I've been rolling around this list for a while, not out of laziness but in all honesty I wasn't too impressed with 2018. I was busy for most of it and found myself drifting back to games available through the Xbone's back compat offerings.
Sony: I bought games I already own just so I can play them comfortably on my nice television with nominally improved framerates. Please take note of this for your future consoles, thanks.
Truth be told, I wasn't even sure how many games I would actually rank; this list has jumped from top five to top nine and everything in between, but after careful consideration I decided to just bite the bullet and list what I played and why I didn't finish the games I wanted to. Spider-Man was my last holdout, but with all the incredible games coming out this year I just didn't feel like putting them off to finish stuff on this list.
Games Not Finished
Mega Man 11
I like Mega Man 11. The Gear system is a great way to introduce an element of accessibility to the game that never once feels mandatory. Series veterans will feel right at home with the level design while newcomers will find that the Gear system is lenient enough that you can safely fall back on it. The game has a plethora of difficulty options and never shies away from series tradition, despite the fact that it takes great strides toward updating the series. The new 3D graphics are decent, nothing too terrible but it doesn't take away from the charm of the game.
Why I didn't complete it: Short answer: too hard. I like to go back to MM11 every now and then to take a crack at a level or two, but I'm old and my crinkled gorilla hands and armadillo brain just can't keep up with Rock like it used to. I'll probably finish it one day. Probably.
Octopath Traveler
I really wanted to love Octopath Traveler. There's a ton of stuff to do and it feels endless, which doesn't help my waning interest. The story is dark and I appreciate the regional accents characters have, and the world feels nice and lived-in. Allowing the player to unlock secondary jobs over time gives the game a massive degree of customization, and having entire story arcs left as optional content is a great way to give players a sense of freedom. That said, not accounting for the player recruiting everybody means the cast never interacts much and it doesn't feel like building a team, more like controlling a function of a character who occasionally gets their own story arc at different points. Leveling up takes way too long as well, and a few of the characters are pretty boring. It's a well-made game and I look forward to finishing it, just not any time soon.
Why I didn't complete it: Recently I decided to go back and give it another shot, and the game does open up in the second chapter, but unlike JRPGs I truly enjoy the story of Octopath simply cannot keep my attention for more than an hour or two. All the flaws I found also drag the entire package down, and the idea that I have to find each secondary job separately makes me just not want to bother. As a spiritual successor to Bravely Default, it takes too many steps back from the modern conveniences of that game. I see the appeal of making a very classic JRPG, my favorite genre is probably the PS1 era of JRPGs, but obfuscation for the sake of it just leads to frustration. You can evolve the genre while not forcing it, which this game feels like it tries too hard to do.
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise
This one hurts. Lost Paradise is a winning formula, a quality product in every way. Take the familiar gameplay and feel of Sega's incredible Yakuza games, drop it in the world-famous Fist of the North Star setting, and let the Ryu Ga Gotoku staff go nuts. The game feels like it's a story arc ripped straight out of the manga, with new characters alongside familiar faces and just enough backstory for any newcomer to jump right in. Play this game, it would have easily been top three on this list otherwise.
Why I didn't complete it: Yakuza 6 came out last year. These games are long and can take a hefty time investment; even those that are high quality like Lost Paradise needs some breathing room. And with Judgment coming later this year, I just don't know how I'll have the time.
The List
7b: Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate
I said before that so long as we get a Monster Hunter, it'll always be welcome on my game of the year list. Generations Ultimate improves upon its 3DS counterpart with new styles, new monsters, more abilities, and just more stuff to do in general. Plus, it's on the Switch, so now you can play a classic-style Monster Hunter like a human being rather than a buster scrub picking away at the stupid camera nub on a screen for a phone from two decades ago. Of course, since it's a re-release it can't take the official number seven spot, but it's so good that I had to give it some props. If you want the most pure taste of classic Monster Hunter, this game is as good as you're ever going to get.
