SONY E3 2015 Press Conference

*Live blog. Please refresh*

-Just a few minutes till the show. Some quick hopefuls: Uncharted 4, LOL THE LAST GUARDIAN? 

-6pm – Press conference is live. Showing a sizzle reel for all the upcoming Sony games.

-Please welcome Shawn Layden. New reality of gaming is boundless. More than traditional gaming with the social connectivity. First game of the night, highly anticipated by the Sony community. Heroism and companionship, poetic story telling. Alluding to Uncharted? Nope, The Last Guardian. WTF!!?!?

The Last Guardian

-Trailer shows gameplay. The child and his beast. His giant, winged griffon thing. The child mimics jumping and the beast jumps across the valley, and waits. The player traverses down the ladder and makes the jump himself, but won’t make it, so his beast catches him on the other side. We command the beast via the child we play. Very much like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. More like ICO with map platforming puzzles. Incredible level physics destruction. We need to make the run as the platform starts to come apart. The griffon misses the catch but uses its tail. Incredible emotional puzzles involving both the player and out beast, as we climb on its back and assist its climbing the ruins. The beast act and whines like a dog, has horns and feathers and little wings.

– Sony has reintroduced The Last Guardian. 8 years after the first announcement. 2016. Acknowledge the visionary director behind the title.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

–Guerrilla Games Herman Hulst is up next. Makers of Kill Zone. Latest franchise. Captured on the PlayStation 4. Trailer starts in a cave covered in cave painting and hieroglyphics. Showcases Native Americans. Alludes to a time after the fall of man, of the big cities. Of the re-birth of a new planet as the cities faded away. New life. New tribe.

“The first to hunt, the first to raise our bows.”

The animals are now robots. A new take on the battle between man and machine.

-Game looks gorgeous. Huge techno dinosaur-like creatures. Smaller techno deer-like creatures. Traditional bow and arrow, but with arrow mods. Awesome destruction elements. Game play shows the huntress taking on a large robotic dinosaur with the bow and arrow, one on one. One bow mod is a grappling tether that can attach to the ground. Then highlighting the weak point, takes it down. Horizon: Zero Dawn.

“A storm is coming”

From the creators of Kill Zone, this game looks absolutely incredible.

Hitman

–Square Enix. Pre-rendered trailer showing an impressive future, celebrities, important people, and then cut with an agent running, cut to a sniper. New Hitman. The agent running in the woods was Hitman. Beautiful trailer.

-World premiere of the new Hitman. Exotic locations. High profile targets. Agent 47 returns. Most ambitious title to-date. Starting with a digital release.

-PS4 exclusive beta to PS4 first.

Street Fighter 5

-Starts with a gameplay trailer. Showcases some of the iconic fighters. Very cool gameplay with the same art style as the previous game. PS4 beta starts July 23rd.

No Man’s Sky

–Hello Games, Sean Murray. No Man’s Sky. Gameplay starts in the ship, and leaves the space station to space. Shows that we’re on the boundary of two warring factions where we can join in and take sides.

-Zooms out and shows our current location in the current solar system. Pulls back and shows more stars, that can be reached. Pulls back more! Forever more. Every point is a sun, and each sun has a solar system with planets and life. The map zooms out forever. Sean says most of these places have never been visited and may never be.

-We’re gonna pick a place at random, and travel to a place we haven’t been to. Procedurally generated galaxy, undiscovered. Scans of the solar system shows points of interest. Beacons are found, and this is where you can upload discoveries, as we land on the planet. Not the prettiest planet he jokes. “I’ve seen better”. Every planet is fully destructible. The planet’s sentinels show up and we walk away under water, and fish are shown. The beacon is found to upload our discovery. Every planet is new and unique.

-Will announce a release date soon. Trading, fighting, exploring, survival. It’s a huge game.

Dreams

–Media Molecule, makers of Little Big Planet. New game challenges our ability to create. Think of a dream like world. Share the dream space of others and share you creation to others. Game is like a moving painting. Using the controller at the paint brush. Quick, intuitive, and fun. Piece together a painting and then act it out, using controller performance capture as puppeteering. Quick trailer shows some of the dreams made with the tool: piano player, polar bear, space battles, teddy bear vs ground monsters, back to the piano player who  is now a polar bear. Game doesn’t have typical polygons or animations. Art is fluffy looking.

Firewatch

-Intense mystery in the Wyoming wilderness. Firewatch. Blocky models and very colourful. Trailer is narrated by a woman’s voice and we talk to her throughout the adventure. First person forest adventure game. Dark and mysterious adventure.

Destiny

-Next great adventure in Destiny. Trailer announces Orix, the Take King. Follows the Crota Raid. Orix is out for revenge, as we killed his son, and is bringing a dark army to hunt us. Shows the new subclasses for each guardian. New enemies, new planets?

“Orix is coming. You’ve got his attention, now go get his head”

Destiny: The Taken King coming September 15th, 2015. Exclusive content on PlayStation.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

-Trailer starts with Jocob Frye’s voice, but the main focus is Evie Frye, his twin sister. Shows the new weapons for Evie, the cane-sword, and throwing knives. Exclusive missions called the Dreadful Crimes, for the PS4.

World of Final Fantasy

-Cute little trailer with cartoony characters.Welcome to Grimwoir. Show’s tiny monsters. Adorable enemies and heroes. Small in stature with a grand fate. Small and cute. PS4 and PS Vita. World of Final Fantasy.

