E3 Monday - Sony PS3 Games & Innovation?
Last post for the night, otherwise I’ll not make it to the Nintendo conference in the morning.
At the Sony PS3 press conference, we were shown a large number of demos and video clips of games (not clear how fabricated they were though).
What struck me the most was that perhaps half of all the titles shown were sequels to similar titles on other platforms. That’s a little depressing. One would figure that with a completely new platform with the power of the PS3, new games would be written to take advantage of the platform, instead of old games being repurposed (maybe with some new levels).
The only real innovations we were shown were a new battle card game which uses the Eye Toy, by the name of “The Eye of Judgement” and the use of a Sony PSP as a game output device in a Formula One racing game. The PSP was used to output the contents of a virtual “side mirror” in the race car. (See below for images from both.)
Other titles that look interesting, at least to me, are Eight Days, Lair, and an as yet unnamed title from Naughty Dog. The video clip for Final Fantasy XIII was visually grand, but my experience with numerous Final Fantasy games on the PS2 have been fraught with annoyance at choppy game play, and a back story I’m just not familiar with, but somehow expected to know.
I have no doubt that there will be some killer games out when the PS3 launches, but I am mindful of the fact that the graphics capabilities and playability of the latest PS2 games are in many ways amazingly better than those available with the PS2 at launch over six years ago as developers find new ways to take advantage of old hardware.
The same will undoubtedly be true with PS3 games. There is enormous complexity in the PS3 architecture, and games at launch will likely only be brushing the surface of what the PS3 can really do with properly tuned software.