7: Yakuza 6
Yakuza 6 is a very conflicted game, and were it not for all the unfinished games it would be much lower on this list. Yakuza 6 picks up directly from the end of Yakuza 5, placing Kiryu in a desperate situation with his adopted daughter Haruka by his side. Kiryu spends several years in prison, and when he gets out all hell has broken loose. The Tojo clan is on its last legs, the big figures of the Tokyo yakuza are nowhere to be seen, and the Chinese mafia has begun its slow takeover of Kamurocho. In the center of it all is Haruka, left heavily injured and comatose from a hit and run. To Kiryu's surprise, Haruka is the mother to a boy named Haruto, and the mystery of his parentage takes center stage. At the heart of it all, Yakuza 6 is about passing on the torch to a new generation and the sacrifices a parent must make for their child. The story is very touching and moves along at a brisk pace, and as a huge fan of the series I cannot be happier by their sendoff for series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu. That said, the new combat system takes some getting used to, and leveling the player's skills can be tedious and frustrating at times. The twists can be pretty stupid, and I intensely dislike that most of the new characters from Yakuza 4 and 5 are largely forgotten. It's worth playing for series vets and for that I respect it, but it is absolutely not a game for newcomers to the series.
6: Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna, the Golden Country
I considered this one for a long time, but as far as I'm concerned, Torna is long enough and distant from the original Xenoblade 2 that it can be considered its own game. Initially pitched as the actual Xenoblade 2, then reworked from a chapter of the main game, Torna is a compelling take on the events of Xenogears Episode 4 with plenty of callbacks to that game, providing a detailed look at an event referenced throughout Xenoblade 2 while fleshing out the backstories of many of its more mysterious characters. The gameplay has been way refined, ditching the random Jojo's Bizarre Adventure-Stand-style Blade system for one that more properly assigns characters to their Blade counterparts. Gone is the tedious grinding for high-level Blades, and with it the need to grind for skills to traverse the world. That's all still there, but it's much easier to explore the world without completely arbitrary roadblocks. A modified version of the beloved Affinity system from the original Xenoblade returns, which I wrote about extensively in my glowing review for that game, which greatly impacts player involvement in some of the more harrowing moments in the story. Torna is a great introduction to the world of Xenoblade 2 and can be played with or without the main game, and even though it's an expansion I consider it one of the finest games of the year. And check out the soundtrack, while you're at it.
5: Monster Hunter World
Following the reveal of Monster Hunter World, I was not one of the millions of people eager to try out the new redesign of the series. After reluctantly giving it a shot during a trial period, I finally saw just how wrong I was. Many of the obfuscated elements of Monster Hunter have been totally streamlined in World, leaving a game that focuses almost exclusively on the brutal fights between the player and the monster targeted for the hunt. Everything about the game flows smoother, the animations are top notch, and after a decade Monster Hunter finally feels like a game that wants to impress rather than be content to pump out iterative releases. Monster Hunter World is brilliant, and is well deserving of its twelve million lifetime sales. I just can't wait to get back to it so I can be prepared for Iceborne later in 2019.
4: Dragon Ball FighterZ
As a lifetime fan of Dragon Ball, I cannot stress enough just how much this game got right. More than that, it's an absolutely stellar fighter, built to be accessible to beginners and complex enough for hardcore fighting players. After the disaster of Marvel VS Capcom: Infinite, all this game had to be was good. Rather, Arcsys has developed one of the best 3v3 fighting games in recent memory, and even as season 2 picks up the pace with more characters the game still feels completely fresh. Arcsys, please, save JoJo's Bizarre Adventure from its endless hell of bad video games and give it the FighterZ treatment.
3: God of War
God of War has been a series that I've both enjoyed and despised. Greek mythology played with edgy cynicism over basic hack-and-slash gameplay gave the series a unique charm, but it never felt particularly deep and the main character, Kratos, had all the charm of a dry sponge. There is no way in any version of hell that the series could continue in its legacy form, but even still, never in my wildest dreams did I anticipate the reboot to come out so fantastic. While the gameplay is still not deep, the RPG mechanics give the player a great feeling of customization with options that open up the further the player gets into the game. Equipment adds a great feeling of progression while gems give the player bonuses to feel like each play style has unique elements. The story of Kratos taking his son on a meaningful journey suffers from cliche moments, but it's told well and has a satisfying conclusion. The fixed camera does not do the game any favors as it often leads to jarring or lazy story cuts, and some of the character turns come out of nowhere, but all in all it's a fine game with fun exploration and a gripping narrative.
