Review: Sony's E3 2012 PlayStation 3 Conference

Games industry press conferences aren’t about facts and announcements. They are about emotions and feelings.

Excitement is the absolute minimum emotional level of engagement that E3‘s millions of marketing dollars are required to achieve, thus the flashing lights and blaring drums and whooping celebs.

But the organizers must strive for a higher plane, a place where we the viewers thrum with booming heart-beat and moistening eye.

Big emotion, edge-of-your-seat stuff came from two games, one at the beginning of the presentation and one at the end.

Unfortunately, in between we suffered eons of boredom as Sony trotted through its corporate agenda of keeping Move on the map, and half-heartedly saving Vita's miserable hide.

First, the good stuff.

Beyond: Two Souls a PS3-exclusive from Quantic Dream, offered up taut drama and that rare thing, a central video game character, Jodie Holmes, who knows how to shut the hell up and still be interesting. There was more emotional electricity offered here, in an exchange between cop and quiet girl,  than a horde of hysterical blood-lust buffoons on the rampage, chattering their inanities.

David Cage's work isn't to everyone's taste and accusations that his games lack action will always stick. But for anyone tired of bows and arrows and sliced throats, here was an alternative, a story rooted in human experience. There aren’t many developers who will begin their schtick with, “Death is the biggest mystery of mankind.” And by ‘death’ Cage was referring to the extinction of self, as opposed to a hammer-blow to an NPC’s cranium.

Even so, few games are willing to entirely forgo action. Holmes’ major line came at the end of her appearance, “Tell them to leave me the f*** alone because next time I’ll kill everyone.”

Shown at the very end of Sony’s 1.5 hour presentation, The Last of Us is a fascinating world, our own but broken, post-apocalypse done with colors and authenticity. It's also, it turns out, a game that involves extreme violence. In this demo, main character Joel sneaks around before basically killing everyone who gets in his way. This isn't to disparage what, for many, is top of their most-wanted list. It's a gorgeous game with an interesting relationship at its core, between Joel and a girl called Ellie.



Source : http://www.ign.com