Gaming Info Zone

With Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft behind us, it’s time for Sony to get on the stage and wow us with their latest games and tech. Sony didn’t only deliver but closed off the first day of this exciting E3 with some style.

After a short apology for the PSN outage and a small speech about new media services coming to PS3 later this year, Sony kicks off straight away with their leading exclusive Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. The demo begins with Drake in a ship rocked hard by the stormy seas. The game, like its predecessor, looks stunning and the demo does a good job of showing off the lighting, graphics and animations found in the game. This is mostly a stealth mission, focusing on sneaking around in the dark and quietly knocking out enemies. This quickly changes, however, as Drake gets caught by a squad of guards and, after a brief firefight, the ship’s hull has been breached and it becomes a race against time to escape to safety before Drake drowns. The demo closed off with a trailer in full 3D.

Next on stage was Insomniac Games presenting the third instalment of the Resistance series. The game looks stunning; everything from the weapons to the rubble on the streets looks authentic and highly detailed. This first part of the demo shows off the shooting mechanincs of the game, however it cuts ahead a few minutes where the player now has to escape the enemy with a valuable item. This gives the opportunity to show off some large enemies chasing you down whilst tearing down buildings around you.

Sony follows up by announcing that the God of War PSP games and Ico and Shadow of the Colossus will be remastered in HD and 3D. In addition to this, Sony will release a Playstation 3D monitor at an affordable price so that more people can make the transition to 3D.

After a brief look at some Move games, Sony showed a trailer for Starhawk, the spiritual sequel to one of the first PSN games,Warhawk. The trailer shows off some sweet vehicle combat with mechs, planes and spaceships. The combat looks like its going to be on a very large scale and very intense, definitely a title to keep an eye out for.

This trailer, however, got quickly overshadowed by the return of a beloved character, Sly Cooper, in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. A short trailer accompanied the announcement with some cheeky humor, but no gameplay was shown.

Next on stage was the creator of Eve Online who introduced the game Dust 514, which will work alongside the MMO to create a persistent world. Dust 514 is an FPS focused on ground combat and planetary conquest. A gameplay trailer followed the announcement and showed off some good graphics and interesting gameplay mechanics such as recoils done in the same way as in Halo: Reach.

Following this trailer came another trailer for the highly anticipated Bioshock Infinite. After a few minutes of looking beautifully realised world and great gameplay, Ken Levine takes the stage to talk about Move support. This might be the first core game which will incorporate the Move with Bioshock Infinite and I am curious to see how Move will work. Irratiional Games don’t disappoint, expect a good incorporation of the Move system into the game. Lastly, Levine teases a new Bioshock game for the NGP, but it is still in the early phases of the game development.

Early footage of the new Star Trek game was shown as well, featuring the Spock/Kirk Co-op. The game looks gorgeous, especially in outer space. Not much was shown, but the game looks like it could deliver a solid co-op experience.

After a long wait, Sony finally started talking about the NGP. First of all, the NGP shall no longer be referred as such any more as the name PSP Vita has been confirmed. The Vita will have a party function similar to Xbox Live’s, ironic that this little console is already more useful than the PS3, socially. The first game shown off for the Vita was Uncharted: Golden Abyss. The game looks fantastic, form the models, to the lighting, to the sound and the feel of the environment. The gameplay is like we’ve seen before: you can use buttons or the touchscreen to control Drake and the rest plays just like a normal Unchartedgame.

Following the brilliant Uncharted demo, another game, Ruin, was announced for the Vita. It is an action/RPG which works alongside with the PS3. The game is seen from a top-down perspective, and looks like Diablo at first sight, but plays a lot more like an action game. In the game, any player is an enemy, anybody can become your “rival”. This means that you can attack your “rival” in his lair, which becomes more difficult as the rival levels up, and your rival can defend it in real time. If he succeeds, he will be rewarded with etra loot. In addition to all this, the SP Vita can be hooked up to your PS3 to continue your experience on the big screen.

Next on stage was Mod Nation Racer for the Vita. The game allows the player to create levels by just drawing them with a finger. In seconds, the player can create a huge track. Afterwards, the terrain and track can be modified individually using the front and back touch-pads to make the track more to the player’s liking. Mod Nation Racers looks great for a vita game, it runs smoothly and seems like it has a lot of potential.

Little Big Planet will also make its way onto the Vita. Its tagline Play, Create, Share makes it a perfect match for the SP Vita and will introduce new multiplayer modes and a brand new way to create your very own games with new tools to do so. Following LBP, Street Fighter X Tekken will also be making its way on the PS Vita with Cole from Infamous making an appearance as a playable character.

Overall, Sony had a strong line-up of games and some very nice exclusives. However, the PS Vita stole the show and wrapped up the first day of press conferences in a good tone. Nothing could have set the mood any better than the PS Vita for this year’s E3: the gaming world is changing, today we saw the Vita, tomorrow, Nintendo unveils Project Cafe. Never the less, keep an eye out for the PS Vita as it is competitively priced at 249$ for the Wi-fi model and 299$ for the 3G and will be released this holiday season.