2023-05-25 04:44:19
Video game
An efficient, dense but disappointing PlayStation Showcase
Sony Interactive Entertainment disappointed expectations despite a flash hardware announcement and a finale that gave pride of place to “Spider-Man 2”
Published
“Spider-Man 2” starring Miles Morales and Peter Parker, two variants of Spider-Man.
SHE
It’s been almost two years since Sony Interactive Entertainment held a presentation, so fan expectations for the Japanese brand were high and, as so often, the show – which goes by the name of PlayStation Showcase – more or less disappointed. This was happening at 10:00 p.m. Wednesday night on the internet, YouTube in particular.
SIE had however concocted a spectacular video at will, as usual without fuss or blabla, composed of a succession of trailers for the next video game releases, some of which are exclusive to the PS5. With three little words from Jim Ryan, head of Sony’s game division at the start and a little hardware announcement at the end just before launching what will be the flagship game of this year 2023: a long sequence of gameplay from the next “Spider- Man 2”. In an hour and a few minutes, everything was done, according to a formula that Sony masters like no other in the business.
The PlayStation Showcase, as aired Wednesday, May 24 at 10:00 p.m.
YouTube/PlayStation France
So why a disappointment? Because the one and only proven exclusive, from an in-house studio, was precisely “Spider-Man 2”, a game whose development and release window (fall 2023) were already known. The other event, and not the least in our opinion, was that the Bungie studio (newly acquired by SIE) was finally working on a license other than “Destiny 2”. But when the name of the game came up – “Marathon” – with no release dates and no gameplay footage – we realized it was a remake of an old title, conceived long before Bungie became famous with “Halo”. It becomes a little less exciting, but you could be wrong.
A screen between two controller halves
As for the hardware announcements, the excitement was great to discover what strongly resembled a portable PlayStation (a 20 centimeter diagonal screen surrounded by two halves of a DualSense controller). Jim Ryan was unfortunately content to say that other information would come later. At this point, rumors indicate that it’s actually a PlayStation 5 passthru screen that works wirelessly as part of an existing but still little-known service, Remote Play. We can already test it with a smartphone: the PS5 runs the game and the portable screen displays what the powerful console calculates. You can play in another room of the house or any place with a strong wi-fi network. The other hardware unveiled is a pair of wireless earbuds.
Back to the games, and still to our disappointment, there is a lack of reveal of exclusives from SIE’s internal studios, mostly vague release windows, and a few game announcements for the PS VR virtual reality headset. 2, none of which comes from the Sony stables. A little worrying knowing that the helmet has just been released and that it is in great need of carrier content.
The fact remains that some games presented have caught our attention. We think of the announcement of the upcoming arrival (October 17) of an “Alan Wake 2” in the category of cerebral horror, the announcement (without gameplay alas), of a remake of “Metal Gear Solid – Snake Eater” at Capcom, and the upcoming “Assassin’s Creed – Mirage” at Ubisoft scheduled for October 12 this year. Note that these three games will be cross-platform.
We also note the release on June 22 of the highly anticipated “Final Fantasy XVI” which, it will be a PS5 exclusive.
On the independent game side, a section made up of more modest games but often with high added artistic value, we salivated for a few seconds on “Sword of the Sea”, a game that gives itself a little air of “Journey”, a nugget from the PS3.
More announcements will be made again this month and in early June in the window where the defunct “E3” show was held. We think in particular of the Xbox Games Showcase stalled on June 11.
1684993289
#efficient #dense #disappointing #PlayStation #Showcase