E3 2011: Konami's Pre-E3 Press Event

With less than five days before the upcoming stampede of gaming announcements, impressions, and other bits of tomfoolery, Konami came forth and unleashed its first annual Pre-E3 Press Video to the masses, and while it was not as awkward as the infamous press conference of last year, it did leave some desire to see Tak Fuji once more.

The Press Event began with a look at the company's major 3DS effort for the year: Metal Gear Solid 3D: Snake Eater. The game's producer took a moment to highlight how the game's appearance on the 3DS would bring depth to the stealth action title, and he unveiled two of the new rendition's additional features. Using the 3DS camera, players can take photos of real world objects and implement the photos into Snake's camouflage. Furthermore, at some crucial moments in the game, players will need to keep the 3DS balanced so as to prevent Snake from losing balance on high terrain. The trailer unveiled a little twist at the end, but overall, the game is still pretty much Metal Gear Solid 3 with a 3D display.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 was the second game on the agenda, and it looks as good as the previous entries in the series. Additional motion captures have been taken to improve the fluidity of the animations and help create a highly-immersive soccer game for all.

Entering its second E3, NeverDead is a third-person shooter which puts players into the place of an immortal demonslayer, and the results are both intense and humorous. Bryce is a demon hunter who has been cursed with immortality, and in modern times, he is given the task of stopping a demonic invasion of the city and potentially seek peace in his immortality. Players have the benefit of immortality, but in its place, they must find ways to put their body parts back together so as to finish the fight. The game is developed by Rebellion Developments, known for the most recent Aliens Vs. Predator. It is expected for a winter release.

Silent Hill got a fairly large chunk of the press video, particularly with an emphasis on the upcoming adventure title, Silent Hill: Downpour. Footage of the game was shown heavily while actors from the upcoming Silent Hill movie discussed how the movie was coming along. Downpour, originally slated for fall, will be releasing this winter. Downpour follows Murphy Pendleton, a convict who enters a raining Silent Hill after his prison transport crashes. The game was shown last year with little gameplay, but this time, the game seems very close to completion, and it looks pretty good thus far. The game is being made by Vatra Games, which produced this year's Rush'n Attack: Ex-Patriot for XBLA and PSN.

Before moving along with the franchise, Konami announced Silent Hill: Book of Memories for the NGP, but nothing other than the logo was shown. It has not been approved by Sony, and without any footage shown, this game is most likely quite some time off, so keep hype on the low end for that game.

Hideo Kojima will not be at this year's E3, but he appeared in the Press Video with Mark MacDonald of 8-4, a video game translation company. Here, Kojima gave a number of announcements, but none of them were entirely new Kojima Productions games. Metal Gear Solid: Rising is still slated for a 2012 release, but no new footage was shown. That is not to say Metal Gear Solid will only be on 3DS this year.

Konami announced Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, Zone of the Enders HD Collection, and Silent Hill HD Collection, all for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. These collections take the Playstation 2 originals and upgrade their graphics to a full 1080p resolution, so your eyes will not be cut by the jaggies ever present in previous-generation games. The Zone of the Enders HD Collection, slated for 2012, will have both games in the series, while Silent Hill HD Collection contains only Silent Hill 2 and 3 (why 4 is missing, I do not know). This year's Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is the most robust one, containing not only Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 but also an enhanced port of the PSP original, Peace Walker. Notice the oddity in releasing Metal Gear Solid 3 for 3DS during the same timeframe? We do.

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is the first game to use Hideo Kojima's newest interface: Transfarring. Transfarring is a system which allows game saves to be transferred from the console to the mobile versions of Kojima Production games; for the HD Collection, this specifically means sending saves between the PS3 version and the PSP version of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Kojima says that he eventually plans to extend Transfarring to NGP and PS2 games in the future.

Before leaving, Kojima unveiled his other development: the Fox Engine. This game development engine will allow Kojima Productions to develop highly-competent graphics for multiple platforms at the same time, giving the potential for multi-console releases in a much shorter timeframe. He demonstrated a little technical demo of the engine, but he did not specify what the project will be. Based on the video, the engine is implied to work with PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. Clearly if Project Cafe is involved, too, we will not know until a later date.

As the press event concluded, a small teaser video was shown, and it seems to be that a Contra game, possibly a massive reboot, is currently in development. Rumors spread of a 3DS Contra title, but others believe the game is a full-blown HD project a la Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

This brings up a final question: why did Konami's President mention Castlevania's anniversary if no game was shown? He mentioned Frogger, as well, but the announcement of Frogger 3D came just yesterday, so that is not an area of concern. Perhaps there are more surprises for E3, but if not, Konami appears to be playing it quieter this year compared to previous years. We will just have to wait until next week to see if Konami is sneakier than Snake at game-unveiling...

Expect an impressions video in the near future.

KONAMI'S E3 SITE

Third Rate Week: Week of January 23rd, 2011

This is Third Rate Week (3RW), a usually weekly video in which we talk about the events happening on 3RM's website, what gaming news has occurred, what games we've been playing, and what we can expect in the upcoming week.

NOTE: This was filmed on Sunday, before the week's announcements were known.

