Let’s first take a look at Sony’s press conference. They had a pretty good showing this year, starting off strong with Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, a new God of War game, and a remastered version of the beloved classic Shadow of the Colossus. Sony also announced two of my most anticipated titles of E3 this year, Spider-Man, and Detroit: Become Human. Combining stealth and action that makes excellent use of the environment, Spider-Man looks like it will be fantastic, and is currently scheduled for a 2018 release. While hacking machines or having your actions affect the world around you aren’t new ideas, as a sci-fi geek I still can’t help but be drawn to Detroit: Become Human, a story in which androids seek liberation and autonomy, it currently has no release date. Sony also tried to make a big push this year with VR games, showing off a number of them in their conference, including the much anticipated Skyrim VR. Noticeably absent however, was the lack of any PS Vita games or announcements, leaving the handheld system to die off without a swan song.
Sony’s booth was a bit more disappointing. While the booth itself looked great, and was the largest of E3, it was not quite as crowded as I expected, especially in comparison to Nintendo at the next booth over, I quickly found out why. Unlike any other booths at E3 in which you simply hopped in line, in order to play any demos you had to download an app and attempt to book specific time slots, all of which filled up extremely quickly, leaving most people without a chance to play anything. Given that this was the first year in which tickets were also sold to the public, adding far more people to the convention halls than usual, a system which may have worked well in theory was simply overwhelmed by the sheer volume of attendees.
There are plenty of great games shown this year on the way to both Playstation 4 and Xbox One such as Monster Hunter World, Destiny 2, Kingdom Hearts III, Call of Duty: WWII, Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, and Dragon Ball Fighters Z. However due to the cost of modern game development, there are few third-party exclusives that stand out for Sony this year. One I am excited for however is Dissidia Final Fantasy NT for the PS4. Similar to previous entries, this is a 3D fighting game between Final Fantasy heroes, this time however fights are 3 on 3 team battles, and it gets as chaotic as you’d expect. Also related and released just after E3 is Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, the remastered version of Final Fantasy XII which includes additional content previously only available in Japan.
On the whole, I think Sony put forth a good effort this year. Not everything they showed off is quite my cup of tea, but there are certainly a few games to keep an eye on.
Grade: C+