It seems a little late to the game, but a Move update is coming to Portal 2. This will come through the “In Motion” add-on and includes new levels as well. These will be the same levels that came out for the PC version’s compatibility with Razer’s Hydra motion controller for PC. The motion levels allow players to manipulate objects and rescale for additional puzze solving.
Of all the great stuff coming out of E3, one thing that’s been slightly overlooked is Microsoft’s confirmation of this year’s Summer of Arcade. The titles that have been confirmed for the event are Hybrid, Wreckateer, Deadlight, Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD and Dust: An Elysian Tale (which is obviously not realted to Sony’s Dust 514 in any way). No date has been announced, but Microsoft recently had Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD listed for July 11th before it was taken down. It would make sense to get it started with the Independence Day update.
Proving once again that there is no property in modern media that can’t be milked to death and then done again, especially when Activision gets involved, Angry Birds HD is coming to consoles. More information is expected in about two weeks. What version this will be is unclear, as Angry Birds is already available as a PlayStation mini. Come back in a couple of weeks and I’ll have whatever’s updated about it in VGQH.
Overkill confirmed this week that they have a publisher for Payday: The Heist 2, 505 Games. This sounds to be a very fair deal for both parties, giving Overkill more freedom than most publishers allow. The official line from Overkill is that “This new co-operation lets us be Overkill and lets us develop the Payday franchise in new fantastic directions long term. With the support and skill of 505 Games we are going to pull off heists on a scale never seen before!” While the first game was PC and PS3 exclusive, no consoles have been announced for this sequel. This all comes after the announcement last month that Overkill is working with Valve on a “very cool blend of Payday and Left 4 Dead.” Common speculation is that this may be a prequel detailing how the outbreak started.
A glaring omission from this year’s E3 has been Team ICO’s The Last Guardian. Expectation is that this game should be seeing a fairly imminent release, yet it wasn’t even mentioned at the press conference and didn’t seem to be anywhere on the show floor. Why not? According to Shuhei Yoshida (Sony Worldwide President), “The team back in Tokyo is working hard, and there are some technical difficulties that the team is focused on right now. That’s why we don’t have an update.” Regarding speculation that the game is headed to the next-gen, Yoshida confirmed it “is a PS3 game.” I can’t help but think the delay is directly related to the game’s director, Fumito Ueda, leaving Sony back in December, though he is reportedly still involved on a freelance basis.
Sony isn’t the only one with a conspicuously absent title. Where was Crytek’s “core” title for Kinect, Ryse? Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Phil Spencer, seems positive that it’s coming, but not very positive about its current state. According to Spencer, they’re “just not at a point right now to show the game,” but they are “still working with Crytek, [and] still extremely committed to the relationship.” There is a caveat however, as “we want to make sure that we’re putting our best foot forward every time we show the game.” Sounds like he doesn’t think the game is in good enough shape to even run a teaser at gaming’s biggest event. Mysteriously, when asked about the game remaining Kinect-only, his response was that “Kinect will be part of the game, absolutely.” Part of the game? That doesn’t sound good for Ryse, but it also sounds really bad for Kinect. The device sold a lot of units, but has it sold a lot of games?
Speaking of Crytek, CEO Cevat Yerli has declared the company is moving to a strictly free-to-play business model. This shift will occur after their three current projects (Homefront 2, Crysis 3, and Ryse) are completed. According to Yerli, Call of Duty: Elite and other DLC models are “milking customers to death.” Yerli says the company’s future will be “all the new games that we’re working on, as well new projects, new platforms and technologies, are designed around free-to-play and online, with the highest quality development.” Budgets are still expected to be “between $10m to $30m – so no compromise there – but at the price-point of $0 entry.” This seems like a very bold move, especially for a company that pushed the graphical limits of many high end PCs with the first Crysis.
Huge week this week, but that seems to be it for now. E3 is exciting, but also overwhelming. Hopefully next week will be a little more relaxing, but not overly dull. Come on back on Tuesday.
Hey everyone! I spent the day at E3 today and had an absolute blast picking up swag (shirts, beta codes, dog tags – lots of shiny!) and trying out new games. Of all the games I played this year on the show floor, I’m actually most excited about the long awaited release of Pikmin 3 (It’s been 10 years since the last Pikmin, and I’ll be posting my thoughts about the first look and initial gameplay soon).
