E3 2017 - events starting Saturday 6/10

[A Black Falcon]

And last for Monday, Sony. Much like last year Sony gave a shorter and game-heavy conference, more like MS's conference this year than the overlong and boring Sony conferences of old. Sony's hardware is out, so it's all about the games, for PS4 (Pro) and PS VR.

Games... well, Sony showed some games only in their pre-show, then more in the main conference. Knack 2 and Gran Turismo Sport both appear only in the pre-show. I don't care about GT but Knack 2... I haven't played the first, but sure, why not I guess if it's better than the first one is usually regarded as being?

But in the main show, starting with the ones I disliked most, as expected, they show a lot more information about Days Gone and the new God of War. Days Gone is what it looked like before, a zombie game where you play as a not-very-nice biker guy. It looks as completely uninteresting now as it did a year ago, to me anyway. Open worlds, QTEs, luring zombies into killing your enemies, etc... it did not look very good. God of War also looks similar to last year -- it's God of War, but with an axe now and its new somewhat contemplative story tone. Considering the horrific things Kratos did in the previous games, saying that just because centuries have passed now he's sort of decent is hard to believe, but I've always thought Kratos is one of the most unpleasant, awful game protagonists around and what he did before doesn't go away just because of this game. And anyway, he still is an angry killer and I imagine the plot will eventually turn into an excuse for killing your way through another set of gods, so yeah, my borderline hate for this series's story continues. As for the gameplay... walk around and hack things, just slightly differently this time. Meh.

Otherwise for first-party stuff, they showed more of the Uncharted stand-alone addon thing, announced a Horizon DLC addon set in a snowy setting, announced a PS4 port of Shadow of the Colossus, with better graphics this time. 2018 though. There also is a new trailer for David Cage's Detroit, showing more of the game -- you lead an android rebellion against the humans, it seems. The story could be good, but I wish it was a game and not just a QTE sequence like his games always are... ah well. They also showed footage of their upcoming Spiderman game for PS4. I think that was announced before, yes? It looks like a Spiderman game all right. Run around a city, web people, etc. There's some nice destruction in this trailer, but will the game have real destructible environments or is it just canned? And how much of that trailer was actually gameplay, a lot was cutscenes and QTEs... so at this points who knows. Oh, and it's a 2018 game too. As usual Sony sure does love showing things you won't be able to play in the year of their conference.

And finally, they had a VR segment. Star Child, a platformer thing, could be good. The others much less so - a horror game called The Inpatient, Bravo Team (an FPS), Skyrim VR, Final Fantasy XV fishing (what?), and that good-looking Redwall-styled game starring a mouse warrior.

Additionally there was also a bunch of third-party stuff of course, much of which will be multiplatform -- COD: WWII, Destiny 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 4, Monster Hunter World, and more. Monster Hunter World is a big one, but it apparently will be multiplatform so it's not exclusive. I don't like what little of this series I have tried, but for fans it's nice to see one on a major console again for the first time in a while, I guess.

(Not there: The Last of Us 2. I don't really care, but I'm sure many people are disappointed by that.)

Overall the Sony conference was alright, but it didn't have the big reveals of last year. They did show more exclusives than Microsoft did, but most of the big exclusives aren't games I care about at all so that doesn't mean much. Sony this year, overall: average at best.