Welcome once again to another edition of The Doctor's Prognosis with me, Dr. C-Los!
E3 is upon us and has waved it's mighty hand towards the path of destiny! :P
What I really mean is that E3 sure is exciting isn't it? Well I have a few thoughts but let's start with my impressions on the recently released demos....
Well this is one I have been waiting for as I was a big fan of Eternal Darkness on the GameCube which was also made by the same developers, Silicon Knights.
This story basically retells Norse mythology if I am correct (and please correct me if I am wrong) as you play as Baldur. In this game he is like a soldier but you can customize him based on how you want to play. For example you can make him a Berserker which forgoes defense for all-out, dual sword-wielding offense. Or you can focus on healing as a Bioengineer. In this demo, you can only choose the Champion cla.ss which is a well-rounded way to play. You get guns, swords, and balanced offense/defense.
The gameplay is simple but fun. This is basically a dungeon-crawler as you take on hordes of enemies. But dispatching them is easy as you use the right analog to attack. Simply point the analog in the direction you want to go and Baldur slides around hacking and slashing. Much easier than endlessly clicking like in Diablo, which wouldn't work in a console game. You can also launch enemies into the air and either finish them off with your guns or jump up and slash them to death in the air.
As you defeat enemies, you can find bounty (which I wasn't clear in the purpose... maybe to purchase stuff later) and loot such as new weapons and armor to equip. Some of the armor can only be worn by certain cla.sses and can also depend on Baldur's current level.
As you level up, you gain skill points that you can use to spec your character the way you want such as making your gun shots stronger or adding fire elemental damage to your sword. You can also add Runes to your weapons and armor so that you gain extra stats such as strength. So you can customize in many way according to the way you want to play.
The voice acting and art design was also impressive. I felt like the game had quite a bit of polish and that it had more depth to it than the demo allowed me to see despite the easy to pick up combat.
My prognosis: I remain optimistic about this game for it's final release and I recommend 360 owners to try it out as I was very impressed.
Too Human is scheduled for release on August 19th.
I understand that this game is one of the most wanted in Japan despite being only on the 360 so I was looking forward to trying it out.
The art design is very much like Eternal Sonata as is the level design. Crisp cel-shaded graphics along with a very simple linear map with some branching paths. No random battles is also nice as you can see all the creatures on the map.
Combat is a little different from Eternal Sonata however. They are all in real time as you control the main character Yuri (I think it was) while your party members heal and attack as needed. The combat was simple but fun. I could see it getting a little tedious but leveling up could yield more interesting attacks. I am not sure if you could control the other characters but I couldn't figure it out if it was possible. Someone please let me know so I can try the demo again.
My prognosis: I think that if you liked Eternal Sonata, you will probably like this game. I thought it was pretty good and warrants a look from RPG fans.
Tales of Vesperia is scheduled to release on August 26th.
E3 Conference Impressions
Well I finally caught up with the Big 3 conferences and I felt that Microsoft's was the most impressive and here is why....
They had the most stage demos. They came one after the other and I felt this was very important because it showed off what the games would play like which is the most important thing about a game.
I am now more excited about Gears 2, and Fallout 3 suddenly jumped up on my wanted list. Resident Evil 5 also looked very good.
MS also did a good job appealing to more casual fans with their announcement of Netflix, Avatars, and more casual games like Lips. Not really anything I would be interested in but it will gain attention to a larger audience.
So I felt they had the best combo of hardcore games and stuff casual gamers would be interested in. Plus their big surprise announcement of Final Fantasy XIII on the 360 helped make their conference the best in my opinion.
I felt Sony had the second best showing. I felt the best thing they showed was the Little Big Planet stage demo that also served the purpose of talking numbers and 3rd party support. It really showed off what the game can do and it remains my most wanted game on the PS3.
After that I felt that Sony didn't do a great job. They showed some cool trailers like DC Universe. But they should have showed more stage demos. Sony has a history of making promises of things we won't see for a long time. Some of those promises end up not coming true like all those "exclusive" games they promised that are now on the 360 or will be coming soon. I felt they needed to show more actual real-time gameplay footage to get people excited.
I am happy that they officially announced God of War III. But once again, all we got was a promise and no gameplay footage or release date. Come on Sony! Show us something to get us excited!
Now for Nintendo, I think they had a great show for the casual market. They officially announced Animal Crossing for the Wii but that wasn't really a surprise. They also showed off some nice stage demos like the Wii Music game. A lot of people seem to be hating on this game but remember that you play the Wii Music game withoout any EXPENSIVE peripherals and without any real skill. I think this will appeal to their demographic and will sell pretty well. Not really my thing but I can appreciate what they're trying to do.
The main thing missing from Nintendo's camp was a surprise announcement of a big game and I was disappointed by the lack of hardcore games. I just wanted one game that I could get excited for. Maybe in the coming months. :(
Cosplayer of the Blog
Eh I'm feeling lazy... I don't know who this is supposed to be but she's got a nice look. I'll try harder next time. :P
Anyway, tomorrow is the day that I get to visit the E3 GameSpot Studio! I will let you guys know how it went on my next blog.
Thanks for making another appointment with the Doctor's Prognosis!
See you next time! :)