jak tiano

E3 Impressions Continued

I’ll start where I left off: Assassin’s Creed Revalations. While watching the trailer and then the demo, I felt like this game would make a departure from the rest of the Ezio trilogy’s feel. It looked more actiony and more refined. It might just be because of ezio’s age and lack of Roma, or even Italy for that matter, but the atmosphere of the game seems much different as well. I’m very interested.

Sony: Started with a bang with a ton of new Uncharted 3 footage. The game looks phenomenal, and really groundbreaking, in such a way that even Uncharted 2 couldn’t do. The multiplayer looks interesting as well, and might be able to convert a single player gamer like me to playing online. Resistance 3 looked okay, but didn’t wow me. The new Sly game was expected, but a little disappointig since Sanzaru is developing it instead of Sucker Punch, but I guess we’ll see how that goes. It was nice to hear news on Ico/SotC collection, in addition to the new GoW collection. Disappointed that there was no Jak or Ratchet collection though. One of my favorite new products was the new PlayStation Branded 3D TV, which includes a set of glasses and Resistance 3 for $499. It also has a cool “2 full screens” mode that will be interesting. I was kind of disappointed in the lack of new IPs, however. I also didn’t care much for the move integration in almost every game. One of the biggest parts of the show was when the NGP got an official introduction. At $249 and a ridiculous launch lineup, the 3DS is going to have a hard time being noticed until a new pokemon game comes out. Uncharted: Golden Abyss looks really good… like, console Uncharted good. Nolan North in my pocket makes the PSVita (and Uncharted) a Day One buy for me. It’s cool to see ModNation Racers and LBP get PSV games too, as they look like almost ports of the PS3 versions. Overall, Sony pretty much killed it with the affordable 3D TV, showing off a slew of exclusives that are coming down the pipeline for the rest of the year (and then some) and the PSVita being priced REALLY competitively, with arguably one of the best launch lineups ever. I do wish we saw some more new IPs, and maybe some new PS3 features announced, but compared to what Microsoft had, this was definitely a much better show.

Impressions on Nintendo and its new Wii U console in a bit…

Gran Turismo 5: First Hands On

So, I’ve been playing it for just under two hours. It’s about a 20 minute set up time, so don’t expect to pull it out of the wrapper at a party and start playing right away. That’s also without the optional install (which I recommend, as the load times are quite long as they are without it.) The game has about an 8 or so minute long intro, with the opening credits rolling as you watch a car get built at like 1000x speed. Then comes the intro video with Planetary (GO!) by My Chemical Romance, and that’s really awesome. Then you have the game.

From the main menu, you have GT mode, Arcade mode, Course Creator mode, and Gran Turismo TV. GT Mode is you’re main area, where you will set up a profile and then level up by winning races, getting new licenses, and completing special events such as kart races.

The graphics are probably the best I’ve seen, I’m not really going to do side by side comparisons, but believe me, you’ll have a hard time distinguishing this from reality. 

I’ve never played a console GT game before, so I don’t really know how to compare it, but it seems very similar to GT PSP that came out last year (which I have played and own.) It’s a great game and was able to suck me in for a solid two hours, yet I feel that if I had a wheel, I’d be playing long into the night. 

I can definitely see this game playing a huge role in moving PS3 units, and I think this has huge potential to sell this holiday season. It has awesome graphics, endless features, and infinite replayability especially for those of you who like cars. I know it may not sound like it from this post, but I’d give this game a perfect:

10/10

It’s really just that awe-inspiring.

Actual Knives Chau DLC time

So, I played the Battle Royale mode, and I gotta say, it’s pretty fun as long as everyone is maxed out on level 16. Otherwise everyone dies fast. Also, the dodgeball mode is extremely bad as, if you are level 16, CPUs die instantly and you only take 8 damage per hit. Knives’ character is very similar to Kim, but at least she looks better. Also, the three trophies included in the DLC are slightly challenging, but hey, a gold trophy included with a $2 DLC pack aint bad.

Final verdict: While not the strongest of DLC packs, can you really go wrong with anything for $2?

Black Ops Update: Progressed another hour and a half into the campaign, played combat training and a Wager match today. I’ll start talking about it a lot more once I finish all of it.

(P.S. Follow me.)