The Top 5 Moments from Sony’s E3 2014 Press Conference

After Microsoft’s conference, where do we go? To Sony, of course! In my opinion, they had a rather nice showing last year, but could they keep that momentum going this year?

Let’s find out!

5) LittleBigPlanet 3

Much of what I said about “Project Spark” from Microsoft’s conference applies here, minus Conker, of course. I have dabbled in LittleBigPlanet here and there– mainly on demo kiosks– and it always seemed a fun time. Adding new friends with different abilities seems to have potential, too– I’m eager to see what people do with it, and it’s good to have an LBP option on the PlayStation 4.

4) No Man’s Sky

Walking around with dinosaurs and other strange creatures, blasting off into outer space in a starship, exploration and discovery, orange grass… what’s not to love about this? I want to see more.

3) PlayStation TV

$99 access to PlayStation Vita titles and Classics, among other things? Even though I don’t have a PlayStation 4 to take full advantage of this thing, I’m still interested.

2) Batman: Arkham Knight

I’m digging this mechanical, more armored-yet-flexible Batsuit. Hey, if Tony Stark can do it, why not Bruce Wayne? If nothing else, it’s a nice segway between the classic and Beyond Batsuits.

…and is that Kevin Conroy as Batman again? Yes! That’s never a bad thing. Never.

The music has a nice, classic vibe reminiscent of scores from the Tim Burton Batman movies and Bruce Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series, yet sounds distinct. And gliding around looks pretty cool there, too.

And the car? Well, chicks dig the car… and so do I, for that matter. All the moving parts just make it look very flexible and versatile. And it’s a tank! Not just in the “oh, it’s big and armored” sense, but literally a cannon-toting artillery-firing tank!

1) Ratchet & Clank Movie/Game

This might be kind of a weird one to have at number one, especially given all the gushing I just did over Batman and especially since the trailer was for the movie, but I have a soft spot for Ratchet & Clank. I’ve only played a bit of their first game on the PlayStation 2 and some of Ratchet & Clank Future on the PS3 at an event (which I thoroughly enjoyed), and have always wanted to get more into the series.

So I like the idea that we’re not only getting an animated feature film by Rainmaker Entertainment (formerly Mainframe of ReBoot and Transformers: Beast Wars fame) that (as I understand it) is based on the original game, but a remake of said original game, too. With any luck, maybe I’ll have a second chance to get in on the ground floor.

Honorable Mentions

• Entwined: This one looks neat, but we didn’t see a whole lot of it.
• Far Cry 4: I’m not a huge First Person Shooter fan, but I have always appreciated Far Cry‘s atmosphere. Very nice looking, this one, and it has some neat stuff going on. If I had to play an FPS, this is probably one of the ones I’d be inclined to go for.
• Dead Island 2: Much as with Dead Rising, if I’m going to have to put up with a zombie game, then I at least want to laugh at it. This trailer gave me that much, though remembering the disparity between the debut trailer for the first game and the actual release, I’m not putting too much stock into it.
• Hulk in Disney Infinity 2.0, but only on PlayStation 4: Playing as Hulk is neat. Not being able to play as Hulk in a multiplatform children’s game unless you own this one specific platform is not. Is there a figure for that? Does it come with the PS4 version? I would hope so; I can easily imagine hell being raised if parents who shelled out for this whole setup found out the $12 figure they bought won’t work with Little Jimmy’s version of the game.
• Magicka 2:

  7 seconds in: Unemployed hooded figure slumped on the sofa hooked me.

  24 seconds in: He has an adorable cat! I can relate to this character on that alone, if nothing else! I must know more about this game!

  46 seconds in: The cat is vaporized, leaving scorch marks on the floor. I never want to see this game again.

  Overreaction much? Yeah, maybe just a little, but what can I say? I like cats and I make no apology for it. I could have gone with spooking it, or even something a little worse, but this? No thank you…

  Shame. I really liked what I saw otherwise.

• Grim Fandango: Never played the original, but I do like Tim Schafer and the game’s reputation speaks for itself.
• Broforce: I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while, and though it’s on Steam, seeing a console version of games like this is always nice.
• Let It Die: On the one hand: It’s SUDA 51. On the other hand, outside of the skateboarding Grim Reaper in the logo, it doesn’t look remotely like the kind of over-the-top games I’ve come to know SUDA for, so the jury remains out on this one.
• Project Morpheus: Because I remain curious about becoming a real-life VR Trooper.
• PlayStation 4 utilizing Twitch, YouTube, etc.: I like that Sony is putting these tools up front and center.
• Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain: I do like Metal Gear and am even okay with a lot of Kojima’s weird plot devices, but some of the stuff in Ground Zeroes I’m not so sure about. I’ll have to wait and see how I feel about this one.

—–

And that’s everything from Sony this year! All in all, not too bad. It’s not the complete bodyslam that they delivered to Microsoft last year, but then that bar was set kind of low to begin with. Oh, and the new systems are out, so there’s less of that to utilize.

I don’t have a PlayStation 4 or an Xbox One yet, and last year, I was leaning PS4. This year, while Sony had a lot of neat stuff I’m looking forward to, none of it really had that “wow” factor over the competition. It’s probably worth noting that three spots of my Top 5 were occupied by a cheap hardware solution, a remake/movie, and a multiplatform game– all good stuff, but the gap feels a lot narrower this year.

The rumored PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale 2 being a no-show doesn’t help, either– I really hope they give that another go, and rework it to something more people will go for. The concept is solid, but the execution was apparently lacking.

Nonetheless, if I can get my hands on a PlayStation 4 sometime, I can rest assured that there is still plenty of stuff to capture my interest on it. On the downside, PlayStation 3 stuff was nearly if not entirely nonexistent. That’s a win and a fail for me, seeing as I don’t have that console, either.

David Oxford

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

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