E3 2010 Retrospective

Now that the dust has settled from E3's and pretty much every blog under the sun has written something about it, it's time for PS3 Gaymers to make their own contribution. We're mainly going to focus on Sony's presentation, but obviously there's [a little] more to E3 than PlayStation, so we'll be looking at Nintendo's launch of the 3DS, and Microsoft's presentation of it's new Kinect technology and the PS3 Slim-alike, the revised Xbox 360 model.

Christopher Parkes

Sony's conference this year was probably the least risky and least surprising of the "big 3". There was a heavy focus on the PS3's future: Move, 3D and new PSN services, even going so far as to clear space for them by announcing three new major iterations in it's biggest IP's before E3.... but it's overtures to it's core audience of gamers were very welcome, and at one particular moment, actually quite moving.

Review: ModNation Racers

ModNation Racers is the second game to follow  Sony's new Play, Create, Share ethos established by LittleBigPlanet. Comparison's to Nintendo's Mario Kart are inevitable, but what kart-racing game is not bound to be compared to the godfather of the genre? Fret not, for this is no Mario Kart clone, and more to the point, it's creation tools are far more accessible than the digital Meccano set found in LBP.

Play

ModNation racers is not a necessarily a hard game, especially when you get down with the whole drifting aspect of the game. Drifting is necessary not only because it will help you speed up a bit, but also because every time you drift your boost meter goes up. The boost meter can be used to speed up for a while or to raise a shield and defend yourself against other players' attacks. Thing is, you will be drifting a lot and raising that shield even more; the game's AI is unforgiving. You can do everything right in the game, you can be the first one and be a few inches away from raceline in your last lap and still lose. The AI suffers from major rubberbanding issues and it will not let you win. This wouldn't be a big issue if it wasn't because in order to move on you must finish first (in some races) or top three in others.

Killzone 3 debuts before E3!

Dutch developer Guerilla Games continues their beautiful, violent tale of the ferocious war between the red-eyed Helghast and the true-blue Interplanetary Strategic Alliance in Killzone 3.

The game is again flexing the muscles of the PS3, featuring 3-D support, ultra-violent "close melee combat", wider and more expansive level design, a revised game engine, new weapons, jetpacks, Move support, less swearing from a [hopefully] less infuriating Rico and a denser story which [hopefully] will draw on the detailed Killzone Chronicles on www.killzone.com. Actually, it will have a story full-stop, which for some will be a vast improvement on the acclaimed Killzone 2, where all the expense had been poured into the game's meaty gameplay and multiplayer, and barely a thought spared on the profanity-strewn dialogue and cookie-cutter space marine cast. That said, I for one loved that game's's Black Hawk Down-esque, ground-zero experience of a war against an enemy that has been sorely underestimated, and in this writer' s opinion it is still almost unmatched in it's intensity and oppressive atmosphere in the FPS genre. And, oh yeah, it's stunning to look at and features some of the most cunning AI seen anywhere on any system..

We can expect another round of dazzling, deafening technical prowess in February next year. We'll hopefully get to speak to Hermen and the crew at GamesCom in August, where we can find out if Sev is going to take his shirt off or not! Cannot wait.