By Liyo Kikon
It just wouldn’t feel right if we don’t talk about the mind blowing Playstation E3 Press Conference for 2016 which took place last week and left the internet buzzing with news of this event ever since that day. The show opened up with a full orchestra performing an epic music which actually gave me goosebumps even though I was watching it online, halfway around the world. The music then gracefully transitioned to a gameplay and for a few minutes, I had no idea which game it was until Kratos stepped out from the shadows! You know - Kratos from God of War. But he looked much older here with a beard and he has a kid. The graphics in this God of War is absolutely gorgeous and being a fan of the series, I can honestly say that this is one game I’m really looking forward to.
This “God of war” is not a re-boot, but a continuation of the original story line from God of War III where Kratos killed off all the gods and left the world in total chaos. And now, years later it seems that he has a kid whom he is trying to teach how to hunt. In the opening, we see the two of them chasing after a deer and along the way, they are attacked by several creatures and a huge troll. The fight scenes feels like the typical God of war action scene which we all love and they stayed true to it with ground shaking attacks and awesome camera moves which drives you deep into the thick of the game. In the demo, we see Kratos wielding a battle axe which he can throw and it comes back to him like Thor’s hammer. This demo clearly shows more about the human side of Kratos as we can see that he truly cares about his son, snapping at him when he fails but forgives him when he makes a mistake. The way Kratos scolds him when he fails to shoot the deer due to lack of patience but he is not even mad when the son accidentally shoots an arrow into him and other small details makes me feel like this game is going to have an ending where it hits you right in the ‘feels’.Like before, there won’t be any loading screens or levels but just one continuous game which is always great until you realize that you’ve spent the entire weekend playing this game from start to finish. One thing to be noted is the fact that the game is directed by the same guy who made God of War II and all the series after that, I mention this because I originally became a fan of the series after playing the second part so what this means is that there is an absolute guarantee that this new God of War will be much better than any of the earlier ones.
The release date for this game has still not been mentioned but so far no one expects it to be released this year.
There were lots of demos during this press conference, and to mention all of them would fill up all the pages of this newspaper, but here’s the other one which caught my eye- Horizon: Zero Dawn. This game starts off with a young woman leaving her ‘village’ in search of answers. It is set in the future where there are robot animals! I know, that just sounds weird, but the whole scene is set up in such a beautiful environment that it makes you feel like the robot animals just belong there. As far as we can see, the weapon of choice is a bow and several modified arrows like hardpoint arrows, flaming arrows, rope caster arrows and more, which I’m sure you’ll get as the level progresses. You also get a sling shot which can fire different pebbles and a kind of spear for close quarter combat. In one section of the demo, we see the main character attacking a “broad-head” bull, which looks like a robot bull. The player brings down the bull using a rope caster arrow and re-programs it to make it into an ally. It was fun watching it because it showed the power of the gameplay and that gave out a loud message saying that all the NPC robot characters can be re-programmed to turn them into allies if you can hold them down. The other thing is your ability to scan the enemies beforehand to find out about their vulnerabilities and their weak spots and plan your attack accordingly.
Overall, this game looks very promising since it gives you the feel of both sci-fi and ancient civilization blended together to form a very beautiful scene. Although this game will be released only on 28th Feb 2017, it is definitely something to keep an eye out.
The great thing about this conference was that there weren’t many speeches, instead they gave us what we desired - one demo after another, non stop. But amidst the demos, they announced Playstation VR which will be releasing on October 13 with a price tag of around Rs. 27,000 and at the same time, they will be releasing 50 games which will support virtual reality. You can watch the entire conference on Youtube, and when you do, watch out for "Death Stranding", the game featuring Norman Reedus - the actor from the walking dead series.
