Posts tagged "god of war"
06/07/11
E3 2011 Roundup - Sony
Time for Sony.
Let’s just get it out of the way. Jack Tretton starts with apologizing for the whole hacking brouhaha, apologizing to publishers, retailers and consumers, and thanking them for sticking with Sony. Enough of that though. GAMES TIME.
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. The trailer was fairly standard Uncharted stuff, nothing unexpected. However, standard Uncharted stuff is awesome, so that’s not the worst thing in the world. Multiplayer beta starts June 20, the game releases November 1, but during October Subway will have a special where you can get access to the full multiplayer. For those of you that are interested.
After exclusive #1 was exclusive #2: Resistance 3. Also not surprising, looks good but nothing we haven’t seen. It’s being bundled with a Move setup for $150. After that they briefly featured a collection of God of War handheld games (Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta), remastered for HD on the PS3, as well as the well-known Team Ico collection.
Who comes to E3 for games though? No one. Sony then showed us a fancy cheaper 3D TV. 24” PlayStation branded 3D TV, with a special splitscreen feature that uses the 3D tech to give 2 players completely different images, so you can play splitscreen and still enjoy the full screen. The TV along with 1 pair of glasses, an HDMI cable, and Resistance 3 is $500. Looks like a pretty good deal, but I just bought a TV, so…oh well.
Ok back to games. Next was NBA 2K12, with Move support. Passing, stealing, and blocking are now point-and-click movements, and it looks quite simple. I could see it being a problem trying to point at moving players, but it seemed to work pretty well. I’m not a huge basketball fan so I won’t be picking this up either way, but everyone else will find out how well it works October 4.
Next: Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest. It’s a cartoony action game that uses the Move for things such as sword/shield combat, bow/arrow combat, and puzzles. Unsurprisingly, the motion controls seem to work pretty well. And I know I’ll sound like a Sony fanboy, but this is how motion controls should be done. Buttons are a huge help to motion controls, as impressive as Kinect is from a technological standpoint, the ability to give binary input in the form of buttons (or more complex input in the form of analog sticks) is immensely helpful. Anyway, Medieval Moves looks like a fun cartoonish romp.
I don’t know why they did this, but they showed Infamous 2. The day comes out tomorrow. Actually, looking at my clock right now, it comes out in 28 minutes. Considering they didn’t bother showing Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, it seems like an odd choice to show a game that’s literally about to come out. Anyway, it looks pretty good, not much else to say. After that they mentioned that they’re bringing more robust Move functionality to LittleBigPlanet 2. Yay, I suppose.
Next was a short trailer for Starhawk, a shooter/vehicle combat game that is the spiritual successor to Warhawk. It didn’t show much, but the emphasis is on space, looks interesting. After that was a short teaser for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, coming out in 2012. It looks like the remastering of the old Sly Cooper games was leading up to this.
Next was an interesting title from the makers of Eve Online. Dust 514 is an MMO shooter that interacts with Eve Online. The two games make up 1 persistent universe, and they interact in battles and the like. This wasn’t mentioned during E3, but it’s worth it to note that CCP has said that Dust 514 will not have a subscription fee like most MMOs, but instead will use micro-transactions to make money. Beta will be out before the end of the year, and the full game will be released next Spring. It looks interesting, and Eve has always intrigued me, so this may be my foot in the door.
After Dust 514 they discussed Bioshock Infinite. The trailer looks beautiful, and exclusive for PS3 the game will be bundled with the original Bioshock on the same disc, so if you missed out on the first one you can try it now. Also they hinted at a Bioshock product on Sony’s new portable (which we will discuss shortly), but didn’t give any real information about it.
Saint’s Row: The Third was the next game, simply to mention that it will have an exclusive game mode and game content on the PS3. Good to know. After that was a preview of a Star Trek game that I believe is just called Star Trek, but it could just not have a title yet. It’s a co-op action adventure, with Move support (surprise surprise), and we’ll get it in our hands in 2012.