2b: Yakuza Kiwami 2
Alright look, this game is just a remake and I normally wouldn't want to put a remake on a year's best list. That said, Yakuza 2 is one of my favorite games ever and this is a pretty faithful remake of that game. Some cuts had to be made, including a short area later on, and a few changes are disappointing. It's still a great, modern way to play a classic game, with new minigames and a brand new story segment to follow up on Yakuza 0's Majima story. The improvements to the Dragon Engine so close to Yakuza 6 make this game feel even better to play, and while that game left me questioning the future of the franchise with how busted and restricted it felt, Kiwami 2 brought back my hope in a big way. A tremendous game all around.
2: Marvel's Spider-Man
I really can't stand this comic book resurgence. I have completely checked out of the Marvel movie thing and I absolutely will not be playing that terrible Avengers game, but Spider-Man was always on my radar. I like the guy, he's a fun super hero and a lot of games in the franchise have been pretty great. Insomniac's involvement in this game is what really sold me on the premise. I like their games, and I seriously wish I had an Xbox the year Sunset Overdrive released so I could have sung its praises more highly. Spider-Man takes concepts from that game and cranks them up to their highest potential, creating a living world that actually feels like a fully fleshed-out Spider-Man adventure. The story is phenomenal and takes a turn darker than I've ever seen from the hero. The biggest downside to the game is the Batman: Arkham-style gameplay. I don't hate it and there are plenty of new twists on the formula, but it's exactly like you would expect. That aside, this is probably the best superhero game I've ever played, nudging out even the exceptional Batman: Arkham Asylum.
1: Red Dead Redemption 2
Every now and then I catch myself humming Willie Nelson's original song for this game, "Cruel Cruel World," and every time it makes me reminisce about what a transcendent experience Red Dead Redemption 2 truly is. It is faultless in every way, brimming with side activities while only expecting the bare minimum out of the player if the story is the main focus. You could spend hundreds of hours without watching a single cutscene, only exploring the world and getting into whatever shenanigans pop up. The story itself is so far beyond anything I've seen this year, easily since Nier: Automata, that I just feel like I wouldn't be doing it justice in trying to describe it. The gameplay is heavy, reflecting the larger-than-life stature of Arthur Morgan and, by extension, Dutch's gang. It'll hook you before you know it, and if you have a single manly tear in your body, it will take it out of you before the credits finally roll. I don't have to tell you to play this game, I just want you to know that it is in a class so far ahead of everything else that it goes beyond words.
Showing posts with label god of war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label god of war. Show all posts
Monday, July 22, 2019
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
E3 2016 Day Two Wrap Up: Microsoft, Ubisoft, Sony
After Bethesda and EA bored everyone--at least everyone with a functioning brain--to tears, yesterday brought us the first real day of E3. And what a day it was. Tons of release dates and announcements with games that I never thought I'd be so happy to see. It's a good year for video games, friends.
Microsoft
I have almost no interest in the Xbox, but I'm always open to have my mind changed. And while I didn't hate their show, Microsoft got me hyped for games that had nothing to do with their own console line. So when the show opened with the promise of a newer, slimmer, less ugly Xbox One that could output video at 4K, I'm pretty sure you could feel the wet fart coming from the stage.
To make matters worse, Microsoft then outlined their plan for all future digital Xbox releases to simultaneously release on PC through Windows 10. At this point I was convinced that Microsoft absolutely had to show their hand and somewhere down the line some poor fool decided this would somehow help their own console sales by begging people to not buy their consoles. Hey idiots, if I can have access to your entire line-up by building a PC with better performance all around, why would I waste time with your underpowered brick?
