E3 2012: Sony Press Conference Recap

Capping off Monday’s press conference extravaganza is Sony with its E3 press event. Sony focused big time on showing the PlayStation Vita with new content and increasing connections with the Playstation 3. The Move also made a return with Sony’s new augmented reality Wonderbook initiative.

Beyond

Quantic Dream leads with their new title, Beyond: Two Souls. Quantic Dream boss David Cage hit the stage about how Heavy Rain and the Kara demo showed that Quantic could pull off real emotion with digital characters. The protagonist is Jodie Holmes and the game follows fifteen years of her life. Holmes will be voiced and portrayed by actress Ellen Page.

The demo shows a shaved Holmes being interrogated by a police officer. As he asks questions, a coffee cup on his desk begins to vibrate, before finally being flung into a wall by telekinesis. The station then gets raided by a SWAT team. The leader of the SWAT team looks to be the game’s antagonist. He asks the officer where Jodie is. The demo then cuts to action scenes of Jodie versus her pursuers. Cars flung, a gas station explodes, cops dying. Jodie threatens evil SWAT guy’s life, telling him to leave her alone. And with that, the demo ends.

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale

Chan Park from SuperBot Entertainment comes on stage with four color-coded players to demo PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Sweet Tooth, Sly, Parappa, Fat Princess, and more star in the Smash Brothers-style game. Park announces that the game will be available on Vita, with ‘cross-play’ for PS3.

The demo had a four-player match with two players on PS3 controllers and two on Vita units. The fight took place on a stage that featured the Hydra boss from God of War. After the Fat Princess player wins the match, Park reveals two new characters: Nathan Drake and Big Daddy from Bioshock. The game will also feature cross-save, where a player can start on one platform, save, and then play on another platform. 

Little Big Planet 2 DLC

SCEA president Jack Tretton announces new “cross-controller” DLC for Little Big Planet 2. The DLC will allow for simultaneous multiplayer on Vita and PS3. It will also add a new story mode, new costumes, new stickers, and new objects.

PlayStation Network Titles

Tretton revealed that 80 percent of PS3s and Vitas are online. He also pimped the Sony Pub Fund created to show indie developers some love. Upcoming PSN titles like Dyad, Papa & Yo, Unfinished Swan were all briefly mentioned. There will be 200 new downloadable titles coming to PSN over the next year.

PlayStation Plus

Tretton announced the expansion of PlayStation Plus, with new free games coming for Plus users. Starting tomorrow Infamous 2, LBP 2, Saints Row 2 downloadable for free, with a total of 12 free titles. PlayStation Plus will still be $5 a month, and Tretton scored some point with journalist by offering all attendees one free year of service.

Vita Showcase

60 new Vita titles will be coming in 2012, alongside Vita support for PS One Classics this summer. Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy VII were mentioned at the conference. Tretton talked up the video services on Vita currently, like Hulu, Vudu, and Amazon Instant Video, while also bringing up new video service that are coming, like YouTube, Hulu Plus, and Crackle.

Call of Duty Black Ops Declassfied for Vita was talked about, but no gameplay was shown. Coming this holiday season.

Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation

The first Assassin’s Creed game for Vita brings with it the series’ first female protagonist. Set  in New Orleans, Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation looks like the full AC experience shrunk down on a handheld. Free-running and Templar shanking all on display. The game has support for Vita touch controls and NEAR functionality. Connecting it to Assassin’s Creed III on consoles will unlock new items, including Connor’s tomahawk and a new character skin. Coming October 30, 2012. The game’s release will also be be celebrated with a Vita bundle that will include a Crystal White WiFi Vita, AC3: Liberation, and a 4GB card.

Assassin’s Creed III

But wait,there’s still more Assassin’s Creed III action. Creative director Alex Hutchinson came on stage to show off the game’s naval combat. Connor captains a ship in the Caribbean Sea. The demo shows Connor walking around the ship before taking full control of the navigation and cannons. The ship is then attacked by other ships.

Connor’s ship takes down a few smaller ships as it chases another large ship down. As they head out into sea, a storm begins, with waves cresting higher and rain. Impressive weather effects on show here. Thunder and lightning rage as Connor’s ship takes damage, leaving smoking timbers on deck. Finally, the ship pulls up alongside an enemy’s ship, with Connor and his shipmates jumping into a boarding action to end the demo.

There will be an exclusive PlayStation 3 hardware bundle that will come with a PS3, the game, and exclusive DLC.