Following suit from Saint’s Row, Sony took this time to brag about exclusive content in non-exclusive games. SSX will have an exclusive level modeled on Mount Fuji, complete with, I think he said, 10 drop zones. Need for Speed: The Run will have 7 exclusive supercars. Battlefield 3 will include Battlefield 1943 on the same disc, only on the PS3. Sounds like Sony and EA are good friends right about now. After that, Kazuo Hirai came out to mention PlayStation Suite, Sony’s effort to bring PS content to non-PlayStation devices, such as certain Android phones and tablets. Nothing else was announced, we’ll find out more later. Next was the real reason Kaz came out though: Sony’s new portable.
Previously called the NGP (Next Generation Portable), Sony showed off the PS Vita. 2 analog sticks, 5” multitouch-enabled OLED screen, touchpad, sixaxis motion, front and rear cameras. The wifi model is $250, the 3G model (with AT&T, unfortunately) is $300. It has cross-game chat with friends through the Party feature, and you can also find users around you with the Near feature. But enough of that, let’s get to the games.
You liked Uncharted? How about Uncharted: Golden Abyss? It’s made by the same people who did Syphon Filter and the PSP Resistance game, though Naughty Dog is overseeing development. It looks surprisingly good for a handheld game, and it looks a lot like the Uncharted we know and love. Obviously the graphics aren’t quite as good, but since the screen is so small you can get surprisingly close. You can use the sixaxis motion, touch controls, and regular buttons to control Nathan Drake when climbing. Touch controls seem to make climbing somewhat trivial, but I suppose there’s not supposed to be a lot of difficulty in the climbing segments anyway, so it’s not a big deal.
Next up was an action RPG by the name of Ruin, though it said the title is tentative. The overhead view reminds me of old-school RPGs, Diablo and its ilk. If I get a Vita, which I don’t know if I will yet, I would definitely look into Ruin. One nice feature of Ruin (and, it sounds, other Vita games) is cloud saving between the Vita and the PS3. This way you can save your game on the Vita, then move to the PS3 and pick up where you left off. After Ruin they showed a little bit of the Vita version of ModNation Racers, really only showing the track creation mode. I imagine the rest of the game is what you would expect. Track creation relies heavily on the touch features of the Vita, and it seems to work pretty well and seems very easy, so kudos to them.
Lastly they showed a little bit of LittleBigPlanet and Street Fighter x Tekken before wrapping up with a video of a medley of Vita games, including WipEout 2048, Hot Shots Golf and more. Vita should launch in 2011, so we won’t have to wait long.
Sony had a lot to show. Some of it wasn’t terribly new, some of it they didn’t have much to say, but nearly all of it was interesting in some form. The Vita looks good, the games look pretty good (hopefully most of the ones they showed are launch titles), and their PS3 games also look good, though a lot of it was what we expected and not much more. B+.
Tagged: sony uncharted resistance god of war ico nba move infamous medieval moves starhawk sly cooper dust bioshock saint's row star trek ssx need ofr speed battlefield vita ruin modnation racers street fighter x tekken e302/28/10
HOLY EPICNESS BATMAN (And it’s even good beyond that)
I realize the game came out almost 2 days ago, but the demo for Darksiders was released on Thursday. It went up at the same time as the God of War 3 demo, so I naturally downloaded the GoW3 one before I even thought about downloading Darksiders. As an aside, the GoW3 demo was pretty good. It’s an old demo and it was still gorgeous and pretty epic.
Only pretty epic though. It was quickly outdone. I wasn’t really expecting too much from the Darksiders demo. I heard it was a pretty good game, but nothing phenomenal. 30 seconds after I started playing, I was grabbing enemies and thrusting my enormous Buster Sword-sized sword through the bodies of enemies, reveling in the gore as their blood spurted everywhere. One thing I look for in my combat-heavy action-adventure games, especially ones like this (and God of War) is how ridiculously and badass it feels. In that department, Darksiders convinced me within the first minute.
