Konami E3 2011 Conference Wrap-up
A Pre-Recorded Disappointment
by exterminat
©2011 Nicholas Laborde
The first annual Konami Pre-E3 Show kicked off tonight, giving gamers a massive early start to E3 2011.
Konami had a countdown on their site, undoubtedly leading to kick off their conference…
… but it was pre-recorded.
Let’s do it live… except not really
Yes, you read that right. They promised a “live” conference, and what we got was a recorded series of developer diaries.
A few announcements were made, chiefly being a Metal Gear Solid HD collection and a Zone of the Enders HD collection. But before we get into that, Konami jumped right into Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, detailing how the developers are taking full advantage of the 3DS hardware.
The gyroscope will be used when Boss crosses bridges, logs, et cetera, and can determine if you fall or continue forward. An interesting feature was shown, called ‘camouflage photography system’ which allows the player to take an ingame picture with a camera and use it as a camouflage texture.
Now, on to the good stuff.
Available this fall, the Metal Gear Solid HD collection will contain Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Sold 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Kojima has noted that the Peace Walker version here is NOT part of the “Remastered” games, which are PSP titles upgraded to play on PS3.
What this version will have, though, is the very first of the ability to transfer from PS3 to PSP, an idea Kojima himself created. Called “Transfarring”, it was first expressed at the NGP unveiling; the essential idea is to play the game on your PS3, pause, move it to your PSP, and continue where you left off, but this time while on the go.
An interesting concept that will undoubtedly be fun to try, we will get our hands on it this fall on both PS3 and Xbox 360. Yes, you read that correctly: on PS3 as well as Xbox 360.
The second collection, Zone of the Enders HD, will contain Zone of the Enders and Zone of the Enders 2, both remastered in HD with modern accoutrements such as dual analog stick support, rumble, et cetera. This will, like the MGS Collection, feature Transfarring support [only on the PS3, obviously].
The Zone of the Enders HD collection will be available in 2012 on both platforms.
Innovation
Apart from this, PES 2012 was talked about in detail. Not long after that, a new Konami title called NeverDead was discussed in vivid detail. Announced at E3 2010, the title is about an immortal character named Bryce.
Immortality comes at a price. Bryce will suffer much damage and will lose limbs during the action… so what do you do when you lose an arm? Pick it back up!
It’s going to put an interesting twist on the third person shooter genre.
The Silent Hill: Revelation film was talked about in too much detail, and nearly put me to sleep. Thankfully, a few actual announcements were made. Silent Hill Collection will, as usual, remaster a few games in the series in HD.
A new Silent Hill title as well was announced, Silent Hill Downpour.
A trailer opens with a convict being moved from a prison. A rainy night creates a sense of gloom, eerily urging you to wonder what happens next.
For funzies, the driver of the transportation steers off the road and wrecks. Our character escapes, and of course, ends up in a strange town that never gets visitors and has creepy inhabitants.
It looks to be a creative re-imagining of the Silent Hill franchise, and I may actually be interested in this one.
After the Silent Hill segment, it moved to the highlight of the show: meeting Hideo Kojima.
Looking hip as usual, Kojima explained why he isn’t going to E3 this year. You may have followed how he recently tweeted his disappointment in “spending a year preparing for nothing.”
A Mega64 skit ensued, showing two paramilitary geeks interrogating a janitor about what the announcement would be. Transfarring was detailed in an extremely sarcastic way, explaining how Transfarring works using Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. And of course, showing how excited we are about the collections coming to the Xbox 360.
And because it’s the third darn time and people never get it the first two, Kojima explained (again) how Transfarring works. WITH CUE CARDS.
It was then demonstrated in action using Peace Walker, showcasing how the game can be loaded and unloaded to the PSP and PS3.
After that, Kojima detailed what his two HD Collections would offer, shown in the image here.
In another bout of Kojima madness, he revealed his step by step plan for the Transfarring “Lifestyle.”
First, we will move data from PSP to PS3 and vice versa. Step 2 will bring PS2 games to PS3 and NGP, allowing Transfarring between them.
