Hmmm. Well, not entirely, but you’d be hard pressed to find anything said about the small wonder at that huge event today. Freedom Wars looks like fun and a big buy this year, but nothing else was shown at that big deal media briefing meaning anyone who wanted to buy into the handheld looking for a showing at the show was probably left wondering if Sony even HAS a portable system. It’s kind of lame in a way because the system out-powers the 3DS by quite a bit and runs in a lovely HD widescreen Nintendo hasn’t yet realized on any of their handheld systems. Of course, it’s ALL about games at the end of the day and while the Vita does indeed have a number of solid must-play titles, there’s been s distinct lack of promotion of some of the non first-party titles that get kicked onto PSN and overlooked within a few days to weeks… Continue reading →
While the Xbox One got two games crammed into five minutes, Sony’s new PS4 showcased one game, the family friendly platformer, Knack was the showcase title on this second day of Late Night’s Game Week. Game Director Mark Cerny was on hand to show off the new console and controller, noting that it’s been redesigned for shooter fans, most likely to let them know they’re not forgotten despite the somewhat cute game on display Jimmy was about to dive into. He also got in a quick shot at Microsoft by noting that used games could be played on the PS4 and (yes!) the console can indeed be used offline. Microsoft takes another knock there, thanks to it’s spotty PR performance not doing the best job at explaining things. As for Knack, Cerny showed off a quick cut scene and played for a quick bit (the game looks great, but Jimmy was easily distracted by some amazing looking water for a split second) before turning over control.
Fallon played a cool ice level that showed off some great-looking Pixar-like visuals and a familiar mix of 3D platforming and combat. Knack can smash and absorb bits of the environment in order to grow and take on the characteristics of whatever he’s busted apart. It’s sort of like a Metal Men comic meets Crash Bandicoot with the aforementioned Pixar visual style and it looks pretty incredible. That said, I’m gathering Knack was shown for a few other important reasons. Fallon’s viewer base covers a wide age range, so Sony wants to get the console buying adults on board with a non-violent game they can immediately buy with that PS4. The game is a first-party title and Sony’s first party studios are responsible for a good deal of the system’s hits, so as a launch title, Knack needs to show it can be as good as the best games of its type on the new hardware. Finally, I think the game may be a hard sell to some of the shooter fans (thus the earlier shout-out by Cerny), so I think Sony wants them to know their games are indeed coming (and on launch day, at that). Then again, those shooter fans DID get a great demo of Killzone: Shadow Fall three months ago.
Oh yeah, Jimmy didn’t suck too much at Knack, but he’s still like a box of puppies bouncing in the back of a moving truck when it comes to getting all giddy about stuff. You have to love the man for his sense of wonder other TV hosts fail to activate in anything like a realistic manner, so I’ll give him that much…
Lovely, chilling and very promising looking adventure game from Sony’s Japan Studio, but so far, it’s only going to net a PSN release. Sony REALLY needs to get some of these innovative games such as this, Papo & Yo, Datura and others onto a disc and sell them at retail or direct to the segment of their user base that doesn’t use PSN for whatever reason. Stick a basic manual with some sort of PSN Plus voucher in there (that doesn’t expire) and maybe they’ll see a jump in users there as some of those without an account start moving forward to take the plunge.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 