Sony - E3

Sony

Here's a summation of all the games Sony showcased and lots of pictures. If you want to read ALL the conferences on Day One head over here.

The Last Guardian - Sony came out swinging for the fences and much like Kratos, descended to developmental hell to yank The Last Guardian from its clutches. Something about pomegranates.

That's right. From the makers of Shadows of Colossus supposedly come the game that didn't just fall through the cracks but slip into another dimension. It's supposed to come out in 2016, but...we'll wait and see.

Still, it was so nice to see a game that wasn't a FPS, wasn't gritty urban landscape, and didn't use Frostbite, the griffin chihuahua's whining not withstanding.

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Horizon: Zero Dawn - Speaking of something different, this game is pseudo native american people (okay) fight techno dinosaurs (all right) in a distant post apocalyptic future (what the hell?).

Apparently, humanity once again did something so bad most of them got banished. Instead of going Fallout massive desert, greenery returned to the cities. But this is still post apocalyptic and humans are at the bottom of the food chain.

The top? Dinosaurs made out of the various bits of technology left lying around. There were some flashlight raptors and a T-rex like monster make out of cars.

It's stone age hunting with transformers. Not sure why once again only white people survived the apocalypse and promptly cos-played as cave men but after a very similar landscape this was a refreshing change.

Also, you can play as a woman! I feel like that should be noted in extra large letters that shift colors. Normally, games and their marketing machines do all they can to downplay the female option. Unless it's Lara Croft or Bayonette, all you see is the male form doing the shooting, the scrounging, the exploring, and maybe they'll mention "Oh and you can be female" in passing. 

But something's been different this year. Dishonored only used Emily - which was also part of the punch, and it may have taken until the last conference of the day but we finally got to see Evie Frye in action. Oh god, have the SJWs won? Do game companies have to finally admit that women exist? It's the end times! Everyone grab your sharpened stick and stab a BestBuyasaurus! AH!

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Hitman - Ah, now we're back to the familiar. Agent 47 is back and ready to shoot a lot more people by twisting his gun to the side so it looks cool. We were promised exotic locations because I think this is really a Bond film.

If you pre-order through Playstation you can Beta test it. So, after you commit to buying the game then you can test it to see if you like it. That makes...what? But I'll take beta test exclusives over timed ones. Timed ones are just a really good way to piss people off who didn't own your system and are now so mad at you they never will.

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Street Fighter 5 -  There's a street fighter game coming. I'd say more about it, but they didn't. Street fighter!

Another exclusive beta coming July 23rd.

Street fighter, but with a V this time!

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No Man's Sky - Playstation jumped all feet in with a couple sandbox games. The first combines the excitement of space battles with the tedium of research documentation.

Giant, intergalactic battles!

Tiny fish on undiscovered planets that don't count as alien life for some reason.

Our presenter wowed the audience by zooming out of his map and condescendingly explaining that every point of light is a star and orbiting around that star is a bunch of planets. SCIENCE! There are a gazillion unexplored worlds that you can drop down on, shoot some rocks, have a few angry robots attack you, walk backwards into a lake, and drop off research notes on. I'm also pretty sure nugs were on that planet he wandered into, so maybe it was also post apocalyptic Thedas.

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Dreams - From Little Big Planet comes a toy for those creative builders that can both wow and make people feel incredibly inadequate. Our presenter yammered on about dreams and sharing them but that's not important. Here's what makes Dreams cool.

On screen, he drew legs and a form, added a head and a face to this old man.

I love beard face. Beard face is the best.

Okay, kinda fun. But then he touched the old man's nose and the eyes opened and his body followed, in puppet animation moves.

Our old man played a piano in a dream scape world, while a crow watched on. Two polar bears tumbled down the snow, a teddy bear fought against zombie - all things someone created in Dreams. And because sharing is caring, the worlds are intermingled across the network. Anyone can drop in and alter or add to your dream.

In other words, give it five minutes after launch to have a forest of animated dicks swaying in the breeze.

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Firewatch - Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) voices a lone park ranger whose only friend is a voice inside his walkie-talkie. He wanders around the park doing parky things, when stuff starts to go bad.

A couple girls go missing, someone cuts the com lines, and there's another person poking around in his tower. Smokey's gone feral and only our plucky Park Ranger can stop him. Okay, I made that last part up. But just watch, it'll turn out to have been Smokey on the walkie talkie the whole time.

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Destiny: The Taken King - You were expecting a Sony conference without any mention of Destiny? Ha. In true DLC fashion, the trailer was only for people who played Destiny. You killed his son with his own sword, now his dad's coming for you. You got his attention now go get his head.

 Yeah, yeah, revenge is nice and all, but what's the new loot like?

