Slashdot Mirror
E3 - Hands On Impressions - Sony
Slashdot Games is continuing to cover events from the show floor at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles. After covering Nintendo's booth, our next subject is Sony, who backed up the information contained in their pre-E3 press conference with a bevy of playable titles. Read on for what we found at Sony, including Gran Turismo 4, Resident Evil Online, and the very cool Eye Toy.
- Gran Turismo 4 was looking, overall, pretty spectacular. The in-car view isn't a quantum leap above the kind of visuals GT3 has, but it still looks significantly better. The exterior views and replays are looking insanely good, though, and with new courses like New York (including Times Square), new rally tracks, and the ever-amazing attention to detail, nirvana awaits for car nuts.
- Eye Toy was the stand-out surprise of the booth, since it's infinitely more satisfying in the flesh than if explained or shown in screenshots. It stars a series of almost Point Blank-styled mini-games, such as keeping a soccer ball in the air or chopsocking cartoony ninjas as they swarm from the sides of the screen. The key is that you can see yourself onscreen, courtesy of the USB camera that comes with the games, and can adjust your physical position to hit or interact with the objects that appear on the TV. A boxing mini-game where you dueled a robot, Punch-Out style, was another highlight, one which had attendees ducking and weaving as they landed virtual punches on the poor hunk o'metal. Considering this will all cost about the price of a normal PS2 game, it's a seriously quirky but cool stand-out.
- Final Fantasy XI was available and playable online in a fully translated English version. It's nothing that hasn't been seen before in the already-released Japanese version, but it did impress in the flesh, looking more visually interesting than the Everquest Online titles for PS2, and promising diversity with a truly huge range of spells and attacks.
- Ratchet And Clank:Going Commando and Jak II pretty much defined the 'neat game, better-looking sequel' concept. There's even more weapons of choice for Ratchet And Clank, plus Jak II sporting some pretty amazing-looking graphics, with a large number of vehicles, passers-by, and enemies all on screen as Jak bounded through a city, and no slow-down in the slightest.
- Rise To Honor, the action title starring a virtual Jet Li, was looking promising. Quite reminiscent of titles like Dead To Rights, but minus the random mini-games, RTH showcased both hand-to-hand martial arts goodness and double-gun shootout action. Sporting crisp graphics and some decent-looking moves, though suffering from a few glitches and an oddly emotionless-looking Jet Li, it's definitely worth looking out for.
- Syphon Filter: Omega Strain was running in multiplayer networked deathmatch mode, and was goodlooking and smooth. It had particularly neat rain effects on the dark urban streets of the playable level. Oddly, it wasn't generating a lot of interest, with those attendees playing just standing in one place and raking machine-gun fire aimlessly, but that could say more about the E3 attention span than the game.
- Resident Evil:Outbreak (the former Resident Evil Online) was also running in its networked, collaborative form. Interestingly, it had a 'HDD' info sticker on the front of the booth, presumably meaning it'll only work with the PS2 hard disc. The action looked extremely similar to your average Resident Evil title, but with the ability to go help out your friends elsewhere in the spooky-looking decaying house. Teaming up with your friends is a neat twist, as is a new 'zombie gauge' which may allow the player to eventually turn into a zombie, but still have control over his new form. We didn't see any of that on the show-floor version, though, possibly because it was entirely in Japanese, so a little tricky to understand at points.
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was shown only in video form, in a significantly expanded version from the previously leaked trailer. We'll hopefully have more on this title as E3 continues.
- For those lovely Slashdot Games readers asking about booth babes, we almost got flattened by hordes of attendees coming away from the Dead Or Alive fashion show at the Tecmo booth. No pictures, only the imprints of over-enthusiastic fan-boots in our face.
For further impressions, screenshots, and media try IGN.com, Gamespot, Gamers.com, Gamerfeed, or all the other usual suspects. We'll have further hands-on impressions from other booths later today.
- Eye Toy was the stand-out surprise of the booth, since it's infinitely more satisfying in the flesh than if explained or shown in screenshots. It stars a series of almost Point Blank-styled mini-games, such as keeping a soccer ball in the air or chopsocking cartoony ninjas as they swarm from the sides of the screen. The key is that you can see yourself onscreen, courtesy of the USB camera that comes with the games, and can adjust your physical position to hit or interact with the objects that appear on the TV. A boxing mini-game where you dueled a robot, Punch-Out style, was another highlight, one which had attendees ducking and weaving as they landed virtual punches on the poor hunk o'metal. Considering this will all cost about the price of a normal PS2 game, it's a seriously quirky but cool stand-out.
- Final Fantasy XI was available and playable online in a fully translated English version. It's nothing that hasn't been seen before in the already-released Japanese version, but it did impress in the flesh, looking more visually interesting than the Everquest Online titles for PS2, and promising diversity with a truly huge range of spells and attacks.
- Ratchet And Clank:Going Commando and Jak II pretty much defined the 'neat game, better-looking sequel' concept. There's even more weapons of choice for Ratchet And Clank, plus Jak II sporting some pretty amazing-looking graphics, with a large number of vehicles, passers-by, and enemies all on screen as Jak bounded through a city, and no slow-down in the slightest.
- Rise To Honor, the action title starring a virtual Jet Li, was looking promising. Quite reminiscent of titles like Dead To Rights, but minus the random mini-games, RTH showcased both hand-to-hand martial arts goodness and double-gun shootout action. Sporting crisp graphics and some decent-looking moves, though suffering from a few glitches and an oddly emotionless-looking Jet Li, it's definitely worth looking out for.
- Syphon Filter: Omega Strain was running in multiplayer networked deathmatch mode, and was goodlooking and smooth. It had particularly neat rain effects on the dark urban streets of the playable level. Oddly, it wasn't generating a lot of interest, with those attendees playing just standing in one place and raking machine-gun fire aimlessly, but that could say more about the E3 attention span than the game.
- Resident Evil:Outbreak (the former Resident Evil Online) was also running in its networked, collaborative form. Interestingly, it had a 'HDD' info sticker on the front of the booth, presumably meaning it'll only work with the PS2 hard disc. The action looked extremely similar to your average Resident Evil title, but with the ability to go help out your friends elsewhere in the spooky-looking decaying house. Teaming up with your friends is a neat twist, as is a new 'zombie gauge' which may allow the player to eventually turn into a zombie, but still have control over his new form. We didn't see any of that on the show-floor version, though, possibly because it was entirely in Japanese, so a little tricky to understand at points.
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was shown only in video form, in a significantly expanded version from the previously leaked trailer. We'll hopefully have more on this title as E3 continues.
- For those lovely Slashdot Games readers asking about booth babes, we almost got flattened by hordes of attendees coming away from the Dead Or Alive fashion show at the Tecmo booth. No pictures, only the imprints of over-enthusiastic fan-boots in our face.
For further impressions, screenshots, and media try IGN.com, Gamespot, Gamers.com, Gamerfeed, or all the other usual suspects. We'll have further hands-on impressions from other booths later today.
must.... stop.... drooling....
Oops!