LOS ANGELES—Hundreds of media and industry figures crammed into a nearly packed Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena last night for Sony'S E3 2012 PlayStation presentation, which highlighted upcoming games, including those that support the Sony Move controller.
Sony kicked things off with Quantic Dream's Beyond: Two Souls. Quantic Dreams announced that the game's protagonist, Jodie Holmes, will be played in voice and motion capture by Academy Award nominee Ellen Page. The company was very vague on the game's subject matter beyond a girl running from the police with a cryptic connection to the supernatural, but a gameplay video seemed very reminiscent of Quantic Dream's last game, Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain was notable for its unique and cinema-like storytelling and a structure that felt more like an interactive movie than a video game.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale was the second game on Sony's list. This Super Smash Bros.-like brawler combines the biggest names from Sony's library of games (and other series) in a free-for-all combat game. The game's already impressive roster was bolstered with the announcement of two new characters: Nathan Drake from Uncharted and Big Daddy from the Bioshock series. Sony confirmed that the game will be available for the PlayStation Vita, and Vita and PS3 games will be cross-compatible to let players on either system play against each other.
A live gameplay demonstration pit Kratos from God of War, Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal, and Fat Princess and Sly Cooper from their own eponymous games against each other. The characters fought on a giant conveyor belt from the Ratchet and Clank games that was quickly invaded by a giant hydra from the God of War games. The brawling was very reminiscent of Nintendo's crossover fighting game series, with the same frantic action and emphasis on repeatedly knocking out opponents with super moves as the Super Smash Bros. games.
Ubisoft, meanwhile, was on hand to show off Assassin's Creed 3, highlighting seafaring combat in the upcoming game. The demonstration video showed Connor as a sea captain, controlling a warship through the 18th century Caribbean sea. This sort of combat is new to the Assassin's Creed series, with a focus on fighting for position to fire cannon volleys on enemy ships. Of course, the video ended with Connor returning to his assassin roots by jumping onto an enemy ship and murdering someone. Assassin's Creed 3 comes out Oct. 30.
The Ubisoft promotion continued with Far Cry 3. Ubisoft announced that Far Cry 3 will get four-player cooperative play in the game, and demonstrated four players working together live to raid a bandit camp and destroy a bridge. The cooperative mode will have its own campaign to play in addition to the single player game, and a map editor will let players make their own multiplayer levels.
Sony further promoted its PlayStation Move motion controls, noting Move support for upcoming games like Bioshock Infinite and Dust 514. Sony seemed to parallel Microsoft's own Kinect promotion by focusing on upcoming games that will include support for Move, not necessarily emphasizing Move-only games in favor for big names that can tie into Move.
God of War: Ascension saw its first gameplay footage at the press conference, with a live demonstration. A young Kratos walked down a pier to see an innocent peasant die. His reaction was, as is typical for Kratos, "Meh." He took the sword from the peasant's body and used it to tear off the heads of minotaurs, because obviously decapitation is the best way to deal with minotaurs. While the game takes place before he was called the Ghost of Sparta, it's clear that Kratos will be the same angry, brutal death machine that made him popular. Also, a kraken attacked. God of War Ascension will come out for the PlayStation 3 on March 12, 2013.
Sony then showed off The Last of Us, an upcoming survival game for the PlayStation 3. A live gameplay demonstration showed the two main characters navigating through a ruined, flooded city that looked overgrown from months or years of disuse. They explored an abandoned hotel until they heard the voices of other humans from which they hid, then brutally fought. Instead of zombies or monsters, other desperate humans were the danger. It's a surprising contrast in a genre that usually relies on science fiction or the supernatural to create drama.
Sony also used the press conference to announce the June list of free games for PlayStation Plus. Subscribers who use the premium service will be able to download Infamous 2, Littlebigplanet 2, and Saints Row 2 for free starting today through the next month. PlayStation Plus offers a rotating selection of free games every month, which are usually announced over the PlayStation blog, not Sony's E3 press conferences.