-Very special treat from Square Enix. Trailer shows a revolutionary city, with ominous music. Jaws-like. Final Fantasy 7 Remake. First to Playstation 4. People are flipping out!

-4 new games from Devolver Digital:

• Ronin – assassin-like 2-d sidescroller.
• EITR – pixel hack and slash.
• Mother Russia Bleeds, pixel gore brawler.
• And Crossing Souls, cartoony adventure game.

–Shenmue 3? “Time to unfold the story.” Announced via Kickstarter. Yu Suzuki comes to the stage to discuss the project. Countdown to the kick off of the kickstarter. 5,4,3,2,1.

-Start funding. 2 million dollar goal.

Batman Arkham Knight

-Steam works type trailer, with old music. Joker. Batman Arkham Knight. :).  Joker is in a furnace getting torched. Flames turn into the bat symbol.

-First person perspective of Officer Owens in a diner. Gets attacked by scarecrow and starts to seen crazy enemies. Scarecrow Missions exclusive for PS4.

-This game looks especially dark. and comes out next week. WOo!

Project Morpheus and Playstation Media

-VR landscape look awesome, providing such innovative game options for developers. Morpheus will allow co-op game play with other people. Multiplayer game Rigs is shown, 3 vs. 3 multiplayer arena game. Morpheus is a choice, add value to the console.

-Partnered Playstation Music with Spotify. Expanded Playstation View, live TV streaming service. Allow users to subscribe to individual channels, not ties to bundles. PS Plus members get discounted rates.

-Playstation is partnering with Activision to bring Call of Duty. Playstation gets COD first now.

Call of Duty Black ops III

-Deepest and most engaging COD ever, campaign, multiplayer, and zombies. Gritty campaign, redesigned from the ground up. Load-out available before the mission starts, and supports 4 player co-op.

-Game looks good, and smooth. Starts in a ship, and we find the pilot with reenforcing bar stabbed through the chest. The ship falls and we need to leave. Very futurist looking. New powers available with the suit. Advanced battleground with lots of spider tanks and walkers. Ability to control friendly walkers. Level destruction looks amazing. Lots of digital HUD elements. Story sizzle reel trailer wraps up.

-David Vonderhaar – Treyarch. Introduce Black Ops III multiplayer. Game play trailer shows new powers and mobility, and female fighters. Underwater parts to the maps. Multiplayer looks fast and epic.

-New era with Call of Duty and Playstation. New home of Call of Duty, getting all dlc map packs first.

-Sizzle reel of upcoming titles. Hitman, Batman, Dues Ex, Mad Max, Uncharted, Horizon, Destiny, Metal Gear Solid, MLB, Street Fighter, LEGO, The Last Guardian, and Until Dawn. Ratchet and Clank too.

-PS Vita sizzle reel up next: Tearaway, Dreamers, Tony Hawk, among others.

Star Wars

-Star Wars music blasts into the arena. Shawn Layden is back to discuss Disney Infinity, Twilight of the Republic. Epic light-saber combat. Rise Against the Empire playset. Disney Infinity 3.0. Wold premiere trailer – Rise Against the Empire. Ends with Boba Fett.

–Star Wars Battlefront. Patrick Bach – DICE, comes to the stage. Here to discuss the co-op and solo game modes. Battle game mode, hero encounters, trials, and survival are the solo and co-op options for the game. Trailer debut for Survival – wave based gameplay. Shows storm troopers and shock troopers. Gameplay looks amazing with authentic sounds and blasts. Lots of sparks, like the movies. Split screen support. Tag line – Live out Your Fantasies.

Uncharted: A Thief’s End

-Small title up next, which requires no introduction. Only on PlayStation. Long delay here….

-Starts with a statue of Black Beard. Naughty Dog. Nate and Sully enter the shot, and open a large wooden door into a market. Gameplay shows lots of people milling about the market. Looks like the demo is having controller malfunction though. Nate’s not moving.

-Demo restarts with the Pirate statue. LOL. Woops. Visuals look amazing at least. Lots of interactions with the civilians.  Gun fire in our direction, and the real demo begins. Amazing physics, and level destruction. Great animations as expected. Gun play looks a little more consistent and refined. Still Triangle to pick up ammo. Witty dialogue still apparent between Sully and Nate. Great dialogue.

-Amazing level platforming and the ability to drive vehicles. Different paths can be taken to avoid enemy gunfire. Great level destruction while driving. Seems we can drive anywhere. Come across a construction site, and have to go off-road. Enemy truck drives through the wall. Camera zooms in on Nate and Sully to show highlighted points of interest.

-Driving sequence is amazingly detailed. Following a convoy now, off-road. Nate jumps up front and tell Sully to grab the wheel. We grapple on the truck and swing under the bridge and the truck attached to the convoy. Demo ends when we are about to crash into a wall.

*breath*

-Press conference over.

-Phew. Typical with Sony’s Conferences, there’s no room for breathing, just game after game. They’ll probably break the internet with FF7 and The Last Guardian, and Uncharted 4.

-E3 Day Zero is over. Tomorrow I’ll talk about Square Enix’s conference. Hopefully more info about Hitman and Dues Ex.

-I’ll prob discuss a little more about my thoughts and opinions on each announcement, and what has me most excited.

-iRogan