e3 2012
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Expect SmartGlass support in every Microsoft Studios game going forward
Microsoft's SmartGlass initiative aims to enrich the entertainment offerings on Xbox with an informative, context-sensitive "surface," spread across compatible tablets and smartphones. Phil Spencer, Corporate VP of Microsoft Studios, tells me you can expect SmartGlass support from all of the company's games after the feature becomes available this fall."It just makes so much sense for a developer who wants to supply, maybe not time-critical information, like 'that enemy is getting ready to shoot you,' but information that augments what's happening on screen," Spencer says. He used last year's Halo Waypoint Atlas app, which offered multiplayer GPS tracking, as an example of how SmartGlass features could share additional game information without hampering the moment-to-moment gameplay. "And then you're even going to see situations like with Ascend, where there's actually gameplay that happens on the phone, even when you're away from your television and that interacts back with the online game that's happening. So I think you'll see information sharing, context sharing while you're in the room, with video and with games, as well as gameplay happening in more distributed environments."SmartGlass will be encapsulated in a single app that syncs with your Gamertag and enables features based on what you're playing or watching (provided they support SmartGlass). "You don't have to log in and out of each app – you know, 'I'm gonna start the Mass Effect app, and now I'm gonna start the Game of Thrones app.' So you have this surface, this smart surface," Spencer says, "that sits on any device that you already own that's always in sync with what's happening on the television, and it knows where to go and grab the right content to display at the right time, to make sure that if you're playing Halo, then the Halo surface is available on SmartGlass."During its E3 2012 press conference, Microsoft showed a concept of what might become Halo 4's SmartGlass functionality. The app, as shown, allows players to track stats and send game invites via tablet or smartphone. Microsoft has said that it supports the "device you already own," but hasn't directly addressed SmartGlass variations between iOS, Android and Windows 8.
The puzzle-fueled shooting of Transcripted
Transcripted takes two fairly disparate gameplay concepts and combines them to create something new. Specifically, it blends 2D omnidirectional shooting with a match-three puzzle mechanic. Or, if you want the elevator pitch, as it was given to me by publisher TopWare's PR director Jake DiGennaro, it's Geometry Wars meets Zuma.%Gallery-157725%
Seen@E3: Atlus' custom Persona 4 Arena arcade stick
During E3, we met with Atlus to check out Persona 4 Arena, among other things, and upon sitting down at the small table in our private presentation room we were surprised to find a P4A arcade stick waiting for us. Immediately, our hearts were all a-flutter with the prospect of a nice limited edition arcade stick."There is an official HORI stick in Japan," Aram Jabbari told us, "but this is a Mad Catz that we've customized. There is no official North American stick at this time," and as quickly as they had arisen, our hopes were quickly dashed. Jabbari, who is Atlus' Manager of PR and Sales, said we could post about the stick so long as we promised not to insinuate that it was a real product, or that it was ever going to be released. So! Expect to see it on store shelves before the end of the month.(But seriously, there is no North American stick at this time.)
SOE to bring back Station Cash subscription purchases -- for a week
We reported this morning that SOE had quietly removed the option to purchase non-recurring subscriptions in its MMOs with Station Cash. SOE President John Smedley arrived on the EverQuest II forums to apologize for how it was handled and assure players that this purchase option would return for a limited time so that last-minute partakers could take advantage of it: "I'm sorry we didn't do a good job of messaging this. It was handled while we were at E3 and that was bad. Very simply put, we pulled the non-recurring subscriptions because we want a closer look at the numbers and how our overall pricing of subscriptions is impacted by it. I don't want anyone thinking they were pulled because of double SC promotions or anything like that. "We're trying to figure out the right balance of things that make our customers feel great about our pricing and balance that against our customer base as a whole. We aren't saying they are going away for good. We're just looking carefully at the data right now and how we do this right. Please be patient while we figure this out. These non-recurring subscriptions are something we're still working through and we want to make sure we do this right. Obviously as a business we have to make sure the decisions we're making good for our players, and I assure you that's what we're trying to do. "I've asked the team to put them back up for a week to let people buy them with existing SC. I'm not sure when it will be back up. Maybe today or maybe Monday (a lot of our team went to E3)."
