Unlike their competitors, Sony wasted no time getting to the most important topic for any gamer during its E3 presentation: games. Unfortunately, not all of the games shown were to everyones liking.

Beyond: Two Souls, developed by Quantic Dreams, the makers of Heavy Rain, was announced at the beginning of the show. Much like Heavy Rain, story and cinematic seem to play a large role in the game and follows the protagonist, Judie Holmes, over the course of her life.

Sony fans itching for some Super Smash Bros. are fortunately in luck; PlayStation All-Star Battle Royale aims to fill that niche. Battles are based around getting points, which players can obtain through defeating others and special moves. Big Daddy from Bioshock was confirmed as a playable character; other 3rd party characters may be included.

Sony also touched on their online service, PlayStation Network (PSN), revealing that over 200 games are due for release on the service within the next 12 months, including titles like The Unfinished Swan PSN and PS1 titles available online are also headed toward the Vita.  Fans can look forward to PS1 classics like Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy 7.

In addition, PlayStation Plus members can also expect to get great deals on content and online games, a smart move that will hopefully get more people to sign up for the service.

A Call of Duty game is in development for the Vita, along with the upcoming Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation (AC). Liberation is the first Assassin’s Creed game to feature a female assassin as the lead, has touch screen capabilities, and was built ground up for the Vita. There are also extras that can be unlocked when the game is linked up to Assassin’s Creed 3 on PlayStation 3. The games will give Vita owners something to look forward to in the coming months.

The latest flagship game in the AC series will have an emphasis on water, with controlling ships on the high seas as an important part of the game. A special and realistic weather system will also be in place in the game. Both Assassin’s Creed games will take place in America during revolutionary times.

Far Cry 3 multiplayer was also shown. The mode will include 4-player co-op and feature missions made specifically for multiplayer. Looking a little rough at this time, the game still has a ways to go in development, but looks to be a fun experience.

Sony, however, went wrong announcing Wonder Book: Book of Spells. Utilizing the PlayStation Move, players can cast spells and embark on quests in a Harry Potter themed world. The game is, however, nothing like the games fans were expecting and is more reminiscent of a point-and-click game meant for children. Many fans voiced their disapproval of the software and the lengthy amount of time devoted to it. 

Toward the end of the conference, a trailer for the new God of War game, subtitled “Ascension,” was shown. Fans of the series will be delighted to know that the game looks to follow its predecessor’s closely in terms of game-play and gore. A multiplayer mode will be included, up to 8 players can join in games of competitive team play where players will battle for control of the map. A release date of March 12, 2013 has been announced.

Sony closed its show with The Last of Us. Created by developer Naughty Dog, responsible for successful franchises like Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Daxter and the Uncharted series, the trailer for the game was by far the highlight of Sony’s conference. It features two characters, the ruthless Joel and the young but wise Ellie, trying to survive in a zombie infested post-apocalyptic world. While the concept might seem overdone, Naughty Dog breathes fresh life into the wasteland with fast and action-packed game-play.

While Sony had some high points and some low points, many fans overall were disappointed. Many games they expected to be shown or announced were not touched upon, such as Kingdom Hearts 3. Other than The Last of Us, there were no big surprises, and many hated Wonder Book: Book of Spells. Luckily for Sony, The Last of Us was enough not to alienate fans, but they definitely will not attract any newcomers with the show.

Image Courtesy of  PlayStation.Blog.Europe

The article Sony at E3 2012 appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

WatchDogs was a show-stopping surprise for all the attending members of E3. One of the most talked about games for the show, with a concept so eerie and yet also completely plausible, WatchDogs could turn out to be another sleeper hit from Ubisoft’s great design teams, creating original characters and concepts that change the gaming landscape for good.

At E3 2012, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot announced a new IP that have been in development for over 2 years. Its name is WatchDogs and in the most unnervingly realistic way, it’s a game about how a small select group of people spy on everyone else. And unveiling as secret as can be, fans were blown away by the hacker style gameplay as well as the lighting and gunplay elements. The question Mr. Guillemot left the audience with was “Who is really managing the world we are in” and the video that follows made everyone look at their phones with a bit of trepidation and no small amount of alarm.

The scene is set first with a woman’s voice narrating the news accompanied by ominous sounding music. She talks about how information and technology are managed. She talks about how one man was able to insert a virus that knocked out power to half a country, our country, the United States. Ten years later in 2011 the world is more advanced and therefore a central control system has been installed, able to manage entire cities at the click of a button. This could be a good thing; after all making the running of a city and its complicated budget much easier.

Yet, the concept of centralized control of traffic, transit and utilities controlled by a computer makes one wonder who controls the computer. As the voice continues to explain, the building dread comes to a boiling point as it is revealed that yet unnamed private companies control this central operating system and manipulate it to their own purposes. It is now personal data, not money or some other form of commodity, which has become the key selling point in the world. You’ve lost your individuality and are now just a number, in a growing row and column of numbers, your information harvested and sold in a digital world.

The concept is that all data is connected and through manipulation of that data, you and your world are influenced in both subtle and not so subtle ways.

Back in our reality, E3 attendees sitting in the audience were subjected to a green light scan of some kind. Creative Director of Ubisoft Montreal Jonathan Morin, goes on to say that you’ll play in an open city. Ubisoft has given you the player control of that city to use as your weapon. It may seem a strange concept, controlling a whole city as if it were a giant robot, but is that not what a city actually is? You’ll know everything about everyone in the entire city and control its functions at the literal touch of a button. That kind of power is seductive and that is what Ubisoft aims to prove.

The screen cut to a man walking down a street. Nothing wrong with that — except for the ‘creepy factor’ going through the roof as he jams phones in immediate vicinity, distracting guards at a club he needs to get into. His name is Aiden Pierce and he is out to kill a man.

Pierce could know the mental health, financial history, job, social security number and even the breakfast content of anyone he chooses to at any given moment. The concept is frightening as he scans a whole room of people, hacks an ongoing cellphone call to get the data that he needs. It’s not such a bad thing, using that sort of power to catch a bad guy, but what happens when that data is yours or your loved one’s.

Oh — and the part about wondering how a city can attack someone? Try traffic lights. How do you find your enemies? Try the thousands of camera’s that litter the city. It is not the most ethical method, having multiple people crashing their cars into one another in order to catch one man but then again, Aiden Pierce doesn’t have the time to care. He is a violent guy who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty, hurting bouncers and hired gunmen to send a message to some powerful people.

So the question Ubisoft presents to gamers is, do you want this kind of man to have access to your data? Probably not, not by a long shot. The better question that Ubisoft asks you is, wouldn’t you rather be this man? Ubisoft thinks gamers will love this game and from crowd reactions, they have hit another one out of the park. With no slated release date, this game could be a long ways away but it has great potential to become another massive console and PC hit.

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