We’re now on Day 3 of E3 and while the big three conferences have been mostly sound and fury signifying very little, there’s still quite a bit of good to be mined from the piles of new games and footage unloaded on us. I’ve managed to compile the best and, at minimum, most conversation worthy here. Use the girls/boys room first, though. You’ll be here a while.
First off, we’ve got our first look at Metal Gear: Revengeance in motion, courtesy GameTrailers. From what we’re seeing, it’s an only-slightly-less crazy Bayonetta, with a few new tricks. The irony is how easy it looks to do shit with a controller that the Wiimote and the PS Move were pretty much built on the concept of. Either way, looks fun as hell. Keep the cutscenes manageable, and we’re in for a grand, bloody time.
Next up, Watch Dogs, which has been the rock star of the show since this footage was released on Monday. Seems to have a lot in common with Assassin’s Creed, except your tools of espionage have gotten a lot more sophisticated, and somehow, they’ve managed to make that game’s engine look even better. I’m gonna guess there was voodoo involved. The gameplay video shows off a world of insane possibilities, and if Ubi can deliver on even half of its promises, we’re in for a treat. If nothing else, I’m thankful we’ve got an original IP floating out there making waves.
Speaking of Assassin’s Creed, while new trailers and gameplay footage of ACIII have been floating around for the last week, UbiSoft also, with way less pomp and circumstance, dropped the news that the game has a little sister, Assassin’s Creed Liberation, on Vita (one of, oh, 3 new games for that system? Good job, Sony.). Let’s pour some more praise on UbiSoft here: ACIII gives us an American Indian assassin, Liberation gives us a Creole woman. There’s something you don’t see every day, Chauncey.
Next, this got a little ignored under everything else covered during EA’s presser, but we have to throw some love at Need For Speed: Most Wanted. I still don’t know quite how to deal with Need For Speed and Burnout running off and getting married while I wasn’t looking, especially since their first collaboration was sort of a mixed bag (Burnout‘s gameplay, but NFS‘s leaden, too-real feeling cars. Eh.), but a super fun, high octane trailer set to The Prodigy’s Firestarter is a good way to win my affections.
I almost hesitated to include this, since it’s not for a game, but rather a short film made by Square Enix called Agni’s Philosophy, demoing their brand-spanking new graphics engine, called Luminous Studio. According to the video, what we’re seeing here is all real time. Considering how pretty Final Fantasy XIII/XIII-2 were, I’m willing to believe it. And it is damn pretty. If graphics were actually what Square Enix struggles with on a regular basis, I’d be kinda psyched. But it’s not.
On that note, however, Square Enix also released a trailer for Sleeping Dogs, the game which, once upon a time, was True Crime: Hong Kong. In a world where both Saint’s Row and Yakuza exist, a new True Crime game is almost laughably quaint, but games which have their protagonists taking power drills to the knee do demand attention. The story looks like decent enough Asian criminal intrigue. We’ll see if the gameplay’s up to snuff in August.
The WiiU was shown off with all the passion and joy of a coroner’s report, but lest the news get buried under the disappointment deluge that presentation will long be remembered for, we do have Lego City: Undercover to look forward to. Basically, it’s Lego GTA, with you playing a good guy Lego cop named Chase McCain. Presumably, there’s fewer hookers. Presumably.
Also in the category of blunder maneuvers, Nintendo failed to tell the audience at the conference that Platinum Games had a fantastic looking WiiU game in the works called Project P-100, about a group of superheroes (all of whom you control at one time!) coming together to battle an alien invasion. Not only is there a trailer….
…but Gamespot managed to get 12 minutes of sit down time with the game, and show how the WiiU controller’s incorporated into gameplay. Attention Nintendo: THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT TO SHOW PEOPLE.
The 3DS had a bafflingly quiet E3 as well, but thankfully, the two second blip of footage from Nintendo’s conference wasn’t all we’d see of Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate, as we also got a short, but sweet, story trailer for the game. The title appears to be filling in the gaps as to how the rest of the Belmont family, namely Castlevania III‘s Trevor, and his son, OG whip-slinger Simon, rose up against the newly vamped-out Gabriel. It’s actually a damn effective, subdued bit of storytelling, which really bodes well for the love Konami’s pouring into the series from more than just the gameplay side from here on where the Lords of Shadow games are concerned. Though the game’s looking damn good as well.
So….that new Star Wars game. I’ll be honest in that bounty hunters and the criminal underbelly have always been my least favorite part of the series, so a potentially M-rated game exploring it doesn’t really appeal on paper. Having thrown that out there, there’s this video from SpikeTV. To quote a wise man, “That is bananas.” If they manage to pull off Star Wars: Uncharted with all the gameplay promise of these videos fulfilled, I’ll be onboard.
Last but not least, a site called GameKyoTV managed to snag 20 minutes of cam footage from the floor demo of Beyond: Two Souls, which is not the optimal way I’d have preferred to see actual gameplay from what’s already a guaranteed $60 in David Cage’s pocket from me when it hits, but it’s better than nothing. The verdict? Well, it copy/pastes a lot of its action gameplay tricks from Heavy Rain, which is definitely a good thing, since it’s still in a very tiny cadre of games that use QTEs right, but the actual supernatural side of things highly resembles Nintendo’s Geist, which had fantastic gameplay mechanics wrapped around a frustratingly generic FPS. This looks for more worthy of the gimmick. Just come get your $60, Dave.