I took tons of photos so that you can check out as much of E3 as possible right here on BSR. Enjoy!
Don’t forget to check out Zombietron’s excellent coverage of E3 by visiting our homepage.
BSR is wondering, what was your favorite E3 announcement this year?
The environments shown had multiple levels of play, and the transitions looked as if they were queued in a smiliar manner to Mortal Kombat vs. DC. The transitions were heavy hitting and went both directions. For example during the first second fight demo’d (Solomon Grundy vs. Batman). Grundy knocked Batman through several buildings on to a roof top a few blocks away. Next Batman sent grundy through several stories of brick and mortar to put them on the ground floor of that same building. For the final transition Grundy was able to throw the caped crusader through 5 or 6 buildings until he landed in the original starting zone. I wish my befuddled words could accurately describe how impressive this looked. Not too much information was given about the combat system but Nether Realms did promise that it would have their own specific “stamp”.
The super moves from Mortal Kombat also seem to be making an appearance in the game. However, instead of being bone crushing they’re more over-the-top and focused on the power of the heroes. For example, Grundy stuns his opponent with a quick knife slash, power slams them, and then shatters his own tombstone over their head. To the total contrary Superman uppercuts his opponent into space and slams them back to earth.
Thus far the character list is pretty interesting. The demo included Batman, Superman, The Flash, and my favorite Solomon Grundy. The posters throughout the convention center also showed Harley Quinn who I assume will also be available.
My first impressions of the game are extremely positive. As long as they lean more towards the Mortal Kombat side and away from Mortal Kombat vs. DC side this could be a worthy addition to your collection.
After watching the E3 conference getting my hands on the WiiU and as many of it’s games became of course high priority. First stop, was a hands on session with New Super Mario U. Thanks to the random that jumped into multi-player with me we were able to get feel of both sides of the game experience with and without the WiiU game pad.
I was pleasantly surprised at the responsiveness of the touch screen. Without the stylus I was still able to place blocks swiftly and accurately for my cohort to land on in Mario. The strategic side of adding the “plus” mode did give the game a new angle of depth. If a vine was missed or sent the wrong way, I could reroute him with blocks. No ramp? No problem! Build one yourself.
I’ll also add that the WiiU controller felt very good in my hand, it didn’t feel unnatural or unwieldly. With a phenomenally responsive touch screen and a great front screen interface Nintendo has the tools to release a successful console.
Check back tonight for a more indepth look at their other system featurs and the handheld line up coming down the road.
Castlevania Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate has a lot to offer in the way of 3d. I was put off at first while watching others play on the large led displays above. Thankfully the resolution problem wasn’t the game, it was the video transfer to the bigger screen. The game it self was very crisp. The 3D allows Konami to show the true vastness of what you’re up against. For example, when you first approach the castle the camera pulls out to show this giant looming monstrosity in the distance, which with depth of field looks much more daunting. The combat system seems to be a modified version of the original Lords of Shadow system. Y initiates your attacks and allows you to build combos, pressing b during a combo will change the attacks into air based moves. You can dodge roll to avoid damage and of course throw your alternate weapons. In the demo you are only given access to the large shuriken as an alternate, but it works well. And allows you to perform charged throws.
Being the open Castlevania fan boy that I am the game did me right. My only concern is the game doesn’t seem to have an angle on pulling in new Castlevania players. Everything in game is for those of us still riding the nostalgia and story wave from the original side scrollers. If someone hasn’t played Symphony of the Night, there didn’t seem to be much there to drive them towards the game.
I’m telling you all now if you own a 3DS you should be excited for Castlevania this Holiday season. More coverage will be shown tonight at Nintendo’s extended handheld session. See you there
Ubisoft treated us to a demo of the multi player experience from Assassin’s Creed III. The capture the territory style game play fit well with the stealth based combat. Players chose the character for their teams and were quickly run into a match. The game offers different sets of abiilities to aid in your defense of the territories. While defending your territory you can’t kill, you can only stun. So you can’t stay in the zone once you’ve stunned your opponent, you have to hit and run to avoid being killed.
Turns out my lack of natural gaming talent transferred to A.C. III, and with my teams complete annihilation I’m confident I’ll continue to lose when it launches.