Nintendo's E3 2012 booth: the tour
Sure, you couldn't be in Los Angeles with us for this year's E3, but that doesn't mean you have to miss out on the sights and sounds of the LA Convention Center's neon light-littered, bass-pounding show floor. Nintendo's booth is no exception, with approximately a trillion Wii U game kiosks, not to mention 3DSes attached to "booth models" with all variety of game. Take a gander just above to see for yourself.
A virtual excursion through Sony's E3 booth
Sony's labyrinthine E3 booth was full of games. We're estimating in the low ten thousands ... which might be a bit off. There was definitely a lot going on, including God of War: Ascension, lots of PS All-Stars, a sparkling lineup of indies (Retro City Rampage, Dyad, Sound Shapes) and endless banks of Vita games. Join us for a quick video tour.
Hunting down the secret Tokyo Jungle demo at E3
One of my goals for E3 this year was to find out if Tokyo Jungle was on the show floor and play it. For the whole show, I heard reports that it was playable, but couldn't find it on the floor. I had Sony reps escort me around the company's giant booth to no avail.Finally, I got a Twitter report that led me to the right place: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's private meeting room. And there I finally found a single Tokyo Jungle demo station, with the localized European version (it's also due for North America, Joystiq has learned.)This story would be a lot less inspiring and a lot more embarrassing if the demo turned out to be the quirky, but otherwise unremarkable, game I feared it would be. However, it's a clever, exciting, and, yes, intensely quirky game. It was worth the hunt.%Gallery-157097%
Take a quick tour of Microsoft's E3 2012 booth
E3 2012 is over, but you can relive the big event by taking a tour of Microsoft's booth, featuring a laundry list of upcoming Xbox 360 titles, including Halo 4, Dance Central 3, and bunch of upcoming Kinect titles.
Gore Verbinski's 'Matter' coming to XBLA from Blind Wink Games
This E3 brought the announcement of Matter, a new Xbox-exclusive game from the mind of Gore Verbinski, the director of Rango, The Ring, and 75 percent of Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Matter appends a title to the first project from Blind Wink Games, which was formed in partnership with Universal Studios. Phil Spencer, Corporate VP of Microsoft Studios, says Verbinski was the one to pitch the game in the first place. "He had been exposed to Kinect, and had this idea for a game. We heard the pitch and we were able to find a developer to plug in. So it was really born of his mind, and his idea."The idea, first shown by an abstract, Tron-esque trailer during Microsoft's E3 2012 press conference, came from Verbinski's desire to highlight an emotional connection between players and their movements on screen. "You should hear it from him, he does a much better job than I do in explaining it," Spencer says, "but the idea was that in your physical motion, your emotion actually comes through."To a lot of people who haven't played games for a long time, somebody standing completely stationary with a controller in their hands kind of seems emotionless, even though we know that we'll be sweating or twitching," Spencer adds. "And [it was] his feeling, that with motion and movement, that the connection of the emotion that's happening on screen and how the player feels would be more natural."We still don't know much of the Kinect game, but it sounds like it may be some kind of abstract puzzle game. According to Spencer, the shiny sphere in the teaser trailer is used as "a control surface for the game" (like rolling a Katamari with your hands, perhaps?), and the visual presentation is in line with a futuristic aesthetic that Verbinski wanted to explore in games.Matter is coming to Xbox Live Arcade sometime in 2013.
