E3 2014: Sony Press

This is my thoughts on mainly the Sony press conference from E3.  There is zero chance I'll buy a XboxOne, so that's the kind of mentality you're going to come into this discussion with.  I make mention of some games that will be PS4 games but not at the Sony conference near the bottom.

Favorite News:  Little Big Planet 3

Little Big Planet was my 2nd "Next Gen" game when I got my PS3, and it is also the reason I have more than 2 controllers.  Little Big Planet was really fun, and was sort of the "Minecraft" of the PS3 back in the day.  You could get online and play lots of other people's levels, and you could have a room full of people swapping controllers and having fun.  I loved Little Big Planet.  Well LBP3 was shown and it looks great.  The new gimmick this time around is that there are 4 different character types you can play.  Sackboy returns with the ability to climb and use tools, there is a dog that can wall jump like a ninja, a sock thing that can go from large and heavy to small and light with the click of a button, and a lastly a bird that can fly and pick up lightweight objects(like Sackboy).  The bird in particular suits me because when you're playing with nephews or newbies, the jumping parts are the hardest, and so its cool that I can just pick them up if they're having trouble and help them up a ledge.  Now, the coolest thing is that the LBP guys(Media Molecule) hate segementing the community.  If you have LBP 3 on the PS4, you can load up any level and play any content that is hosted on their online servers from the LBP1 and 2, so yes, you can play my Price is Right level that I made years and years ago.

Cool News: Japan is coming home.

The PS3 came at a weird time in the Japanese game industry where that industry was being overshadowed.  The money made at the turn of the millenium meant that developers became rich celebrities with huge press, and as a result we have been seeing Japanese games take a decade to get out the door.  Anyone that is a fan of Kingdom Hearts, Shadow of the Colossus, or JRPG's in general can testify to that.  Well, its taken a while but we have new developers that actual develop that are finally doing things for the PS4.

Hidetaka Miyazaki made the hit Dark Souls, which is a darling of the Japanese gaming community, and after several games in that series is making a brand new series called Bloodborne. The Suda 51 guys really don't make games I care for, but I recognize they have a cult following in the same way B movie scifi films have a following. Both the games by these 2 popular Japanese directors are PS4 exclusive as of E3(typically Microsoft throws a ton of cash and this gets reset, but we'll see how it goes since the XboxOne is not ahead of the PS4).




Indy News: Indy Payoff

With all the good press they got last year for their catering to indy developers, we see the fruits of that effort again this year. Entwined is an amazing looking, stylish flight game from a brand new development team and was so liked by the PS4 staff that they gave Entwined its own spotlight feature. A lot of staff from "That Game Company" under a new name of "Giant Squid" made a new adventure game that is being said to be "Journey, but underwater". It looks amazing too. To the non-exclusive indy stuff, Hotline Miami 2 is no surprise. After bitching about Microsoft's treatment of his team, the developer for Hotline Miami is one of the reasons the indies fled to the PS4. Also BROFORCE. I want 4 player, single screen BROFORCE to be a thing that happens.

Guilty Pleasure News: Mortal Kombat

I like Mortal Kombat like I like Freddy movies. There were 1 maybe 2 actual "Freddy" movies that were "films" instead of crap, but I watch them all anyway. I was stupidly excited for Mortal Kombat 1, 2 and 3 back in the day. The new one looks like a new story instead of a retelling of old ones, in the new timeline established in the last. The gameplay looks good, but the really cool thing was one of the new characters. It looks like Jason Vorhees being controlled by a little kid that rides on the back. That's right, a kid in Mortal Kombat. All the really bad, and gory stuff happens to the big monster, so it doesn't look like we get dismembered children(and that's a good thing, we dont want the press going crazy over Mortal Kombat again), and the play style of this character looks so interesting.

Saddest News: No Last Guardian

Look, Mortal Kombat was pretty cool looking, LIttle Big Planet 3 looks like a lot of fun, but no Last Guardian means at the very least another 2 years before it'll be coming out. That's just how E3 runs, if its not going to be this year or the next, Sony generally will not show anything on it(unless its Kingdom Hearts). That really, truly means I probably will not bother buying a PS4 any time soon.


Sony Owned Devs news round up

Sucker Punch is doing DLC for Infamous.  Guerilla launched a Killzone last year so they get a skip this year as they work on new stuff.  Media Molecule is working on LBP3.  Polyphony gets a decade to work on Gran Turismo, so they're probably taking a nap.  SCE Cambridge are working on a Killzone for the Vita.  SCE Japan is reportedly working on Last Guardian, but it looks like they're REALLY working on a Vita game called Gravity Rush.  SCE London, Sandiego, Santa Monica, and Liverpool are all no shows but Santa Monica just released a God of War a few months back, so they get a pass.  So really on the first party front, it looks like they're hanging 2014 on Little Big Planet 3's shoulders.

Other news:

 Destiny still has me cautiously optimistic, but I want mouse and keyboard support. Its an MMO shooter and looks interesting, but I just can't play FPS"s with a controller.  But before I have a PS4 I'll be all MMO'd out on Wildstar most likely.  I'm not a huge FPS player in the first place.

 Dragon Age 3 has good trailers, I'm still to skeptical. Mass Effect's next installment, I will probably ignore. Really, EA stepped in with Mass Effect 3 and said "you can't finish the story, you have to fuck it over so people will buy the new one we're planning, screw your trilogy" and the fans revolted so much that they were forced to let Bioware put in a real ending. Seriously, EA has screwed over the best 2 story based US RPG"s of the last generation, merely by existing. EA stepped in and took these games after the first ones were successful through no merit of EA itself, and tried their goddamndest to run them into the ground. Now that Bioware's top people have left after their contracts with Mass Effect were up, I just don't see EA doing anything but killing the brand. Another Assassin's Creed... I just don't get into that series.

Batman Arkham Knight looks pretty good.  The open world Super Hero thing is really big these days, and finally more than just Infamous looks good.  I have intended on taking on this series since the first day I had a PS3.  The last one was kind of swept under the table since it was done by a different development team, this one is done by the original Arkham creators, Rocksteady.  It most likely will be great.

Really a lot of news about stuff that doesn't interest me, so how could I ever write anything interesting to read about it, so I'm going to wrap that up. E3 2014, not as exciting as 2009 or 2013, but much better than all those in between actually.