FarCry 3

FarCry 3 has a special reveal for the Sony press conference: Four player co-op.  The will be a full four-player campaign in the game and the demo showed four players shooting and lighting up pirates in FarCry 3’s tropical locale. The mission objective looked to be the destruction of a bridge , with one player carrying a bomb onto the bridge while the others covered her. After placing  the first bomb, the group attempted to repeat the feat. Two players went down, but we revived by their comrades. With the second bomb placed, the bridge blew in a elaborate cutscene. FarCry 3 will include a full single player campaign, a full co-op campaign, multiplayer, and map builder. PlayStation 3 owners will also get exclusive FarCry 3 DLC.

Move Support

The Playstation Move got a small push, mentioning upcoming titles with Move Support, like Dust 514, Bioshock infinite, Sport Champions 2, Little Big Planet Karting, and Epic Mickey 2.

Wonderbook

Wonderbook is Sony’s new program involving augmented reality-enabled physical books. Sony is “working with the world’s best developers and authors” to create new Wonderbooks. Short film studio Moonbot Studios is working on a detective tale called Diggs Nightrawler for the Wonderbook platform.

Sony is also working with J.K. Rowling on Wonderbook project, called Miranda Goshawk, Book of Spells. Book of Spells will be the first Wonderbook title and marks the first collaboration between Pottermore and Sony. Book of Spells will feature exclusive original writing from Rowling.  Players use the Move as a magic wand.

The book contains information and stories about its different spells on each page.  A page on a fire-making spell tells of a dragon, which then comes alive and sets the book on fire onscreen. The player waved their hands to put the fire out, and then wiped the soot from the book’s pages. The demo also showed using the augmented reality to create a digital fold-out book on screen. More demos showed tracing shapes with the Move to cast spells.

The next page following the fire spell, opened a mini-game where the player had to use the Move to successfully cast the spell and burn paper creatures. Book of Spells is coming to PlayStation 3 this Fall.

PlayStation Suite

Tretton explained that the response to the PlayStation Suite program for Android phones in great. More PlayStation Certified phones are coming, with HTC as the first partner.  The PlayStation Suite is also being renamed to PlayStation Mobile.

God of War: Ascension

The God of War series has apparently sold 21 million units worldwide according to Tretton. The demo of Ascension involves the single player campaign, and begins with Kratos being dropped off on a dock by a ship. A statue under construction serves as the backdrop for the demo. Immediately, Kratos is attacked by goatmen, who are dispatched in classic God of War style by getting torn to pieces. Kratos even kills the goatmen’s leader with his own serrated sword.

Far off in the distance, the ship Kratos came in on gets pulled underwater by huge tentacles, probably relating to a kraken. The tentacles throw half of the ship at Kratos, which destroyed part of the dock leading upwards.  Kratos shows off a new power to rewind time and rebuild the destroyed dock and scaffolding.

Heading further upward Kratos is attacked by more goatmen. The time power is used to slow the goatmen who have been launched in the air, leading to more combo opportunities.

With the goatmen turned into bloody paste and glowing orbs, the kraken attacks Kratos directly and gets hurt for its trouble. The same goes for a gladiator-esque demon with a fiery hammer.  Kratos makes his way up the statue after each encounter, where he meets a huge elephant demon.  Kratos dispatches the beast with multiple brutal stabs to the head. The kraken returns a final time and Kratos decides to take the battle to the creature. He runs along the kraken’s tentacles before leaping into the water to attack the creature. God of War: Ascension is coming to PlayStation 3 on March 12, 2013.

The Last of Us

Sony’s conference closed out with a showing of Naughty Dog’s latest, The Last of Us. The game’s leads, Joel and Ellie, begin the demo on a swampy street in their ruined city, climbing over a bus and other obstacles Uncharted-style. Inside a ruined hotel, Joel takes down a survivor from behind, which alerts his friends to their presence.  Hiding behind cover, Joel uses his gun to take down the others. Joel and Ellie remove from room to room, but Joel gets sneak-attacked by another survivor. After a small brawl, Joel uses the man as a human shield, shoots his friend, and then violently beats him to death with a wrench. Another survivor attacks Ellie, and gets his face painted over the environment by Joel, who obviously does not play around.

Joel and Ellie search the room for survival items.  Joel creates a Molotov cocktail and lights one of a pair of survivors on fire with it. He then smashes the other survivor in the face with his own shotgun. The next attacker gets the jump on Joel and gains the upper-hand, but Ellie stabs him in the back, giving our hero a chance to shoot him right in the face. Realistic violence on show here.

The Last of Us closed out a Sony conference focused on violent, adult content, outside of the lengthy presentation on Wonderbook. Sony is strengthing the connection between the PlayStation 3 and the Vita, but will it be enough to save the flagging portable? We’ll take a look at Sony’s content on the showfloor tomorrow!