T w e n t y S i d e d
Let’s see what Playstation has for us:
God of War: Okay. That was really beautiful and interesting.
Days Gone:Nothing about gameplay. Just a very “Last of Us” looking cinematic setup. We don’t even know what kind of apocalypse this is.
The Last Guardian: Finally gets a release date?
Horizon Zero Dawn: Yup. Still looks amazing.
Detroit Become Human: David Cage’s next ambitious disappointment.
Resident Evil VII: Spent the whole demo looking like an old-school Silent Hill game with slow pacing and psychological tricks. But then it drops the Resident Evil name on us and we’re suddenly confused.
Batman Arkham VR: No footage. Just a name drop.
Final Fantasy XV VR: So I guess EVERYTHING is VR now?
Call of Duty Infinite Warfare: It looked fun when it was Rogue Squadron but then it Was Call of Duty.
Death Stranding: Ooookay. Literally nobody knew what to make of this. Look for the trailer on YouTube, because I’m terrified to try and sum it up.
Days Gone: Actual gameplay! And… I don’t like it. It looks WAY too scripted. It has the “guess what the game designer is thinking for this action set-piece” thing going on. It’s a game where you’re a movie stuntman who isn’t allowed to read the script. The zombies flow in and you need to move to the next thing that will slow them down. Sure, it’s all about creatively using the environment, but the game designer is the one doing the creating. The player is just enacting the script. I don’t know, maybe the final game will be less scripted.
That’s it for our E3 coverage this year. Tomorrow we return to our normal posting schedule, including the Diecast. Thank you for bearing with us.
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“Look for the trailer on YouTube, because I'm terrified to try and sum it up.”
I would go with “Tastes like purple.”
“hey dad, why do you where that war paint constantly”
“shut up son, kill this elk”
God of war as a dead game is so incredibly odd. Good trailer though.
…oh. A dad game.
Its not actually paint, it’s the ashes of his dead wife and son. Which makes this scene even stranger, considering his son is… not ash.
Dead wife and daughter actually, not that it especially matters. This is a reboot anyways so they’ll probably give Kratos a different backstory, in fact he might not even be called Kratos since they seem to be aiming for Norse mythology this time around and Kratos is a greek name (in fact the name of a minor Greek god that was the personification of power if I remember right).
Huh… i have a bad memory.
Sure i heard “valhalla” spoken by the boss creature at one point. But then kratos unleashed the “Spartan Rage” so i have no idea what they are doing. and this makes it sound like a sequel where Kratos has settled down after that killing everybody in greece business.
Kratos died at the end of GoW3, which granted doesn’t necessarily mean a lot for him, but it does make the possibility of it being a straight sequel rather than a reboot seem rather odd to me. Plus if its a sequel/continuation then why would they not call it God of War 4 instead of just God of War? Whatever the case it looks interesting at least.
He “died” in a way that didn’t let us see a body and clearly left room for a sequel.
And I guess they didn’t call it God of War 4 because game makers are allergic to numbers now? I don’t even know.
What if someone at the company realized that they had to reboot the numbering in order to spare us the otherwise-inevitable “God of 4” title? Theirs was a noble sacrifice.
“So I guess EVERYTHING is VR now?”
Sure. It’s like when MS was pushing Kinect functionality into every single game. PS4 has a VR peripheral, Sony’s probably put out an executive order for all projects to have some sort of VR functionality. You can clearly see that it’s being crammed in for FFXV, taking place in some sort of “arena mode”, while the main game is 3rd person.
I’m not surprised that they’re pushing VR hard, but I am surprised that they would do it with such high profile IPs. Given how experimental the whole thing still is, I would wait until we understand better both what works and who buys before associating my valuable IPs with a VR gimmick.
Well, the VR seems to be an addition in most cases, not core functionality, so implanting it in big sellers to encourage people to pick up the gear makes sense. It’s how Nintendo sells Amiibos, after all, it’s just a different price point. It also makes sense to hedge and not have a lot of VR exclusive games until the install base is up.
Shamus, you forgot Spider-man!
He does whatever a spider can.
