Well, Day 1 has come and gone. What a day…
Sorry if this is sloppy, it\'s been a long, long day, and I need to get to bed. Got the show again tomorrow, and then the big Sony party at night
I saw some good stuff today – didn’t get to play as much as I wanted to, but I had a good time. Let’s start off with the big stuff first:
Gran Turismo 4 – The good news is that it’s got 500+ cars, and it’s online. The bad news is, the graphics aren’t as great as people are assuming. Don’t get me wrong, it looks good, but it’s not a huge leap forward. One of the new tracks is a track around Times Square in New York City. It’s pretty sweet, but it’s narrow and has lots of really tight turns. Supposedly the AI is totally different, and it has a new gameplay engine, but it feels EXACTLY like GT3. They won’t list all the new cars, but from what you can choose from, there are some more classic cars, and the Plymouth Prowler is in there as well. Online racing is sweet, lag free, and tons of fun because everyone else races like you. No stupid AI to screw you up – it’s cool. They’ve also got a new wheel that will turn 900 degrees, and feels really solid. It will be a must have for the hardcore driver.
Rogue Squadron 3 – I haven’t played it yet, but I got a booth tour at Lucas Arts and got to see it in action. It looks incredible. The speederbike level has to be seen in person to be believed. It’s so fast, and the lighting is phenominal. Other than that, the flying levels look about the same, which isn’t neccisarily a bad thing…
Metal Gear Solid : Twin Snakes – This game actually didn’t have much of a line to play. I think the controls are turning off a lot of people. You get so used to the Dualshock controls, and then playing them on a GCN controller takes a little getting used to. Regardless, it looks really nice, and the controls, once you get used to them are nice.
Madden 2004 – Lots of new stuff in this year’s Madden. A few control changes will kind of surprise you though. The L2 button no longer is route based passing. It’s all gone. Kaput. That was very dissapointing. Instead, L2 is to make your QB scramble. Triangle will now throw the ball away, so that’s pretty cool. No more fumbling around trying to remember how to toss it away. The total control is there, but I didn’t have time to mess with it. The voice chat is really nice, and if you’re playing with someone cool it really adds to the experience. That will be awesome for the leagues, since you can really talk some good trash, or just have a good chat.
F-Zero – It’s got 30 cars on the track at once, it’s got a smooth framerate, and it’s exactly the same as the one on the Nintendo 64. That’s not to say that it’s bad, but I don’t know, I was a little let down. There are a ton of vehicles to choose from, but we were only able to pick from 5 or so. I play Mute City, and Port Town, and had a good time, but it didn’t feel very innovative.
Mojo – It’s a game that’s very similar to Super Monkey Ball, but it’s for the PS2 and Xbox. You move a ball around, but this time, instead of going to a goal, you have to run your ball into colored blocks. There are different colored blocks to collect, and you have to be the same color as them to get them. That means if you want to get to the red blocks that are surrounded by blue, you have to go turn blue, collect those, find the area that turns you red, and then go back and get those. The controls are a little loose, but the addition of a brake button makes up for the looseness. It’s due out pretty soon, and if you’ve got a gaming girlfriend, this one would be great to pick up.
Pac-Man – This is the one being developed by Nintendo and Namco. So far, it’s the most fun I’ve had at the show. It’s multi-player, it’s got a simple premise, and it’s a blast. One person has a GBA and they control pac-man on the GBA screen. The other three people are the ghosts, and they are on the tv. The goal is the same as the old-school ones, and if you get pac-man, then you get points, and the GBA is passed to you. As a ghost, you can only see the immediate area around you, so it’s tough to track down pac-man, but you can eat the fruit, and it will increase your view. I can’t tell you how much fun it is. The games last about 5 minutes, and whowever has the most points at the end wins. The cool thing here is that if you win, you get a free GBA SP carrying case from Nintendo.
Ape Escape 2 – This one looks pretty tight. The gameplay is just what you’d expect, and still uses the two stick setup from the original. It’s also got some Mini-Games, one of which was a dancing game called “Dance Monkey Dance” and it was a very pleasant surprise. This one comes out in July, and will be sweet.
Prince of Persia – Didn’t get to play it yet, but I had an extensive meeting with the director of the game. It’s very combat heavy from what I saw, and kind of reminded me of Shinobi. You can run on walls, and even up them a few feet. There’s a cool time manipulating feature that allows you to slow things down to calm the action a bit, or even pause the enemies while you move super-fast and chop them up. It looks decent, but was a little on the dissapointing side.
