Some of the games I got my hands on at E3 are worth mentioning, but don’t necessarily warrant an entire article by themselves—or I just didn’t have time to get too in depth with them. Instead, here’s a brief run-down of a few rapid, drive-by gaming experiences from my E3 trip this year, these might be games you haven’t heard quite as much about yet because they’re hardly at the forefront of the E3 media blitz.
Keep reading for first impressions with:
- Metal Gear Solid HD Collection
- Twisted Metal 2
- Coolboarders 2
- Final Fantasy VII
- Zone of the Enders HD Collection
- Ni no Kuni
- Hitman: Absolution
- and PlayStation Battle All-Stars
Let’s start with a look at a couple of the “PSOne Classics” the PS Vita supports, because for my money that’s one of the most enticing things about the Vita. The PSP was supposed to be the portable PSOne of our dreams, but its awkward control scheme made most games a chore to play. Sorry to say it, but even with a significantly improved control scheme the Vita doesn’t solve this problem for most titles.
That backside touch-pad is particularly problematic; it severely limits your options for holding the Vita comfortably. If you have big hands you’re going to have to wring them up into a pretty uncomfortable position in order to maintain leverage on the front-side controls without accidentally triggering the backside pad, that could become a problem for any kind of extended Vita play session.
Twisted Metal 2, PS Vita “PSOne Classics”
This was an extraordinarily disappointing experience. Twisted Metal 2 was one of my favorite games back in the day, so I was excited to see how it played. Obviously the game is showing its age, but the real reason it was such a letdown was how it handled: like crap. Using the back-side touch-pad as a replacement for L2/R2 buttons wasn’t a good move. It feels incredibly awkward, and launching weapons involves adjusting your grip on the device which will probably throw off your aim.
Coolboarders 2, PS Vita “PSOne Classics”
Another disappointing port here, for most of the same reasons as Twisted Metal 2 above. The controls are a pain to get a hang of, the touch-pad as L2/R2 is a pain in the backside. (Sorry for the pun, it was begging to be made.) Playing these ports, you get the feeling that the Vita just isn’t the system you’re looking for if you’re looking to play any actiony games that require quick, precise controls. However… read on.
Final Fantasy VII, PS Vita “PSOne Classics”
To the surprise of precisely nobody, FF7 is on the Vita. And seeing as there are no twitch-reflex moments, the Vita works perfectly for this one. There’s probably not much that needs to be said here, it’s another high-fidelity FF7 port that looks lovely and plays exactly as you remember it.
(Note for those wondering about PSP titles like Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions: The Vita offers PSP game support through software emulation. But if you bought a physical, UMD copy of a game then you’re out of luck. You’ll have to repurchase a digital copy through the PlayStation Store.)
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, PS Vita
Even though the Vita didn’t seem to handle the actiony PSOne ports very well, the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection feels surprisingly good. Probably because Konami specifically remapped the controls to the Vita, as opposed to the PSOne ports that seem to just slap the game onto the Vita and hope the controls work out.
In fact, this might just be the game that finally makes me shell out for a PS Vita. You’ve got Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in the same package here with a $40 price tag. They both look crisp and gorgeous on the Vita’s nice big screen. Controls feel natural and easy to get the hang of—well, mostly: some of the controls have been updated “to take full advantage of the Vita’s touch-screen capabilities,” so that might take some getting used to. It’s a shame they couldn’t sneak the original Metal Gear Solid on here, but it’s still a solid addition to the Vita library.
Zone of the Enders HD Collection, PS3 / X360
Lightning-quick flying-robot battles are back, baby. If you played the originals you probably remember them fondly, and this collection brings both the original Zone of the Enders and, according to the product descriptions “a never-before-released-in-the-US version of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner.” They’re excellent ports. Responsive, crisp, beautiful, and just as fun as you remember. The nostalgia factor will probably drive most of the sales here, but at the same time there aren’t too many games that offer this kind of experience. Many mecha-based games do well in making you feel like you’re piloting a gigantic, heavy machine, but ZoE takes the opposite approach by putting you in highly advanced, quick moving and rapid firing bots. The collection release is set for December 12th of this year for $40. Since you’ll only have nine days to play the ZoE collection before the world ends, you might want to consider pre-ordering. /snark
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, PS3
This game looks beautiful visually—because the visuals were designed with Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, et al)—but the gameplay feels a little stale. If you’re still a diehard fan of JRPGs this is one you’ll want to keep an eye on. It boasts a mix of turn-based and real-time combat utilizing little Pokemon-like creatures and their various skills. The story revolves around a boy who gets transported to another, fantastical world and has to fight to save his parents and the world. The story sounds Ghibli-esque, but unfortunately they weren’t involved with any of the writing. This is probably going to be a great game for a younger audience, so parents of young RPG-fans take note.
Hitman: Absolution, PC / PS3 / X360
Putting this one on the show floor may have been a bit premature, the available build was still pre-beta and the lack of polish was apparent, especially in the controls and cover mechanics. Besides those issues (which will more than likely be resolved in the coming months), the game looks really nice, there are a ton of actors on screen at any moment, the lighting and atmosphere are technically impressive. The voice-over work is a bit overdone, but if you’re a gamer you’ve most likely developed some level of callous against not-so-great voice work anyway. As you’d expect from a Hitman game, there are a variety of ways to take care of a target. In the demo you can snipe him from a window, you can blow up his car, or you can disguise yourself as a chef and poison his food. Absolution shows promise, but it’s a little early to tell how good the final product will be based on the pre-beta build.
PlayStation Battle All-Stars, PS3
Also known snarkily as Super Smash Bros. Sony. And yes, that’s exactly what it is. As of E3 2012, the character list includes: Fat Princess, Parappa, Sly Cooper, Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal), Kratos (God of War), Nathan Drake (Uncharted), Big Daddy (BioShock), and Colonel Radec (Killzone). It is a lot of fun but it’s also nothing new. This is going to be a fun party game, but it definitely feels like, in trying to rip of Super Smash Bros., the developers of PlayStation Battle missed something really essential and hard to pinpoint about their source material and the result is just lacking somehow. For me, if you put me in a room with three friends and a choice between Smash Bros. and PlayStation Battle I’m still going to pick Smash Bros. every time.
[That’s all for now, folks. Keep an eye out, I’ve got more in-depth looks at a few other games from E3 just around the corner. Was there anything at E3 this year that excited you? Maybe something that flew under a lot of people’s radar? Let us know.]
[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.]