IBRO [In BurtonReviews Opinion]: The Top 5 Moments of PlayStation Experiance 2016

(Image sourced from http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/11/28/playstation-experience-2016-the-complete-guide/)

 

And just when you thought convention season was over, PlayStation smacks you in the face with a hefty hour conference from their third annual PlayStation centred convention: PlayStation Experience, or PSX if you’re snazzy. But it is almost Christmas time and many of you may be busy sprinting from shop to shop with no clue what to get that special someone the perfect gift that they clearly and rather bluntly hinted at all year round, but you zoned out and are now as clueless as a goldfish in a nuclear fission lecture. But don’t worry, your good old friend BurtonReviews has you covered with the top 5 moments of the show.

And boy were there many, many, many incredible moments of the conference. Even though it only lasted slightly over an hour, Sony sure crammed in a wallet breaking number of games in such a short time. With last year’s conference being a lacklustre show with really only chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios Shawn Layden’s Crash Bandicoot T shirt being the only exciting news story of the conference; I expected this year’s conference to come and go in the same ghostly way. But then I checked my YouTube feed and show stopping game trailer after show stopping game trailer seemed to be irrupting every minute from this thing. So after a good old late night conference watch I can now deliver to you my top picks of the show:

(Image sourced from http://www.dailystar.co.uk/tech/gaming/567235/PSX-2016-The-Last-of-Us-2-Confirmed-Trailer-PlayStation-Experience-LIVE-Naughty-Dog)

 

1.    The Last of Us Part 2

Of course the best moment of the show was the reveal of The Last of Us Part 2. In a classic PlayStation move of “and just one more thing,” Sony ended the conference in a true mic-drop moment that had the conference hall, and me, shouting “NOOOOO, WHAAAAAAT, NOOOO, YAAAAAAASSS!” The game is in super-duper early development, which is understandable with the heroic team at Naughty Dog only just being finished with the main game of Uncharted 4 and coming out with a meaty bit of story DLC soon (more on THAT later), so it was surprising and impressive to see that they were already at work on the follow up to one of the most critically acclaimed games of gaming history and had so much for it. The trailer plonks us right back into the decaying zombie apocalypse world of the series as we see an older Ellie (played by Ashley Johnson) singing a harrowing tune whilst being surrounded by dead bodies. After a short question by Joel (hearing Troy Baker’s gravelly voice again was so epic btw), Ellie proclaims “I’m going to kill every last one of them” and cut to black. This trailer did a great job at intriguing, exciting and amazing I think anyone with even tangential knowledge of the game. And damn did it look good in Naughty Dog’s new engine.

(Image sourced from http://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/news/uncharted-the-lost-legacy-revealed-at-playstation-experience-2016-1633645)

 

2.    Uncharted Lost Legacy

Not only did Naughty Dog end the conference in spectacular fashion but they opened it with the same style and nerdgasm inducing way too. The trailer/gameplay-slice that opened this conference had us all guessing and pondering, not only at what the game was, but who the protagonist was as we follow a woman wearing a Hijab through a war-torn town. But it soon became clear through the stunning visuals of a shattered city on fire and the visceral, action-movie-like combat, that we were seeing the much awaited Uncharted 4 story DLC. Starring Uncharted series regular Chloe Frazer and Uncharted 4 villainess Nadine, the new content for the game looks to be an interesting and fresh spin for Uncharted as we play as another character for the first time and are plunged into a new and dangerous setting. Overall I’m super excited to dive back into too good Uncharted gameplay later next year.

(Video sourced from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fbO2-egZ3U)

 

3.    Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

When this icon was announced to be returning home and to its PlayStation 1 roots at E3, I was genuinely overwhelmed with excitement and love for our kind PlayStation masters; so of course the trailer for the collection featuring Crash’s first three games (the reason I am so into gaming right now) would make it on this list. With the original games being PlayStation 1 classics, of course the graphical improvement was going to be a huge but DAMN does this gam look good. With Crash’s flat orange coating of the past being replaced by a luscious bristling fur and the environments going from cardboard cut outs to vibrant rustling back drops, this game has been put on graphical steroids and I love it. The trailer itself was gloriously tongue and cheek for this ridiculous jeans wearing bandicoot who has some damn smooth dance moves. And the gameplay looks as fantastic as ever to boot, looking like they left the core tenants of the way you play this game intact so not to lose the magic these PlayStation defining games. Can’t freakin’ wait.