I swear that Norman Reedus’ character gave birth to that baby (metaphorically or actually) and the cross-shaped scar was supposed to a Caesarian scar. #Kojima!
That was my thought, but I imaged searched Cesarean scars and they weren’t at all like what Norm had…
Then again, #Kojima!
I mean, The Boss in MGS3 also had a cesarean scar that looked NOTHING like an actual c-section, because it fit into the visual snake motif of the game, so it could be.
Yeah, the baby still had his umbilical too.
Did anyone else think the umbilical looks more like a power cord?
No clue what kind of game that will end up being. I’m thinking dating sim.
if it’s not actually a follow-up to P.T., I’m out
The Last Guardian: I want to interact with the dog-griffon so bad.
Death Stranding: It’s like, Kojima was so upset he didn’t get to make Silent Hills so he’s just decided to pour that creative energy into something equally as mind screwy. I’m genuinely confused and intrigued by it.
The Last Guardian is such a cool looking game. And it was a cool looking game when it was announced, which was what, 10 years ago? I’m still not sure I believe it’ll come out.
Death Standing looks like the only interesting thing in this otherwise meh bunch.
I’d say that the Days Gone “gameplay” footage shouldn’t be taken as an indication of the final product in any way. It’s impossible to tell if the apparent reliance on scripting is an element of the game, or just the kind of heavy-handed shenanigans they use to deceptively show off literally every other game shown at E3. Now, if the footage is bunk, that’s a different problem in itself. But I take it the same way I take carefully-curated footage of any game so early in development: seeing is not believing. No reason to get worked up one way or the other about how the game actually plays.
I played the God of War trilogy — twice, actually — and ended up with some conflicting feelings about the whole shebang. They’re fun games, but so tonally and poetically stagnant I can’t say I was sorry to see them go away.
But this new thing is pretty intriguing. It has a veneer of intelligence, at any rate. (Gosh, I sound like such a snob.) I’m just saying it looks interesting, but I don’t… trust it. The teaser suggests it’s got a lot of depth, but how much of that is only skin-deep?
I hope it’s exactly what it seems to be, though.
As for the others, I’m pumped for Horizon and the Last Guardian, and I’m optimistic about Resident Evi7. I eagerly await Detroit: Become Human only because I know the riffing it will generate will put me in stitches.
As for Death Stranding… all aboard the Kojima train, I say. Whatever it turns out to be, good or bad, it will be an experience.
Are these going to be uploaded to Youtube? I have trouble playing Twitch VODs.
Yes, please do this. I really enjoyed them last year and was only able to do so because they were on youtube.
The new God of War looked awful. The over-the-shoulder camera doesn’t work with a melee-focused game and the combat that was shown looked boring especially when compared to the old games.
Holy shit, you weren’t joking about Death Stranding. That’s some class A weird, right there.
Has a vague cyberpunk vibe, I guess? Shit’s polluted, planet’s dying and the nature of humanity is changing?
Might have to keep an eye on this one.
It’s probably some hallucination- / dream-world like in Silent Hill. So…I guess I look forward to what this place represents for our protagonist’s psyche?
Could be. If so, I’d guess survivor’s guilt will be the main theme.
Notes:
Spider-Man PS4 (Peeved that this one is exclusive, especially if it turns out to be supplemental canon to Homecoming. Maybe Sony will be releasing and advertising an official voiceless playthrough or an employee Let’s Play?)
God of War 4 (let’s not mince words, that’s what this is) (Terrible. I almost get what they’re trying to do, but this is a bad choice of camera angle for a brawler.)
Resident Evil 7 (Unlike Yahtzee or Campster, I’m kind of unhealthily on-board with the ongoing Resident Evil shlock soap opera at this point, so if this is JUST an atmospheric first-person game with none of the established heroes or villains involved, I’m probably out.)
Sadly, I missed most of the presentation streams. Any chance of putting them on youtube like last year’s?
EDIT: Just realized that this question has been answered already.
So…am I the only one who thinks the new God of War looks like a Skyrim mod?
The thing that excited me most about the God of War trailer is that at one point there’s a pop-up which says you”ve earned tracking EXP. I’m really hoping this ties into a really extensive varied levelling system.