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Jim S Squires, esq here. Myself and Ted Ryan Newsome Hewson had a most excellent adventure yesterday. No, we didn't get to travel back in time and help stop Hitler. Even better -- we went to the future (which was conveniently located in downtown Toronto). What did we see? What did we play? Put on your safety helmets and shin guards, kids. You're in for some lengthy exposition on this biggest PlayStation games to come out during the upcoming holiday season!
OUR BIG TRIP TO A FURNITURE STORE RENTED OUT BY SONY 
Ryan: Why a furniture store? I have no idea. It served as a decent enough venue – you wouldn't guess that this was originally an outdoor furniture shop. Sony had converted the space into a sort of Preview Xanadu: a half-dozen couches with big screens, probably two dozen standing kiosk-style setups, an open bar, ludicrous amounts of finger food, and PlayStation hardware all over the place. For a dork like me, this was a version of the sweet hereafter, missing only a bevy of hot chicks offering to hand-feed me olives while I played. So what did Jim and I play? Killzone 2 
Ryan: Oh my god, the lighting. The lighting. Everything you've read about this game is true; it is quite simply the best looking (and sounding) console shooter you've ever seen. I do not say that lightly, but it is true – I actually gasped when I saw it in action. Happily, it's not all aesthetics – shooting shit in Killzone 2 is just fun. The guns are super loud, the feel of character movement had a satisfying (almost Quake 3-like) inertia and sway; buildings and people come apart in surprising, delightful ways. The screen was labelled "pre-alpha code", and we did see some freezes as well as a few totally hilarious miscalculated ragdoll casualties (one guy jumped out in front of us, did the splits 180º, and promptly died.) The first-person cover system was so straightforward that we actually didn't know how to invoke it at first. There's no "cover" button; rather, you simply duck behind a wall or low barrier and lean the stick forward, which causes your view to peek out, or around. This cover mechanic works so incredibly well that it makes you wish every FPS game had it. While KZ2 has been in development since the Bronze Age, I have to say in all candor, playing it right after playing R2 felt like night and day, and not in R2's favour. This thing is going to be a monster. 
Jim: It's hard to say what Killzone really plays like because I was too busy being blown away by how it looked, and even more, how it sounded. Nobody thought anyone could make a game that even looked close to that trailer that debuted at E305, but three years later the proof is in the pudding. This is the single best looking game I've laid eyes on to date (and yes, Mirror's Edge was at the event). In addition to the damned near photo-realistic everything, the real highlights were in the touches. There was something of a subtle grainy look to the game that really set the atmosphere. The detail on the guns was exquisite. Polished metal on your pistol held reflections of the light in real time. But the sound? The sound put the visuals to shame. I was trying to figure out why it was the only game on the floor with a surround sound system hooked up. Then I sat in the middle of it. No word of a lie -- this is the kind of game that will make you want to upgrade your sound set up. Mirror's Edge 
Ryan: Who would have guessed that the next game from the Battlefield guys would be first-person parkour in a dystopian Ikea city? ME was a popular draw for folks in attendance, maybe second only to Prince of Persia. It's also a visually impressive piece of work - the vibrant colour scheme is the antithesis of your stereotypical brown-and-green console game. Environments are often sparse in detail, but not in a boring way. Somehow DICE can take a hallway that looks like the emergency exit from a theatre, and make it look interesting, using only bump maps. I had some concerns about the control scheme and "limb visibility" going into this for the first time, but I'm happy to report that it works pretty well. Yes, there are Up and Down modifiers for your movement, but all the face buttons also do things like attack or trigger "runner's sense". I get the feeling that you fall to your death a lot in this game, as not all paths are marked, and you don't always know exactly what buttons to push. But I only got to spend maybe 15 minutes playing. If you are sensitive to motion sickness, you will want to steer clear of this one. I think Jim was gonna barf just watching it. 
