Tag Archives: PlayStation

Metal Gear Solid V: Did I make a mistake buying this game?

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MGS5Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the game of the moment, it seems, getting rave reviews from critics and fans of the series alike, but here’s a confession: In the two hours or so I’ve played it of it, I can’t get into it, and I’m actually starting to regret buying it. I kind of wish I’d bought Avalanche’s Mad Max instead.

Maybe it’s because I don’t have a strong history of playing the MGS series that is taking over here. The only MGS game I’ve played was MGSIV, and I didn’t like that much either. The Phantom Pain just isn’t capturing my attention. I don’t think about it every waking moment. In fact, I’ve played Tearaway Unfolded, a PS4-exclusive, than MGSV: The Phantom Pain.

I don’t know why the game’s not impacting on me. Maybe I was swept away with the hype surrounding the game, convincing me to buy it and be Big Boss. Maybe I was captivated game play I’d seen that made it look really, really great and I just had to have it. I don’t know what it is but at the moment, I almost have to force myself to play it, to justify the money that I paid for it.

I’ve heard that the first two to three hours will be make or break as to whether you’ll like it – is that right? – so maybe I have to grit my teeth and persevere until I get access to Mother Base and the ability to fulton things. I guess in a game that can give you 40+ hours of game play it’s going to have a slow start, right?

The first hour was totally confusing (Hideo Kojima has a wild imagination, that’s for sure), and to be honest, half the time I had no idea what was going on (I’ve just come across some zombie-like soldiers called the Skulls – this is also confusing the hell out of me). When I’d finished the prologue I was still none the wiser as to what had just happened.

So, have I made the right decision with MGSV and should I stick with it? Will it get better?  Or do I cut my losses, try and sell it and pick up something like Mad Max? I’ve also got Tearaway Unfolded, Forza 6 and Until Dawn to play.

I’d appreciate your thoughts in the comments section.

*I’m going to continue playing MGSV and see whether I get hooked. I’ll keep you posted!

Xbox and PlayStation bring the games to E3 2015

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Firstly, I guess I’m sitting at two for three when it comes to pre-E3 predictions then, given that my three most anticipated games for E3 2015  were Mass Effect 4, a new Hitman game and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

OK, the Mass Effect reveal didn’t show game play footage but hey, EA has still announced it, as has SquareEnix with the latest game in the Hitman series featuring old baldy, Agent 47. All I need now if for SquareEnix to showcase the new Deus Ex game and I’ll be a happy man.

I was thinking earlier today about how I was going to cover today’s press events from Xbox and Sony: Would I write it up, game by game, announcement by announcement, giving my opinion on everything? Or would I just let the trailers speak for themselves?

I’ve decided that I’ll let the visuals speak for themselves. I’m not going to do these “Xbox/Sony Won E3” write-ups that inevitably appear after E3’s pre-show events.Frankly, they’re pointless (and I probably did them in the past).

Do you want to know who won? Gamers won, that’s who. Let’s stop this “X won E3!”bullshit. There was plenty there for Xbox gamers, plenty there for PlayStation gamers. Gamers won.

Tomorrow, I believe there is a dedicated PC gaming event so I’ll watch that as I’m sooooo close to plonking down close to $NZ600 on a new nVidia Geforce GTXC970 GPU so I want to see what I can do with it.

I got up at 4.15am to watch the Xbox press event and it had games like Rise of the Tomb Raider, Halo 5 Guardians, a compilation of 30 games from British developer Rare, backward compatibility with Xbox 360 games (I’m guessing it’s some form of emulation where you’ll have to download a digital version of the game, even if you own a disc copy), a rather impressive game from New Zealand development studio Aurora 44 (where are they based? Call me! Lets talk!) called Ashen (which had a real Shadow of the Colossus/Journey feel to it), a game from another Keewee Dean “Rocket” Hall called Ion, a rather impressive demo of Hololens and Minecraft (although, I’m sceptical about Hololens until it’s actually at retail and we can see it in real-world conditions) and a re-mastered version of the original Gears of War, as well as Gears of War 4.

