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:
- Choplifter HD
- Hard Corp: Uprising
- Infamous 2
- Just Cause 2
- Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
- LittleBigPlanet 2
- Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One
- Saints Row 2
- Sideway: New York
- Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
- Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone
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.