Following this announcement was some boring whatever about Gears of War because that series still has fans even after the pile that was Judgment. Then Rare completely turned me away from Sea of Thieves by drawing my attention away from the potentially interesting multiplayer sea combat with the most annoying group of teenagers they could possibly find to screech over the footage, thereby signalling that this game would give me a disease at random if I ever bought it.
God himself, Hideki Kamiya, then took stage to remind me I need to play Scalebound when it releases. Kamiya has never made a game that isn't the best game ever, so when Scalebound was a press-X-to-win action game with some dull shooting mechanics and no discernible depth, I was left cold. I'd like to believe this was just a cautious play style being shown or something, but it didn't leave me pumped up like Platinum usually does. And with the recent two or three games they've put out being stinkers, this is definitely not a good sign.
Recore and Final Fantasy XV went next--the first game seems boring and the latter is making me leery of my purchase of the wallet-destroying collector's edition waiting to be shipped. I just don't know about this game, and seeing more combat rather than exploration and more story makes me concerned. Final Fantasy XV's combat isn't the fast and loose Kingdom Hearts style I was expecting, but I didn't hate either of the demos like most seem to. This trailer put me off of the game more than any of the others because I just don't want to see anymore combat.
Dead Rising 4 looks great, if not treading the same ground as the last few. I like Frank West, he's a fun character and the series has always reveled in its silliness. I can't wait to play it on a PC! Oh yeah, and then a racing game. Someone cares deeply about these Forza games.
I have no clue what State of Decay even is and this stupid cinematic trailer didn't tell me a thing about it. I learned more about the following announcement, a stand-alone version of The Witcher 3's famous card game, Gwent, in the first few seconds than I did about the former. Halo Wars is getting a sequel as well, and I'm so happy we can play that game with a mouse and keyboard like God always intended. I won't play it, but at least it's a real video game this time.
The developer of Limbo is putting out another pretentious side scroller about the meaning of life and death or whatever, I don't care. A few more games were shown that I don't care anything about. I haven't played Killer Instinct yet; as much as I want to, revealing that the villain of the first Gears of War was being released into the game made me actually so confused I forgot who and where I was at the moment, so there's that.
Then Microsoft at last murdered their own credibility forever by announcing the biggest and baddest console ever created by gods or man, thereby destroying their current console line or the slim Xbox One model they announced in the same show. This was the most idiotic thing a hardware developer has done in years and I still think it's a joke.
All in all, a few of the games at Microsoft's conference weren't sewage water. That said, good job convincing me to just upgrade my PC. Hope your fans love your iterative consoles that are going to be useless in a year.
Ubisoft
Ubisoft didn't show a single new game and every year I find something new to hate about them. The only things of value were For Honor, a hectic melee game that will probably be the coolest thing ever and South Park: The Fractured but Hole, a sequel to one of my favorite role-playing games in recent memory. While the humor didn't play well out of context, the stream I was watching featured a grown man literally cry at the word "coon" and another starting screaming at his colleague because said colleague liked the last season of South Park, which apparently a certain internet crowd believe is going to cause the end of humanity as we know it. I wanted to bottle up their tears and ferment them to make salty alcohol. I hope you guys cry for the rest of your lives just so I can stay entertained by your petulant whining. That South Park trailer turned these grown men and half of Twitter into the most impotent crybabies in all of history and I want to see more of this game just so they might revert into literal babies and never be in my sight ever again. Seriously, this reaction to typical edgy South Park humor has so far been my favorite part of the show and probably my favorite moment from E3 ever.
Sony
Sony has had a pretty stellar E3 event in past years, and with the constant flow of diarrhea from other conferences I was sure that at least it wouldn't be the worst thing this year. The show kicked off with the most awesome symphony ever seen at E3, but I wasn't that impressed because it was the exact same orchestra that plays every time I do anything. I'm glad you could finally share it with the rest of the world, though.