The final one, Step 3, is creating entirely new experiences directly for PS3 and NGP, working together.
Reiteration
Because Konami LOVES repetition, Kojima continued to elaborate on the MGS HD collection, with the details shown to your right.
A similar image was shown, detailing the Zone of the Enders HD collection.
And finally, we got to Metal Gear Solid: Rising.
Kojima basically said that he didn’t want to talk about it, and that they are targeting a 2012 release date. Which was essentially telling me that I wasted 55 minutes to discover absolutely nothing new about the title.
Lastly, our host pestered Kojima about his new title. He managed to talk about the new engine they are creating, entitled the Fox Engine. With cue cards in hand, Kojima eagerly explained how this powerful new engine is something they built from scratch to power his mysterious next title.
We even were lucky enough to see a little bit inside of the new engine.
A beautiful, lush jungle was viewable, with a few animals and what appeared to be a character standing in the background.
And that’s it.
Of course, we couldn’t get there without a little bit of demonstration to whet our undying interest in horses and foliage.
As if to ignite a flame war, Kojima’s hand hovered over three different input devices: an Xbox 360 controller, a PlayStation 3 controller, and a typical computer mouse.
The Force was with Kojima, picking the 360 controller and reassuring us that the engine is very multiplatform.
A character was showed running around… and nothing more. The game will be “a multiplatform game, Transfarring-enabled, for a global audience.” Kojima, being the secretive bastard that he is, kept completely quiet on his new title.
There’s always E3 2012, folks, where Kojima promised he would be.
To sum it all up…
The conference overall was average, with announcements kept to an absolute minimum.
Much of the conference was basically, as I stated previously, an overdone collection of dev diaries.
Konami’s conference gets a C-, setting an awfully low precedent for this year’s show which starts next week.
What do you think? Was this a superficial preemptive failure? Or is it representative of what is to come? C -
OXCGN’s E3 2011 Articles:
Make sure you check out these great E3 2011 articles, not only showing you the news, but looking deeper into the games and hardware coming from this year’s E3.
In the mean time, please feel free to grab any of the videos (we supply easy share-code for that) and images to share with your friends using the helpful social media buttons on the site. But basically, enjoy the information, and share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
This list will be updated with every new article and new notice, so make sure you bookmark it so you’ll be notified when there’s a new item up – enjoy
- E3 2011: Brothers In Arms: Furious 4: Desecrating the BIA Name - click here
- OXCGN’s Nintendo E3 Conference Wrap Up - click here
- E3 2011: The Darkness 2 – To Sequel or Not to Sequel - click here
- Sony PS Vita (NGP) Australian Price Revealed? - click here
- Assassin’s Creed: Revelations – Limited Animus and Special Editions Unveiled (with trailers) - click here
- OXCGN’s Sony E3 Conference Wrap Up - click here
- The Kinect Strikes Back: Kinect Star Wars - click here
- E3 2011: Hitman – Are Stealth Games Becoming Action Games - click here
- Tomb Raider: A Darker More Visceral Lara Croft - click here
- OXCGN’s EA Conference Wrap Up - click here
- OXCGN’s Ubisoft Conference Wrap Up - click here
- E3 2011: Minecraft Coming to 360 - click here
- E3 2011: Microsoft Showcases Halo 4, Halo HD remake - click here
- OXCGN’s Microsoft Conference Wrap Up - click here
- Konami E3 2011 Conference Wrap Up - click here
- Top Announcement We Want and Don’t Want at E3 - click here
- The Best Places to Watch E3 2011 - click here
©2011 Nicholas Laborde
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Filed under: 3DS Reviews, 3rd Party Games, Console gaming, E3 2011, Editorial, Events, Handhelds, Mobile Gaming, New Xbox 360 Games, PS3 News, Wii News, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 3rd Party Games, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | E3 2011 news updates, e3 2011 updates, E3 updates, Hideo Kojima, Konami, Metal Gear, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, NeverDead, PlayStation Portable, zone of enders, Zone of the Enders