Co-opinion: Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
.portal-left { padding: 10px; background: #CCC; margin: 20px 0; min-height: 85px; } .portal-right { padding: 10px; margin: 20px 0; min-height: 85px; } .portal-right img { padding-left: 5px; } .portal-left img { padding-right: 5px; } JC Fletcher: What did you expect going into the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance demo? A mess? Something that reflected the troubled development? Xav de Matos: When that first gameplay footage was presented, Rising's vision didn't seem feasible. Slicing everything in the environment? That would have been a designer's nightmare. I would just cut a hole through every building and get to the end of the game! Up until Platinum was rumored to be helping on it, we were hearing the game was dead. There was even a report that it was canceled internally, right? Yes, it was canceled. And then Platinum Games took over, and made a game in which, even if you can't slice up everything, you have unprecedented freedom in your slicing. It's not the game Kojima Productions wanted to make at first, but I don't think many people are going to have a problem with that after playing. It's really fun to slice things, is what I'm saying. The slicing is good slicing. It also seems like it includes a lot of slicing opportunities, which is always key in slicing simulations. What I was worried about is that Rising would fall on the usual crutch of showing something super cool wrapped in quick-time events. I'm not down on QTEs, but that's not what I want from something featuring Raiden. I want to be in control. The Rising demo strikes a good balance, giving you direct control of the action without throwing too many random button presses in your way to fake something badass. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was pure, precisely sliced fun. That's all you can ask for when you're given fifteen minutes to play a demo at an event like E3.%Gallery-157338%
'We basically inspire each other:' People Can Fly and Epic on teaming up for Gears of War: Judgment
It takes millions of dollars and a lot of manpower to create a AAA product like Gears of War. For Gears of War: Judgment, Epic Games will share development duties with People Can Fly, Epic Games' subsidiary studio based in Poland. During an interview with Epic Games design director Cliff Blezsinski and People Can Fly founder Adrian Chmielarz, the duo explained the choice to share development of Gears of War: Judgment."If you look at the slightly compressed timeframe for these products – we don't have the two and a half years like Gears 2 had – the fact that with the feature set needed, we're in a world where if you look at the Call of Duty interviews where they're like here's the CEO of Sledgehammer, here's the CEO of Infinity Ward, here's the CEO of Duncan Hines, you're like, 'Jesus, what's going on here?' It takes multiple studios now to really make a game that can have all of this between the campaign and multiplayer and the co-op elements and things like that, and plus they're quite fucking crazy, to be honest with you," Blezsinski said. Chmielarz added that the addition of People Can Fly brings something "fresh" to the Gears franchise."The big idea is, yes, we can bring something fresh to this. I think we basically inspire each other – we have these new ideas and then sort of shake the foundation of Gears up without changing too much; it's still Gears." But it's also a question of manpower needed to tackle the technical hurdles of building upon the precedents set in Gears of War 3, Blezsinski explained. "Making the campaign have that many Locust and be that intense made it a requirement for the younger guys working on the Epic side to refine the controls, and there's just non-stop back and forth [between Epic and People Can Fly]."%Gallery-157621%
Nintendo's Hideki Konno discusses the 3DS and the element of surprise
As E3 was coming to a close, we sat down with one of the men responsible for Nintendo's 3DS, Hideki Konno. Konno's official title is manager / producer, but because he's involved at such a high level with both software and hardware development on the 3DS, our conversation covered quite the range of topics. When asked about the handheld's performance in the last year, he drew parallels to the success of the DS that preceded it and he hopes that the 3DS will experience a similar growth curve. Due to the mention of the DS, we inquired about the possibility of a larger 3DS. While Mr. Konno wasn't able to confirm plans for a super-sized version of the current-gen handheld, he did express his affinity for the DSi XL's increased real estate -- he finds the larger screen is much easier to gaze upon. You can draw your own conclusions as to exactly what that means. When chatting about mobile gaming, we asked about the impact of smartphones on the outfit's handheld. Konno offered that Nintendo prides itself on surprising gamers with new "compelling experiences" that handsets can't provide. We asked if any of these new experiences would involve the integration of both 3DS and the Wii U, and Konno replied that he's confident about those explorations taking place in future. In fact, a version of the Smash Brothers series is currently being developed for both 3DS and Wii U simultaneously. He indicated that it would be hard to believe that the two versions being developed in parallel wouldn't provide some unique interactions between them and their respective platforms. Additionally, while it sounds like the Miiverse will only be available on Big N's next-gen console at launch, Mr. Konno communicated that -- depending out how well it's received -- we're likely see the social element brought to the mobile gaming arena, too. Michael Gorman contributed to this report.
E3 2012 wrap-up
Greetings from -- actually, scratch that, we're all back home now, but we had a blast spending the week in sunny, smoggy downtown Los Angeles -- even if this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo wasn't exactly the most exciting in recent memory. After all, neither Sony nor Microsoft gave us much in the way of new hardware, and Nintendo, the one member of the big three with a new console for 2012, didn't show off much that we hadn't already seen. We did, however, get our hands on a fair share of hardware and we're generally impressed by some software innovation, like Microsoft's SmartGlass. If you happened to miss something during the gaming news deluge (not to mention the fact that Computex happened to be going on at the same time), feel free to catch up on our coverage after the break.