It was a solid showing. I’ve got trailers for some of them below.

Gears of War 4: 

Halo 5 Guardians: 

Ashen: 

Ion: 

Sony

From what I’ve heard about Sony’s press event, it seemed to be full of fan service (I didn’t watch it. I was working) and no doubt wooed the crowd by finally showing The Last Guardian, a game that seems to have been written off as vaporware after around eight years in development.

Among the games Sony announced were: a remake Final Fantasy 7 and that Shenmue 3 was in the works, a new game (not a FPS) from Killzone developer Guerilla Games called Horizon: Zero Dawn, No Mans Sky (which looks fantastic but, if I’m being honest, I still have no idea what you do apart from fly around and discover other planets), a new Hitman game, a game that looks genuinely interesting called Firewatch, Dreams from Little Big Planet developer Media Molecule,  and, not surprisingly, an extended look at Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.

The Last Guardian: 

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End: 

Dreams: 

No Man’s Sky: 

Firewatch: 

Hitman: 

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you liked from Sony & Microsoft.

Grim Fandango Remastered has made me so, so very happy

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Update: I thought I’d document any glitches or bugs I’ve encountered playing Grim Fandango Remastered and I encountered my first two last night playing on my Macbook.

It was fairly early into the game where Manny is talking to a balloon artist at a parade near his office and I noticed the shadows cast by two skeleton pigeons were above the ground and flickering. The disappeared when I switched to Original mode.

The second glitch was when I tried to get Manny back into his office from the street and he was stuck on a audio loop from the conversation with the balloon artist. After a few moments clicking and moving around it righted itself.

I’ve made no secret over the years that along with games like Full Throttle, System Shock 2 and Blade Runner, Grim Fandango is one of my most loved games of all time.

Set amongst a backdrop of Mexico’s Day of the Dead, the game tells the story of Manny Calavera, a travel agent working the afterlife. Sadly, it didn’t sell very well when it was first released, I’m told, which is a shame.

In fact, I’m sure that I bored readers of a video game blog that I did for a New Zealand news website a couple of years ago to tears with my continuous ramblings about how much I loved Grim Fandango and how I wished the game was re-created for modern platforms. Note the photo below of my original disc versions of Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Blade Runner and System Shock 2.

Hard to find: I still have disc copies of Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Blade Runner and System Shock 2. No, I won't sell them to you.

Hard to find: I still have disc copies of Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Blade Runner and System Shock 2. No, I won’t sell them to you.

Grim Fandango comes from game developer Tim Schaefer and was released in 1998, an era when LucasArts was the king of adventure games and 16-bit operating systems were all the rage, but that means that it isn’t exactly easy to get running on modern OSs like Windows 8 or Windows 7. In fact, trying to get the game to run on a current PC is a nightmare.

Grim Fandango’s minimum specs are Windows 95/ME/2000/XP, a Pentium 133 CPU and 64MB of Ram so trying to get it to work on modern operating systems – both Windows and Mac – is, frankly, a hassle that requires a few hoops and you having to jump through them. You have to use a program like Residual VM to run the install files that you’ve copied from the install CDs – yes, CDs – because modern PCs with their 64-bit operating systems won’t run the stock installer from the game.

Modern PCs also created some inadvertent game play issues for Grim Fandango, as well. If I recall correctly, there was one puzzle involving a conveyor belt under the ocean that couldn’t be completed on a modern PC unless you disabled some of the CPU cores: Multiple core CPUs made the conveyor belt spin too fast!

After years of tinkering and file copying to get Grim Fandango to work on my Win8.1 PC and Macbook Pro, my wish has been granted with the released of Grim Fandango Remastered, a new version of the game which is exactly what it says on the box: A Remaster not a re-imagining.

