VGA announcement roundup

The Spike TV Video game awards are fast becoming the second biggest point in the year for reveals of new information about upcoming video games. E3 in the summer and the VGA's in the winter, with this in mind, I decided I would have a look at the trailers shown.

Metal Gear: Rising: Revengeance

This game has many issues, some of which I have written about previously. The tortuous development process, it seems, has not been kind to this game. Since the last trailers shown it seems like Kojima productions have wandered off to do something else instead, like some kind of ADHD child. It appears that Platinum games have stepped in and taken over the helm here.

Platinum games are good developers, they make novel and entertaining games. What they don't seem to do quite as well is story. Vanquish's story was an utter mess, I haven't played Bayonetta much more than the demo, even though I own the game, and Madworld was just silly gory dumb fun. It does not seem like a wise marriage to give a game series known for it's convoluted story, with long emotional cut scenes to a developer that appears stuck at the emotional maturity of a ten year old boy when it comes to storytelling.

I don't imagine that this is exactly what the producers are seeing, they have many art assets and even cut scenes already made. Plus a melee fighting game they can hand over to developers who have much experience with melee fighting games. Platinum will be able to make a cross between Bayonetta with Vanquish's graphics, plus have bucket-loads of gory sword fighting with people being diced. It will sell on that premise alone and most of the rabid Metal Gear fans will buy it anyway due to the franchise involvement. They will whine about it, but hey the money will have changed hands, in the end that is all that matters to the companies involved.

The trailer itself was the usual mix of daft samurai type nonsense with the musings on war that seems to accompany Metal Gear Solid. Raiden it seems will fight his nemesis Vamp in the game, and we see them facing off against each other. The game looks like any other hack and slash melee combat game. The slicing seen in the old trailers where Raiden was shown chopping fruit appears to still be in place, with a more simplified mechanic. It looks like that once you wear an enemies health down, you go into a bullet time type mode where you can slash the analogue stick wildly and be rewarded with dicing the opponent fruit ninja style.

Transformers Fall of Cybertron

The trailer shown is a pre-rendered sequence with high production values. In it we see the Autobots in trouble again as the Decepticons wreak more havoc on the surface of Cybertron. Optimus Prime is shown carrying a wounded bumblebee and things look bleak, we even have transforming into a dinosaur to look forward to.
This is just a teaser trailer, and announcement, however, if the game keeps up the good work of the last iteration I am down for a day one purchase.

The last of us

The trailer starts with a view out of a window, everything looks pleasant for a second, then as the camera pans inside, we see things are far from normal. The room looks dilapidated, there is a freshly dead man, bleeding profusely on the bed. A young girl runs past into the corridor, thumping can be heard upstairs. She runs up as if ready to give assistance, drawing a knife, she finds a bearded man fighting with another hooded man. The first man gets the better of the hooded man and either kills him or knocks him out.

The pair seem to know each other and the girl is told to search the downed man.
As the girl is searching the body some people run towards the room, making animal like snarling noises, are they zombies? The man grabs the girl and they hide in the next room, the monsters come in and start attacking the downed body. The man gets a revolver out and gets ready to attack. As he does one of the monsters hears him cock the gun and attacks first. The creatures head is wildly deformed. It grabs for the man, and the girl stabs it in the back, distracted by this the creature gives the man enough time to shoot it.

They run from the building, the man firing back at pursuing enemies. As they get outside the camera pans past them and out into the deserted, derelict, overgrown streets.
The girls voice narrates and she tells of how the man told her that the streets used to be full of people going about their lives. She, it seems, was born into this disastrous world and knows no other life, suggesting the disaster that occurred happened at least about fifteen to twenty years in the past.

The game is being made by Naughty Dog, which I believe, is a guarantee of quality. The trailer is introducing a mood and a feel, the older surviving male could be a Nathan Drake, the younger hard nosed, surviving girl I feel, will be the main character. This could foreshadow some co-op type gameplay where you take control of one or both of these characters. Maybe the girl for climbing around and the man when it comes to fighting and shooting. That’s sexist, I know, though she does look the more agile and acrobatic of the pair.

The game could be open world or it could be linear, at this point in time it's fun to speculate, yet unproductive. I am looking forward to more information on this game, and it's safe to say that it is a definite pre-order. Quite a lot of forum chatter seems to indicate a bit of zombie fatigue, can't say that I feel that way myself, there is always some fatigue or another going around. Vampires are passé and done to death one month, now it appears that it's the turn of zombies to be given a rest. Maybe by the time of release zombies won't be at quite such a saturation point.

Fortnite

The trailer shows some rather cartoonish characters blowing up a shop and gaining entry, they seem to be going looting. They then come to a blueprint type structure, which is then built in time lapse photography. A black blob like monster rises from the ground while they are building and steals the camera, it is shot for it's trouble. Time moves on again and it is night now, we see the characters firing up a generator in their fort and closing the gates. Monsters then arrive, with skull like faces, gunshots can be heard as a monster picks up the camera and leers into it.

Speculating on the trailer, it appears that players have to gather resources by day to build their fort, in order to survive the zombie attacks at night. A sort of cross between horde mode in Gears, Tower defense and Minecraft. Again we don't know what type of perspective the game will have, or how much action will be down to your fort design or your skill with a gun. I have to question wether this will be a full price £40 game or a downloadable £15 game. Also the big question is whether it will be solely multiplayer or will there be a single player campaign.