This week:
00:20 - 3RM Update (Nothing to show)
00:42 - Game News
-- Disney Restructure (Shift to Digital, Casual affair, Canceled Projects)
-- New Games (Rodea the Sky Soldier, Anarchy Reigns, Hybrid, Kirby, Pandora's Tower)
-- Sony NGP (OLED, Touch Panels, 3G, Motion Controls, Cameras, Games, etc)
12:42 - Opinion (NGP Reaction, NGP + 3DS Concerns)
20:25 - Games We've Played: Bonded Realities, Disney Epic Mickey, DKCR
21:00 - Next Week: Bionic Commando Rearmed 2, Namco Announcements

Playstation coming to Android

At Sony's Playstation Meeting 2011 in which it unveiled its upcoming handheld, the NGP, the videogame producer also unveiled Playstation Suite, a platform for its older and newly-produced Playstation products to be implemented onto the Android platform.

It had been rumored for months that Sony was going to produce a Playstation Phone: a phone which not only contained Android but also Playstation-specifc products. However, while Sony is indeed working on a special phone dedicated to Playstation gaming, entitled the Xperia Play, Sony's Playstation Suite will be available for many if not all Android devices to enjoy, provided they have Android 2.3 or higher installed.

The Playstation Suite is a platform on which Sony will release products onto Android Phones. Currently, the company will be releasing PSOne-emulated games onto the service, and it will also be providing new game experiences over time onto the platform.

Not only that, but Sony will be providing a Playstation Certified service in which Sony certifies and provides Quality Assurance on hardware platforms, ensuring a quality gaming experience on particular mobile devices.

Playstation Suite will, of course, be accessible on the NGP, too, when it releases within the next year. A launch date for the Suite itself has not been disclosed, but it appears close to completion.

SOURCE: Engadget

Sony Unveils NGP, the Next PSP

At its Playstation Meeting 2011, Sony Computer Entertainment unveiled its next portable gaming device this week, codenamed NGP, or Next Generation Portable.

The NGP appears to be a larger Playstation Portable from first glance, but there is more than meets the eye. For one, has a much larger screen; the NGP features a 5'' OLED screen, which not only allows for greater vision of the highly-detailed graphics, but also provides greater color contrast. In terms of medium, Sony has stepped away from UMDs in favor of solid-state SD cards to carry the data for its games. Gone is the single slide pad used on the PSP, and in its place are two thumbsticks which appear on either side of the handheld. It has a camera facing the player and one facing out, allowing for some augmented reality games as well as photo capturing to be done with the device. A microphone is also built into the device for game chatting and other gameplay purposes.

Sony has not missed the bandwagon for touch controls, either. The OLED screen allows for multi-touch inputs, meaning that players can not only poke, but also pinch and pull fingers apart at the screen. The tactile input additions do not stop there; on the back of the NGP is another touchpad, allowing gamers to use those gripping fingers to influence the game world in front of them. To complete the package, the NGP features motion control inputs, too. What else could they have added?

High-end graphics, of course! The NGP makes use of the OLED screen by producing graphics very similar to that of the Playstation 3. In fact, Sony has claimed that porting existing modelwork and engines from current consoles is easy to accomplish with the NGP. On stage, segments from Metal Gear Solid 4, Lost Planet 2, and Yakuza were shown using NGP technology, and Epic Games' Unreal Engine was also demoed.

Not only was the hardware revealed, but specific game software from Sony was introduced at the Meeting. Before showing off the games themselves, however, Sony unveiled the NGP's OS, which replaces the system used for both PS3 and PSP for something more open. Each item available for selection on the NGP appears as a bubble to press, and there are multiple screens to slide through in order to find which game or item to select, like most mobile devices nowadays. Before entering a game, players enter a subspace where they can find downloadable content, trophy data, and message boards specific to the game itself. Other non-game features were shown off using the OS, including Near, a product which maps the movement of the player with a GPS and 3G networking. Near further allows people to gather information on the travels of other NGP owners and friends, similar in some ways to the 3DS's StreetPass.

The first game demoed using the NGP was Hot Shots Golf Next, in which the player showed how moving the handheld around could allow him to see around the landscape of the game before taking a shot. A new game entitled Little Deviants was demoed on stage to show off the need for the new touchpad and touchscreen; pushing a finger into the back of the handheld created bumps in the terrain by which he could move the deviants around the demo level. Another game demonstrated was a new Uncharted title, developed by Sony Bend; the game not only showed how great the graphic prowess was on the NGP, but also how touch screen mechanics could be injected into the game experience Sony gamers currently enjoy on PSP and PS3. Also unveiled at the show were new Killzone, WipEout, LittleBigPlanet, and Resistence titles. Among newer titles shown off were Gravity Daze, Smart As, Broken, and Reality Fighters. A collection of these demos can can be seen at the source link and video posted below.

The NGP is expected to see a release by the end of this year in Japan. Other regions were not specified, nor was price on both it or the games demonstrated. However, word from Sony suggests that there are at least two models in development: one with and without the 3G wireless interface. No third party games were officially announced other than a new Call of Duty, but that was not shown in any form other than a logo. We can certainly expect a big showing from Sony this E3.

NGP Demos (Part 1: Includes Game Reel)

SOURCE: Gamespot / Playstation Blog