So what has Tim Schaefer and his company Double Fine done with Grim Fandango to Remaster it? The character models are now sharper and more defined, textures are now high resolution, the lighting is now more atmospheric (venetian blinds cast shadows on characters when they walk in front of them), the audio has been remastered, the musical score has been re-recorded by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and the control scheme has been revamped (meaning you don’t have to use the tank controls if you don’t want to. The name tank controls came from the fact that in the original game, Manny Calavera could move forwards, backwards, left and right using the arrow keys within the environment. He did this little shuffle on his feet while he turned left or right, too. Essentially, he moved like a tank does).

The changes to the game are cosmetic. It’s not a complete re-build of the game so if you’re expecting an adventure game with photo-realistic graphics and 7.1 channel audio, then look somewhere else.  Grim Fandango Remastered looks and feels like the original game but with a new control scheme that makes it so much more enjoyable to play.

During the game you can swap between the remastered and the original graphics and essentially the only difference is the character models. The backgrounds are essentially the same, apart from now having higher resolution textures and the game keeps the original 4: 3 aspect ration. You can stretch the 4:3 ration to 16:9 but I wouldn’t: It just looks wrong.

A nice touch is the developers commentary that you can listen to at certain points. It gives a nice insight into the thought processes behind the game and why certain decisions were made (for better or for worse).

One thing that might annoy newcomers to Grim Fandango is its puzzles: They don’t hold your hand and there’s no hint system to help you if you’ve got stuck on a particular section. Some of the puzzles are actually quite obscure and don’t really make a lot of sense so you’ll need to do some lateral thinking (or search for a walkthrough if you really get stuck).   Seriously, though, some of the puzzles are down right confusing so you have been been warned.

Advanced lighting: Grim Fandango Remastered now looks more film noir thanks to the new lighting.

Advanced lighting: Grim Fandango Remastered now looks more film noir thanks to the new lighting.

The game also doesn’t have an auto-save, something that is a given in this modern age and one omission that I wish was included in this remaster. Don’t forget to save your progress regularly if you play it or else you’ll face having to replay sections.

For me, Grim Fandango Remastered remains a classic and while I may be clouded by the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, I didn’t hesitate much to drop the NZ20 or so on buying it. The reason I initially hesitated was I mulled over whether I should get the game seeing as I had the original happily running on my Macbook. What swayed me was that it was only $20, which is four coffees from a cafe, and it meant I didn’t have to muck around with Residual VM to get it running. I don’t regret buying it.

While Grim Fandango Remastered is a piece of adventure gaming history, it creates something of a conundrum for gamers. On the one hand, if you already own the original you might have trouble justifying buying it again, even with the changed control scheme and touched up graphics. But on the other, if you have yet to play this classic and have always wanted to, here is the chance – but the old-school mechanics and puzzles might frustrate younger gamers.

Personally, I think it’s worth it, even if you own the original. Grim Fandango Remastered keeps what made the original game so great while tweaking it just enough to make it worth playing again. Here’s hoping it sells enough to convince Schafer and everyone else involved that a re-master is required of Full Throttle.

Here’s hoping.

Fez review: Weird and mesmerising but a must-play

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Fez: a game that started out on consoles and PC but seems perfectly suited to the handheld format.

Fez: a game that started out on consoles and PC but seems perfectly suited to the handheld format.

Say what you like about Fez creator Phil Fish (who spectacularly quit the game development industry last year and cancelled Fez 2 after a Twitter spat), indie game Fez is one of those games that is a delight to play, not only because of its twisted perspective but thanks to its 16-bit graphics style and some innovative game play features.

Fez was one of my most favoured games of 2012 and with the move to the PS Vita, I think it’s perfectly suited to the handheld.

The game sees main character Gomez in a flat 2D world but after stumbling across a giant gold polyhedron suddenly finds he can view the world in 3D. However, the polyhedron is shattered, the 32 cubes it’s made up from scattered about the game world and it’s up to Gomez to find them all, bringing order back to the world.

