E3 2007: Sony

Last of the big three at E3 this year was Sony, they had a lot to prove after last year's disaster, and I think they definitely turned it around.

The show's first speaker is Jack Tretton, President of SCEA. He starts off, unlike everyone else, not talking about their success over the past year. Instead we're shown an excellent montage of PSP games coming within the financial year (before spring 2008). There are some really great looking games shown; Socom: US Navy Seals tactical strike, Wipeout Pulse, Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, NBA 08, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Silent Hill Origins, Patapon, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, Sonic Rivals 2, SWAT: Target Libterty, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, and Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. Patapon, GoW: Chains of Olympus, and Castlevania look amazing.

PSP Games Montage


After the montage we're taken right into Home and watch as Jack finds Kaz Hirai, cracks a Ridge Racer Joke and they have a conversation in Home. It's even cornier than it sounds, Kaz talks up cooking virtual hot dogs and hamburgers, Jack says he can't wait. The creepiest part of the whole thing is that the Home avatars' mouths don't move, it feels like two little girls playing with dolls.

Kaz comes out on stage to talk more about the PSP, this time the hardware. He doesn't talk sales number, I can't blame him when you're facing the DS. Instead he whips out an unremarkable looking PSP and tells us that it is the newest model. The PSP Slim will be rolling out in the next few months. Retailing for the normal $169 USD, it is 33% lighter and 19% slimmer. It also has a new video output option, you can plug component or composite cables into a TV and play your games or watch your UMD/memory stick movies. He shows us a Spider-Man 2 trailer, controls it with the PSP and it looks very good. Few people remember that the quality of the UMD video is rather high to make best use of the PSP's display and while not full HD it is nice.

For those that don't remember he reiterates the remote play features of the PSP, allowing you to access via wifi your PS3 HDD's content. This, coupled with the PS3's DLNA PC connection means now you can access your PC's content and play it on any TV within a wifi network. I'm instantly impressed and talk up the feature until my sister says, "Why don't you just burn a DVD dumbass." She does have a point.

PSP Slim Design:


Kaz makes way for more of awkward Jack who shows us another slim PSP, this time in white. The white system will be bundled with a 1 GB memory stick, Daxter and the Family Guy Freakin' Sweet Collection for $199 USD as the new Entertainment Pack. Everything is looking good, I know people have been starved for PSPs across Toronto at least and this pack will sell a ton. Then it happens.

In an attempt to out weird Jeff Bell and Reggie Bush's presentation of Madden at the Microsoft conference, Jack calls out Chewbacca for an awkward ass-out hug and to talk about the new Star Wars package, a $199 USD bundle that comes with Star Wars: Renegade Squadron, a 1 GB stick and a special silver PSP with Darth Vader's evil head on the back. Jack and Chewwie have some more awkward conversation before Jack feels threatened by the Wookie and lets him keep his PSP.

PSP Star Wars Bundle:


Phil Harrison saves us from more man-on-wookie action by showing us some games. The first is Echochrome. The game is amazing, imagine if MC Escher designed a puzzler and delivered it incredibly stylishly. The game has you trying to get a lemmings-like character to specific points on the mind-bending maps by rotating them to the right angles to make it physically possible. I can't really describe it, just enjoy.

Echochrome:


Phil says he's got four more titles to show off that "can only be made on the Playstation 3." Wipeout HD is next on the list. I've never been a fan of the Wipeout series and I think when Fatal Inertia finally hits it will blow it out of the water, but it looks very good for a downloadable title.

Wipeout HD


Pain will be fun, but I doubt it's lasting quality. The goal is to catapult your character across the map to smash into various things and complete objectives like tackling bikers or landing in a pool. The ragdoll physics look great, but I don't know how it will control once you are in the air. Without something as simple as Burnout's crash-control scheme this game could really just be a Kitty Cannon HD. Suitable it would be DLC.

Pain:


Socom is next, the developer takes the screen and tells us how they have to go big because it's Socom's first time on next-gen. The game looks like it's trapped between a being small enough for download times and large enough to justify the simultaneous Blu-Ray release. The same goes for Warhawk, which is shown shortly after. The games will be available on shelves and on the PSN at the same time for near-full retail costs. I think it will be interesting to see which of the two formats sells more.

