E3 2016 - Sony

Already starting with more of a spectacle, a grand orchestra lead by its composer and part-time Dracula stand-in plays from the soundtrack of what we later learn is the new God Of War theme, before leading straight into a live gameplay demo of said game.

I've not played the prior games but the writing here seems exceptionally well thought out with some memorable dialogue lines in this first showing alone. Kratos is still an arsehole but they're taking that personality and going somewhere with it. We see him try to teach his son to hunt and survive in the wilderness. What wilderness this is exactly or where I don't know. I don't know what happened between this and the last game but a significant change has occurred in the game's setting and tone, right down to the core gameplay.

Voiced by Hugh Jacksman.

Kratos and his son hunt a deer through the icy woods with scenery more reminiscent of Skyrim than God Of War whilst the combat seems slower, heavier and more tactical, perhaps taking cues from the Dark Souls series.

It's unclear at points the distinction between gameplay and cutscene, especially when QTE's are surprisingly absent from a game series that used to be full of them. Naturally, greater enemies than deer appear and Kratos must step in to protect his son but what I'm really interested in is the story of this new entry and to see the hard-arsed Kratos mellow slightly in teaching a young apprentice.

Who, as child actors go, is not insufferable either.

After Microsoft's debacle of zoomed out cameras showing empty stages and motionless audiences in the dark it's relieving to have the footage that mainly focuses on the game putting a few smaller video boxes to the side just to prove there's actually someone playing the game in the live demos and to give screen time to the orchestra during others. It's not perfect but it's an improvement.

The God Of War choir starts up again to give an unsettling entrance theme for my favourite slimy businessman Shawn Layden, who I was hoping would come out in rags this year following his gradual mental descent over the years. Alas he is suited but still a bit twitchy and beardy, so there's still hope for my own personal investment in a dark spiral of corporate self-destruction..

Unfortunately rather than let it speak for itself Shawn has to bolster Sony's ego with the line "what a way to start the show." But it is coupled mostly with thanks to the orchestra and fans et cetera rather than self-congratulatory smugness.

Shawn continues to chat rhetoric about the upcoming show and their admittedly very impressive theatre setting. Perhaps I've been swayed by the better opening to the conference or perhaps Shawn is simply a better speaker than Phil Spencer but this is nowhere near as grating as Microsoft's conference.

A dramatic CG trailer plays for a post-apocalyptic game called Days Gone, starring a dishevelled and disillusioned biker. I like to imagine the developers are trying to save this type of protagonist from only being known in Ride To Hell: Retribution.

As long as there's less clothed sex scenes and 8 second music loops, It should do fine...

Pleasingly, this flows straight into another trailer for the long awaited spiritual successor to Shadow Of The Collosus, The Last Guardian. The trailer is mostly story beats and cutscenes but there's some gameplay shown and perhaps more importantly a release date of October 25th 2016 for which the audience uproariously howls for.

Moving, again immediately into a gameplay demo for Horizon Zero Dawn, winner of the most redundant title award, we see the heroine attempt to attack some of the corrupted robot wildlife and salvage their valuable parts.

The setting is still incredibly interesting, as a post-post-apocalypse world where nature has retaken the planet and mechanical remnants of an old world still wander lost like wild animals. The plot seems to hint at finding increasingly ancient robots and likely discovering what exactly befell the world and the gameplay seems solid, with some fun features like a scanner that determines an enemies' exact weakness and the cable-tethering arrows used to trap and restrain targets.

Still hard to believe this is from the people behind Killzone.

Next up comes an intriguing new title featuring an android negotiator which promises a myriad of ways to fail or semi-fail and probably one very difficult way to actually resolve the hostage situation. Oh wait, it's David Cage's new thing? Then I meant it looks like shit and will be a horrible waste of time.

In reluctant honesty though, the premise looks decent despite its creator and hopefully this will break the trend from Cage's other floundering misfires. Making half the characters robots is actually the smartest move you could make for someone who can't write humans. You can order Detroit to Become Human sometime in 2017.

Due to the cameras not being on the bloody screen again, I miss the introductory text to our next title and the video mixer only catches up in time for me to see the word Kitchen. I'll have to try and guess from that alone then.

Cooking Mama's really ramping up the difficulty.

It ultimately turns out to be Resident Evil 7 but by God you wouldn't know it from the footage. The game is now in first person and from what little we see, a guy explores a derelict and disgusting house after receiving a phone call that someone is coming to kill him.

The story remains teasingly unclear and to break format slightly for a moment, I later saw some interviews with the creators that confirmed this is still canon and set in the Resident Evil universe, so it's definitely not a reboot. It is however, an entirely new character we're playing as, their justification for which was that Chris, Jill, Leon et cetera had become almost like superheroes and far too capable to really feel vulnerable playing as them.

