The PS3 Weekend Warrior: In the aftermath of E3 2008

It’s the week after E3 2008 and just when you thought that gaming news would be slow, the case was not so. Lots of updates on upcoming games continued to drop in and we couldn’t be happier to have them. We also highlight some of the most controversial stuff that went down this week as we go along. More to come in the full article up ahead.

They say you shouldn’t sing after Michael Jackson took the stage, and you shouldn’t dunk after Michael Jordan puts on a show in a slam dunk contest. The rule of shutting up after a juggernaut took the spotlight doesn’t apply in the gaming world as a lot of news still trickled in the week after E3 2008.

This week’s wave of news from the electronic entertainment industry comprised mostly of schedule updates on release dates, confirmations of game delays, a couple of bits on new gaming legislation proposals, and even some homebrew  goodness from FreePlay.

We’ll break this Weekend Warrior  down into three major parts. let’s get started!

Promises made, promises broken

This week was marked with announcements which were a little less than welcome for the fans of the PS3. For one, the Japanese launch of Capcom‘s Bionic Commando Rearmed was postponed. Speaking of delays, WipEout HD would indeed get shelved for a little longer for reasons undisclosed. Rumors went around that the game was causing seizures to those playing that, but that sounds like a story we’ve heard from about a decade ago. True or not, let’s hope SCEE doesn’t suffer anymore setbacks on it.

Link: Bionic Commando Rearmed Japan launch delayed
Link: SCEE: WipEout HD delay translates to numerous added features
Link: Rumor: WipEout HD delayed for causing seizures

Yeah, it’s sad that we have to wait a bit more for those two titles, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be without new stuff to play with in the near future. As a matter of fact, we’ve got a couple of big-bangers right around the corner in the form of Insomniac’s Resistance 2 and Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet. Both are looking good for their fall launches and we can’t wait to have them in hand.

Resistance 2‘s beta will begin in earnest in a short while and so will LittleBigPlanet’s. Some lucky people will be able to be the first to test these triple-A prospects. Even more exciting is the prospect of making money off your LittleBigPlanet creations as revealed by SCEE’s David Reeves.

Link: Insomniac planning Resistance 2 pre-order program for worldwide public beta
Link: Qore episode 3 to include Resistance 2 beta invites
Link: SCEE: all LittleBigPlanet user content free at launch
Link: Target’s LittleBigPlanet pre-sale cards reveal launch date?

Further down the line are two 2009 games. The much-awaited Killzone 2 from Guerrilla Games has reportedly hit its finishing stages, while we’ve got some screenshots from E3’s big revelation MAG. We may not be playing these two very soon, but they’re certainly nice to look forward to.

Link: Guerrilla Games placing finishing touches on Killzone 2
Link: MAG: Massive Action Game first in-game screenshot

Konami cleaning up the MGO mess

We all know that what went down after Metal Gear Online got the Gene update wasn’t very pretty. Servers went mad, and people were left in the cold with lag, IP, and transaction issues. For a few days, the game looked sunk, but Konami has assured fans that this will not be the case for long and progress is being made to set things right again.

Link: Konami updates on Metal Gear Online Gene expansion issues
Link: MGO Shop gets rid of IP restrictions

Trophies catching on

Yeah, it was a bit of a letdown when developers of some older games refused to go back to work on their hits and provide Trophy compatibility. Good thing Insomniac Games didn’t have the same attitude with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune as they announced support for the feature. The same goes for newer games as 2K Games revealed the same thing about the PS3 version of BioShock.

Link: Trophy support for Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune dated
Link: BioShock PS3 Trophies revealed and detailed

Contr4oversy makes it exciting

The week after E3 certainly hasn’t been a quiet one at all as we saw some pretty controversial news items hit the web. Kicking it off is the March 2009 blockbuster prospect Resident Evil 5 from Capcom. The publishers were recently interviewed lately and they dropped some pretty interesting quotes. One of which was from Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi who said that contrary to assumptions, they have black people working on the game. This freshens up the whole racism issue brought about by early trailers of the title.

The developers of the marquee horror franchise were also asked whether they ever thought of minimizing the blood and gore content of their titles to have it made available to a younger audience. the answer? A resounding no as they explained that violence is always good when done tastefully. Here’s to better arterial sprays in Resident Evil 5!

Link: Takeuchi: black people are working on RE5
Link: Capcom: blood and guts here to stay in Resident Evil series

Now this one may not be too controversial in itself, but what makes it interesting is the manner in how the news came to be. A video of a Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailer was leaked from Japan‘s Jump Festa held by Square Enix. The game looks like it’s still pretty far along in development, but it already shows plenty of promise.

Link: Final Fantasy Versus XIII leaked trailer from Jump Festa

After all was said and done in E3 2008, fans, analysts, and publishers got to evaluate the whole show. What most of them had to say wasn’t too pleasant as they hinted that the old version of the exhibition was better than what it is now. The ESA, however, shook off the criticisms and said that E3 will live on and is just fine the way it is.

Link: ESA: there will be an E3 next year

Rounding up the more controversial issues this week are a couple of items about legislation and gaming. Some politicians have seen the need to revise laws on electronic entertainment and how it’s distributed, so they issued some proposals which may later affect how we play.

Link: U.S. Senator Roger Wicker introduces videogame rating legislation
Link: New York Governor David Paterson passes video game legislation

And some homebrew goodness, too!

Homebrew developer FreePlay released the Minimal BD-J devkit for the PS3 this week. This one certainly has the potential to lead up to something big for the platform. This is something we’ll certainly be watching out for.

Link: Minimal BD-J (Java) Devkit for PS3

Games, plots, and porn

In more recent news, Quantic Dream’s David Cage was quoted as saying that Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune has a gameplay-story structure which is executed somewhat like that of a pornographic movie. This blogger ain’t no Larry Flint, but I’d say he’s right to some degree.

Games and porn both live off the action that they bring to their audiences. It’s the core of what makes people interested in the two entertainment forms, and it’s the essence of what people pay for to experience.

However, that’s not to say that a rich story has no place in porn or in gaming. It’s a matter of who’s playing and what captures his fancy. It’s what separates a hardcore FPS player from a hardcore RPG lover in the same way that it makes an S&M enthusiast different from people who like censored or soft porn. Storytelling is applicable only in situations when it’s necessary. Too much can bore the audience and too little will leave a fleeting memory of what was just consumed.

Basically, what I’m getting at is that nobody should crucify Cage for what he said because it was stated in a well-thought way that might even be taken as a compliment by Insomniac Games. Uncharted will always be a great game, and its porn-like execution was a big part of it.