After this we got to see the new God of War, featuring a new over-the-shoulder camera and a reworked combat system that was slow, clunky and boring. I saw a lot of people inexplicably excited over this dull mess and a few even comparing it to Dark Souls. You knuckle-heads seem to think every game with slow combat is Dark Souls, and I wish I could put you on a raft and send you off to sea for the rest of time. You're stupid and this game looks awful.
Apparently Sony grew a brain because, rather than lame skits like Microsoft's terrible live Minecraft presentation, a new trailer began right away with a very brief musical interlude. No business talk, no cringe. Shawn Layden did give a heartfelt tribute to victims in the Orlando shooting, like most of the conferences, but it needed to be said and he was classy about it while reminding us why we love video games.
Days Gone was unveiled and I thought it was a Last of Us spinoff. Ripoff is more apt. I hate the way this game looks and I'm sure it's going to be a trainwreck like all the other games following fads. I just don't care about open world survival games, especially after the second trailer which was just a guy shooting into a crowd of zombies for five minutes. It seriously might have been the most boring game of the show, and the overwrought melodramatic story they presented made me vomit all the liquid from my body.
Horizon got a new gameplay trailer, and they can really just stop showing this game. I'm going to buy it, you don't have to keep trying to convince me. The dialogue system was strange but not unwelcome. Just as long as it doesn't get delayed again, I'll be happy. Oh, and The Last Guardian. I can't remember a time when I wasn't excited to play that game, and now that it's been confirmed for October I don't think I can wait that long. It looks unbelievably good and I still think something horrible is going to happen to push it back another decade. Please just let me have it.
Oh, but keep that Detroit game. David Cage makes games for stupid plebeians to glaze their eyes over for one more pitiful day of their sad lives and I want nothing to do with his tripe. No amount of pretty settings and meaningless choices can convince me otherwise. Somewhere along the line Crash Bandicoot was revealed to have its PS1 trilogy remastered for the Playstation 4, and this overwhelming hype led to bitter disappointment when no new game in the series would be announced but instead Crash would be introduced into one of those dumb toy games. I'd rather have nothing.
And then it happened. The most beautiful thing to ever occur. While showing their stupid VR reel, a demo for a game came up that made me salivate so hard I died. When Konami decided to give up on life and prematurely killed Silent Hills, I was grief-stricken. The true revival of the survival horror genre died before it even got out the door, and I can't begin to tell you how utterly happy I was seeing that not Silent Hill, but Resident Evil--my one true love in life--was being given a similar first-person horror treatment with VR accompaniment. It looks great and I can't wait for my download of the demo to finish just so I can stare at it in awe.
That wasn't all. Hideo Kojima took the stage to tease his new game, Death Stranding. There are already dozens of theories on this short trailer being symbolic of Kojima's own exile from Konami and his emotional journey to a new studio, and of course there are simply others still piecing together if this is in fact just a trailer with no allegory. Nobody knows, but Norman Reedus and Hideo Kojima have piqued my interest in what could be a very interesting game. You guys do you and I'll gladly check it out.
That said, there wasn't too much else I was very excited for. I'm sure Insomniac's Spider-Man will be alright, and an off-stage Gravity Rush 2 demo reminded me that it was coming someday. Oh, and why was Nier Automata not featured on Sony's show? That game is probably going to cause an apocalypse of its own if it's half as good as I think it will be. Every game should be Nier, but then I guess not because not everything deserves to be the best thing ever.
The conference felt a bit short overall, but it gave me exactly what I wanted for a large majority of upcoming games. I'm bummed we didn't get news on Devil May Cry 5 which is absolutely definitely coming at some point, as well as the fact that those Red Dead Redemption 2 rumors didn't pan out. Overall though, Sony pushed back against the trite boredom of many of the other shows with tons of announcements and release dates.
Tomorrow's post: Nintendo
Microsoft
I have almost no interest in the Xbox, but I'm always open to have my mind changed. And while I didn't hate their show, Microsoft got me hyped for games that had nothing to do with their own console line. So when the show opened with the promise of a newer, slimmer, less ugly Xbox One that could output video at 4K, I'm pretty sure you could feel the wet fart coming from the stage.