Diablo III

The segment shown sees a voice over talk of wars as angels and demons clashing. A girl wakes and we see this is her dream. She is in a large castle, an old man is with her. She tells the old man that they need to get him home, he is working on translating something and tells her that he needs to finish. He is worried about the forces of hell and what they are about to do.
The ground starts to shake, the old man tells the girl whose name is Leah that it has begun. A fireball shoots from the sky and lands in the room, knocking the pair off their feet. Leah gets to her feet and finds that the fireball has blown a huge whole down into a fiery abyss, the uncle is nowhere to be seen.

I would rather have seen some gameplay, this game is in beta at the moment, people are playing it out there in the world. I can't get excited for cliche story scenes, sorry Blizzard, please try harder.

Bioshock Infinite

An acoustic song with a breathy sad vocal, scenes of Columbia, hungry and sick people lying in the streets amongst the grandeur of the flying city. As the trailer progresses a montage of action scenes if shown, some we have seen already, like the bell tower landing in the street and the zeppelins firing down from above. These are mixed with new combat scenes showing gunplay and people flying around on the skyhooks. It seems that one of the reveals here is the face of one of the bad guys, it looks like we see someone in a bird suit, though it looks smaller than the giant Songbird that was seen chasing and fighting previously in trailers. Is this the pilot of the Songbird?

Again this game continues to keep up the high standard that I think will make it likely to be the best game of next year. I am really looking forward to playing this game, there is no need for further advertising or hype, just deliver the game to us now please and thank you Irrational Games.

Hitman Absolution

This appears to be a trailer made up entirely of in game graphics, which is to be applauded these days. The trailer shows Agent 47 entering a building and taking out the usual array of guards in gory fashion. He appears to be heading for a woman, we are unsure if he is rescuing her, or if this is his target. The woman is taken away by the guards before he can reach her. The final scene shows many guards pointing guns at a lift as the doors open. The lift is empty and the lights go out, then gun flashes illuminate Agent 47 as he mows down the guards.

It looks decent enough, previous games were quite good fun, with almost everyone else in the stealth genre abandoning it, it seems that IO interactive are being very brave or very stupid, time will tell.

Mass Effect 3

We see Shepherd talking to a Krogan, they need to get to a large spire seen in the distance. Enemies appear near them and the Krogan goes to fend them off. Shepherd starts running towards the spire. This appears to be a breathless suicide dash type sequence. The environment is a desert city, a large centipede type creature rises from the sand and attacks a huge Reaver that is shooting at Shepherd. As Shepherd approaches the spire the reaver and centipede continue to fight.

I have too much invested in Mass Effect to not play the final part of the game, however Bioware seem to be really dropping the ball on this one as far as story and alterations to gameplay go. I liked the first one, the second dumbed it down and this looks to be more like Gears of War, hang on, no that's an insult to Gears. More like Quantum theory (Look it up, not that many people played it.) than the space based Rainbow six style, with huge interactive story RPG elements gameplay of the first one.

Command and Conquer Generals 2

This game is obviously a year and a half, maybe two years away, we aren't getting to see much at all. This looks like a high production value, non game rendering, it shows lots of tanks shooting each at each other in city streets. Which then pans out to show the aerial view more normal for Command and Conquer, interestingly the game appears to be using the Frostbite engine. Colour me unimpressed, though there is room in my life for strategy games, I used to be addicted to Red Alert, it's been a while since Realtime strategy games excited me. Maybe this one will be the one, though i am not holding my breath.

Rainbow Six Patriots
Tapping into the vein of discontent with the worlds financial systems and the fat cats who leech from them, this game seems to be treading some uncomfortable ground with it's story. I have to applaud Ubisoft for doing this as I don't think I have been looking forward to a game story as much as this one in a long time.

While the cause may be just, the methods are not, we see the Patriots, the terror group who are attacking the Wall Street elite, enter an office and strap a bomb to an executive. They then toss him out the window and detonate the bomb in the crowded streets below. I doubt blowing up the people you claim to be helping and represent is the way forward for a terrorist group. Anyway, the Patriots are the bad guys and you as a Rainbow team member will will be perforating them en masse come release of this game. Which, by the way, I can't wait for. Disappointingly the trailer ends with 2013, which is a shame, i'd like to play it sooner thanks Ubisoft, please employ more developers, you know you want to!

Alan Wake

I enjoyed Alan Wake at the time, though it was a very forgettable game. While it's story was clever, it didn't resonate all that well with me, which was surprising because it should have given it’s subject. The gameplay was decent enough, however after the first few encounters it never felt like anything else happened, you spent the entire game in the dark, fighting the same dark figures. While this complaint can be leveled at any game, Alan Wake just felt much more repetitive than many other games.

This new trailer seems to suggest that this game will be more of the same I’m afraid to say. I thought that Alan ended up as some kind of competing spirit of the lake with the darkness that was already there. How can he be back out physically running around in the world again? I am sure there is an explanation, after all the enemy could move things around and possess people.
I’m not sure about buying this, and for those that know my game buying habits this is a big deal. There would have to be some hook or promise to get me to come back to Alan Wake, we will have to wait and see what Remedy come up with.

The Amazing Spiderman

The trailer shows that Oscorp is making robots to guard New York against some kind of biological attacks that are talked of and not shown here. The robots, it seems, are not going to be our friends for some reason. A news broadcast shows the machines running amok and attacking people and buildings. Spiderman is seen swinging into action, then a huge robot drills out of the ground, we see Spiderman fighting it, as if it is a huge boss battle. It is too early to tell on this one, it looks more like a quickly made licensed game, to coincide with the movie release, which we all know does not usually bode well.

Tony Hawk and Tekken were also shown, and I suppose if you can't say something nice you shouldn't' say anything at all.