Jim: Ryan couldn't be more right. ME needs to ship with some Gravol and an airplane barf bag. They told us that they put a white dot in the middle of the screen to help reduce motion sickness. It didn't work. Not for me, at least. My own nausea aside, the game is as gorgeous as you'd expect. That being said, it's really just a first person platformer with some puzzle elements -- how do I get from here to here type stuff. I've never really been one for FP-platforming and this is no exception. If you're a fan of magically landing jumps without seeing what's below your feet (a feat I can't myself pull off), this is probably going to be your Halo. Dead Space 
Jim: Not much to say here asides from grossly disappointed. As soon as I'd heard Warren Ellis was attached I stopped reading any info so that nothing would be spoiled for me. The EA reps must have felt the same way as they jacked up the volume on the Rock Band 2 display next to me so I couldn't hear a damned thing. It left me fiddling with a game I knew nothing about, unaided by any PR, stumbling around in the dark. I was playing Dead Space in a dead space. My impressions about the game gleamed under this shabby set of circumstances? It's slow. It's not action heavy. It could have easily been developed under the working title "Somebody at EA played Bioshock last year." Just a total disappointment. Mind you everyone I've told that to has basically said "you must be playing it wrong." Maybe I was. I hope I was. Here's to hoping the final product turns me around. 
Ryan: Equal parts BioShock, Mass Effect and Resident Evil. Not a bad thing. Audio seems to play a key role in guiding you through the initial phases as the soundtrack was a bit muddled in the cacophany of the room we were in. The game is trying like hell to invoke a gothic/Aliens vibe, and mostly succeeding. Control of the main character can seem sluggish – again this reminded me of Resident Evil, although Issac Clarke* can in fact step from side to side and walk slightly while shooting his miner-oriented non-guns. The hovering interface effects are kind of cool. Aliens appropriately scary. Definitely want to see more when this drops next week. The game we played seemed to be final code. (* is that really a blindingly obvious nod to Issac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke? Kind of on-the-nose, don't you think, guys?)
Resistance 2 
Ryan: a very mixed bag. Probably the most uneven play experience I had all day. R2 is almost a complete makeover of R1, almost unrecognizably so. I played the first 1.5 levels of the single player campaign. Way, way more colourful than the original. Controls have changed too – you can now sprint in Resistance, and they had that mapped to the same button as crouch by default (double tap was crouch, although this could be remapped. Which I did.) Hale seems to walk kind of slow, but roadie-runs really fast, complete with a Wipeout HD-style camera zoom that I found somewhat disorienting at first. Also the aim sensitivity, at default levels, I found to be extremely twitchy. The first level definitely starts with a bang, and has you following another soldier right under the legs of an attacking Goliath, which looked and sounded incredible. However I also died twice for reasons I didn't totally understand (I think I fell too far behind). Later on, when encountering a new predator-like enemy for the first time, I died several times just trying to get my footing – we're talking 3-second lives here, as in respawn/what was that/shit I'm dead. A bit disheartening, to be honest. This was definitely beta code, with sync issues and other obvious bugs, so one cannot judge the game on this, but I was taken aback by just how different it felt from the original. I will just add that the new Bullseye effect for a tagged enemy is fantastic. 
Jim: Like I mentioned in my comments on Retribution, I've never actually played Resistance. For the most part I'm just not an FPS gamer. After getting my hands on Resistance 2 though? I think I'm going to have to break my rule and try the first one. It's not that Ryan's criticisms are wrong, but I think that despite the issues we noticed Resistance 2 offers up a really fun experience. The game moves at a pretty fast pace, the two environments we visited were starkly different from one another, and some of those aliens handed me my ass. I'm glad we played this before Killzone 2 because I was really impressed with the visuals, but after checking out Killzone 2 everything else on the floor looked decidely last-gen. It's like smoking crack and then spending the rest of your life eating wheat thins. It's a good thing I tried the wheat thins first. Now it sounds like I'm comparing Resistance 2 to wheat thins, which is a totally unfiar comparison. It's good. It's really good. Now it sounds like I'm bashing wheat thins. Gahh. I believe the correct term is "dig up, stupid." Prince of Persia 
