E3 2008: Sony keeps on Pushin'

Last but not least, Sony has the final conference of the big three. One last diary for their conference will conclude the Big three's showings. Look at the end of this entry for a short analysis and recap of all three as well. Enjoy!
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E3 2008- Sony- Watching G4

2:28- Checking blogs for news is fairly uninteresting. Everybody is still reeling over FFXIII to Xbox360 and how mediocre the Nintendo press conference was.

2:30- G4 has a countdown to the press conference timer that just went to zero, and nothing happened. The Girlfriend (GF) screams profanities at the screen at a result. Now she begs for them to stop talking.

2:35- G4 is fishing for something to talk about now, just commenting on EA’s titles. Sony is late. GF remarks that it has been five minutes since the countdown ended.

2:36- Triangles, Circles, Squares and X’s fill the screen, Sony is up and they are showing quick fixes of tons of games both out and upcoming. Some PSP games also, but does anyone care?

2:40- Solid Snake, Kratos and… Sackboy? Nice.

2:42- GF drops a separated Oreo cookie. It lands cream-side down. Lolz. Oh, the conference? They are giving a history lesson.

2:44- IBM is using the Sony’s processor that appears in the PS3 as IBM’s supercomputer.

2:46- Ten minutes in, no new games being shown. All stuff from past year and hardware wanking.

2:47- GF concurs with my sentiments.

2:48- Resistance 2. Finally. I love their multiple TV screen set-up. Wow, I’ve never seen a bad guy that big in an FPS. These graphics are just so incredibly sharp. Makes the big building size undead thing look that much uglier. Okay, the big guy just threw the main character through a glass bridge.



2:53- Hm, Resistance 2 developer is the first to really give any story background for any game this E3. Did I just hear 8-player online co-op? That’s huge.

2:54- More Resistance 2 footage. The grandeur of the cities and the battleships is just outstanding.

2:56- Little Big Planet. I am super-excited about this one. Create your own levels and puzzles and have other people try and complete it online. The sackboy just cheered after putting on a Celtics jersey. How quaint.

2:59- Fantastic. They are going through the fiscal stats on a Little Big Planet level. Someone actually made the economic stuff enjoyable. The level design for Little Big Planet is very unique and so adorable. Looks as though Little Big Planet could end up being very challenging if you are good enough at making levels. Little Big Planet announced for October.



3:04- PS2 news. Quick highlights. NCAA Football 09. Tiger Woods PGA tour 2008. Star Force Unleashed. Warroirs orochi 2. Singstar pop 2. Yakuza 2. Madden XX Years. Mercenaries 2.

3:07- Buzz quiz game coming in September.

3:08- Lego Batman bundle with PS2 for $149. Nice to see that they still are putting out games for the PS2. 130 PS2 games announced.

3:09- Playstation Network. Your ID will have more info attached to it even on your PC coming this fall. Nothing about Playstation Home…yet.

3:11- Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty on PSN- More platforming elements, it looks like. New abilities that add puzzle elements. $14.99 too on PSN, very nice.



3:14- Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty, Crash Commando, Fat Princess, Pixel Junk Monsters, Pain Amusement Park, Flower, Siren Blood Curse, Ragdoll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic.

3:17- Gran Turismo TV news on GT5: Prologue. Can download videos of different sports cars and races in HD. Sounds cool, not for me, but looks smooth. Sounds interesting if you like that stuff. Release Date on PSN: August 1.

3:20- Trophy news and Playstation Home news. Playstation Home footage. Looks like Second Life Avatars to me. Different game spaces for different games and you can jump on with people for games. Even GF admits that it looks cool.



3:23- TV episodes for $1.99. Movie rentals from $2.99 to $5.99. Movie purchases more expensive. Can move downloaded content to PSP. Disney, Sony, Fox, Lionsgate, Warner, MGM, just to name a few of the video partners. Can look at previews of movies you may want to purchase via the Playstation Store. Can download to PSP via PSN on your PC as well. That’s a lot of P’s. All of this available tonight. Sick. New titles added each week.

3:31- PSP news. New entertainment pack (bundle). Ratchet and clank limited edition.