Horsing around in Dance Central 3
Dance Central 3 includes a revamped multiplayer system, designed to offer a greater deal of variety than its predecessor. Dance battles are now broken up into multiple sections, each with a different set of rules and different music. For example, "Keep the Beat" allows players to perform freestyle moves and awards maximum points for movement variety and keeping to the beat."Make Your Move," however, ups the ante. It is, essentially, the dance equivalent of HORSE.%Gallery-157063%
DmC's Dante isn't gay, he's just the victim of sensationalist demon news
When the news anchor in this Devil May Cry trailer called Dante a "sexual deviant," the connotations of such a phrase harkened back to eras of gross intolerance of homosexuality in the 70s and 80s, and led us and others on Twitter to question if this new Dante might, himself, be gay."No, he's not gay," Ninja Theory chief designer Tameem Antoniades told us at E3, while Capcom's Motohide Eshiro laughed in the background. His translator said it wasn't the first time they'd been asked. "But I kind of wish he was now," Antoniades said.The news anchor, it turns out, is a demon, and his radical, extremist views on human morality mean he will say anything to villainize Dante in Limbo City, even reverting to out-dated, irreverent labels such as "terrorist" and "sexual deviant" in loud, alarmist segments. Thankfully we don't have anything like that in reality.Dante's redesign stems from Capcom Japan giving Ninja Theory complete creative control over the new title. Capcom wants to connect with the western market in a bold and distinctive way and, to Ninja Theory, that means Dante's new appearance, portraying him with short brown hair, a lean body and sleeping naked, apparently.Dante is a rebel in every sense of the word: His sword is named Rebellion, he's part angel and demon rolled into a fleshy human body, and he's out to destroy Lilith, the demon in control of Limbo City. Anything else you may hear about his character may just be over-hyped lies disguised as truth -- or news.
'You're going to die a fair amount:' Bleszinski on Gears of War: Judgment's S3 system
Gone are the static spawn wells seen in Gears of War entries in the past. With Gears of War: Judgment, People Can Fly and Epic Games will introduce something they're labeling as S3 – a smart spawn system."Previously in Gears, if you wanted a greater challenge, you went for the higher difficulty mode. It basically meant less health for you and more health for them. It worked perfectly fine, but we tried to attack this from a different angle," People Can Fly's Adrian Chmielarz explained to Joystiq. "S3 constantly monitors your performance, from simple stuff like accuracy and your skills, but also like your location in the combat zone." Chmielarz provided an example of a player in one corner, shooting Locust, then having the system adapt on the fly and spawn enemies at more challenging locations."The other thing it can do is run multiple scenarios: you play through a section of the game, from checkpoint-to-checkpoint, and you die at the very end of it. So then you think to yourself, 'Okay, I know how to fix that; I got this.' You replay and suddenly it's a completely new scenario – new enemies and you have to adapt one more time. Another example would be you choose a higher difficulty level to replay a section and then you encounter an enemy type that you have not encountered before. We kept it in reserves for a higher difficulty level. The big point about S3 is to make sure that you are challenged. We think that the word kind of disappeared from the vocabulary a little and games now actually paint the path for you on the floor, where to go next."Cliff Bleszinski then interjected, "I think that's why you're starting to see this love for games kind of like Dark Souls now. In order to try and grow the audience, games have been softened – players can't get lost ever, or they can't die ever. But then it's like you've just lost the point of the game and what games do, having that challenge. We're a little guilty of it – I'm fully willing to admit that. When was the last time a game has asked something of you? I've been playing Gears since the beginning, obviously, but when I go into the playtest lab and we play 4-player hardcore co-op [in Gears of War: Judgment], it takes us a good three or four tries to get through a combat scenario. I play a lot of games where I just get into the flow of combat and it's getting good then, boom, cutscene. I'm like, 'Fuck you, get back to the gameplay.' In this game, the pacing has gotten to the point where when you get past a protracted battle, and you finally get a cutscene, yeah you're happy to see the story progress but you're really just happy to have a break. You're going to die, you're going to die a fair amount, but hopefully you like it," he said."It's definitely going to be harder than Gears of War 3," Bleszinski added. "The thing about Gears 3 that I learned kind of in hindsight is the fact that technically it was the longest campaign that we've ever done, but we accidentally softened the difficulty a little too much. So the good gamers got through it in a similar timeframe to Gears 2, and were like 'No way it's the same length!' So we looked at the difficulty and there are certain little trade-offs that they made where, like, do you go DBNO or just die? Things like that, and also the same thing with enemy damage models. Gears of War: Judgment is going to be tough, even on normal difficulty level." Chmielarz then added that he thinks "normal is going to be more difficult than ever before."%Gallery-157621%
E3 2012: Hands-on with Core Blaze
What can I say about Core Blaze? Gorgeous is the first word that comes to mind, and I'm not just talking about the cosplayers and the giant weapon sculpture that Gamania trotted out for its E3 demo event. The game is built on the Unreal Engine 3, and it puts Epic's toolset to fine visual use. Rain drops bead and run on your monitor. River water looks refreshing enough to drink. The game's day/night effects are slick too, and to hear Gamania's reps tell it, the cycle (along with inclement weather) determines the effectiveness -- or ineffectiveness -- of certain attacks.
