The Major Stuff of E3: Sony

E3 has still yet to conclude, and we've seen quite a bit of good stuff. Granted, it was mostly all Fallout 4 related, but good stuff nonetheless. And after having a cracking conference last year, I for one was quite looking forward to the Sony conference. I mean, at least it wouldn't be as forced as Ubi's, right?

Sony's Gaming Colloquium

Is it just me, or did the opening film have a song which simply repeated, "here we fucking go" over and over again? Great job on setting an appropriate tone, Sony...

To kick things off in a brute-force kind of manner, Sony immediately opened with The Last Guardian, and everyone understandably lost their collective shit. Turns out all you need to start a hype train is a long, long wait and some kind of bird-dog companion. I can guarantee that said companion will die at some point, and there will be tears, in and out of the game. 

To tell the truth, I had no idea what was going on. I ain't personally invested in the game, but if I'd been waiting since 2007 for this game to make itself known to the world, I'd want it to be something stellar. Hopefully with all that development time, fans will get what they want, hopefully on time in 2016. 

Then it was on to the makers of the Killzone franchise, a personal favourite of mine, Guerilla Games. Instead of a blue and orange next-gen lens flare simulator, they now present us with Horizon: Zero Dawn, which appears to be riding quite heavily on the entire "Oh look, we've got robot dinosaurs" thing. Sounds like they let one of the devs' ten year old kids into the brainstorming session and they just decided to roll with it, but it looks grand, I guess. 

It reminded me of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, what with the post-apocalyptic setting, the animalistic robots, and because it'll probably be critically acclaimed, but everyone will forget about it in a few weeks. 

New Hitman! What's it called? Just Hitman... Yeah, seems that more companies are doing that thing where they just reboot a game and give it the same name in an attempt to make it sound all new and cool and down with the kids. Hopefully it's better than Absolution, but here we see the start of something a bit shit alongside the announcement of the new Hitman, (see, now I've to call it, 'The new Hitman', and that's effort), because for some reason, Sony thought that exclusive content and pre-order beta access is a great idea. I mean, sure, it'll be available to everyone after a year or so, but it's still a bit of a dick-move guys. 

Are you interested in Street Fighter V? Did you know it's a PS4 console exclusive? Did you know that Cammy and Birdie were confirmed as playable characters? Yes? Oh, sorry then. I'm guessing if you're a fan, you'll already have known. But, there's an occurring pattern, as the PS4 gets the first public beta for the game. Great, I suppose.

No Man's Sky is still a thing! We got a bit of gameplay too, although I've got to admit that my interest in the game is fading by the day, especially as it keeps getting delayed, and people keep revealing how un-extraordinary some elements of the game can be. But, if we all just forget about it, No Man's Sky may just come as a nice surprise if it turns out alright... 

And still no release date. Sorry guys.

Dreams is an artsy thing from Media Molecule, and no-one has any idea what it actually is. It's like after LittleBigPlanet they just said "fuck it" and took copious amounts of LSD and then made the subsequent game. If you're in to art and games, then look no further, apparently. 

And here's the section in which I gloss over all the filler in the middle of the conference, because not everyone one can have a lovely and concise display like Bethesda. So in no particular order:

• World of Final Fantasy for PS4 and, really? Oh, and for Vita! It's seemingly not dead. A cutesy new Final Fantasy game, if that's your thing.

• Firewatch, a game (again) which we know nothing about, really. A lovely looking, exploration game by the looks of it. And it seems the E3 demo didn't do it justice...
• Exclusive DLC for Assassin's Creed: Syndicate! Why are we so obsessed with exclusivity again?
• A TV package thingy, called Playstation Vue, will allow you to watch the telly on your PS4! It does seem that Sony are now going for the 'multimedia experience' which Microsoft were originally going for with the Xbox One.

• Devolver are bringing four of their games to the PS4, in the mandatory indie section of the conference. These titles consist of Mother Russia Bleeds, Ronin, Eitr and Crossing Souls. The electronic-filled showcase can be seen below, in all of it's pixely glory. 

• Remember how ages ago, Microsoft flaunted their deal with Call of Duty? How they got all the DLC first? Well, it seems that tables have turned, and now PlayStation will have Call of Duty content first. I would be excited, if I'd played Call of Duty in the past five years...
• Disney Infinity also took a page from Call of Duty, with an exclusive bundle for PS4 players. All episodes are available upon launch, and you get a Boba Fett figure.

As for the rest of the titles in the conference, there was nothing too spectacular or out-of-the-ordinary. The Co-op for Star Wars: Battlefront was shown off, so if you're not under the idea that it'll be a glorified BF4 mod, then good news for you. 

Forget all that robot dinosaur nonsense from earlier, Guerrilla Games then came up with something which got me much more excited, announcing a 3v3 first person shooter for the Morpheus VR system named RIGS. Granted, the game itself doesn't look like anything special, but I am intrigued as to how they'll pull it off, and how it'll work. Demos on the Oculus Rift are all well and good, but it'd be nice to see a proper game on such a system. 

Onto much less experimental things, a remake of the much loved Final Fantasy VII is in the works for the PS4, with nothing known for other consoles. 

And in a similar, but much more dickish move, Shenmue has been resurrected in the form of a crowd-funded campaign for Shenmue 3. It seems that the Kickstarter was more of a gauge of interest, rather than a source of income for the devs, so why it had to be created in this way is absolutely beyond me. Kickstarter is great for small firms and dedicated fans, but it seems a bit exploitative in this manner. They were after $2 Million in a month, and it's safe to say that'll be achieved very shortly. But again, it's coming, so that's pretty top. 

And in a much nicer way to finish, the conference concluded with some lovely gameplay of Uncharted 4. The demo showed off a chase scene featuring plenty of dialogue, but more importantly, it also hinted a an expansive world, at the very least, the biggest levels in Uncharted's history. I hate to play it safe, but this easily my most anticipated title from this conference...

Seems it was a very safe conference, although it was full of quite shitty practices. I'm guessing Sony didn't thing Microsoft would be on such form, and let their guard down slightly. I mean yeah, The Last Guardian and FF7 are fantastic power-plays for proper fans, but for your average gamer, Microsoft seemed a bit stronger this year. 

Apologies, Sony.