B3yond the Report 06.14.11
Posted by Mark Salmela on 06.14.2011
News and thoughts on Mass Effect 3 rocking the house at E3, each company's press conferences, Uncharted 3's preview, trailers for Battlefield 3 and Assasin's Creed: Revelations, first impressions of Silent Hill: Downpour and more!
Welcome everyone to a very special edition of B3yond the Report. For those unaware, my name is Mark Salmela and I've been writing this column at 411mania.com since 2007 back when it was called the SIXAXIS Report. Every year I've written a special edition of B3yond the Report on E3 giving my thoughts on the show. This year I was live at E3 along with Jeff Harris representing 411mania. This was my second E3, as I attended back in 2009 when we had like 7 people for 411mania. I've been known to be a comedy writer over the years as well as inconsistent considering I only write a few articles a year now, mostly reviews, so we'll see how well my creative juices flow. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Please leave a comment below if you enjoy what you read, your comments are what keep me going around here.
Better late than never, it's B3yond the News of the Week~!
Sony unveils $249.99 price of PS Vita at press conference
Since this column is supposed to be about Sony I'll start off chronicling Sony's press conference. As I'll get to later Microsoft's press conference was pretty mediocre so there was a definite opportunity for Sony to steal the show. Unfortunately I'm not sure Sony did that. Yes, we got the official unveiling of the PlayStation Portable 2, which will now be known as the PlayStation Vita, along with a price point of $249.99 for the Wi-Fi only model and $299.99 for the 3G model, but we didn't get any announcement that blew us away. Quite frankly Sony spent too much time going over PS Vita games that didn't set the world on fire. Why didn't they show Twisted Metal? The boss battle looked insane in the trailer and I hear people got to see it behind closed doors, so why didn't we see it at the press conference? What about StarHawk? I played it on the show floor and I thought it was really good. It felt like a true advancement to the WarHawk formula which I enjoyed in 2007. We could have sacrificed some of these PS Vita games for a big showing of StarHawk.
The definite low point of E3 was Sony announcing AT&T would be the exclusive carrier of 3G for the PS Vita. I'm not sure how it came across on television but there was a loud, collective groan along with a chorus of boos when Sony made that announcement. I'm not sure why Sony thought making AT&T the exclusive carrier would go over well with the audience, but as far as I'm concerned this was a stupid business decision. People didn't like AT&T being the exclusive carrier of the iPhone, so they certainly wouldn't like AT&T being the exclusive carrier of 3G for the PS Vita.
We did however get to see Uncharted 3, which was definitely one of the best games of the show for me. The demo at the Sony press conference was fine, but the single player demo at the Uncharted 3 theatre was much better. Seeing Drake attempt to get on the giant cargo plane as it took off was quite impressive and I loved seeing the fight on the plane with the large guard that tossed Drake around like a child. Uncharted 3 is proving to be a superior sequel to what most, including myself considered to be the 2009 game of the year. Oh, and the multiplayer kicks ass. I loved Uncharted 2's multiplayer and Uncharted 3 is taking it to the next level with more impressive levels, game modes, and customization options.
Taking a break from Sony, let's talk about the other conferences
As always, Microsoft kicked off E3 with their press conference. Microsoft started off with a demo of Modern Warfare 3, which I have to admit looked awesome. I've grown tired of Call of Duty games, but even I have to admit Modern Warfare 3 looked great. In my opinion Black Ops had the best COD single player since the original Modern Warfare, so here's hoping Modern Warfare 3 is even better.
The real surprise at Microsoft's E3 press conference was the demo of Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider is back and it is dark, twisted, and very orgasmic in Lara's case. The new Tomb Raider is about Lara's journey to becoming a woman, which apparently means having numerous orgasms while being brutally injured. Man, women really do have it rough. I got to see a behind closed doors demo of Tomb Raider which continued later on in the game, and it was just as brutal as the demo at the press conference. I even got to see an example of Lara dying, which included getting stabbed in the throat. Yeah, this is going to be a very gory game.
After a couple of awesome demos to open up Microsoft's press conference they basically fell off a cliff. Listen, I understand Microsoft had to put a large focus of their press conference on Kinect, but this was overkill. Not only did Microsoft spend damn near the entire rest of their press conference on Kinect with the exception of Gears 3 and Halo, but they spent way too much time focusing on Kinect games hardcore gamers probably don't care about. The new Fable game looks like a gimmick, Kinect Sports 2 is more of the same, Dance Central 2 is more of the same with an improved multiplayer, the Disneyland game is for babies, and unfortunately the Star Wars game looks to be shovelware cashing in on the Star Wars name. I had high hopes for the Star Wars game, but it's clear it's just going to be waving your arms around doing lightsaber motions that may or may not be recognized by Kinect. Forza 4 played great on the show floor, but it's not something I want to play with Kinect. Ghost Recon and Mass Effect 3 have interesting implementations of Kinect, but I'm not sure if I'll want to play the whole game that way. Ok, in the case of Ghost Recon I'm sure I won't want to play the whole game that way.