I completely agree with this and in trying to bring back the horror emphasis to Resident Evil whilst not abandoning its other features, this huge new direction makes a lot of sense for what they're trying to achieve, even if it is now unrecognisable amongst the hundreds of first person horror games in creepy houses.

After three conferences now and perhaps because of Sony's sophisticated venue I'd foolishly hoped the audience would be better behaved than feral baboons but this tension building, quiet horror game trailer was pretty much ruined by shiteating dickless heckler twats shouting out like the guy in secondary school always trying to be funny.

I'll defend gamers against a lot of unfair criticism but there's no denying at least the people at this year's E3, include some truly pathetic immature wankholes who I wish had been kicked out for not knowing how to shut the fuck up and not ruin an event for everyone else. Sorry, personal soapbox rant there...Moving on...

Five new trailers in a row is an excellent flow for the conference and Shawn returns briefly to reconfirm RE7's release date of January 24th 2017 and reveal it will be completely compatible with VR (probably only due to the first person perspective).

Naturally after this he announces that Playstation VR (apparently no longer called Morpheus) will release October 13th 2016 at the price of $399 USD, the same price as Microsoft's Project Scorpio with a 2TB hard drive, for reference. He promises 50 compatible games, old and new by the end of the year and goes on to premier an exclusive new game built specifically for PSVR.

Farpoint is a Sci-Fi FPS that appears to be about discovering hostile life on an alien planet. It will probably only become more difficult to distinguish gameplay from cutscene or CG with VR now but I believe this was a purely cinematic trailer.

Next up comes a natural addition to the VR roster with Star Wars Battlefront: X-Wing VR Mission. First person piloting in the ever-popular Star Wars space battles that the developers ingeniously left out of the main game.

There's even a new Rocksteady developed Batman Arkham VR game, coming October 2016 but with no further details than a cryptic trailer voiced by Mark Hamill's Joker talking about masks. I can't really see how this one will work to be honest but I hope you can at any point just take the headset off and that translates as removing the cowl mid-conversation with Commissioner Gordon.

Stepping out of VR now, Final Fantasy 15 shows a slightly more impressive trailer than the lacklustre gameplay demo at Microsoft's conference, but then stumbling back into VR we're introduced to Final Fantasy XV VR Experience which I really hope is a working title. Now you can play the game in first person armed only with a piddly little pistol to doot at monsters from a distance which I think is really the underlying pull that everyone comes to the Final Fantasy games for.

While I'm willing to bet Final Fantasy Dance Dance Revolution would be better received, the developers themselves have enough faith to even show one of your boyband troupe wearing the dumb VR headset and pissing around with it on like it's a pair of designer sunglasses.

Beep boop, you're a twat.

Everyone really should be trying to avoid showing these headsets in action because no one has yet solved the problem of how to not look like an extraordinarily hollow-headed toolbox while using VR and it certainly doesn't help sell your game with the opportunity to look like an overenthusiastic, techno-birdwatcher.

It's unclear if this is a mode in the main game or a stand-alone spin off but judging purely on the apparent quality, I would hope it's just the former. Also you can "play as Prompto" whatever that means.

Next up is a fast-paced Sci-Fi military FPS with seamless transitions between fighting in person and piloting spaceships. The amount of detail alone makes it feel very authentic and immersive and the playing with gravity combined with a grappling hook gadget looks like maneuvering in space is both fun and easy. I wonder what this game even is-What?! This is Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare?

I feel like it isn't being paid the respects it deserves...

Apparently so, which is odd because if the internet is to be believed (which it's not) COD: IW is supposed to be the biggest train wreck since shortly after the invention of the first train. I don't actually have any allegiance to either COD or the Battlefield series and haven't even played most of the games but for the monumental dislikes COD: IW's trailer got and the more understandable outrage at the Modern Warfare Remaster being exclusive to purchasing Infinite Warfare, the actual gameplay of Infinity Ward's latest looks exciting, polished and fun.

Maybe it's just the fanboy minorities who lose their tiny minds over these things but from the display shown at Sony's E3 conference and the buzz surrounding Battlefield 1, both games could be fantastic and offer opposite ends of a similar taste. I haven't gotten round to watching actual gameplay of Battlefield 1 because the overhyped stream wasn't in EA's conference but I've wanted a WW1 game for a long time so hopefully both of these series can nail their respective new directions.

Perhaps unwisely the aforementioned controversially exclusive Modern Warfare Remastered gets a brief trailer after Infinite Warfare's finishes but the crowd at least certainly has no time to reflect on this. The stage's curtain finally lifts to reveal a nostalgic backdrop and the orchestra begins a familiar tune. Shawn even returns with his own shadow being replaced by the famous character's...Not actually sure how they did that.