Ryan: Another very mixed bag, although not for the same reasons as R2. This had more to do with design decisions made in the new Prince of Persia, rather than potential beta glitches (it seemed very far along; I only noticed the occasional bit of pop-in). I declared this title to be a high point in illustrative shader techniques when I first saw screenshots, and it's even more impressive in motion. I can't belabour that point enough: Prince of Persia is almost horrifyingly attractive. What KZ2 does for gritty cinematic realism, Prince of Persia does for hand-drawn, painstakingly detailed graphic novel art. Even the menus and (extremely sparse) interface elements revealed a wonderfully sophisticated art direction. People have complained that it didn't look "Persian": it does, albeit a Persia that is very, very old. While playing PoP I encountered a bunch of new elements to the series that I didn't quite know what to make of. Most obvious is the new female partner Elica, who follows you around everywhere and forms core parts of the gameplay. She's, uh, "magic". So she gets away with a lot of stuff like... teleporting. So a double-jump in the new PoP really means you jump, Elica teleports just in front of you and grabs your arm, hauls you forward, teleports away again and you land. That's as weird as it sounds. In combat too, she gets in involved (triangle is the "Elica" button), but this was much less strange, due to some extremely clever realtime camera choreopgraphy. The enemies – or I should say, enemy, as there really is just the one – was... how shall I put this? Stupendously badass. Disgustingly awesome. I almost wish I could play as the shadow-creature, hunting the Prince and his magical fairy-woman. Suffice it to say, the combat is completely fresh and very dramatic. As for the core platforming, which is really what Prince of Persia should be about, this too was quite mixed. The new Prince can do some truly fantastic moves – scuttling along ceilings, crazy flips, all the stuff you would expect. But there are also these jump pads that you would expect to find in a Sonic game. They fire you across giant expanses of open-ended level. Sometimes, you fly both the Prince and Elica through a Magic Carper-esque wind tunnel. It's just sort of weird. I'll definitely have my eye on this one when it releases, but I am uncertain that the sweeping changes they've made to the core of the game are entirely good choices. Despite the lush visuals I really didn't quite know what to make of it, even after grilling one of Ubisoft's level designers on the couch for 20 minutes. 
Jim: Due to the massive crowd around it I didn't get a chance to squeeze in and actually go hands on with the Prince. From what I'd seen over everyone's shoulders though? Awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. It really looks like the gameplay has captured the fun of Sands of Time, and the art style is amazing. Ryan said cel-shaded didn't do it justice -- we should call it illustrated. He couldn't be more right. I was a little surprised to see the Ico influence went a little further than dragging ladyparts around with you (although she's a tad more capable than Yorda) -- the villains couldn't look more like Ico's shadow creatures. A few of the other gameplay mechanics like steering as you soar through the sky seemed a little hokey, but again, without hands-on time I can't really say how it all felt. Still -- it's nice to finally see a post-Sands of Time PoP game worth picking up. 
Fallout 3 Ryan: Ok, it does look like post-apocalyptic Oblivion. It does. Even the characters have that stilted turn-in-place movement when you rolled up on someone. I half-expected one of these mutant dudes to tell me about mud crabs. But nevermind that. F3 looks to fill two gaps in Oblivion that bothered me: it has a proper setting now, and it has good combat. As open-ended and extensive as the Elder Scrolls worlds are, the lore and art style of the place always struck me as sophomoric. And swinging swords in first-person Oblivion was, it must be said, pretty lame. Fallout 3 has a heavy atmosphere; there's rubble all over the place, wrecked signs, flipped cars... just a crazy amount of stuff that feels more fully realized than the open countryside of the previous game, not to mention the signature Fallout series old-timey music and Vault-Tec ads. And while it's technically "optional", you'd have to be sort of a masochist to not use the pseudo-turn-based combat system. Targeting body parts never gets old, nor does the slow-motion animation of limb separation that results from a successful attack. I'm a bit frightened of this game, because it really could eat even more of your life than Oblivion did. 