To make matters worse, Microsoft then outlined their plan for all future digital Xbox releases to simultaneously release on PC through Windows 10. At this point I was convinced that Microsoft absolutely had to show their hand and somewhere down the line some poor fool decided this would somehow help their own console sales by begging people to not buy their consoles. Hey idiots, if I can have access to your entire line-up by building a PC with better performance all around, why would I waste time with your underpowered brick?
Following this announcement was some boring whatever about Gears of War because that series still has fans even after the pile that was Judgment. Then Rare completely turned me away from Sea of Thieves by drawing my attention away from the potentially interesting multiplayer sea combat with the most annoying group of teenagers they could possibly find to screech over the footage, thereby signalling that this game would give me a disease at random if I ever bought it.
God himself, Hideki Kamiya, then took stage to remind me I need to play Scalebound when it releases. Kamiya has never made a game that isn't the best game ever, so when Scalebound was a press-X-to-win action game with some dull shooting mechanics and no discernible depth, I was left cold. I'd like to believe this was just a cautious play style being shown or something, but it didn't leave me pumped up like Platinum usually does. And with the recent two or three games they've put out being stinkers, this is definitely not a good sign.
Recore and Final Fantasy XV went next--the first game seems boring and the latter is making me leery of my purchase of the wallet-destroying collector's edition waiting to be shipped. I just don't know about this game, and seeing more combat rather than exploration and more story makes me concerned. Final Fantasy XV's combat isn't the fast and loose Kingdom Hearts style I was expecting, but I didn't hate either of the demos like most seem to. This trailer put me off of the game more than any of the others because I just don't want to see anymore combat.
Dead Rising 4 looks great, if not treading the same ground as the last few. I like Frank West, he's a fun character and the series has always reveled in its silliness. I can't wait to play it on a PC! Oh yeah, and then a racing game. Someone cares deeply about these Forza games.
I have no clue what State of Decay even is and this stupid cinematic trailer didn't tell me a thing about it. I learned more about the following announcement, a stand-alone version of The Witcher 3's famous card game, Gwent, in the first few seconds than I did about the former. Halo Wars is getting a sequel as well, and I'm so happy we can play that game with a mouse and keyboard like God always intended. I won't play it, but at least it's a real video game this time.
The developer of Limbo is putting out another pretentious side scroller about the meaning of life and death or whatever, I don't care. A few more games were shown that I don't care anything about. I haven't played Killer Instinct yet; as much as I want to, revealing that the villain of the first Gears of War was being released into the game made me actually so confused I forgot who and where I was at the moment, so there's that.
Then Microsoft at last murdered their own credibility forever by announcing the biggest and baddest console ever created by gods or man, thereby destroying their current console line or the slim Xbox One model they announced in the same show. This was the most idiotic thing a hardware developer has done in years and I still think it's a joke.
All in all, a few of the games at Microsoft's conference weren't sewage water. That said, good job convincing me to just upgrade my PC. Hope your fans love your iterative consoles that are going to be useless in a year.
Ubisoft
Ubisoft didn't show a single new game and every year I find something new to hate about them. The only things of value were For Honor, a hectic melee game that will probably be the coolest thing ever and South Park: The Fractured but Hole, a sequel to one of my favorite role-playing games in recent memory. While the humor didn't play well out of context, the stream I was watching featured a grown man literally cry at the word "coon" and another starting screaming at his colleague because said colleague liked the last season of South Park, which apparently a certain internet crowd believe is going to cause the end of humanity as we know it. I wanted to bottle up their tears and ferment them to make salty alcohol. I hope you guys cry for the rest of your lives just so I can stay entertained by your petulant whining. That South Park trailer turned these grown men and half of Twitter into the most impotent crybabies in all of history and I want to see more of this game just so they might revert into literal babies and never be in my sight ever again. Seriously, this reaction to typical edgy South Park humor has so far been my favorite part of the show and probably my favorite moment from E3 ever.
