soooo, I went to PAX yesterday (ended up selling my Saturday ticket since I didn't have the $$$ to spend the night anymore), but I still saw a metric tonne of stuff.
Sony Booth
First thing I looked at there was
Uncharted 2, which is gorgeous looking. It just looks even more polished than the first game (no screen tearing!) and it starts off with Drake running down a street with a big ass truck chasing you. You need to run and shoot out the driver which causes some epic explosions and then seamlessly into normal gameplay. It's that same level we have seen in demos, running through the streets, climbing over the sign etc. The shooting is much improved, and feels a bit better since the thuggies take less shots to kill. All and all feels like more Uncharted, which is a good thing
God of War III had a crazy line up all day so I never got around to it, but I did try out
R&C: A Crack in Time which is more Ratchet. I only played the Clank level, which has an interesting time mechanic where you can record your action (say to step on a switch), then play it back which allows you to run through the door when your past self hits the switch.
On the PSP they had
Gran Turismo, which looks purdy as hell for a PSP game and runs silky smooth. Iono, just more GT so if you like it, now you can play it anywhere!
Motor Storm uhh... the winter one, is motorstorm on PSP. You know the deal, boost, overheat, crashing, yay. It seems to lose some of the appeal when you don't hear the huge crashes and explosions.
And speaking of the PSP, they had the
PSP Go that you could play. I like it, a lot. It's small, like shockingly small. iPhone size (albeit a bit thicker when it's closed). The buttons are small, as is the analog stick but it still felt really good. Only got to play God of War for a few minutes so who knows how it will feel in the long term but I really liked it. My only beef is a) the function that lets you pause a game anywhere and go back out to the XMB is really slllooooooooooowwwww and b) the screen wobbles just a little bit when slid out, not rock firm like I would like it. Maybe it's because that demo model had seen some abuse. It didn't feel like it would fall apart or anything but just a bit of movement.
MS Booth
Actually the first thing I played when I walked into the floor was
Left 4 Dead 2, I had never played the first one on the 360 and never will again because it controls like crap on the controller since the action is so frantic. HOWEVER, it is still awesome. Looks better, the weapons are more fierce and the new super zombies are intense! One dude came out of nowhere and rushed me, then beat the crap outta me. Crazy. The melee weapons are awesome. It allows one dude to swat away close up enemies while the other dude can pick them off with a rifle.
Halo ODST was there, again a huge line so I just watched. Looks like Halo, though seems to have a more realistic vibe to it, it's on earth right? Still, same old enemies, same HUD, same this same that,
Disney Booth
The only thing they had was
Split Second which is awesome. Looks even better than Burnout Paradise and feels just as fast except you are on a track racing. The level they had was at an airport but everything keeps blowing up. By driving well you get chances to trigger explosions or blow up signs that fall onto the track and crush other cars. Every lap the track changes as buildings collapse in the way or a PLANE CRASHES IN FRONT OF YOU! Goddam plane looked real low and sure enough, damn thing crashed on top of me with big explosions and hilarity.
2K Booth
Video of
Mafia II, which looks neat. More open-world gang related gameplay that is hopefully better than Godfather 2.
Bioshock 2 looking a lot like a sequel to Bioshock. And
Borderlands, which aside from
having the best game cover in recent history, looks stunning. The cell shaded art style looks really good. The enemies, I only got to kill mutated pig things, are kind of RE-ish in that they open up with tons of teeth and stuff. The shooting feels like an FPS should but you can see how much HP damage you are doing when you shoot them since it floats off of them and you can get critical hits which basically explode them. It feels like Fallout's system SHOULD have been. I wish I could have seen the gun customization since apparently there are millions (literally) of ways to customize them.
EA Booth(s)
The main booth had
Dead Space: Extraction, the on-rails Wii game which is surprising good. It looks great for a Wii game (albeit a bit hard to made out detail sometimes which is low res mixed with dark graphics mixed with a show floor..). The action is very on-rails obviously, baddies come, you dismember than ala Dead Space and see blood flying. Shoot with B, grab ammo/life/stuff with your beam thing with A, reload with Z. Nice and easy. Co-Op worked awesome too.
The Saboteur looked open-worldy in Nazi Germany and wasting Nazi's is always fun. It's stealthy in that you sneak around the base to say blow up a fixture, but you can dress up like a guard and walk around. But if you hang around too long, the soldiers might ask who you are or whatever and then **** hits the fan. The shooting feels good and overall I like the black and white graphics (which turn to colour as you liberate areas).
BF: Bad Company 2 looks amazing. Didn't play it but watched a few demos of dudes fighting in the snow. Crazzzzy.
Nintendo Booth
Scriblenauts is amazing. Nuff said. Just buy it. So cool.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii was actually really good. They have the mix of co-op and competition matched really well where you are working together to say boost eachother to higher platforms but you all fight for coins etc. I still don't like the new graphic style that was in the DS game but gameplay makes up for it. Should be fun with the gf.
They also had
Wii Sports Resort and
Metroid Trilogy but who cares.
Ubisoft Booth
Only one thing that mattered (since Ass Creed II wasn't being shown until after I left in the main theatre
) and that was
Splinter Cell Conviction. Wow. Guided demo with Sam Fisher kicking ass. It's cool not to have to sneak around try to avoid guys. Basically you sneak around to kill mofos. The mark and execute system is really awesome. Fisher put a mirror under the door to see the baddies, marked them and when kicked open the door and quickly shot all of them. It's really cool when they see you and you jump behind a railing, leaving a silhouette in the last place they baddies saw you. Then they will go to that point hoping to get the jump on you while you sneak behind them and break some necks. Awesssome.
Rockstar Booth
GTA Chinatown Wars on PSP was there. I never played the DS version so it was all new to me. I love the look and the driving felt deliciously old school. Unfortunately, the aiming felt old school too.
But the big thing there, the best thing I saw:
Red Dead Redemption. It was in some little room and no photos/video allowed and such. Looks so sweet. Starts off with a prisoner exchange which turns into a crazy shoot out. The dude playing starts shooting guys off rooftops, through barrels, blows the gun out of a guy's hand then shoots him in the face. You can kill all the wildlife (there is a lot of rabbits, wolves, horses, mountain lions and even bears) and skin them to sell. Graphics are outstanding. Best looking thing Rockstar has done for sure. Buddy tells us it is bigger than San Andreas area wise (well duh, a bunch is in the desert/mountains) but assures us it's fairly populated with things like camps or hideouts etc. to keep you busy when you are between towns. Towns let you buy guns, do jobs for the sheriff/townsfolk, get drunk and start fights or deal with "ladies of the night". You can rob anyone, steal stagecoaches or just any old horse, take trains between cities or just explore from Mexico to the forrests in the more northern states. I was blown away. My game of the show.
