Sony's E3 press conference games recap

CEO of Playstation Jack Tretton speaks speaks at Sony's E3 press conference (AP Photo: Reed Saxon)

Sony's E3 press conference introduced both the PSP Go and its take on motion sensor gaming as its main attractions for the Playstation platform, but the game lineup demonstrated at the actual conference focused on a number of console exclusives. Here are the highlights:

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune 2 really started the demonstrations with two solid feet on the ground. The visuals look rich and incredibly diverse, and the action is more of the pulse throbbing, epic content from the first game. In the live demo, Drake runs along rooftops, slides down a zip wire, and evades the constant fire of a looming helicopter antagonist. Buildings collapsing underneath his feet offered the most interesting and intense visual effect of the entire demo.

Next up is MAG, a first-person shooter developed by Zipper Interactive, the same minds behind SOCOM. The visual similarities between the two games were apparent in the live demo, but the game's 256 live player capacity seems bewildering. The developers took the stage to demonstrate the capabilities of the game to accomodate the unprecedented number of simultaneous console gamers, and stressed the fact that all the players on the screen were playing at that moment to prove their point.

Developer Kazunouri Yamauchi from Polyphony Digital took the stage to introduce a PSP iteration of Gran Turismo. The portable game will boast over 800 cars on 35 unique tracks, and will allow players to swap cars from their garages with other users. The game's release will coincide with the PSP Go on Oct. 1.

Metal Gear Solid will reprise its handheld role in Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker. The "true sequel" of the Metal Gear series, according to team lead Hideo Kojima, will occur ten years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3, and the visuals looked incredibly solid, even for the PSP.

Playstation CEO Jack Tretton touched on the release of Resident Evil Portable, a new installment only for PSP, but mentioned no further details at this point.

He also briefly mentioned a new PS3 exlusive: Agent, which takes place in the late 1970's and is developed by Rockstar, but mentioned no further details. We didn't see any content demonstrations or trailers for the content, either.

Assassin's Creed II will take place in 1486, during the Italian Renaissance, and begins right where the last game ended. The game looks just as detailed as its predecessor, but the gameplay will incorporate inventions by Leonardo Da Vinci, and focuses on a protagonist, Ezio, who is attempting to extract revenge and becomes a trained killer in the process. The most impressive moment of the gameplay demonstration consisted of a two-fisted assassination that took down two unsuspecting guards in one deadly move. Unlike Altair, Ezio will be able to disarm his enemies and use their weapons against them, which means a wider weapon diversity. The PSP version, Assassin's Creed Bloodlines, will also link up to the second game to provide additional weapons during gameplay on the PS3. The game will release Nov. 17.

Final Fantasy XIII made an appearance in a trailer that featured glimpses of gameplay and expounded on the story, but of more interesting note is the announcement of Final Fantasy XIV as the Square Enix successor to XI. 

ModNation Racers, a game that promises to deliver on LittleBigPlanet's tagline "Play.Create.Share." demonstrated a fun and intuitive racing game in the same vein as Mario Kart that focuses on compact, user-created cars and drivers. The gameplay demonstration also included a look at track creation, which allows users to design the track and the surrounding enviroment by adding obstacles, and even allows the user to alter water levels, altitude, and time of day.

We caught a glimpse of The Last Guardian, which revealed little of the story, other than the bond between a chicken-legged, feathery horned dog creature and a young boy. The trailer showed a bit of gameplay, which if anything like Ico or Shadow of the Colossus, will probably be good.

A slight teaser glimpse at Gran Turismo 5 gave little more than a "I'm pretty and eventually on my way" gesture.

Finally, Sony showed off a live demo for God of War III, which even in its short screen time proved to be just as epic and visceral as its predecessors. The demo finds Kratos already in the action as he rips through hordes of enemies and wrangles harpies to reach higher locations. The familar chained blades and bow are back for more, but it looks like Kratos will also be able to clothesline an enemy, and ram it into its friends by charging around. That, and he gutted a giant Centaur. Complete with typical God of War-fashion gore explosions and time button pressing combinations to dismember and behead. The game will release in March 2010.