Sony
Sony has had a pretty stellar E3 event in past years, and with the constant flow of diarrhea from other conferences I was sure that at least it wouldn't be the worst thing this year. The show kicked off with the most awesome symphony ever seen at E3, but I wasn't that impressed because it was the exact same orchestra that plays every time I do anything. I'm glad you could finally share it with the rest of the world, though.
After this we got to see the new God of War, featuring a new over-the-shoulder camera and a reworked combat system that was slow, clunky and boring. I saw a lot of people inexplicably excited over this dull mess and a few even comparing it to Dark Souls. You knuckle-heads seem to think every game with slow combat is Dark Souls, and I wish I could put you on a raft and send you off to sea for the rest of time. You're stupid and this game looks awful.
Apparently Sony grew a brain because, rather than lame skits like Microsoft's terrible live Minecraft presentation, a new trailer began right away with a very brief musical interlude. No business talk, no cringe. Shawn Layden did give a heartfelt tribute to victims in the Orlando shooting, like most of the conferences, but it needed to be said and he was classy about it while reminding us why we love video games.
Days Gone was unveiled and I thought it was a Last of Us spinoff. Ripoff is more apt. I hate the way this game looks and I'm sure it's going to be a trainwreck like all the other games following fads. I just don't care about open world survival games, especially after the second trailer which was just a guy shooting into a crowd of zombies for five minutes. It seriously might have been the most boring game of the show, and the overwrought melodramatic story they presented made me vomit all the liquid from my body.
Horizon got a new gameplay trailer, and they can really just stop showing this game. I'm going to buy it, you don't have to keep trying to convince me. The dialogue system was strange but not unwelcome. Just as long as it doesn't get delayed again, I'll be happy. Oh, and The Last Guardian. I can't remember a time when I wasn't excited to play that game, and now that it's been confirmed for October I don't think I can wait that long. It looks unbelievably good and I still think something horrible is going to happen to push it back another decade. Please just let me have it.
Oh, but keep that Detroit game. David Cage makes games for stupid plebeians to glaze their eyes over for one more pitiful day of their sad lives and I want nothing to do with his tripe. No amount of pretty settings and meaningless choices can convince me otherwise. Somewhere along the line Crash Bandicoot was revealed to have its PS1 trilogy remastered for the Playstation 4, and this overwhelming hype led to bitter disappointment when no new game in the series would be announced but instead Crash would be introduced into one of those dumb toy games. I'd rather have nothing.
And then it happened. The most beautiful thing to ever occur. While showing their stupid VR reel, a demo for a game came up that made me salivate so hard I died. When Konami decided to give up on life and prematurely killed Silent Hills, I was grief-stricken. The true revival of the survival horror genre died before it even got out the door, and I can't begin to tell you how utterly happy I was seeing that not Silent Hill, but Resident Evil--my one true love in life--was being given a similar first-person horror treatment with VR accompaniment. It looks great and I can't wait for my download of the demo to finish just so I can stare at it in awe.
That wasn't all. Hideo Kojima took the stage to tease his new game, Death Stranding. There are already dozens of theories on this short trailer being symbolic of Kojima's own exile from Konami and his emotional journey to a new studio, and of course there are simply others still piecing together if this is in fact just a trailer with no allegory. Nobody knows, but Norman Reedus and Hideo Kojima have piqued my interest in what could be a very interesting game. You guys do you and I'll gladly check it out.
That said, there wasn't too much else I was very excited for. I'm sure Insomniac's Spider-Man will be alright, and an off-stage Gravity Rush 2 demo reminded me that it was coming someday. Oh, and why was Nier Automata not featured on Sony's show? That game is probably going to cause an apocalypse of its own if it's half as good as I think it will be. Every game should be Nier, but then I guess not because not everything deserves to be the best thing ever.
The conference felt a bit short overall, but it gave me exactly what I wanted for a large majority of upcoming games. I'm bummed we didn't get news on Devil May Cry 5 which is absolutely definitely coming at some point, as well as the fact that those Red Dead Redemption 2 rumors didn't pan out. Overall though, Sony pushed back against the trite boredom of many of the other shows with tons of announcements and release dates.
Tomorrow's post: Nintendo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)