At first, Fez seems a simple 2D/3D puzzle game where the player guide’s a pixelated hero from place to place, collecting the shards from the exploded polyhedron, but then in an instant, thanks to the ability to rotate the game world 90 degrees creating a 3D playspace, the game opens up new possibilities to tackle problems.

But how?, I hear you ask. Like this: being able to change perspective on-the-fly using the Vita’s left and right shoulder buttons means suddenly a platform that was moments ago out of reach is now accessible. It’s mind-boggling and means that jumps that were seemingly unreachable before are suddenly much closer when you rotate perspective.  In a world punctuated by waterfalls, lighthouses, shacks and precarious drops, and where entering one door can lead to a completely different dimension, a change in perspective can literally mean the difference between one step closer to a wayward cube and a drop to the depths below.

Fez is a game that can be mesmerising and confusing at the same time, and often that confusion can lead to some frustration, especially when you get lost and aren’t really sure where you should go next. Some of the puzzles, too, might see you scratching your head (there’s one with a bell early on) and heading online for a walk through to help you solve them.

Minor frustrations aside, Fez was one of my most loved games when it came out on console and PC and now that it’s out on Vita, I can see it being one of my most loved and most played on Sony’s handheld. Fez + PS Vita = a gaming partnership worth discovering.

 

 

My thoughts on the PlayStation 4

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PlayStation4launch4

PlayStation 4 is quite a different beast to the Xbox One, most noticeably in its design.

Sony sent me down a PS4 for a week to get some hands-on time with it and where the Xbox One is very boxy in it’s shape  – it keeps reminding me of an old VCR player from when I was a young person – the PS4 is a lot more futuristic in its design, with a slanting front panel. It’s as if Sony took a rectangle then squished the front and back into its current shape. I actually think I like the PS4 design better than the Xbox Ones if you’re going off looks alone.

The PS4 is smaller than the Xbox One, and just as quiet when it’s on, but it doesn’t have as many inputs as Microsoft’s console does (at the back there’s one USB, ethernet, optical audio and power; on the front there is two USB ports). And it doesn’t have an HDMI in, like the Xbox One does (it’s used for a set-top or cable box). Whether that’s going to be a costly omission for Sony, I don’t know but I guess time will tell.

One thing did confuse me though when I took the PS4 out of its box: How do I turn it on? Did it have a capacitive on-off button like the Xbox One? If it did, I couldn’t find it, despite just about pressing every inch of the consoles jet black surface.

I pressed the PS logo: Nothing. I pressed the PS4 logo: Nothing. So I just turned it on using the PS button on the Dualshock 4 controller, which is what I do with my PS3.  (Update #1: Earlier this week, I just pressed the front area a whole lot – and it turned on. Update #2: Oh, I see there are tiny buttons next to the drive slot with an on/off logo and eject logo. Hey, Sony you need to make those a bit bigger so people with old eyes like mine can see them better).

PS4controllerblogTalking of the Dualshock 4 controller, it’s vastly improved on the PS3’s Dualshock 3 controller, which I thought couldn’t be beaten. It’s a lot more organic than the Dualshock 3, and feels more comfortable to hold, with L1, L2, R1 and R2 buttons feeling firm and responsive. It has a touch pad above the two sticks, which you can use for games (it’s used in Killzone Shadowfall to control your OWL). and a sensor bar on the front, which can change colour depending on the game (in Killzone it shows green meaning your health is good but red if you’re close to death).

The only issue I had was getting used to the fact that the controller now has options and share buttons (share lets you post video or screen shots to social media) rather than select and start. All in all, it’s a great controller.

Turning the PS4 on and you’re greeted with a new user interface (UI), which looks much better than the PS3’s cross-media bar, which while functional was a little too clunky and cluttered. It’s been replaced with a much more user-friend two-level, with notifications, settings, chat, messaging,trophies that sort of thing  in the top line, and details about the games you’ve played, your library and an internet browser in the other line. It’s tidy, uncluttered and pleasing on the eye.