Jim: It took four words to turn me around on this game. Just four words. Malcolm McDowell, Liam Neeson. Is it terrible that it took Hollywood voice acting to finally get me excited about Fallout 3? Absolutely. When I pressed the gentleman from Bethesda for more details about the cast and he remained tight-lipped, so I can only assume there are going to be a few more surprises in store. Finally getting hands on with F3 really made a bit of a difference in my anticipation, too. Sure the endless comparisons to Oblivion can be made, but a functional third-person perspective and the ability-point based body-targeting system make this a whole new ballgame. Running out of AP and having to switch back to firing wildly FPS style until it builds back up does wonders for you anxiety. Definitely a cool experience, but I'm still not sure if it's going to live up to everybody's expectations. Resistance Retribution 
Jim: Having only been announced a few months back I wasn't really expecting to see this one playable anytime soon. Still -- not being a big FPS player and loving the idea behind the Resistance universe, I was beyond excited to check this out. I think I had even gone so far as to call it best of show during our BitCast E3 Roundup. So how did it hold up? Pretty solid, I'd say. They've resolved the solo analog situation on the PSP by mapping the camera controls to the face buttons. It takes a little getting used to, but it definitely works. Your movement is the nub, and the d-pad and shoulder buttons do the rest. There's something akin to an auto-targeting system in there that works pretty well (and is necessary given the limited nature of the PSP) Visually the game performs as well as Chains of Olympus and has some amazingly big environments. They couldn't disclose the exact length of the campaign, but said we should expect to see something with a fair bit of meat on it. Tom Clancy's EndWar 
Jim: If you had told me two days ago that I'd be walking out of a room having played Killzone 2, Mirror's Edge, and Resistance Retribution only wanting to play a Tom Clancy game, I'd have said you were nuts. But here I am a day out of the Preview Event and the only game I can't wait to get my hands on is EndWar. It's real time strategy on a console and it works. Ubisoft has really re-invented the wheel on this one. Filling the shoes of a general (Craig Stillman from the Ghost Recon series for all you Clancy fanatics) you command individual units as you work your way towards your goal. Now here's the twist -- you control them with your voice. Strap on your bluetooth headset (or your wired pack-in if you're playing the 360 version) and get barking those commands. "Unit 2, attack opposing unit 6." "Unit 3, follow Unit 7." In a lot of ways it reminded me of Full Spectrum Warrior, only giant in scope and requiring a throat lozenge when you're done. Hands down, EndWar was the only game I walked out of there needing to play. Final Thoughts/This is what it sounds like when doves cry 
Jim: All in all it was a strange day. Some of the games I was most looking forward to (Resistance Retribution) merely ended up piquing my curiousity, while games I couldn't have cared less about when walking into the show (EndWar) stole the event for me. All in all it was a really well assembled event, though there were a few things I was disappointed didn't make the show -- specifically the PSP Brite and a live demo of Home. Ryan and I are still Homeless and dying to get a glimpse of that happy and warm family inside through a frosted over window. The only other gripe I had wasn't with the show itself, but with the PR agents on hand. Ryan will talk a little more about this in his thoughts, but it just can't go unsaid. There just didn't seem to be enough bodies to go around to cover the number of games on display, and it made tracking someone down to answer a question a little tougher than it should have been. Still -- the good outweighed the bad, and despite being left to form our own opinions on some titles I think we were given the opportunity to form some pretty good impressions of the upcoming PlayStation holiday line-up. 
Ryan: It was a bit disheartening to find some of these games completely unattended by PR people. Jim and I walked straight up to Dead Space playing all by itself on one kiosk, fiddled for about 15 minutes, and no one came by to answer questions. Same with Killzone 2 – it was just there. In this respect I think some of the Sony and EA reps may have dropped the ball a bit. While they both had PR people on hand, there just didn't seem to be enough to go around. Ubisoft and Insomniac really stood out in having people on-hand and eager to answer questions and get you into the games (my best "guided" demos of the day were for EndWar and Prince of Persia). It was also weird to see some very-new or almost-out games that didn't get all that much attention: my beloved Wipeout HD sat unplayed in a corner all day, because who cares about games that are out? Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, which shipped yesterday (ships October 28th, our bad!) was largely ignored (possibly due to 1 of the 2 kiosks crashing uncontrollably) and even the mighty LittleBigPlanet got only moderate attention – I sensed that most of the goons attending this thing had their beta keys some time ago. All in all it was gratifying to get my hands on these games early; i just wish I could have talked to a few more people. P.S. the DualShock chatpad thing is actually more workable than it looks. P.P.S. while I didn't get to try them, the GH:WT drumset looked like an unbelievably cheap piece of shit. I'm not kidding. The whole thing wobbled when someone played it, and the design looks like ass. Editor's Note: Some facts have come to light regarding some comments made in our closing notes about PR representation on the show floor. This post has been edited to reflect this new information. Our sincere apologies to anyone who may have read this post before the edit.
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