Socom: US Navy Seals Confrontation:


Warhawk:


Phil's five games are gone and he's back to show us some more Home functionality. He whips out his Sony Ericsson cell phone and we see it has the cross-media bar on it with several Home-centric features on it. He takes a picture of the audience using the phone and slips it into his pocket. He tells us that you will be able to do alot of interesting things with this new tech.

Phil then jumps into home and shows us around his pad. He's got a Singstar station set up in the living room and we see a short video of the game dev talking about the next-gen of the karaoke game.

Singstar:


Phil has started walking around a little more and he points out that on his wall is the horribly grainy and decomposed cell phone camera shot he took earlier. It instantly uploaded itself to Home and flew right to his wall. This type of feature will extend not only on the go and in Home, but also on the web, inside "a plain old vanilla web browser" you will be able to go to a player-specific space and read blogs look at pictures taken both in the real-world and in Home, and see what they've been up to. This is the type of community feature that the PS3 needed. It works well and it provides an interconnectivity between users. My only worry is that it's too heavy for people to bother using.

We're shown around some more and Phil jumps into a game of Motorstorm with some strange dancing people that happen to be in his house. You will be able to jump in and out of any game HDD or BD without ever leaving the Home interface.

Home:


He then tells us to the developers will be able to make custom hangout spaces for players of their game to find like-minded users link-up and start gaming immediately. I forsee this being a very popular feature among users if the connection speeds and developer support keep up.

Jack returns and starts talking about some third-party exclusives. Haze is the first up, a short trailer is shown and it looks impressive. Visually the closest thing I can compare it to is Fear with more colour, but the gameplay looks like it's rather average. Obviously I will wait until I play it before I pass judgement. He then tells us that "if you want to play Haze this year, you will need a PS3." Oh, it's a timed exclusive. Also, does he mean financial year?

Haze:


Jack then shows us Unreal Tournament III, another timed exclusive. He tells us something interesting though. Epic and Sony are in a multi-stage deal to get PS3 development tools built into the Unreal Engine 3 and that UT III will be able to share mods made on PC with the PS3 version. Interesting, while both Sony and MS fight over Epic Mark Rein must be one fat cat.

Unreal Tournament III


After the trailer Jack makes way for our beloved Kojima-san as he talks about the marvel that is MGS4. He announces that this will be, like Halo, the last in the soryline. He also tells us that this will be his last Metal Gear game. Sad news, but the man probably has ambition beyond fan service. "I am using all my energy and all my skills to make this the best game in the series." Even though the game will not be out until 2008 it still looks amazing. I don't know if it measures up to the original trailers, but this is full gameplay and it looks awesome anyway.

Metal Gear Solid 4:


Back at Home Phil takes us through some of those developer spaces he talked about earlier within the Playstation Theatre. He's showing off the first-party titles coming within the financial year.

Ratchet and Clank looks visually compelling, but nothing revolutionary. I'm sure plenty of soccer moms will be getting this for their horrible children to play on the weekends.

Ratchet and Clank:


Folklore on the other hand looks innovative. I've always liked mythology and this looks like it aims to pull at it's roots and make a compelling game.

Folklore:


Heavenly Sword looks as man-hating as ever as the female protagonist rips through her enemies in perfect God of War style. I don't hink it's a bad thing it's pulling so much from GoW, because that game rocks and more is better.

Heavenly Sword:


LittleBigPlanet is next on the chopping block and it looks just as fun and creative as ever. They start pushing the Create, Play, Share aspect of the game and hint at some sort of repository where you will be able to share your best LBP creations with more than just your friends. But alas, another financial year release, nothing's coming in 2007 really.

LittleBigPlanet:


Sucker Punch Studio's game inFamous looks like it's a sort of Crackdown-esque morality test set in Gotham City. I don't know if this will turn out great or ridiculously cheasy.

inFamous:


Lastly Phil shows us Gran Tourismo, announces that there will be another download on the PSN Store. Gran Turismo: Prologue will be the precursor to GTA5's release on shelves later 2008. It looks leaps and bounds better than HD Concept and obciously so, the extra development time has payed off.

Gran Turismo 5: Prologue


The show closes and they're back in Home. Kaz asks if they forgot anything and they're like "Oh yeah..." Corny.

KILLZONE 2:


HOLY SHIT! I never expected the game to look this good. After disappearing for a year this game has come back hard. I think I found my buy factor.