No Call of Duty XP event planned for 2012
The Call of Duty franchise won't get its own dedicated expo in 2012, Activision confirmed to Joystiq. Last year's Call of Duty XP event was used to celebrate the franchise's huge fan base, while also setting the stage for Activision to reveal the Call of Duty Elite service.Rather than hold the event, an Activision representative said that the company's plan is to put more of an emphasis on Cologne, Germany's Gamescom event this August. Activision didn't rule out the possibility of Call of Duty XP returning in the future.Last year's event was the public, hands-on debut of Modern Warfare 3 from Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games. Proceeds from tickets sold to the event went to Activision's Call of Duty Endowment charity.
Peter Molyneux divulges DLC details for Curiosity, we apply for a loan
Peter Molyneux's first post-Lionhead game, Curiosity, holds a big mystery and now it promises DLC with a colossal price tag. The game -- the first of 22 experiments -- will reveal a secret to the gaming guinea pig who deals the final blow to a single black cube. Shortly after its release, chisels that pack a mightier punch to the monolith will arrive as DLC for those who long to crack the container open. Prices for the downloadable tools will start around $1 (59 pence) for an iron implement and reach up to roughly $78,000 (£50,000) for a one-of-a-kind diamond version that hits 100,000 times harder. Once the secret is revealed, 22 Cans will use social media to study how the winner proves the milestone and spreads the news. Curiosity is expected to drop in about six weeks for iOS and PC, but feel free to begin pondering the secret of life, the universe and everything that lies inside the digital fortune cookie.
Sony's 'wacky' Tokyo Jungle headed to North America and Europe
Despite the absence of a pomeranian guest appearance at Sony's E3 2012 press conference, the company's delightfully bizarre-looking Tokyo Jungle is indeed headed to PlayStation Network in North America and Europe. A press release this week confirmed the EU release, and Sony VP of product development and worldwide studios Scott Rohde told us in an interview this week that the "wacky" internally developed PSN game will indeed arrive in North America as well."It'll ship here, it'll ship everywhere," Rohde said. To him, Tokyo Jungle's worldwide release is emblematic of Sony's "crazy innovative" approach. "That game is just wacky, but in a good way, because we like to show that there's still an art form, and you can still experiment," he said. "Is everyone gonna love a game like Tokyo Jungle? Absolutely not, but there's a whole bunch of people it's gonna make really happy. Specifically for the fact that it's so different, and so unexpected. That's a key part of the culture of Worldwide Studios and how our games are developed."Though he couldn't name one specific person internally who championed the previously Japan-only game, Rohde extolled the internal culture that allows games like that to be created. "Someone has a key vision in our [Japan Studios] about Tokyo Jungle, they wanted to build this game. And so we're gonna embrace that. And of course we discuss it, and if it doesn't make sense, we can walk away. We walk away from dozens and dozens of titles every year. But the difference is, we actually build them out to a certain extent. And when they hit a point where we think, 'You know what? This is pretty interesting and it's gonna make some people happy,' we're gonna build it."Frankly, we're pretty darn happy this one made it through the wringer. Tokyo Jungle doesn't have a release date or price just yet.%Gallery-157097%