(Image sourced from https://blog.eu.playstation.com/2016/12/03/nex-machina-is-the-new-shooter-from-housemarque-and-arcade-legend-eugene-jarvis/)

 

4.    Nex Machina Death Machine

This next game came out of nowhere for me. Coming from House Marque, the developers of PS3s Dead Nation and PS4s unstoppable onslaught of pixels Resogun (my first review in this site), the hectic non-stop shooting that has become House Marque’s defining quality, and rightly so, was to be more than expected. But from the trailer for their new game, Nex Machina Death Machine, I got major Furi vibes. The games top down perspective, the incomprehensible amount of danger and rouge plasma shots flying on and off screen, your one man quest to destroy everything in sight and the incredible electronic music used for the trailer all swooped me straight back to fond, and painful, memories of one of my favourite games of the year. While Furi was a game where you only faced boss after incredibly mean and difficult boss, Nex Machina seems to be a more traditionally structured game with hordes of enemies to dismantle instead of that one really irritating and powerful p*$k that just loves to rub in your face how powerful and better he is at fighting than you are…but I digress. The stylish 70’s cartoon-like opening to the cartoon made me really interested the robotic revolution you will have to be fighting off and just the sight of the gameplay has me already hooked. This is definitely one to look out for.

(Image sourced from http://www.pcgamer.com/nier-automata-gets-february-release-date/)

 

5.    NieR: Automata

Now my last pick on this list is quite a strange one and didn’t even get that much time at the conference but just from the little we got and the studio behind it, Platinum Games, I’m intrigued enough for it to be on my list. While Platinum Games has, of late, been having a rough time, with the releases of The Legend of Kora and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan, severely down-grading their industry street, NieR Automata looks to be helping the studio return to their polished and stylish fast paced action roots with which they gave us the insanely fun shooter Vanquish and brutal Bayonetta. Another war against the machines game, the striking art style of the game, wacky world that has me wondering what the hell is going on with this cool as hell looking world in the best of ways, and uniquely Platinum way of intense action gameplay has made this a game I am really looking forward to uncovering all the secrets of.  

(Image sourced from http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2016/09/29/now-loading-playstation-experience-2016-predictions-expectations/#/slide/1)

 

But these five games weren’t the only good bits of the conference, not by a long way. Some honourable mentions that didn’t quite make my list include the reveal of Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite, that had a unsurprisingly stylish and epic trailer featuring Mega Man and Ryu fighting the tag team of Ironman and Captain Marvel, a character we’ll all be getting very acquainted with in the near future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Supergiant’s (makers of visually striking and engrossing indie darlings Bastion and Transistor) next game Pyre sees the acclaimed studio try their footing at a multiplayer party-based RPG that has beautiful art style and from the short glimpse we got a really interesting and different kind of gameplay style from what we get from most of our gaming lives. And finally Ni no Kuni 2 surprised the hell out of me. I had literally no interest at all in the first game and the same would’ve been said for the second instalment of this RPG series, until last night. The trailer was filled to the brim with gorgeous and qwerky design choices, from the heart-warming story, to the game’s art style and the fun looking gameplay, Ni no Kuni looks to be a game I’m going to have to be researching a lot more about.

In-fact almost every trailer of this conference did a phenomenal job of getting me hyped for the game no matter what the subject matter. From the beautiful next instalment of Gran Tourismo that would usually have me yawning in boredom, to the sizzle reel of the really interesting and innovative PSVR games launching in the near future, this conference did a spectacular job at showcasing the bright future of gaming that is just within our grasps, and where the best place is to experience that mind-bending future.

PlayStation of course.

Why not check out my YouTube channel, BurtonReviews, where I upload awesome gaming montages put to badass songs or scores every Sunday. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbUfnyezvQsVsDgN3TGRh1Q

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed.