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TGS2006 impressions (ver.DC)
By admin | February 18, 2010
Before starting the round up, it has to be pointed out that this year i concentrated mainly on PS3. Having already picked up an X360, I decided to focus on the new Sony machine - so unfortunately this write up will not touch very much on non-PS3 items.
At the start of the day, Ken Kutaragi sang us a sweet one hour lullaby littered with vague hints of what could be achieved on an unspecified network including a confused look at downloading , uploading of data, then utilization of this data in games - the basic theme was the potential of the network , confusingly not specifically Sony’s forthcoming PS3 network, just any network. With no details on the PS3 network, and scant information on games outside of the open trailer of old footage from RR7, VF5, FFXII, and Gundam and the grand finale of nice-looking-yet-scant-on-gameplay-info Afrika. The keynote certainly wasn’t what i was expecting following last year’s Nintendo and MS conferences, as it transpires it sounds like the real big details from Sony - the 10,000 yen core pack price drop (the open price unit remains open price) and the inclusion of HDMI as standard were left to the Press Q+A session afterwards. Both these moves are excellent news - with the HDMI change being across all regions but unfortunately the price cut is Japan-specific - but details still remain to be seen. With the PSP core pack we saw extremely limited numbers over the first year making the 19,800 yen price point of the PSP only so on paper. Hopefully Sony are not going to repeat this and the actual launch numbers of the core pack will be significant. From a business perspective, it’s somewhat perplexing why the PS3 (which is pretty much a dead cert to sell out regardless in Japan) needs a price cut at this point.
Kutaragi had mentioned that there were some 200 final PS3 units on the floor and we should definitely go and check out what they were running, and of course that’s where the PS3 had it’s chance to shine. In reality, it was a mixed bag.
On the plus side, the Ridge Racer 7 demo was glorious. Boasting the usual slick Namco presentation and running at 1080p at 60fps, this really was the real deal. The course in question was based around a rustic asian village surrounded by waterfalls, with race ways cut into the side of a mountain, through tunnels, and back through the farm land - it really is quite the spectacle. What seemed to differ from the X360 Ridge title RR6 was the way the race transpired - rather than picking off the odd racer or two, the final lap was spent in a cluster of 8 racers all vying for first place. A great title and certain to be one of the launch stars. Questions still remain over the rest of the game: does the game consist of new made-for-PS3 tracks? Or are we going to see the X360 tracks recycled plus a handful of new tracks? If it’s the former, this is a definite launch purchase, if it’s the later, then i’m not so sure. For non-X360 owners though , this should be the first game on your PS3 shopping list.
Being a sucker for FPSs, Resistance single player looked to be another great addition to the launch line-up - graphically fantastic with an interesting washed out tinge, I’m interested (as a UK’er) to see how the locations pan out. The game looks like a more dynamic and much more polished Call Of Duty, with particles and debris being kicked up around the screen and some fantastic texture work. Although not offering anything ground breaking in terms of gameplay, what it did, it did extremely well and was an instant addition to the list of games to pick up at launch.
Capcom’s booths, which deserve a special mention for their excellent ‘themed approach’: a court room for Gyakuten Saiban, the inn for Monster Hunter, etc. was home to the quite beautiful DMC4. Regardless of claims of 100 fps - the frame rate was certainly high and locked in, this game is beautiful because of the art work. Capcom have truly mastered all the current batch of machines, and the PS3 looks like being no exception. Unfortunately with the queue to play DMC4 being over 1 hour 30 long, I didn’t get to try this out myself, but the signs are extremely good for this game.
Over at the Sega booth, both VF5 and Virtua Tennis looked great (with VT being another 1080p/60fps game). Both games look to be solid conversions (which given the difference in power between Lindberg and PS3 is to be expected). Both these games are excellent additions to the PS3 library. VF5 still commands the arcade 3D fighting realm and Virtua Tennis is a solid and enjoyable tennis series. Hopefully, both these titles will follow the previous home conversions route and an abundance of extras will be added.
Unfortunately, the PS3’s TGS debut had its fair share of issues. Whilst waiting in line to play Ridge, each of the four machines in that particular section of the Namco booth suffered fatal crashes. Whether this is a code issue or a hardware issue is unknown. I’d hoped to get a view of the new splash screen on reboot , but unfortunately there was nothing in place beyond a black screen which then took us into the main dash then quickly into loading the game.
And as it became very apparent, it isn’t all sunshine on the gaming front either. Lair, from graphical powerhouse Factor 5, had a number of issues. A juddering and unstable frame rate which occassionally would hit 30fps and issues with vsync took the shine off what is otherwise a good looking game. The gameplay isn’t quite there at the moment, and the ground attack portions consisted of huge armies who were a little too static to provide any real insight into how this section will pan out.
Lair, however, wasn’t the only game having some technical difficulties - surprisingly GTHD was also having issues with the mountain side course displaying an unusual amount of screen tearing and the same sort of vsync issues as seen in Lair. What is more perplexing is what is going on with the GT series - a brief slide in Kutaragi’s keynote mentions that GT4:part one is GT4 but ’several steps closer to heaven’ and whilst this will no doubt end up being a very good looking game, it’s not clear what the purpose of GTHD is - is this a stop gap release? Or is it the basis for the future of GT? With further disturbing news prior to the event concerning microtransaction details, the worry is that this is a leap in the wrong direction.
Coded Arms Assault was having the worst technical issues with the game pretty much unplayable at a flicker book frame rate level, which is a shame as the game had some quite excellent texture work, albeit perhaps a little too reminiscent of PDO. AI was sadly lacking, and with no aim assistance the game was quite difficult to get to grips with.
Motorstorm was also guilty of some astonishingly apparent technical issues. Late in the day it was reported that these issues were down to a bad build and that the issue is to be resolved for Saturday (with no details if this is the same demo or an older demo). However, in its state on Friday, it was again worrying. The frame rate fluctuated wildly but never seemed to get to 30fps, some crashes were taking several seconds to execute, and it was difficult to enjoy the game in this state. If I recall correctly, Motorstorm had this self same issue at E3 and I’m somewhat perplexed about how this could happen again.
Outside of these games, details still remain a little scant on a few items: backwards compatibility and Bluray playback were not demonstrated at all - although no issues are expected with either of these, it would have been nice to see if BC had some sort of advanced features as sported by the PS2. PS3 download of PS1 games then upload to PSP suffered hard crashes resulting in the 3 machines running this function being turned off. The network running behind the scenes still remains a mystery, as does the charging structure (’free basic online’ still remains confusing with Konami announcing at TGS that PS3 Mahjong Fight Club will carry a monthly charge to play).
All in all, i’m not sure that the PS3 had a particularly great TGS debut, the good and bad just about balanced out - if you weren’t expecting great things of some of the titles , as I admittedly wasn’t, then there was more than enough to get excited about for launch. What is somewhat annoying is that, again, we are coming out of TGS unclear about a number of PS3 related issues - just as we were two years ago with the PSP. Perhaps this is just a fact of life with Sony launches? Regardless, if more games can hit the highs that we saw then PlayStation fans and gamers alike (especially 1080p TV owning players) have interesting times ahead.
Topics: TGS |