August 12, Gamescom 2014: The Sony Press Conference: There's A Game Called Destiny Coming, Plus Some Awesome Boxes From MGS5! Oh Yeah... Some Indie Games Too

Written By: Tyler

Even though the Microsoft Press Conference was earlier today, I was at work so I didn't get a chance to watch it. After I post this article I will do so and do an article for it, so don't think that I'm only picking and choosing. I am trying to give the most comprehensive coverage of Gamescom that one man can do from his bedroom.

Keep in mind that a lot of this article is just me taking the notes I made and cleaning them up a little bit. That's why you're not exactly getting Cormac McCarthy in any of these Gamescom articles, because I am just watching the videos, taking quick notes and then tidying them up before posting. That, and I don't have half the talent that Cormac does.

Let's get to this.



When the Sony press conference officially begins, after showing us some clips from games like Little Big Planet 3, The Order: 1886 and Bloodborne, we get some eerie music and some different colours flash up on the screen. This, of course, is simply to introduce Playstation by showing us the classic square, x, triangle and circle. After those pop up on the screen, "This is for the players" flashes and then we're off to the races. We are shown clips from various games, interspersed with images of players enjoying the games on top of the clips... which is beyond cheesy.

Jim Ryan rolls up on screen, saying that the PS4 sales have exceeded 10 million units globally. You're welcome, Sony.

Then it cuts to showing us games that are "just a little bit different."

Q-Games has a new game that isn't Pixel Junk, and it's called The Tomorrow Children. The video shows some people digging then a girl shooting some robot things, while some definite nationalist music plays. "We will be comrades" flashes on the screen. There appears to be a jetpack as well. The video ends with a creepy dude and looking at us.

Then a more realistic looking game, visually, joins the fight. It is called The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter and in a nutshell there's a dead guy in a tomb and it looks like his spirit leaves his body and we watch a bunch of ghosts do stuff.

When we come back, the guy who made Thomas Was Alone is on the stage. He talked about how Thomas Was Alone changed his life. He announced Volume, which is a stealth game based on creativity. It is coming to PS4 and Vita first next year. It starts with sad music and I'm already into it because I loved Thomas Was Alone... then there's a narrator. It has an interesting visual style and seems to be going for something a little different in the genre.

Next we have a game where you play as a mercenary, and it's up to 4 player co-op. Lots of bullets fly, and it's called Hollowpoint. It's probably pretty okay, and inoffensive. Nothing awe-inspiring. It will come first to Playstation.

Runemaster will be talked about in the future.

My internet messed up and when I came back I was being told that PS4 owners could get into DayZ. In my estimate it'll probably never get out of Alpha on PC anyway, so don't bother looking forward to this one PS4 owners.

Next I'm told that the abyss stares into me if I stare into it, and that creeps me out because it's too metaphorical for me. We see a girl kneeling down holding a sword and there's some really atmospheric music. From the makers of Enslaved, DMC and Heavenly Sword comes Hellblade. The trailer was entertaining and mysterious but since there's no gameplay, who really knows? These types of reveals do very little for me.

Next we see a guy sitting with his feet int he water, then he sets out on his quest. We see him running, jumping, climbing, and seemingly going through a lot. It looks like it's a pretty interesting world.  The game looks beautiful and is called Rime. Think along the lines of "Journey" in ways, and less cryptic, and you have an idea of what's going on. It will also be a Playstation exclusive. Go Playstation!

Then we get a monstage of a bunch of indie games that will be showing up on Playstation.

 It was only a matter of time before we got to Destiny and here it is...  in 4 weeks nobody will be doing anything else. The economy will collapse, and the terrorists will win, because Destiny will be released then. Thanks for the reminder! It's the most pre-ordered new IP in history.

We got more details on the multiplayer, and the world premiere of the multiplayer trailer. We saw the different modes, and I think I missed one of them, but we get Skirmish, Rumble, Salvage, Clash, Combined Arms, and Control. There are timed exclusive maps for Playstation owners, with two expansions coming. The first expansion, The Dark Below, will be in December. Nothing makes the internet happier than announcing content that you have to buy before the game is even out.

Far Cry 4 shows up next and it basically just shows off a variety of environments and they talk about how you can invite your friend to join you in the open-world. Exclusive to Playstation, you can send up to ten free trials and your friends (if you have ten... I don't) can play the game with you for two hours.

There's a Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor trailer but meh, whatever. I'm already sold and this didn't show any gameplay.

Hideo Kojima pimps onto the stage, and shows off the different functions of the classic box. You can stand up with the box on you and there will be a variety of pictures to distract enemies or fool them, such as a saluting soldier or a hot chick. You can get different pictures like a hot chick (of course) laying in some roses. Use these realistic tactics to escape enemies. It ended with Big Boss putting a PS4 box on his head, and I laughed.

Then we get the "worlds first interactive teaser" called P.T. It's a little eerie and shows actual reactions from players playing it. I don't know if I believe these things, but whatever. It's available now on Playstation so I may have to check it out.

