Opposable Thumbs / Gaming & Entertainment

Sony E3 roundup: A smattering of uninspired exclusives

Sony's light first-party slate puts the PS4 onus on third-party and indie titles.

LOS ANGELES—Coming off last year's E3 success and healthy sales for the PlayStation 4, Sony came in to E3 in a dominant position. It exploited that position with a self-assured press conference that seemed to go on for days, packed to the gills with exclusive announcements and reveals. So it was a bit surprising to get to Sony's booth at this year's E3 and find so few actual big-name exclusives in playable form on the show floor.

Looking back, it's easy to tell that a large portion of the PS4 content Sony had showed off earlier in the week were multi-platform third-party titles, indie titles that are mostly also coming to PCs and other consoles (many of which we'll be covering in a subsequent article), or extremely early trailers for first-party games like Uncharted 4.

What was left as far as PS4 exclusives was a handful of games in extremely different states of completion and polish, many of which won't even be ready until 2015 and not one of which stood out as a real system seller. Software-wise, Sony's message at this year's E3 seems to be that the PlayStation 4 is the place for the nicest-looking versions of big third-party titles, a boatload of interesting indie games, and, for now, a token smattering of derivative first-party exclusives.

The Order: 1886

Enlarge / If you got a problem, yo, thermite will solve it in The Order: 1886.

Sony has been pushing its Victorian-era shooter The Order: 1886 with trailers and hands-off gameplay presentations, showing off a well-crafted, pre-modern world where the player's high-class soldiers fight off a revolutionary rabble. But E3 was the first time we were able to actually play an early demo of the game, which his now slated for a 2015 release. Unfortunately, what we played doesn't exactly set the game apart.

In the demo, at least, The Order's gameplay focuses on the kind of cover-based, stop-and-pop action that we've seen in countless other games at this point. The developers called out their implementation as a "soft cover" mechanic that makes it easy to snap behind a barrier and pop out without pressing a button (though there is a button to help you slam into cover even faster, if you desire), but really, you're still simply sitting behind a wall and stepping out to shoot when you see an opposing head.

The biggest gameplay innovation shown in the demo was the thermite gun, which lets you break the enemies cover by firing a thermite capsule over their head, then busting it open with a bullet to rain fiery destruction over their heads. It's a nice new tactic, but felt a tiny bit unfair in practice in the demo—sort of an "instant win" shot that didn't care whether enemies were hiding tactically or going out in the open. In the final game, we could see it as a decent limited use item to break through especially tough areas.

The only other moment of our time with The Order that really stood out came when one member of our squad fell to enemy fire in the middle of the street. In some games, this would be an excuse for a cut scene of a dramatic rescue under heavy bombardment. Here, we had to run out and slowly pull our companion to the safety of a nearby tavern, while desperately trying to hold off enemies overhead using a pistol in our free hand.

It was a powerful, tense moment that felt much more engaging than simply raining thermite down on nameless foes from afar just moments before. If The Order can integrate more of these kinds of memorable moments into its final form, it might be able to set itself apart from the glut of similar third-person shooters in more than just setting.

LittleBigPlanet 3

Enlarge / New characters with new abilities don't matter as much as potential new level creation tools in LittleBigPlanet 3.

In the LitteBigPlanet franchise, the rather limited capabilities of protagonist Sackboy have never mattered nearly as much as the capabilities of the level creators that gave him things to do. So while having new characters with new capabilities to play around with in the just-announced LittleBigPlanet 3 is nice, the extremely short E3 demo that showed them off didn't exactly leave us eager to see more.

In a five-minute demo level at E3, players could join together in a co-op level with Sackboy and his new companions: the nimble, dog-like Oddsock, who can wall jump up narrow shafts; the bird-like Swoop, who can fly and pick up other characters; and the monstrous Toggle, who can weigh down buttons and switches in his larger form or shrink down to fit through tight passages in his tiny form.

The short demo level showed off how these powers can be used together to play some simple puzzles. In one instance, Toggle shrank down to a handy, portable size to be carried up high by Swoop, then dropped down and enlarged to activate a button. There were also plenty of puzzles that required Toggle to shrink down to fit through a passage designed specifically for him.

The other two characters felt downright limited in comparison. Sackboy was demoted from lead character to the also-ran that literally holds the door open for the other characters, using a handheld hair dryer to blow open a spiky blocker. Oddsock seemed especially useless, since Swoops' flying could more easily reach any location where his wall jump would be needed. The developers told me his increased speed could be harnessed in other timed puzzles created by the community, but they weren't on display in the demo.

