Sony presented three of the most expected games, maybe ever, at the E3 2015. Rounding out this week’s onslaught of E3 game playing enthusiasts, Sony’s midyear party of all factors PlayStation got off to a strong beginning with one of this industry’s most anticipated – and continuously delayed – games on any program.
That is right, The Last Guardian still represents a hit, and as the show’s shock opener, it was every bit as strange and stunning as we are sure Sony designed its games, at once featuring the dreamlike art of innovative creator Fumito Ueda’s unusual mental-scape, as well as the system’s partner-focused ecological questions.
Over the course of the trial, a boy (controlled by the gamer) and his large sphinx-like associate proved go their way through wide, precipitous and architectonically stylish background objects. This is the factor that is still unique for many, as much now as it was when we first lived the gaming experience years ago. The way in which the game controls and shows just how large the animal is, able of bridging chasms, for example, but with almost ungainly and lumbering motion.
As in The Last Guardian‘s forerunner, Ueda’s Shadow of the Colossus, the player can hang onto all the elements of the animal, tip to tail, going around its feathered size, and the connection between ICO and Shadow of the Colossus was noticeable throughout. You have known all of this beforehand, but then you have seen so few real games, independent or otherwise, that coordinate Ueda’s present for all, by offering innovative game ideas and using simple and creative style hints.
You do not know how much they have patiently waited to present The Last Guardian, with its first ever game play scenes on PlayStation 4, according to the Sony CEO Shuhei Yoshida at this demo’s opening. And they lastly presented it, if not for a certain release date, at least for an approximate time window: Sony says that we can anticipate The Last Guardian to reach PlayStation 4 sometime during the next year.
The rest of the presentation was a medley of surprising and foreseeable news, the latter having the Black Ops 3 first appearance as multi-player trailer. A new Destiny franchise known as “The Taken King” captured the interest of the viewers: this is a game where you fight some large bat winged animal, so the RPG players might find some satisfaction in this type of virtual hunting. Last, but not least, there was an Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate call-out to the game’s women fans and a fairly nice, but eventually rather tedious, Unknown 4 presentation.
The fans saw a bit of game performance from a new Guerrilla Games (known for its Killzone series) and their post-apocalyptic full-adventure named Horizon: Zero Dawn, a game which, with its mix of robo-dinosaurs and primitive technology, archery-adept female character had many thinking about Transformers meets the Vikings.
Square Enix taunted the viewers with its new longer-in-development Hitman sequel, followed by Media Molecule (Tearaway, LittleBigPlanet) introduction something uncommonly arty (for a popular game, anyway), that is named Dreams. This was presented by its creators as “using the PS4 operator to collaboratively make moving artwork”, mentioning also that “now you can basically make anything you dream of, a play, a game, a song, all from the beginning”.
Firewatch, a new game about volunteers looking for wood fires, around the Yellowstone natural disasters of 1988, has been appreciated for its unique and noticeable style, getting a nod from almost all fans in the room. Sean Murray, from the Hello Games developing company, ran through a game trial of No Man’s Sky, a virtual experience about the basically unlimited space area which is still undiscovered, a game that Sony has been marketing for the last couple of years.
Though we are sure this trial version did not have maximum impact it aimed for, it did help the fans to build their exceptions that the whole event is going to be so stunning and unfathomably innovative, this representing the greatest goal of any game developer who wants its work to be appreciated at its right value.
But the show’s greatest two presentations were places unceremoniously right in the middle of it: a truly fascinating Final Fantasy VII remake is arriving, as is Yu Suzuki leading the action in Shenmue 3, supposing the latter reaches its $2 million kick starter objective (which, by the time when you read this article, will probably have reached it).
About the Final Fantasy VII sequel, we know almost next to nothing, only the intro game trailer indicating a remake that is more of a religious dream than the type of tedious actual game rebuilding (of a now old fighting game, and in hindsight often a teenager story) that some believe that no one really wants to live.
As for Shenmue 3, about which its creators say that it will be a follow up to the first two storylines and “the game you have been patiently waiting for” if it accomplishes its financing objective, that have mixed emotions about the presentation location. Is it good to release your kick-starter at one of the most viewed games conventions in the world? Exposure is vital to any crowd funding venture.
Say what you want about Sony’s disinclination to invest in the venture overall, then think about all the other, probably as or even more deserving, gaming tasks that will never have access to a system as amazing as the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, boiling under Sony’s hottest news and carefully choreographed presentations.
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