So Sony ran its first ever PlayStation Experience out in Vegas this weekend, and I spent way more of my Saturday than I meant to hunched over a laggy livestream instead of doing literally any of the things I was supposed to be doing. Worth it though. Mostly.
If you missed it: PSX wrapped up today (the whole thing ran the 6th and 7th at the MGM Grand), and it's basically Sony's attempt to build their own fan convention instead of just doing everything at E3 in June. Smart move, honestly. E3 is all press badges and suits standing between you and the actual games. This felt more like PAX, minus the body odor and the eight-hour line for a Nintendo demo pod (RIP my back, E3 2013).
The thing everyone's going to be talking about all week is the Uncharted 4 gameplay demo. Naughty Dog put Nathan Drake through this jungle chase sequence, truck flipping around, whole set piece collapsing, and it looked genuinely incredible. Like, the lighting on the foliage alone was doing things I didn't think the PS4 could do yet. I watched it twice.
But I've got a complaint, and it's not really about Uncharted 4 specifically, it's about where this whole genre of game seems to be headed. The demo was gorgeous and I was into it the whole time, and also not one second of it felt like it was actually up to me. Drake climbs where the rope is. Drake shoots where the game wants him to look. It's a very good rollercoaster. I just keep wondering when "cinematic" started being a synonym for "on rails" and whether anybody at these studios misses the messier, more player-driven stuff. Probably an unpopular opinion to have about the biggest reveal of the show. I stand by it anyway.
Bloodborne got a new trailer too and honestly that one hooked me harder than Uncharted did, which surprised me. From Software doing a PS4 exclusive after everyone assumed Dark Souls was staying multiplatform forever, and the combat in the footage looked faster and more aggressive than the Souls games, less shield-turtling, more "get in there and swing." I don't own a PS4 yet (still telling myself I'll wait for a price drop, we'll see how long that lasts) but this is the first PS4-exclusive that's actually made me consider it.
The one that got me a little emotional, weirdly, was Grim Fandango Remastered. I did not expect a Manny Calavera cameo in 2014. That game came out in 1998, I was in middle school, and I remember being stuck on that stupid balloon puzzle for what felt like an actual week before I finally caved and looked up a walkthrough on some GameFAQs mirror. Seeing Double Fine bring it back, on a PlayStation console of all places, for a game that originally shipped on like four CDs, is a nice reminder that somebody out there still cares about weird 20-year-old adventure games nobody under 30 has played.
There was a lot of other stuff crammed into the keynote too, PlayStation Now expanding its beta, a pile of indie announcements I only half caught because my stream buffered out twice during the transitions (my apartment wifi and I are not currently on speaking terms). Sony clearly wants this to become an annual thing, their own answer to what Nintendo does with Directs and what everyone wishes E3 still felt like. If year one is any indication I'd go, if they ever do this on the East Coast, or if my finances ever recover from the holidays enough to justify a Vegas trip in December of all months.
Anyway. It's been a weird week to be paying attention to Sony for entirely different reasons (more on that some other time, probably, once there's less of a moving target to write about), so it was nice to have a couple days where the Sony news was just, you know, games. Drake looking good in a jungle. A guy in a skull mask getting stabbed a lot. Manny Calavera, back from the dead again. I'll take it.