3:33- New Resistance game for PSP. Resistance Retribution. I’m still impressed by how smooth PSP graphics are.

3:35- PSP news. Quick footage again. Star Wars the force unleashed, Madden 09, Loco Roco 2, NBA 09: The Inside, Super Stardust Portable, Lego Batman the video game, Patapon 2, Buzz! Master Quiz, Valkyria Chronicles.

3:39- Back to PS3. You can move game videos you make to YouTube. I didn’t know this.

3:41- Sony Online games. DC universe online. Jim Lee speaks. He was the first to get some cool sword in Everquest on his server. Lolz.

3:44- DC online footage. Looks like a standard MMORPG, but with all the DC characters. I hold judgment on this one; I need more information.

3:47- 80 GB PS3 announced for same price as 40GB. $399.99.

3:49- Call of Duty: World at War, Madden ’09, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia. Developers rave about hardware capability, and storage capability. Tons of untapped potential on PS3.

3:53- Highlights of tons of PS3 games, mostly exclusives. Little Big Planet. Motor Storm, Pacific Rift, MGS4, Quantum of Solace, SOCOM: Confrontation, Ghostbusters, Soul Caliber IV, Resistance 2, The Agency, Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm, Mirrors Edge, RE5, SingStar, GH: WT, NBA ’09 The Inside, Buzz Quiz TV, Killzone 2 (surprising that their wasn’t more on this game).

3:56- God of War III trailer. Super short trailer but looks very sharp.

3:58- Infamous. Awesome comic style art integrated with high-def graphics. Open-ended action-adventure. Glad to see new title without a number at the end of it.

4:00- “This is a workout even for the PS3 architecture.” What could this be? A SOCOM Massive Action Game (MAG). 256 player battlefield. WTF!?! Squads of 8 led by players who have proven themselves. Character Growth and on-going campaigns.



4:02- MAG. Holy crap, a huge multiplayer shooter/strategy game of epic proportions. I have no words; I’ve never seen something like this before on a console.

Sony did what they absolutely needed to do with this press conference. They showed a ton of games that they have right now and that will be coming out. Yes, they lost FFXIII as an exclusive but, they honestly have some other great exclusives in Resistance 2, DC Universe Online, Infamous, Little Big Planet, God of War III and this new SOCOM MAG game. Let’s also not forget about Metal Gear Solid 4. What I’m most happy about is that Sony is taking chances; they aren’t just having all of their games being sequels. They have future installments in their franchises but keeping it fresh with Little Big Planet and Infamous. Despite the FFXIII hit, Sony will be fine. In my opinion, they played this E3 correctly.
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So who “won” E3? Everybody will say Microsoft because they clearly had the biggest story: FFXIII. And those people are right; FFXIII is the biggest story as they steal it away from Sony. However, with the exception of some third-party games like Infinite Undiscovery, all of Microsoft’s exciting games are just continuations in their series. Yes, Gears of War 2 will rock, no doubt. However, as a gamer, I appreciate franchises but, you have to balance it out with taking some big chances. “You’re in the movies” isn’t going to cut it in my opinion.

Sony didn’t really “win” E3 either. I needed to see more of God of War III and I saw virtually nothing on Killzone 2, another supposedly big exclusive. Sony was clearly the most balanced of the consoles doing the best job of showing the most varied games from Little Big Planet to Ratchet and Clank, to Resistance 2. Sony also showed a wide array of products for the PS3 hardware, PSP and surprisingly, the PS2. Sony did the most with their time on stage. Just look at the names in this blog entry dialogue. They clearly showed the most titles.

One thing is for certain though. Nintendo did not “win” E3, by any means. The “hardcore” gamer was left unsatisfied, as most of the games were casual. This isn’t bad per say, but we all wanted to hear about Kid Icarus Wii or some big announcement about a famous Nintendo series. Shaun White Snowboarding looks awesome, Wii Sports Resorts coupled with the Wii Motion Plus should be great too, but nothing made me go crazy.

Final judgment? Nintendo finished in dead last. Sony and Microsoft is a push. Microsoft has the big announcement but Sony showed me more overall. Every major company is sitting pretty though, as they all have their core audiences and excellent exclusives. It’s a good time to be a gamer.