E3 2009: Sony Media Briefing – It's hard to keep secrets

June 3, 6:05 PMVideo Game ExaminerQuibian Salazar-Moreno

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The media briefing started with CEO Jack Tretton cracking a joke about people still coming with their secrets out of the bag. He was referring to the leaked photos of their new PSP Go. But Sony still had a few things up their sleeve.

Although the PS3 consumer base is still going, Sony is not abandoning the PS2 quite yet. They have 100 titles coming out for the system this year. Yes, people are still playing PS2 games.

The first game demo’d was Uncharted 2: Among Thieves which looks superb. The game’s environment was lush, the action was fast-paced, the animation was on point, and the controls looked a lot cleaner and easier to handle than the original game.

Sony followed that with a demo of MAG, a massive online multiplayer action game that will allow up to 256 players to participate at one time. The demo showcased some of the strategy points of the game as well as the first-person action. It feels like a massive game of Risk mixed with the action of a Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon.

Jack Tretton then officially introduced the PSP Go, the latest handheld gaming console. What’s the difference? Well, first off, gone are the UMD discs. One of the toughest battles that PSP has had was the pirating of games. UMD discs are so easy to copy and turn into playable files on a hacked PSP. With the PSP Go, the way content is added is through download on its 16GB flash memory drive. Games, movies, music, and other content will be downloaded through the Playstation Network. This can be done either using the system’s wi-fi, it can be done through a PC, or the owner’s PS3. While the PSP Go looks slick and it’s a great idea to have a direct-download gaming device, it’s still missing that second analog stick! Oh yeah, it’s $250 too!

They’re not abandoning the original PSPs either. New games like Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will be coming soon as well as a new Resident Evil title, Soul Caliber: Broken Destiny, LittleBigPlanet, Gran Turismo, Motorstorm: Artic Edge, and others.

Tretton also reaffirmed that Rockstar Games is working on a new PS3 exclusive called Agent, but there was no trailer or video of the title. There was, however, a demo of Assassin’s Creed II which looked fantastic. Even though the game will also be on Xbox 360 as well, the folks at Sony felt like they could make the push to get people to get it for PS3.

Sony followed that demo with a trailer from Final Fantasy XIII and then made the huge announcement of Final Fantasy XIV being exclusive to PS3 and hitting stores right after XIII. Then they showed a great CGI trailer from the game. Score one for the PS3 fanboys!

One of the latest trends in gaming is the motion control gaming, thanks to Wii. Microsoft introduced their Project Natal on Monday, and now Sony is introducing theirs. It works in conjunction with the Eye-Toy and a motion controller which appears to have a lot more abilities than the Wii’s motion sensing system. The demo showed the abilities to use the controller to pick up bats, tennis rackets, whips, swords, etc. and use them in games. They plan to release the new add-on next spring, most likely to get a jump on Microsoft’s own motion control system which still looks to be in the developing stages.

In a follow-up to LittleBigPlanet, Sony also announced Mod Nation Racers. A racing game where you can customize cars and race tracks in the same vein as LittleBigPlanet where you could customize characters and levels – it’s just a little simpler. In LittleBigPlanet, it took a bit of patience and trial and error to create and finally play a customized level, but in the demo for Mod Nation Racers, it looked a lot simpler.

The next game shown was a trailer from The Last Guardian, a game created by Team Ico, the folks behind the lauded Ico and Shadow of the Colossus games. The trailer featured a boy and his giant creature as the roamed around a lush environment and battles different bad guys. Looks like a another classic.

The finale of the press conference was of course, God of War III. They showed a gameplay demo which shows the similar gameplay to the previous games but with added bonuses like wings! The graphics pushes the powers of the PS3, especially in scenes where Kratos guts open a creature or stabs it with its own antler.

While Sony’s presser wasn’t as glitz and glam as Microsoft with celebrities and whatnot, they still have an impressive lineup for PS3, great ideas for the PSP Go, and a solid upcoming motion control system.