Ultimately, though, the PS4 is a machine aimed at gamers so what are the game like?

The review unit came with Killzone Shadowfall, Knack, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Lego Marvel Superheroes and Call of Duty Ghosts (I’ve already played ACIV and Ghosts on last-gen Xbox 360 so I’m not going to waste column inches discussing those here. For what it’s worth: ACIV is much better than ACIII and Ghosts is pretty much like every other COD game, except it has a dog in it this time).

Killzone is definitely the pick of the PS4 exclusives in terms of showing what the PS4 can do – and it really does look stunning, pumped out at 1080p.

A couple of times I actually just sat back and took in the surroundings: rocks looked so real I could touch them, god rays streamed through windows, dust particles hung in the air. It looked great. Shadowfall’s game mechanics don’t deviate much from previous Killzone games, apart from this time the game’s hero is accompanied by a flying robot called an OWL, which can be ordered to attack enemies, hack turrets and fire a zipline from point to point. It’s a handy gadget but I felt at times it turned the odds in our hero’s favour too many times: Send in the OWL to clear out the enemy then our hero comes in an mops up the remnants.  Peel away the stunning looks, though, and  Shadowfall is an entertaining yet by-the-numbers first person shooter. It doesn’t re-invent the wheel, which is perhaps what I was hoping for.

Knack is an interesting platformer where you control a creature made out of magical relics that he can bsorb to make him bigger and more powerful. Sometimes he’s small, other times he’s large, depending on how many relics he absorbs. It’s fairly standard fare, though, but it’s got a pretty nice cartoony look to it, especially compared to the realism of Killzone Shadowfall. Knack sort of follows along similar lines to other past Sony characters like Sly the Racoon or Crash Bandicoot in that when you defeat enemies there’s no blood: So it’s pretty family friendly. Sadly, thought, Knack becomes boring pretty quickly, and there are only so many times you can bash enemies and jump about avoiding electrified platforms.

Something that I really liked and something that shows the PlayStation 4 is definitely aimed at gamers first and foremost  is the remote play feature using the PS Vita. Once I registered my Vita with the PS4, I was able to play Killzone Shadow Fall on my handheld: What my TV screen showed was displayed on my Vita’s screen. It’s a great feature, especially for those of us who have our main TV in a lounge where it’s used for nightly TV watching by the other half!

I haven’t even had time to look at the PlayStation camera, which is an optional extra. I’ll try to get around to that over the next few days.

I’ve rambled on for long enough, I think, but I’m impressed with what Sony has come up with in the PS4 and it’s definitely geared towards gamers rather than multimedia enthusiasts. There are a few niggles regarding multimedia playback but I’m sure things will be sorted out over time.

The PS4 has had a successful launch and I can see why. I love the controller but the launch games, like those on the Xbox One,  are a bit of a mixed bag. Still, it’s a solid launch and like the Xbox One things will improve with time.

it’ll be interesting to see how the console war pans out between the two new consoles, with things surely kicking into high gear next year.

The war of the war first-person shooters

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“Different strokes for different folks”.

It’s one of the English language’s most bizarre sayings – one that would confuse the hell out of non-English speakers, I’m sure – but it essentially means that different people like different things. That one thing won’t suit us all.

I like to apply the phrase to EA’s Battlefield 4 and Activision’s Call of Duty. Both are first-person viewpoint war games, both have single player campaigns, both have online components, yet they seem to be the two games that are the most divisive when it comes to which one is best.

It seems fans of one like to slag off the other but here’s my take on things:  If you don’t like Call of Duty, don’t play it. Same for Battlefield. No-one is forcing you to spend time on a game you don’t want or like. Both have millions of fans, each happy with the game they’ve picked, so why the bitching?

BF4Personally, I don’t have an allegiance to one or other. I’ve played both BF4 and COD Ghosts, and if I’m being honest, my favourite Battlefield game is Bad Company and my favourite COD game is Modern Warfare. Neither of them the latest in the long running franchises.