Then we get into the more technical aspects like System Software 2.0. It will have a better friend finder, you can see recommendations of players, upload shared videos to Youtube. You can share play where any PS Plus member can invite any friend, anywhere, to play your games with you. Or you can invite another PS Plus member to play with you and your friend doesn't need to own or download the game. 

There is then brief conversation about a bunch of things like Project Morpheus but nothing comes from it. Same with Playstation Now except for the fact that it is coming to Europe in 2015. The Playstation TV can pair your PS4 with a second TV and will be released in PAL territory for 99 Euros, and you get three digital games.

Until Dawn is rebuilt and is no longer a PS3 game. It's now on PS4 and and it's "a horror game unlike any other."  It's eight friends trying to survive a night from hell. You're stranded on a mountain like most horror movies. You decide who will survive. I don't really know if this will be any good or not. It will be arriving next year.

Next we have Driveclub. You can collaborate with your club and get the benefits together. You can use an app to keep up to speed with your club. You can live stream with the app to watch your friends. You can do anything besides actually race on it and conquer the world. We got to see a new element which is dynamic weather.

Driveclub is seeing a release on October 8th of this year, until it gets delayed.

Tearaway is now Tearaway Unfolded... reworked for ps4. The light bar will shine into the world. The touch pad will allow you to push down onto the surface of the world and when you release it, it will bounce back up. Swiping the touch pad will cause wind. There's also something to do with using the directional pad and shaking the controller to put things into the world. This will also come out next year.

The makers of Dead Nation and Resogun have another shooter where you have to survive at all costs. It is called Alienation and while it doesn't seem to promise anything new, Dead Nation was good and Resogun was awesome so count me in. By the way, it is also exclusive.

Then we have another exclusive game: Wild. It has a unique weather system, and you can play as humans or any living creature in the game. It doesn't show much besides the various creatures running around and doing shit, but I actually kinda dug it and am curious to see where this goes.



That's it. I'm sure there are disappointed people because they didn't show a ton of AAA titles, but they did show a good selection of smaller games. If you don't look forward to any indie games at this point, you're missing out on a lot.

E3 Day 0 (Part 3) -- The Sony Press Conference

Written By: Tyler

Here we are... the last press conference of the day/night. I don't have to remind you, but remember when Sony came out and Ether'd Microsoft? Can they do it again? What does Sony have to say for themselves? Read below.

We see the blue, we hear the calming, pretty music... and then there is black. When images and light return the stage, we see Mars. It looks exactly like Mars and I would know because I've been there. But what does this all mean? It's your destiny to know. It's um, Destiny, and spoiler alert, it still looks really cool, even if the opening video didn't really give us much in the way of gameplay footage.

Andrew House takes the stage and uh, rocks the house (okay I'll stop) by talking about understanding what it takes to be the best in the world. Then, he announces that Playstation gamers will get their grubby little hands on the Destiny beta first on July 17th. Also, starting on Thursday Playstation owners can play the first-look alpha of the game. If you act now you can actually help develop the game. One of these things is a lie made by me, I'll let you guess which.

There's also a white PS4 coming, with an exclusive Destiny bundle.

Next comes a new exclusive IP: The Order: 1886. It is a dark, third-person shooter and in the footage there's a lot of walking through the dark with only your flashlight. But wait, there's more, because you are not alone. I can't imagine. At least now we've seen some gameplay.

Jumping from dark, scary and depressing to light and beautiful, we have two bird-things flying through the air. It's Entwined, and it's apparently about two souls that are in love and can't be together. You have to guide two things at once using the dual sticks, and when you bring them together they'll transform into a dragon. Could be neat, but I wish my soul could merge with something and become a dragon. It is available right now for $9.99 so I think I may have to check it out tomorrow.

Infamous: Second Son is getting standalone DLC. You get exclusive content if you own Second Son but you don't need it. It's called Infamous: First Light.

Then Little Big Planet 3 hits the stage. I'm not real familiar with the previous two, despite buying the first (and not playing it yet) but it appears there are new characters. It looks charming like the first two did and this co-op play looks entertaining. I know they're slightly different but I feel like Little Big Planet 3 will be a better game than Project Spark.

Next on the agenda is the new game from From Software, Bloodborne. They appear to be trying something new by making a dark, gruesome game. You can get it in 2015.

Then Far Cry 4 flashes on the screen. We saw the first five minutes of the game earlier during the Ubisoft press conference, but now we see some gameplay. The video involves the player walking around, where he then picks up some equipment and starts grappling. Then he walks through the trees a little and after that the fun starts. In an unexpected twist, it looks like it's going to play like other Far Cry games, but that isn't even a criticism. Trust me, this looks like it's a lot of fun.

But they're not done, because this one seems to have co-op or at least some form of multiplayer. You can invite your friends to play with you even if they don't own the game... but only on Playstation. What?

