E3 2012 – Sony Press Conference Summary

Sony was the last press conference on what already had been a very busy day of E3 2012 announcements. Sony’s presentation was very focused on games, rather on the multimedia capabilities of their current generation of consoles.

Before I cover all the games that were shown on stage here’s a quick summary of the rest of the conference.

The Pub fund which supported the development of games like the brilliant Journey from thatgamecompany is continuing to produce some interesting games like The Unfinished Swan which coming to PSN later on this year.

Our very own TikiPod had his company logo shown on the screen as one of the developers using PlayStation Mobile, which is the new name for the PlayStation Suite software which supports the development of downloadable PlayStation content and games.

PlayStation Plus subscribers are in for a treat too with all new free games.

New PS Vita game announcements were a little thin on the ground, with Sony only re-confirmed the existence of Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassifed and a trailer showing a bit more from Ubisoft’s new Assassin’s Creed III Liberation, which incidentally looks brilliant. The other major bit of Vita news was around the ability of the device to act as another PlayStation 3 controller.

LittleBigPlanet 2 will be getting a cross-controller DLC pack later this year which will allow PS vita players to take part in 4-player LBP games with 2 people on Vitas and 2 on the PS3. The pack also adds new stickers, levels etc.

Also the Vita’s catalogue of games will be overflowing with PSOne classics, like the original Tomb Raider and the amazing Final Fantasy VII when they start to be released later on in the summer.

Now for the games that were shown.

Beyond: Two Souls

This is a brand new IP from Quantic Dreams, the creators of Heavy Rain. David Cage, studio founder and CEO, posed the questions “What happens after you die? What’s on the other side?” Beyond: Two Souls tells the story of Jodie Holmes, a young girl who has grown up with a connection to an invisible entity.

In Beyond: Two Souls you get to experience what it’s like to grow up as Jodie, who incidentally is played by Ellen Page (not the girl from The Last of Us). Cage said that the player will experience the happiness and sadness of Jodie’s life as she grows up and learns more about her connection with this mysterious entity.

The demo that was shown looked and sounded amazing, featuring some incredible realistic facial animations and environments which showed a silent and unresponsive Jodie being questioned by a police officer. All it took was one little coffee cup to magically fly across the room and smash into the wall to spook the hell out of the officer. Did Jodi herself do that or was it the entity?

Very little, if any gameplay was on show, rather this was one very impressive cut-scene. The montage that followed the demo teased that this is going to be an action packed game with lots of chase sequences, explosions, crashing helicopters and Jodie calling out to Aiden – the entity? – at the end.

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royal

Following on from the game’s initial reveal in April 2012, 2 new characters were announced – Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series and Big Daddy from Bioshock. There will also be a Vita release, with the game supporting PS3/Vita crossplay.

It looks like quite a cool multiplayer brawler if you like that type of game. The characters special attacks, which increase in power and size as you beat-up more of your opponents were especially impressive.

Assassin’s Creed III

Ubisoft has recreated the high seas of the Caribbean in the 18th century as another location for your further adventures, this time as a Cpatian of a ship in Assassin’s Creed III. The water effects in particular were very, very realistic.

Gameplay wise, it all looked a bit on-rails and not very dynamic with what appeared to be pre-set events triggered by your ship’s location. It reminded me a lot of the racing bits in Assassins’s Creed: Revelations but on a boat with cannons. That’s not a bad thing, but I’d like to see a lot more free-roaming which is meant to be one of the big features of Assassin’s Creed III.

Far Cry 3

It was revealed that Far Cry 3 will include 4-player co-op along with some exclusive PlayStation DLC when the game gets released on 6th Sep 2012. The co-op that was demoed interestingly showed one of the players using a welding touch to fix what looked like a train, which then trundled off through the map as the other 3 team members killed all the bad guys.

Wonderbook

Wonderbook makes use of the PlayStation Move system and a physical book which when placed in front of the PlayStation Move camera comes to life depending on which Wonderbook game you are playing.

The first Wonderbook has the potential to be a mega hit for Sony as it includes completely new content from the author of the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling. The AR book comes to life as a book of spells which every kid in the world is going to want the first time they see it.

I also spotted a screenshot from a WipEout Wonderbook shown on one of the giant screens on the stage. Now that I’m excited about. Come on Sony Liverpool, tell us more about this WipEout Wonderbook!

God of War: Ascension

The game looks jaw-droppingly amazing. The live gameplay demo showed off some beautifully detailed environments, massive monsters and the horrendously gory ways in which Kratos kills things; like splitting someone’s skull apart to reveal their brain.

Brutal, violent and gory. It’s classic God of War stuff.

The Last of Us

Naughty Dog’s latest outing got perhaps the biggest cheers from the audience. Looking like an even prettier Uncharted we witnessed the two main characters – man and teenage girl – exploring and fighting their way around a partly destroyed city.

Like God of War, the amount and sheer brutalness of the violence in the game was surprising, especially the parts where the girl got involved. I know these people are trying to survive, but it’s still shocking to see. It seemed appropriate that the demo ended with a close-up of a guy getting shot in the face with a shotgun.

Summary

Almost the entire focus of Sony’s conference was on the games. It was quite refreshing and they managed to surprise us with big reveals from Quantic Dreams’ Beyond: Two Souls and Wonderbook from Sony themselves.

The lack of Vita games was disappointing, with the notable exception of Assassin’s Creed Liberation. However, it was nice to see that we will be getting more Vita/PS3 cross-platform action from games like PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royal and LittleBigPlanet.

Sony wants us to “Never Stop Playing”, well for PlayStation 3 that’s pretty much sorted, but the Vita is going to struggle as it can’t rely on old PSOne games forever.

Catch up on all our E3 2012 coverage here.