Now, most people won’t buy either of these games for their single-player component, and rightly so as both are highly MP-focused, but I’m not most people and still like to play solo campaigns, often more so than online offerings. 

Here’s my take on campaigns from BF4 and COD Ghosts: They do a solid, if somewhat unremarkable job. I didn’t hate them but I didn’t fall in love with them either. I wouldn’t take either out for a second date .

Both have a silent protagonist, which sort of bugs me about a lot of shooter games. It bugged me back in the day that Gordon Freeman from the Half Life games was mute. It bugs me now. With today’s games wanting to immerse the player in the experience, having a silent lead character just disconnects the player from the action. I might as well be playing as an ice cream cone. 

Ghosts tries to mix things up a little – one of the opening missions takes place in space but it’s too brief, and the remote sniper is great fun – and Riley, the trained dog, is a nice touch, but it seemed to me that just as you were settling in to controlling him and thinking “This is pretty cool”, the control was ripped from you and it was back to the tried-and-tried “move forward and shoot everything in your path” gameplay.

BF4’s campaign was more enjoyable than I expected but it’s still a cliche riddled affair, with stereotypical characters that I didn’t care for (I couldn’t even tell you their names). I played it on PC and it looks wonderful when things are cranked up to “OMG” fidelity.

Both suffer from instances where one moment you have to lead the way and open a door then the next there’s no way you can progress any further until your team catches up – and open a door for you. Ghosts’ campaign also dishes out trophies (I played it on PlayStation 3) like they’re going out of fashion: It seemed like most missions had two or three trophies each.

call_of_duty_ghosts-wallpaper-big

Right, now to the MP. I’m not a massively successful online gamer – sadly, my twitch reflex isn’t what it used to be –  but if I had to pick a game that had MP that I enjoyed the most, I’d take Battlefield’s MP over Call of Duty. That’s not to say that Ghosts’ isn’t enjoyable – I really enjoyed its infected mode – it’s just that BF4 online game gelled more with me.

BF4’s MP  is an assault on the senses, though, with explosions everywhere, voices echoing in your head  and bullets zipping all over the place (generally into my avatar’s body from an unseen sniper).

It probably doesn’t help that I’m not very good at MP, though: I always tend to get killed more than kill. My Kill/Death ratio would generate much laughter and mirth around hardened MP players, but I stick with it, slowly but surely earning points so that I can rank up.

How bad am I? Well, I’m ecstatic when I manage to hit an advancing enemy with one bullet from the almost entire clip I’ve emptied into him. Some people might call that luck but I call it … Nope, who am I trying to kid: It’s pure luck that I actually manage to kill enemies in this game. And I’m OK with that.

I’m not going to dwell on specific maps and all their intricacies – there are plenty of other reviews around if you want those details – but some of the best moments in BF4 were when I spawned into a vessels and manned one of its side guns. I once spawned into a tank and made so many kills it made me giddy … then the game crashed, causing me to loose all my points.  Another time I spawned onto a boat. I shot down a helicopter that time, just continuously firing at it using the boat’s mounted gun as it flew past. It took a few hits  but he just seemed to hover conveniently near where we were. It was strangely satisfying seeing it erupt into a cloud of smoke and fire. Moments after that, I got killed by a sniper.

One MP mode in Ghosts that I like is Infected, where one player starts out as an infected human while the other are soldiers. Slowly but surely as each soldier becomes infected, it becomes an exciting game of cat and mouse as the surviving humans ward off the advancing infected.  It’s a pretty neat mode and a nice change of pace from the usual capture the flag or deathmatch-type affair.

It may be naive of me, but I believe there is ample room in the gaming landscape for both Battlefield 4 and COD: Ghosts, but, I guess, if someone held a gun to my head and told me to pick one or else, I’d have to say I liked BF4’s overall experience more than COD: Ghosts, both in MP and single player.

