Sony Gamer's Day 2006 Wrap-Up: Features

In San Francisco, Sony recently held a Gamer's Day for the media and AE's Kurt Kalata was there after braving a long flight, checking into a really nice hotel, and being tempted by free booze and eats. (Yeah, it was a tough assignment.) He got his hands on a dozen games and lets us know what we can expect when the Playstation 3 launches November 17, 2006.

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Sony Gamer's Day 2006 Wrap-Up

With only a month left before the launch of the PS3, Sony's Gamer's Day was the company's last chance to make any last minute announcements, make any final clarifications, and show off the finalized launch line-up. Unfortunately, there weren't any last minute surprises, and a few questions remain unanswered.

ps3 packaging

One of Sony's few notable announcements was that they'd be packaging a Blu-Ray copy of Talladegga Nights with the first 500,000 copies of the system, much like the PSP and Spiderman 2. Although the movie was pretty successful in the box office, this seems like kind of an odd choice, because the movie itself isn't exactly something that shows off the technical prowess of high definition video. (Plus the movie isn't one of Will Ferrell's better movie, but that's just me talking.) The interface is pretty much exactly like the PSP, so it's delightfully simple, but not exactly as visually engaging as the 360's dashboard. Of the few other announcements made, Sony priced their first party games at $60 US, which is a bit disappointing, both in comparison to their cheaper Japanese counterparts, and the

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$50 US Microsoft first party titles for the 360. None of the third parties announced their pricing scheme, though it could potentially be even pricier. Sony also unveiled their online store, where you can download demos, movie trailers, and cheap Xbox Live arcade-style games. None of the prices were set for these yet, although they said they'd all be under $15 US.

Interestingly, they had a few PSOne titles

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listed, such as Medieval and Twisted Metal. What was odd was that you can apparently download these to play on your PSP and eventually, your PS3. I thought the PS3 was already backwards compatible with PSOne games? Apparently there won't be any visual enhancements either, so you'll still need to use emulators on your PC to get those smoothed graphics. They didn't mention anything about playing PS2 games in high-def. You can stream movies from your PS3 to the PSP, although I'm not entirely sure if there's a practical function for this, other than to show it off to your friends.

As for the games:

Genji 2

Genji 2 is more or less a laughing stock after the Sony Press Conference, but it's actually a pretty decent game. Even though the game only moves at 30 FPS (the PSOne original moved at 60), it still manages to look impressive, and the visuals have a much better design aesthetic than the overblown, overlit Heavenly Sword. Oddly enough, despite the wide-open landscape, there's no way to move the camera, as the right analog stick is used to dodge. There are four characters you can switch between at any time, and even though some of them moved a little bit slow, it's still satisfying to beat things to a pulp. I overheard that Genji 2 fills 14 GB of a Blu-Ray disc, which is already 1.5 times the capacity of a DVD. I wonder what the heck they're using all of that space for -- I'm guessing just high def movies, at this point. Apparently you can also install a few gigs of it on your hard drive to shorten load times. This feature was in a few PS2 games (and could be done illicitly with the right programs), and it really helped.

Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom (left); Blast Factor (right)

Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom

From afar, this looked just like Heavenly Sword, as the graphic design is pretty similar. But Untold Legend has a stricter focus on RPG stat building, and the playable level revolved around hunting down portals and destroying them. It's not exactly the deepest game in the world, as it seemed to mostly involve button mashing, but it's a bit better than I expected.

Lair

One of the few games that Sony hadn't shown off at E3 in playable form, Lair was created by British studio Factor 5,. who also did the Rogue Squadron games for Nintendo. Conceptually the game is impressive -- you control a huge dragon that flies amidst a battlefield, ripping up other dragons and setting hapless humans ablaze. Unfortunately, the tilt controls were rather unresponsive, especially when you needed to fly up next to an enemy dragon and try to ram right into it. Apparently there will be an option to use the regular analog sticks instead of just the Sixaxis, but this didn't seem to be implemented in the demo. The frame rate was also pretty awful too, which drastically marred the otherwise amazing visuals. Still, they've got some time to iron out this stuff, so it might turn out well.

Sonic the Hedgehog

You may have played the demo that was released on Xbox Live a few weeks ago. You may have realized that the latest Sonic the Hedgehog is completely and terribly awful, with twitchy controls, a bad camera, and tons and tons of glitches. Well, the PS3 version is the same, except with more slowdown and screen tearing. This doesn't bold well for the claims that the PS3 can outdo the 360, although to be honest, it's not like Sega's really trying with this title anyway.

Full Auto 2

Full Auto 2 is coming out exclusively for the PS3, apparently because the 360 version didn't sell well enough. I'm not entirely sure of the logic behind that, but the game looks about the same, and runs with the same choppy framerate, including the weird stutters and pauses. They've added Twisted Metal-style arena combat, where you can demolish whole buildings so they'll crush your opponents. Kinda cool, but the original game certainly didn't have enough depth to make it worth the price, so I'm not sure this one will either.

Virtua Fighter 5

Well, it's Virtua Fighter, with a few more new characters. The graphics are gorgeous -- this is probably the smoothest, best looking game on the PS3 thus far, and the characters blow away Dead or Alive 4 - but it's certainly not going to appeal to anyone outside the fanbase.

Resistance: Fall of Man

As much as this is pretty much just your standard first person shooter (and with washed out graphics that manage to make the game look really ugly), there are some nice touches that Insomniac has stuck in, which are reminiscent of their Ratchet and Clank games. A few of the more interesting weapons including a homing gun, a rifle that can shoot through scenery, and a rifle that shoots out shells which later explode, sending bullets all across the screen. Although some of the stages seemed to borrow generously from Call of Duty, one of the levels shown off featured huge, futuristic towers connected by narrow beams. I still don't think the Sixaxis is nearly as good for first person shooters as the Xbox controllers, but considering that Resistance offers forty player deathmatches online, we'll see how other players warm up to it.

Gran Turismo HD (left); Virtua Fighter 5 (right)

Fight Night Round 3

Pretty much the same as the 360 version, although EA has added a first person boxing mode similar to the awesome-but-flawed Xbox game Breakdown. Looked pretty cool in motion, but not nearly enough to justify buying it again if you already own it.

Blast Factor

Nothing screamed playing catch-up like Blast Factor, a dual-analog shooting arcade game from Sony's online store. It's basically like Geometry Wars with some better graphics (not like there's any shortage of those), although you can tilt the stage to move (and flip) bad guys, and a repeller attack will slow down the game and force enemies away from your player. It lacks the speed and intensity of Geometry Wars, but it's fairly decent.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire

You know how there are at least a few 360 games are just PS2 titles running in high res? That's what this new Gundam game is, and it runs at a terribly choppy frame rate too boot. Still, if Gundam fans are just going to buy it anyway, what's the point of making it decent?

Gran Turismo HD

I can't believe they're still working on this. The original Gran Turismo 4 was already one of the few PS2 titles to run in HD (1080i), and this version doesn't really look much better. The other racing titles, Need of Speed Carbon and Ridge Racer 7, are definitely blowing this out of the water. It's still awhile off, apparently, but since it's not a new title per se, I wouldn't expect much from it.

These were all of the titles I got to play before being herded downstairs and forced to listen to Ludacris. Of the many announced launch titles, there were a few that were absent, including Blazing Angels, Rainbow 6: Vegas, Oblivion, and FEAR.

Overall, the games they showed off were just okay. There's a good variety of stuff, but nothing that really stands out. Still, most of these look better than first-gen 360 games, which is a step in the right direction. It won't be until Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII that things really become interesting.

- Kurt Kalata

(October 23, 2006)


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