EA and Ubisoft also held their own press conferences which I attended. EA was somewhat interesting, although I don't think Need For Speed needed quick time events to make the game better. Ubisoft was extremely boring with the exception of Rayman and Farcry 3. Farcry 2 was absolutely abysmal so here's hoping Farcry 3 can live up to the original.
Nintendo's press conference was pretty good, introducing a lot of games I was interested in like Super Mario Bros 3D and Luigi's Mansion 2, but they royally screwed up their introduction of the Wii U. You know you have a problem when people are confused as to whether or not the Wii U is a brand new console or just an add-on to the Wii. They barely showed the console itself and all of the tech demos minus Zelda HD ran with Wii graphics and Wii assets. I had several people ask me if the controller was just an add-on to the Wii, which is a problem. As I mentioned in my preview of the Wii U I thought some of the games were fun while others were tech demos that would get boring after a few hours.
Overall I'd say Nintendo gave the best press conference because even though they did a bad job explaining what the Wii U was, I'm a sucker for seeing new home consoles. Sony was second place, impressing me with the PS Vita but ignoring several of their bigger titles to focus on PS Vita games I didn't care about. Microsoft was third, EA was fourth, and Ubisoft sucked.
What was my game of the show?
BioShock Infinite. This game absolutely blew me away. BioShock is widely credited as creating one of the best atmospheres ever in a video game, and BioShock Infinite looks to raise the bar in several ways. The only problem I had with BioShock Infinite is it appeared during the demo like it could have been very easy to get lost using the light rail system. It seems you really could go anywhere on the map very quickly and I hope that it doesn't become difficult to navigate around the map. You don't want to accidentally travel across the map mid-fire fight. Otherwise I thought the combat looked great, the graphics were awesome, and the story is terrific. I can't wait to see what happens with the Songbird. The Songbird could end up being one of the most memorable characters in a video game, especially if the eventual encounter with it ends up being as memorable as I hope it will.
Mass Effect 3 was probably my second favorite game at E3. I was never a big fan of Mass Effect 1 but Mass Effect 2 managed to fix every problem I had with the original and turned out to be one of the best games of 2010. Mass Effect 3 is the culmination of the first 2 games and finally puts the battle on Earth as the Reapers have shown up to destroy the universe as we know it. The demo I got to see of Mass Effect 3 was awesome. All the best characters of Mass Effect 2 are back, the combat system has seen minor improvements, and the scale has grown immensely. Seeing the Reapers destroying Earth in the background was very cool and I have a feeling Mass Effect 3 will be another game that far surpasses expectations.
As I already mentioned Uncharted 3 is going to be awesome. Both Tomb Raider and Uncharted 3 make it onto my best of E3 list. Uncharted: Golden Abyss fore PS Vita is another very impressive game. I could have very easily been fooled into thinking this was a Naughty Dog production, the game was that impressive. Take nothing away from Sony Bend, but Naughty Dog has been on fire with Uncharted, so it's a compliment that Uncharted on PS Vita lives up to the Uncharted name.
PlayStation Store Update for the week of June 14th
Ok, so I have no idea what's going live on the PlayStation Store today, but it doesn't matter. As I'm sure you're all aware the PlayStation Network has been under a microscope lately after the whole PlayStation Network hack and its subsequent re-launch. The Store itself didn't receive a visual makeover but I'm sure there have been a lot of changes under the hood with things such as increased security. There's certainly been a lot of content over the past few weeks to make up for the lost time while the store was down, but unfortunately none of the new games really excite me. I'm also kind of pissed since I already owned 4 of the 5 games Sony is giving away free as part of the welcome back program. Sure I only own Infamous 1 and Little Big Planet on Blu-Ray disc but I don't feel any need to have either of them as a download. The only title of the 5 I didn't own is Dead Nation, which is fun but not quite as addicting as Super Star Dust HD, the game the developers previously made, which interestingly enough is also one of the games available for the welcome back program.
