Last week I was treated to the Microsoft X’09 event and this week it was Sony’s turn to step up to the plate and show what it had up its sleeves for the holiday season on the PS3. I was invited to The Burroughes Building in Toronto, a loft style building in the heart of downtown, to visit the PlayStation Holiday Preview Event and witness some of the titles that Sony (and others) have in store for you. As I reached the event and checked in, I received my PlayStation scarf – if you are in Canada, you know the value of a good scarf – and headed up the elevator to the third floor to where the gaming goodness awaited.
As I stepped out of the rustic and somewhat fear inspiring elevator, I walked into a wide open spacious area that housed huge television screens with black leather couches placed in front of them. Each screen was showing a different title and each had a crowd of people huddled around it. After scanning this large room/hub , lo and behold there was another adjacent room that housed even more screens, showing more games, being enjoyed by even more crowds of people.
Deciding to start with the first room, I quickly found where they were showing Army of Two: The 40th Day and watched as the players took control of Salem and Rios through a warehouse crammed full of enemies. Although there were two screens side by side, allowing two players to play the game, they were unfortunately not playing co-op within the same game, so if nothing else, it was a chance to see how the partnership AI had improved over first title.
Much of the game is reminiscent of the first with a few different UI changes and the visuals looking much crisper this time around. They also had a PSP off to the side of the screens, which had a copy of the handheld version. The smaller bite-sized version played much like a game of Wolf of the Battlefield with an isometric top down view that switched from screen to screen, zooming in or out, depending on the environment. The face buttons control your firing direction, while the thumb stick lets your spin around like a whirling dervish spitting out bullets.
Moving on, I got to take in two players dealing out some hefty damage to one another in multiple rounds of Tekken 6. I have always had a fascination with watching people who are good at fighting games play fighting games. The moves and techniques that Tekken 6 offers is pretty insane, not to mention how good the latest iteration of the game looks.