Of course, saying “that was fucking awesome” can’t carry a game for its entire duration. Fortunately, when the dust/cloud of bodies settles, there’s a genuinely good game standing there. I’m certainly not going to review a game when all I’ve played is the demo, but I can say this - the demo alone was better than many games I’ve played. The game has borrowed a lot from Legend of Zelda (and other games, there’s a damn gun that shoots blue and orange portals later on for Christ’s sake) but it borrows well. The demo encompassed a full dungeon - over 2 hours of gameplay for me. You can do it significantly quicker, but there’s no doubt that this is a long demo. It has some nice puzzles, and all around is a very very well done demo (and presumably, game).
As I said, I can’t and won’t review a game from a demo, but this is the point of this entry:
I downloaded the Darksiders demo just because I figured it’s free, and I should check it out. I wasn’t particularly interested. That demo has single-handedly changed my mind, and this game is the next thing on my To Buy list. It’s got a great feel to it, the art direction is good (comic book writer/artist Joe Madureira did it all), and the gameplay is very solid. If you like Zelda and don’t mind a bit more God of War-ish action, you’ll enjoy this. If you like God of War and don’t mind a bit more puzzle, you’ll enjoy this. Much like Uncharted, this game seems to borrow heavily from a variety of different games, but it, like Uncharted, does it well. That portal gun may be a bit over the top though, I’ll have to play to see myself.
01/05/10
Looking to 2010
A new day month decade year. This means a time to look at the games that approach us in the coming months. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the big titles coming to us in 2010, followed by a short list of some of my personal biggest interests.
- Final Fantasy XIII
- Mass Effect 2
- Heavy Rain
- Alan Wake
- MAG
- Super Mario Galaxy 2
- Metroid: Other M
My interests:
- Bayonetta: So this actually came out today, but it’s 2010 so it counts. A true action blockbuster from Hideki Kamiya, who gave us DMC so clearly he knows a bit about the action genre. It simply rocks, ‘nuff said.
- God of War 3: As if one huge action game wasn’t enough, we get 2. GoW3 is of course a huge game, following up 2 PS2 greats. This beauty comes in March.
- The Last Guardian: Ico. Shadow of the Colossus. Two phenomenal games from one development team. Now we have the third game from Team Ico, and it’s bound to be just as significant as the ones before it.
- Golden Sun DS: Not much is known about it, and really nothing has been said since E3, but as of now it’s labeled as coming in 2010. The first 2 for the GBA were absolutely spectacular RPGs, and this long-awaited sequel is sure to follow suit.
- Ōkamiden: Chiisaki Taiyō : The chance of this hitting North America in 2010 may be slim, but a guy can dream. Another DS sequel to an absolutely remarkable game, the stylus should work well with the Celestial Brush, and this all in all should be great.
- Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver: One (well, two) more March game, the spiced up remakes of Pokemon Gold and Silver are, well, more Pokemon games. Sure it’s the same stuff, but damn is it good stuff.
- Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel: Not officially announced, but it’s not unreasonable to think that in 2010 this game will make it to American markets. More wonderful puzzles from Level 5, what’s not to love?
- Guild Wars 2: I have little to no reason to truly believe that this will come in 2010, but for now I can hope and dream. ArenaNet has made the “free MMO” work with Guild Wars, and they’re always learning to make Guild Wars 2 better, and from the sounds of it it’ll be a great game.
- Diablo III: Okay, now I must be nuts to put this here. But I suppose this list is less about specifically 2010 and more about games to look forward to in the coming…time. Blizzard never delivers games quickly, but they always deliver video game perfection once it’s released, and having to wait is a small price to pay. Considering the still very active Diablo 2 community over 9 years since release (8 since the expansion), I’m not the only one waiting anxiously.
So there’s a handful of big games to look forward to across all systems this year, plus ones that have really caught my eye. Now if only I could find time to get through the rest of Borderlands, start and finish both Batman: Arkham Asylum and Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, and then get and beat Demon’s Souls before the first one of these comes out. Oh, you say Bayonetta was released today? Well I’m way behind schedule.
Tagged: 2010 okamiden golden sun god of war bayonetta last guardian pokemon professor layton guild wars diablo08/03/09
Release March 2010: God of War 3
Playstation 3
It’s God of War. 3. No question there.
Tagged: god of war want