As a final note I'll mention I did go hands-on with two new Pixeljunk games at E3. I've been a huge fan of the Pixeljunk series since Pixeljunk Monsters and have raved about their games constantly. Pixeljunk Shooter 2 was a fantastic expansion of Pixeljunk Shooter 1, and at this year's e3 I got to go hands-on with Pixeljunk Sidescroller and Pixeljunk Lifelike. Pixeljunk Lifelike uses PlayStation Move to basically create music tracks and unfortunately didn't hold my interest. I'm sure there's a group of people out there who will like it, but I couldn't care less about creating my own "performances" using their music tools. Pixeljunk Sidescroller however is a natural evolution of the Pixeljunk Shooter formula and as obvious in the title is a sidescrolling shooter much like R-Type. It has old-school graphics and uses art assets similar to what was used in Pixeljunk Shooter 1 and 2. The game is fun, but I'd like to know what happened to Pixeljunk Dungeons. I asked the guys at Q Games at E3 and they said the title was still in development but that they weren't talking about it. Well why the hell not guys?
B3yond the Cinema!
Simply awesome…
Battlefield 3 looks very impressive. Let's hope it's better than Medal of Honor.
Probably the best trailer at E3. I'm not a huge Assassin's Creed fan, but god damn that trailer is good.
The One Man Water Cooler~!
Well, let's talk about some other games I saw and played at E3.
Battlefield 3: I didn't really play a whole lot of either Battlefield: Bad Company but as a big fan of Battlefield 2 I can say with certainty that Battlefield 3 will be amazing. The guns feel very real in Battlefield 3 and both the multiplayer and single player campaigns rock. I also had a lot of fun playing a co-op game with 7 other people. It was hectic but not too hectic. If you want me to choose between Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 I won't, because both games are extremely good and I think there's room for both of them to exist. MW3 will be more of a summer blockbuster movie while Battlefield 3 will be more realistic. Both games are extremely fun in their own way. Both games will be extremely good and I'd recommend saving up the money to buy them both.
Resident Evil: Raccoon City: I already wrote a preview on this, but Raccoon City is an interesting case. It's made by Slant 6, the developers of the god awful SOCOM: Confrontation on PS3. Hearing that made me worry, well thankfully the game so far is pretty good. It plays like a mixture of the SOCOM style gameplay and a Resident Evil game. The closest Resident Evil I can compare it to is Outbreak since it plays nothing like a traditional Resident Evil. The one thing I'll say about this game is you need to play this game with friends online, because replacing your friends with AI teammates takes away a lot of the fun.
Sonic Generations: Again, I already previewed it, but I'm not limiting myself to what I can say here. There's no denying that Sonic games have sucked since Sonic the Hedgehog reboot in 2006. Every game using the Sonic the Hedgehog engine has been either horrible or below average, so needless to say I was a little cautious heading into Sonic Generations. For the record I enjoyed Sonic the Hedgehog 4, but I wasn't a fan of the physics of controlling Sonic. Well Sega has listened, and the 2D sections of Sonic Generations play very well. It took a minute to get used to the idea of Sonic having momentum again, but I like the controls. The levels so far have a healthy mixture of speed and platforming, which is what made the original Sonic games on Genesis so much fun. I wouldn't quite rush out and buy this game yet, but for longtime Sonic fans such as myself, this is promising.
Assassin's Creed: Revelations: It's more Assassin's Creed. Honestly I didn't see anything that made Revelations feel any different from Brotherhood. As someone who thought Ass Creed 2 was alright but didn't finish it, I don't see anything so far in Revelations that'll make me want to play it.
Rayman: Origins: I have a soft spot for any 2D platformer, and thankfully Rayman Origins is fun to play. It borrows pretty heavily from New Super Mario Bros Wii with the co-op elements and the way they handle dying, but Rayman does some clever things and manages to seperate itself enough to where I'll pick this one up whenever it comes out. Rayman is a fun, 2D platformer with a lot of charm.
Silent Hill: Downpour: Probably one of my biggest letdowns of E3, the new Silent Hill did nothing to win me over. The big problem with demoing a Silent Hill game is that what makes Silent Hill so great is the atmosphere, and it's hard to create an atmosphere in a demo. The demo I played of Silent Hill didn't run very well and quite frankly was boring. It felt like Silent Hill: Homecoming, which is not a good thing. I haven't dismissed this game yet but things aren't looking good for the new Silent Hill.
Well that's it for me everyone. Overall I thought this year's E3 was a decent enough show, but I had more fun when I went in 2009. I think the aura of being at the show wasn't there for me this year, and there wasn't that blockbuster announcement that set the world on fire. The announcement of Halo 4 and unveiling of Wii U was nice, but they didn't make my jaw drop. The closest thing to making my jaw drop was BioShock Infinite, which I'm sure will be a good game, but didn't completely steal the show for me.
Feel free to leave your opinions in the comment section below, or email me at marksalms@gmail.com. I can also be found on the PSN with my tag Fester. Keep an eye out for any of my reviews or other random appearances around 411mania. I'm the guy who randomly pops his head in every now and again to remind people I still exist. Basically I'm the new Greg Bruno. Thanks for reading guys, cya when I cya.