I'm guessing some kind of occult ritual involving a PS1 and a frightened Marsupial.

Shawn announces that the original Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2 and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped will all be remastered for the PS4. The audience as you can imagine goes absolutely bed-wettingly bonkers.

Strangely a rather less exciting announcement is the one that gets a trailer. Upcoming wallet-gobbler Skylanders: Imaginators will include Crash Bandicoot as a playable character and I can't decide if he looks objectively too creepy in modern-day graphics or if they've somehow gotten away with it.

But then I guess he's always looked kinda creepy...

Andrew Mouse walks on stage to a very triumphant brass section but his implied importance is rather quashed as some cheeky smartarse in the editing room puts his introductory subtitle name as "Andy House." I dunno, maybe he wanted it like that, perhaps he's trying to seem more hip and relateable for the kids. Just seems odd that it didn't match what was actually said over the speakers. It'd be like introducing Shigeru Miyamoto and his title card said "The Shigster" or "Shiggy Shizzle Me I Am Motormizzle" ...Okay now I feel old.

Speaking of being hip, his next introduction seems to confirm that Hideo Kojima has become the game industry's "Mr Hot Shit" as he gets a deific light-up walkway down the stage and entrance music straight from Hans Zimmer's post-it notes.

Looks a bit rubbish when you screenshot it...

I like Kojima and his crazy ideas as much as the next guy but allow me to risk fatally overdosing on cynicism here. P.T was great but would Kojima be anywhere near as famous right now had he not been so vitriolically fired and erased from Konami? Konami were undoubtedly monstrously shameful bastards about that whole thing but ironically, losing that job may have ended up being the best thing to happen to Kojima's career since Metal Gear Solid 3.

Industry reflections aside, he seems very happy with his reception as he introduces his new game Death Stranding. Immediately obvious as a Kojima production from the William Blake quote and funky soundtrack, we see a floor littered with dead crabs leading up to a naked Norman Reedus handcuffed to a baby whilst handprints from a ghost made of oil touch up everything before Reedus looks up with a crucifix scar on his stomach to see what looks like a dried up sea, destroyed by oil...

...What you expect me to comment on that? I don't know what the fuck he's smoking either but I suppose that's exactly what everyone wants from a Kojima production so welcome back Hideo and hello naked oily crying Norman Reedus...There's a phrase I never expected to say. Not out loud anyway...

What's bigger than Kojima right now? Well Marvel movies are probably one of the few things so the following trailer shows us an as yet untitled Spiderman game with (I think) a few slithers of gameplay amidst the CG and cutscenes. A highlight being, Spidey hopping across tables in an office before bursting out of a glass window hinting at seamless transitions between interior and exterior settings.

Combat appears to attempt what you'd hope. Stringing up bad guys and swinging things in the environment to whack them with. One of these things in the trailer appears to be (or at least the size of) a car, which might be a bit much for random street thugs but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that Peter Parker hasn't gone full Man Of Steel on us.

Of course the most important thing is the swinging mechanics and I can only hope that Jamie Fristrom, the man behind Spiderman 2's legendary swinging mechanics is on-board or at least that the current team have learnt from his achievements.

Also unclear if this ties into the upcoming "Homecoming" movie. New suit suggests maybe no?

Shawn returns on stage to another dramatic tune, this time sounding rather unholy from the orchestra. If he has to come out again, I swear it's just going to be the Imperial March. He thanks everyone and talks about the heart of video games being gameplay before finishing off the conference with a live demo of the biker's post apocalypse game we saw earlier, Days Gone.

The protagonist searches an abandoned factory for someone called 2-Dog, MacGyvering weapon accessories from old cars but ultimately leaving Mr. Dog to die when a zombie horde becomes aware of them. So yeah it's zombies again and if you're tired of that I doubt this game will be so good as to rekindle your passion but the sheer numbers of the hordes is very impressive, I think even topping Dead Rising and there's hints at other neat features like the floorboards buckling under the weight of an advancing horde.

That guy's not even part of it, he's just trying to scooch past to go down the shops.

Not much else to go on with this title and arguably a bit of a mediocre closer to the show but overall a very strong conference from Sony I feel.The main strength, as it always will and should be, is focusing on the games and cutting out the business bullshit which Playstation did almost as much as they possibly could.

I imagine some people were hoping for gameplay of the Final Fantasy 7 remaster which was a no-show but some genuinely exciting and stunning titles like God Of War and...Call of Duty (I never thought I'd be saying that) make up for it. Fair play Sony, jolly good show.

Now get Shawn hooked on cocaine already so I can fulfill my insane businessman fantasy.