E3 09: Sony Impressions

Okay last one. I've never liked that Sony and Nintendo's conferences are basically back to back. It really tires me out and causes me to be little impatient with Sony's announcements. Unlike Microsoft and Nintendo, I still do not own a PS3 or PSP and while this year's keynote didn't make me crave a PSP, I do still want the PS3...if only because they still have 3 franchises I love: Ratchet & Clank, God Of War, and Kingdom Hearts. Overall I thought Sony really failed to wow me with surprises and I felt that they spent a little too much time with each game demo. The conference was fairly long winded but I did get a few games to talk about.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: Of course I've never played the first game and the only the I heard about it was that it was like a much better Tomb Raider game and you get to stare a hot guy's ass instead of hot girl. This follow up appeared to be fairly entertaining. If I had a PS3 I'd check it out.

PSP Go: They joking referred to this as the worst kept secret at E3 and they were right. The only time I really wanted a PSP was last year when they released the God of War bundle, but I held off on it when I remember that apart from GOW there were only one or two other games for the handheld that were really worth having. And that's still the same story now. The Psp Go is geared more towards media savvy consumers, and it looks slick and sexy, but unless they get some real high quality games for the system, then their wasting everyone's time. They showed off in a quick montage all the games coming to the system and the only ones I would want were the new Jak and Daxter and the game I'm about to spotlight next...

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: The second "traditional" MGS game on the PSP. The first game, Portable Ops, is one of those 1 or 2 games worth having I mentioned. This game looks good and I was pleased that there was actual gameplay footage unlike yesterday's Metal Gear Rising "trailer" (a shot of clouds rolling by with an image of Radien is NOT a trailer). It's also worth noting that MGS Rising was not talked about during the keynote which to me confirms that that game will at least release on 360 first.

Agent: A new game from GTA makers Rockstar. Not much info was given apart from the constant stressing that this was a PS3 exclusive. I think it's safe to say that it will be a exclusive for like a year before the 360 and maybe Wii (it happened with Bully) version are revealed.

Final Fantasy 14 Online: I joined the stunned and confused audience with the sudden announcement that Square Enix was already working on FF 14 and it would be released next year. The reveal that it would be another online game like FF 11 helped this shocker make more sense. Considering FF 11 wasn't exactly a best selling winner, I have wonder if this game is aiming to be an improvement.

PS3 Motion Control...Thing...: Yeah...they didn't have a name for this thing. It looks like slightly better Wii Remote. To be honest the things they were doing with it on stage weren't that interesting, but I will say that this seems to be a tad more "useful" (for lack of a better word) for games than Microsoft's Project Natal.

Modnation Racers: It's like Little Big Planet for racing games. I really only care about Burnout and Mario Kart as far as racing games are concerned, but I might check this this one out.

The Last Guardian: Oh why, oh why, oh why haven't I played Ico and Shadow of the Colossus yet? They've been on my need to play list for a few years now. Maybe if I had played them I would have been a lot more excited for this game, which was created by the same guy who developed those 2 games. The trailer didn't reveal much on gameplay, but it looked really really pretty.

Grand Turismo 5: Given the infamous delay time on GT4, I think it would be amusing to see how long it takes for this game to actually release. I don't really care about Grand Turismo...too realistic for me. Looks nice though.

God Of War III: This is it , Sony's showstopper. To be honest I'm glad the game doesn't release til March of next year, gives me more time to get a job so I can afford a PS3. The short demo they played of the game's opening is very reminiscent of the opening of God Of War 2 only much, much prettier. And I think you can count on the full game pretty much not offering anything truly new over the game's predecessors...just an HD gore fest. But really that's not much of a bad thing since there really isn't anything about this series that needs changing. I'm making it my goal to have a PS3 by this game's launch.

And that was it. I pretty upset that the new Ratchet & Clank game "A Crack in Time" wasn't given any face time during the conference especially since unlike God of War, it actually comes out this year...but oh well.

These last 2 days have been pretty tiring as fair as game news was concerned and I'm actually pretty happy it's over. Overall E3 2009 gave some pretty solid games to look forward to...too bad about 75% of these games aren't out until next year!