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Assassin's Creed: Syndicate - I wasn't going to talk about AC again because they still didn't show any gameplay *cough*bugs*cough* but then Evie Frye wandered in and I couldn't not.

 Much like Commander Shepard, the female Frye looks far more interesting than the male one. She isn't being all cockney accent trying to start her own Gangs of London (in fact, she's not allowed to talk at all. Instead her annoying brother narrates the entire time).

This does raise a few, shall we say, indelicate questions about how the story will be presented. The animus is supposedly based upon genetic memory (I know, don't think about the science). And if you can play as either twin then...yeah, just don't think about it.

You've mostly lost me AC, but maybe maybe with Evie I'll come back. 

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World of Final Fantasy -  Sony's trying to out cute Nintendo with adorable weebles from Final Fantasy (weebles wobble but they don't fall down). You can either shrink down and ride on monsters, or get bigger and have the monsters ride on you.

I'm pretty sure you'll just run around squeeing to death from all the cute.

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Final Fantasy 7 Remake - This was the real Final Fantasy news you were hoping for and yes, it's true.  They're remastering Final Fantasy 7 for the PS4. 

Go forth and squee!

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Shenmue 3 - The theme for this conference seemed to be "reviving from the dead." After pulling the Last Guardian out of mothballs, and remastering Final Fantasy 7, Sony heard about a kickstarter campaign and then broke the internet.

 If you want to contribute to Shenmue, here's the link to the kickstarter.

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Batman: Arkham Knight - For no good reason, they played a trailer for the coming Batman game. And by coming I mean in a week. 

Despite the Joker being dead and cremated they still can't not show him. Look, the Joker's our only real villain. 

 Even when you think it's the Scarecrow, even when Scarecrow thinks he's the mastermind, it'll really be the Joker. You can bet on it. That guy's like the roadrunner. He never goes down.

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Playstation Morpheus & Vue - Sorry guys, but when it came to the VR stuff Microsoft trounced you. I know, you gave it your all. The set up was really fancy in your conference hall. But seeing game footage played across six screens is nothing to a 3D Minecraft game.

Still, your Vue (despite the incredibly stupid name) looks promising. Finally someone is trying to get tv ala carte. It probably won't work thanks to the Timewarner Pinkertons breaking into your house to smash your controllers, but it's a nice idea.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 - Ah! There's the first person shooter. I was starting to get worried with all these RPGs and dreamy sandboxes. How can we not have a black ops fps? You were laying it on a little thick acting like this was the most unique game of all time though. I think we all picked up on the sarcasm.

Because showing game footage of a campaign isn't enough, they also had to show the multi-player experience which was different, apparently. 

Once again Playstation gets some early beta access and free maps. They're chasing after Activision to get more exclusives because that's the new game. Sigh. Can Sony and Microsoft just angry bang already to get over this tension?

"I'm a leaf on the wind."

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Infinity -  Surprising no one, Star Wars is joining the Infinity game. You can play The Twilight of the Republic if you like the prequels (you sad sad person), or Rise Against the Empire.

Creepy Solo available where all creepy, soulless toys are sold.

Once again, Playstation gets Rise Against the Empire and Boba Fett a month early. (Can we talk about Boba Fett here? Why is he so popular? He did nothing. All he managed was hiding in garbage, glommed onto Vader, and then got his ass swallowed by a sand vagina. I will never understand why he's so popular.)

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Star Wars: Battlefront -  You thought we wouldn't see more Star Wars? You silly person. My notes for this are "Luke Skywater Fly ariund shoot oeioke" I may have been suffering from a serious burnout at that point.

Again, you can be good, evil, neutral, chaotic, a gonk droid. And the entire time the force ghost of Admiral Ackbar orders you around.

The empire is amassing behind you. That's a trap! And when you're done could you swing by starbucks and get me a frap? Thanks.

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 Uncharted 4: A Thief's End - Here we are at the end of a very long day. You can tell everyone just wants to crawl back into their hotel room as the preview screen holds blank. For a brief moment I think the final game is actually called Only on Playstation, the Only on Playstation game.

But then a temple appears and we watch Nathan Drake wander around for a bit, then he gets trapped in the corner watching a couple guys grind corn. I was expecting someone to press the PS4 button and reboot the whole system. Bugs happen, but bugs in your pre-recorded promo has to be a very ominous sign, or a sign we all need to find a bed and pass out.

Eventually, after flipping the screen on and off a few times, our trailer boots up.

And Drake drives around nondescript somewhere South America pissing off every person who sees him. Pretty sure he does enough collateral damage, another three small wars broke out just to cover for it. Great going, Nate.



And that's the end of E3 Day 0. We saw some RPGs, some female characters, Angela Basset (for some reason), and a post apocalyptic dinosaur made out of old computers.

Sweet Dreams