Sony at E3 2018 - A Fan's Disappointment
By: John Jaskot
The Last of Us 2
Ghost of Tsushima
Control
Resident Evil 2
Trover Saves the Universe
Kingdom Hearts 3
Death Stranding
Nioh 2
Spiderman
The Disappointed Fan
I have been a Sony fan boy since day one. I can remember the joy I felt the day my father bought me my very first PlayStation 1. Since that day, I have owned and played primarily PlayStation systems. I have owned my fair share of Nintendo systems here and there, and got my XBOX fix mostly through friends that had those systems, but I can honestly say that I have owned every PlayStation system that has come to the market. I remember spending hours upon hours of time replaying Twisted Metal 2 on the original PlayStation with my sister to see the different trailers at the end for each character you beat the game with. I recall spending long nights of gaming at my friend's house where we set up a mini LAN party to keep our Killzone squad ranked 3rd on the server on the PlayStation 2. I still to this day take my PSP and Vita with me on trips so I have my passion of gaming to fill the voids of long flights and boring waiting room visits. I remember having to put aside my gaming so the family could also use my PlayStation 3 for the media aspects to watch a movie for family night.
This leads me to the current gen...I now own an XBOX ONE X, a Nintendo Switch, a gaming PC, and a PlayStation 4, and I can honestly say that my PlayStation still gets more play time than any other system. I cannot even begin to count the amount of games I have played, completed, enjoyed, and even went back to platinum, of this system.
Every year around this time, I get super excited for E3. This is the Superbowl for gamers. E3 is the place where we get to see brand new things that are coming to the gaming scene that we will get to play and enjoy in the years to come. Even though the gamer in me gets excited for everything that I get to see at E3, the Sony fan boy in me cannot wait each year to see what my favorite gaming company will bring. I legit brighten up and get more hyped for the Sony conference. They have had their ups and downs. Some years are great and others are lackluster. The one thing I have never had to worry about was Sony putting on a good show. I may not get to see everything that I want to see in each year's E3 conference, but what I do get to see is enjoyable, and the way that Sony presents that information has never let me down...that is until last night.
Let us start with the venue. We are in a church tent! That's right, a giant tent that Sony set up with string lighting. A fellow in a black hoodie comes out with a banjo and starts playing what we fans know to be a song from the Last of Us... At this point, everyone watching at home is super confused as to what is going on. Then the Last of Us 2 trailer starts to play, and the opening scene is in that very same tent. OK Sony, I see what you did there. In my mind, I think this is kind of cool, but only if you are at the conference and get the feeling that the people there in person are getting. The audience is literally in the game! Sounds cool, right?
For the people at home, however, we get a very poorly-lit camera angle, and an even worse sound quality. This game is supposed to be the next major blockbuster title and we have a faint clicking sound throughout the whole presentation. The game does look amazing and I have nothing bad to say about the actual trailer, aside from the clicking sound that is still ringing in my head. If this isn't bad enough, once the trailer ends, you have to move all those people to the actual venue stage, where they will see the rest of your presentation. So where do we, the viewers at home, get to go? To a set on the streets of LA, where the wind is blowing the set over and making the sound quality once again annoying at the very least.
The show continues on at the new stage from this point on. The sound quality bugs that have torn through this presentation so far are finally fixed. We are now in for an amazing rest of the show. FOOLED AGAIN! We get riddled with game trailer after game trailer of games that we already know about.
Side note here: all of these game trailers and gameplay trailers are great. The games are looking very good. But the only new games that we get in this show are Nioh 2 and Control. Though we knew it was in the works, we also get our first look at the remake of Resident Evil 2. Meanwhile, we continue to get these 5-10 second clips in between each trailer for the game Dreams. So, we are building up throughout the show to get a big announcement about the game, right?
The show concludes with a trailer and game play for the Spiderman game we are getting at the end of this year. This game looks amazing!!!! What's that, you are asking? I used the word concludes... yes I did! That means all those teasers they were peppering in the show about Dreams all led to NOTHING!
As for an overall grade for this presentation... I give it a hard D- ! I understand that a few years back Sony went really hard and gave us a show to remember. I do not expect them to up themselves every year. As far as this presentation being even close to anything they have put out in the past, I am very disappointed. Sony has proven, not only in the past, but with overall console sales, that they have what it takes to make gamers happy and has done a fantastic job of building a giant fan base for their product. Now please, please, please take care of your fans. Sony, you are better than this!