What don't we see much of? Zombies. So we better make a game about zombies. We get to see go jogging while people get molested by zombies, things crash and an upbeat song plays. But then he transforms into a zombie himself. The video is silly fun. It's Dead Island 2.

Battlefield Hardline makes another appearance. I'm already sold, I didn't need this, but it's more of a mixture video of gameplay and cinematic. I'm more impressed with what EA showed us in their press conference.

There's an exclusive Disney Infinity collectors edition for PS3 and 4.

They talk about Destiny some more, talking about how Playstation owners will get stuff for owning it on a Sony system. Hulk also smashed during that, which made me chuckle.

They have a new partnership with Paradox Interactive. The first game they're working on is the new Magicka game, appropriately titled Magicka 2.

Grim Fandango is getting a remastering. I suck at Adventure games but I dig this one. It will be exclusive to PS4 and Vita.

After the biggest cheer of the night, we get a montage of a bunch of games who make their debut on Playstation platforms. I won't list them all because I've already forgotten the titles as I write this, but a lot of them look really cool. Some of them are Not A Hero, Hotline Miami 2, and The talos Principle. Wait I can do this... Titan Souls and Broforce as well. I may have missed some.

Oh god yes, here we go. The new Suda51 one game, that's only coming to PS4... I'm a huge Suda51 fan and up until now we only got a brief teaser that told us nothing about his new game. Only this is called Let It Die and it's not the game I thought he was making. What a confusing guy.

Then there's an awkward transition to Journey. Then we get to see the Giant Squid game, Abzu, and I'm not really sure what the point is. I don't think that's a criticism because it's intriguing and beautiful. It's another exclusive console debut for Sony.

No Man's Sky then shows up and it's even more gorgeous than I remember it being the first time I saw it. It's got the visuals and the scope is incredible, especially when you consider it's an indie game. It's a procedural universe, and every player will start on a different planet where the universe is supposedly infinite. Whether it'll be fun to explore these worlds or not remains to be seen, but I'm optimistic and anticipate this game.

After being inspired by No Man's Sky, Andrew House comes back to talk about the Playstation Camera and starts discussing Project Morpheus.

House introduces Shawn Layden, the new President and CEO of SCE. He starts talking about the PSN and statistics. Youtube will be coming to PS4 later this year. In the summer, their broadcasting will be enhanced. He also thinks that free-to-play is important, and there are a bunch of games coming in the next year, then we're treated to a montage of some of these games. Some look cool, some look crappy, but all will annoy a large portion of gamers who hate F2P.

Playstation Now is going to be available in beta on July 31st on PS4. Shortly after it will be on Vita
and PS3. I'm excited for this.

Layden then went on to talk about PS Vita. There are over a hundred games in development for the platform.

Playstation TV is a thing too. You can pair it with your PS4, and play your games via remote play on another TV. When it's released it will cost $99 but there's a bundle for $139 that includes a Dual Shock 3, a game, and an HDMI cable.

After that, we get the world premiere of gameplay footage of Mortal Kombat X, and guess what? That teaser trailer we saw a while back was not gameplay footage, to those who debated how much of it was. When did Mortal Kombat get gory?

After Mortal Kombat, Andrew House comes back and starts talking about movies and television on Playstation. Their first original program is a show called Powers, which is about superheroes.

If you didn't know, there's an animated Ratchet & Clank movie in the works. We got to see a little bit of it. 

Finally we get back to games... with the remastered version of The Last of Us. If you haven't played The Last of Us and you only own a PS4, you definitely have to check this out when it releases on July 29th because it definitely lives up to the hype. The footage presented also has a cover of a Nirvana song so that's a plus in my eyes.

I love Metal Gear, and Sony knows this, so they chose to show us a new trailer of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Not that I need a new trailer, but of course it looks awesome. The trailers for this game have been incredible.

Next comes Grand Theft Auto 5 for PS4. I'm really happy about this because the online aspect of the game seems really interesting and my PS3 broke a while back so I haven't gotten a chance to play it.

After stroking the audience with next-gen GTA5, we get to see the next Batman game, Arkham Knight. This was a must-buy before I knew anything about it. The video that they showed made me happy because now there is no doubt in my mind at all that the game is going to be awesome.

The press conference ends with Uncharted 4. If I'm being honest, I'm not real excited because I'm not a fan of the series, but it's nice to see that the game hasn't imploded with all the people leaving over the past year. It's just a short cinematic, but it says that it's coming out in 2015. There is a big applause at the beginning of the video and at the end.


Closing Statement: Sony suffered from some technical issues on occasion during their presser, but for the most part it was good. It's interesting that they were more like Microsoft last year than Sony of last year... focusing a bunch on their non-game features. Some of this is really interesting, but I felt like it went on a little too long and started clamoring for more game talk. After the talk about all their hardware and services, they came back in a huge way though, which I think kept Microsoft from edging out a victory here. The games that Sony showed are, for the most part, just more interesting.