The Game Awards/PlayStation Experience 2016 Discussion

These two events both happen this coming week (The Game Awards are on Dec. 1st and PSX is on Dec. 3-4, conference on the 3rd). So I thought I'd throw up a thread to discuss them. I will post any rumors or teasers I see in here. PSX usually has some interesting stuff (first Uncharted 4 demo a couple years back, Ni No Kuni 2 announcement last year for instance). The Game Awards in their various incarnations have been all over the place, but there might be some interesting announcements. If you care about the actual awards, here's a link to the nominees.

I think perhaps a demo for Spiderman at PSX seems like a good bet as does a trailer for the singleplayer DLC for Uncharted 4.

I'm hoping they show off something with the Crash Bandicoot remakes.

I would most like to see something on Ni no Kuni 2. Especially since we didn't get anything at E3 last year. I'm also hoping they announce Final Fantasy IX for PS4 like they did with VII last year. Not really sure why it hasn't yet, since it's been on Steam and mobile forever now.

IX could do with some actual remastering (improving some of the battle loading times etc). That would make me happy if they did it.

Spider-man and Crash Bandicoot would be cool. I'd like to see something more concrete about Death Stranding but I guess that's still a ways off so I'm not counting on it.

Also Half-Life 3 because America needs to dream again

Trump will make it great again at least.

They probably didn't fix up the battle speed, but if it is the same as VII you can just turn up the speed in general. When I was level grinding in VII that made it a breeze, shaved hours upon hours off of my play.

I guess there will be new footage of Prey and Zelda at TGAs.

A pretty knowledgeable insider has also teased the possibility of TLOU2 being announced at PSX. Seems way too early, but you never know.

I loved TLOU but I still don't quite know how that story could be continued. If it is, I hope it's with completely different characters.

I hope we get to see some towns in this new Zelda footage.

I guess the Guardians of the Galaxy Telltale game is a possibility at TGAs tonight. And there will be a bigger Mass Effect gameplay reveal. Game Informer mentioned that their next cover game will be revealed at TGAs too, so presumably a new game there.

Insomniac said no Spiderman at PSX too, so unless that is subterfuge, don't count on that. I believe Kojima has a panel at PSX too, so maybe something on his game at the event?

Edit: And new mode for Rocket League on the TGAs pre-show. Just remembered that.

Sounds like a new Batman game will be shown tonight. Could be Suicide Squad too maybe.

New Mass Effect trailer has me drooling. Game looks so good.

Thoughts on the new Death Stranding trailer? Looks to be typical Kojima weird!

I'm interested for sure but worried it might not run well on a normal PS4. Feel like it's being designed with the Pro in mind

As far as premieres/trailers I thought that TGA was pretty good. Mass Effect looked really impressive. I liked the Zelda trailer they showed before the event a lot. The other announcements were pretty good too.

volvocrusher wrote:I'm interested for sure but worried it might not run well on a normal PS4. Feel like it's being designed with the Pro in mind

What about it feels like this?

It's more of a hunch than anything based on evidence, but can't help the nagging feeling. Especially with how they were showing off how great the game looks. Might be paranoid here, but I am worried until I see it running on a normal PS4 nonetheless

It brings up a good point in that we will probably be seeing more promotional materials using Pro footage (this was apparently realtime on the Pro) and we'll be left wondering what the regular PS4 version looks like. Hopefully at some point along the way we will see both versions.

The PSX conference was awesome. I pretty much have two new Naughty Dog games to look forward to! Super excited.

The Lost Legacy seems more substantial than I expected based on what they said. I'm actually really happy it is a Chloe adventure. I was kind of hoping for one with her and Cutter beforehand because I felt that would be a way to do the DLC without using Drake and his family again (4's ending just felt like the perfect way to end my adventures with them) and I'm hoping this ends up a bit more action-oriented than 4 and I feel a Chloe-based one has a good chance of that. Nadine never got developed much in 4, so her inclusion is interesting.

People seem pretty split on the TLOU Part II announcement. I know when I first finished TLOU, I was in the no sequel camp. Then it became obvious there would be a sequel I was sort of torn on what they should do with it (though based on what they've said in the past, I suspected they'd be focusing on Ellie). It seems the developers wrestled with it too though and if they landed on this, I trust they have good reason for it. The trailer was definitely really cool too. I'm excited to see where they take these characters now and how they will evolve the gameplay.

A lot of other cool stuff. The Raven DLC for Gravity Rush. The LocoRoco remaster. The Crash Remaster looked good. Much more remake than remaster from a graphics standpoint which I suspected, but it is still good to see. Really impressed with the whole conference.

Edit: Apparently Bruce Straley is taking a year off and not working on TLOU2. He is my favorite individual developer and I think the most important single person in regards to their best games recently. So that is kind of a bummer. His co-director from the first game is still on for 2, but Straley will be hard to replace.

My girlfriend pointed it out and now that she has I can't help but notice it too:

Beside the indy sector not a ton of new IP's, which was in all of our big complaints for this gen. Doesn't look like that's going away anytime soon.

CRASH BANDICOOT

I would've liked them to stray further from the original art-style in the Crash remakes. What they have seems so awkward and charmless to me. It reminds me of amateur Unreal Engine remakes of bits from Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, but without the excessive effects.

The new Uncharted stuff looked pretty neat and I'm glad it's focused on someone other than Nate.

I was kind of disappointed that they decided to remaster the last few Wipeout games instead of making a new one, but at least they're including 2048. Should be a good graphical showcase too especially if it works with VR. I never quite completely got the hang of those games so it's not a huge deal to me anyway, but racing games are so easy to create new content for that it seems weird to just remake them

TLOU2 has to prove to me that it's a worthy addition to the story and isn't just being made because AAA videogames are unable to let that ending be.

Knack 2 is huge. Watch out xbox because knack is back

ajapam wrote:I would've liked them to stray further from the original art-style in the Crash remakes. What they have seems so awkward and charmless to me. It reminds me of amateur Unreal Engine remakes of bits from Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, but without the excessive effects.

This.

Still excited to play it (hoping they've tweaked some of the control quirks out of all three of the games etc as well). BUT, if they were going to completely build it from the ground up, you'd think they'd do it in a more cartoony, pixar-like style.

Also, side note: Ni No Kuni II looks pretty great but honestly what keeps stopping me from even TRYING to go back to the first game is that battle system. It was terrible! I hope they really worked on that aspect this time.

Yeah, I hated the battle system too. The awful companion AI and clunky menus while you're on a timer killed it. Give you control of your party and a Dragon Age style pause mechanic then we can have something worthwhile.

If I could pick one game that I *want* to like more than any other, it would probably be Ni No Kuni. Really hope they make a more sensible battle system

In regard to the new IP thing, Sony does have quite a few announced, but I don't feel like they had much of a presence here. Horizon, Days Gone and Dreams from internal studios plus Death Stranding which while not an internal studio is a very close partner (Sony is publishing, Cerny is a producer, and it is using one of Sony's internal engines). I don't know if any of these will be the impactful new IPs we have been hoping for, but I do feel Sony has a good mix of sequels/new IP going forward at the moment. Edit: I was just reminded of Detroit: Become Human as well.

I forgot about Knack 2. I wonder if those resources wouldn't be best used elsewhere. Either another new series or perhaps reviving something that might bank on nostalgia. Bret was just talking to me about another Sony Japan game in Ape Escape. Maybe there is no market for something like that, but I can't imagine there is much for Knack either. I imagine any sales success it had was inflated by being a launch title. I haven't even played Knack let alone the sequel, so perhaps I shouldn't judge. I don't like to tell devs what to do either. Maybe this is what they wanted to make.