Not that I’m an expert, mind you. I can’t tell you the intricacies of how each weapon’s rate of fire differs from the last game, impacting on game play,  or how the scoring system has changed for the better/worse. I can’t tell you whether vehicles are now overpowered (although on some BF4 maps I noted that if you didn’t manage to get a vehicle you were pretty much screwed): I just play the damn things and tell you if I like them or not. That’s how I do it.

“Different strokes for different folks”. It’s rather appropriate here, I think.

My take on Sony’s pre-E3 press event

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“Where was the love for the PS Vita,” was my first reaction after watching most of Sony’s pre-E3 press event this afternoon (NZ time).

Actually, no it wasn’t: my first reaction was “When can I play The Last of Us? That looks so freaken amazing,” after Sony closed out its presser with a demo of Naughty Dog’s next adventuring game.

For Sony it was all about the games and the PlayStation 3 – and there were a lot to take in – but very little love for the Vita, a console that isn’t a year old yet and is struggling to gain traction with gamers. Apart from an Assassin’s Creed game for the Vita (Assassin’s Creed 3:  Liberation)  and cross platform connectivity with All Stars Battle Royale, Sony had nothing for the Vita. That’s a worrying proposition, especially for early adopters of the handheld. Does the lack of first-party support mean that Sony is worried as well?

 Sony’s CEO Jack Tretton opened the event by thanking gamers for giving the company the inspiration to do what it does then welcomed on to the stage French game maker David Cage, the man behind the innovative but ultimately tedious Heavy Rain, who revealed his new game, Beyond: Two Souls, a game that spans 15 years and lets players “live the life of a video game character”, namely Jodie (voiced by Juno actor Ellen Page).

After Beyond Two Souls came PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale, which I flicked between while I was doing some work, then AC3: Liberation,which brings a female assassin this time around, then Assassin’s Creed 3, which showed a sea battle aboard naval ships and involved sailors, rigging, cannons, explosions and lots of shouting. Some Far Cry 3 co-op multiplayer was shown as was a rather tedious reveal of Wonderbook, an inventive partnership between PlayStation and British author J.K. Rowling where you use the PS Move as a wand to cast spells while reading a magical book. It was fun at first but the on-stage demo just went on for far too long. I got bored with it.

Tretton introduced God of War: Ascension as “one of the biggest and most epic releases on PlayStation 3” and we’ve seen the multiplayer component before but this showcased the single player, which saw the forever angry Kratos take on goat like creatures, a large Kraken and an elephant warrior that met the wrong end of Kratos’ anger. It’s due out early next year.

 The biggest cheers, though, were saved for Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, which cements for me the developers pedigree as a AAA game maker that knows how to do narrative – and has the visual grunt behind it. Make no mistake it was a brutal trailer with Joel and Ellie, the two main characters in the game’s post-apocalyptic world, having to fend against rather aggressive foes. The combat is visceral and forceful, with Joel slamming a foe’s head against a desk at one stage and shooting another at point blank range with a shotgun, while Ellie throws a brick at another’s head to distract him – before he’s pummeled by Joel. It’s a stark display of a struggling world after a disaster. “Good job with all the killing, and stuff,” Ellie says after they’ve survived the encounter.

The Last of Us is unmistakably Naughty Dog: it reminded me a lot of the Uncharted series with similar visuals and a main character that even moves slightly like him. I guess what I’m saying is that it feels like a Naughty Dog game – and that pleases me a lot.

If I was a betting man, I’d say Sony won the round today, offering more games than Xbox was able to but the game of the day for me, easily Ubisoft’s surprise announcement of  Watch_Dogs, a game set in a society where computers can see everything and nothing is a secret. It actually reminded me a lot of the TV show Person of Interest, which I have enjoyed.

Nintendo is up tomorrow, revealing what it has planned for the 3DS and other things Nintendo. If I can get up in time, I’ll watch it (it’s at 4.30am NZ time). I need my beauty sleep, you know.