Overall, the focus on characters rather than any new content creation capabilities really limited the appeal of what Sony and Media Molecule had to show off at this year's E3. The quick demo on the show floor served as a decent proof of concept for the new co-operative characters, but we're going to have to see more of LittleBigPlanet 3's creation tools and any new interactive elements before judging whether it's a worthwhile upgrade to the existing franchise.


Enlarge / The large crowds of actual people are one of the least Dark Souls-like parts of Bloodborne.

Even in a quick, developer-guided, hands-off presentation, the similarities between Bloodborne and the Demons/Dark Souls games are easy to spot. That's not surprising, considering Bloodborne is the latest title from Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki, who led the demonstration. But don't make the mistake of thinking of Bloodborne as just a new Souls game masquerading under a new name.

Like the Souls games, the E3 Bloodborne demo we saw featured a lonely solo character wandering a detailed world dominated by rough-hewn stone, with no background music to speak of. That stone may have been the water-slicked streets inspired by Victorian England, rather than a medieval castle, but both titles share the same general feeling of foreboding.

What was different this time around was the feeling of a living world existing within those walls. The town of Yarnum includes mobs of regular townsfolk that have yet to be infected by the plague that has transformed so many into terrible beasts. Those townsfolk actually worked to attack the monsters with torches in the demo, changing the position of the enemies in the process.

The other big difference in the environment is the titular blood, which sprays from every enemy in glistening red spurts lit by the dim Victorian moonlight, coating everything around it. By the end of our short demo, the protagonist was absolutely covered in a thin layer of this enemy blood, to the point where his black overcoat actually shone red.

In our demo, Miyazaki said he was going for a feeling of "truly perilous combat" and "pro-active battles" that should sound familiar to fans of his Souls games—"We want people to think 'Thank god that battle's over' after each fight," he said. "When you face an enemy you're also facing death. We want players to feel a terror."

That was hard to gauge on the E3 show floor, though, as Miyazaki led an artificially invincible character rather poorly through some bland-looking fights that didn't seem to have much of the careful positioning or rough-worn tension of the Souls games. The more action-oriented feeling was supplemented by the blunderbuss, a wide-spread pistol the protagonist uses in conjunction with the folding blade in his other hand. The new projectile weapon is handy for taking out groups of enemies that are relatively close, Miyazaki said, but also attracts more attention with its loud noise.

Miyazaki also promised that Bloodborne would feature a unique online concept with the theme of an "open explorative community," but this wasn't ready to be shown at E3. In general, Bloodborne seems torn between sticking too closely to the winning formula of the Souls games and changing things too much in an attempt to make itself feel fresher. Either way, it's way too early to tell whether it will be able to thread that needle.


So far, the marketing push for Driveclub has been focused on the game's realism, from the stitching on the seats inside the cars to the look of the courses based on the real-world. So I was a bit surprised when I sat down for a few races at an E3 build of Driveclub and found a driving experience that didn't feel all that wedded to realism in any way.

The handling in our Driveclub demo can only be described as loose, with a heavy focus on dramatic and over-steered drifts around turns that makes the game feel more like Ridge Racer than Gran Turismo. We were also surprised to find that any damage sustained to the car by bumping walls or competitors was only cosmetic, according to the developers. All in all, making the game look real seems more important to the developers than creating a game that realistically models the inner workings and performance of the cars.

Instead of affecting your car's performance, taking a bump or racing off the track takes away from your "fame" point ranking. It's a minor impact, though, meaning that you can actually benefit from playing bumper cars to shave a couple of seconds off of a tough turn. You can gain the lost fame back for things like clean laps, cornering challenges, and reaching a certain average top speed, meaning you don't even have to finish in first place to get something out of a race.

Personally, I actually kind of prefer this kind of focus on accessibility and creative challenges, rather than a slavish devotion to real-car physics and first-or-nothing gameplay. Still, it seems a sharp contrast to the insane levels of realism in the presentation, which included some excellent reflections off of glass and water surfaces and absolutely gorgeous 1080p vistas with light that shimmers realistically through the clouds. The developers said the game was running at 30 frames per second to "allow for more detailed cars on track," and I can't say I begrudge them that decision after seeing the kinds of images it creates on-screen.

The developers also talked up the social features that are supposed to set Driveclub apart, letting you form into massive online "clubs" and working together to amass more fame that the competition. You can also use any previous race as the basis of a timed "challenge" for friends or players of equal skill, giving them a set amount of time to hop on the same track and try to beat your performance. It was pretty neat seeing the leaderboards for these challenges update in real-time as new races were completed.

After originally being planned as a PS4 launch game, Driveclub is finally on track for an October 7 release.

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