July 2013 – This year's San Diego Comic-Con the video game consoles and new games were given their own “zone” on the exhibit floor, easing the congestion in the aisles and make it more orderly to get a chance to try the games and platforms. They put all the gaming on the far right side of the floor after the comic book sellers and away from the TV shows and the big collectable booths.
On the floor Sony had three platforms – the PS3, the new preview of the PS4 and the PS Vita. I had a chance to check out Batman Arkham Origins on both the PS3 and the PS Vita. The game play was similar, and the new volume of the series is a good fit with the previous versions. The PS3 version was a bit easier to play in the bright overhead light arrangement at the convention center, due to the dark images in the game, but in the proper light, the PS Vita version is very playable. They also were showing Octodad on and DriveClub on the PS4. Octodad showed off the creativity of the development community, while DriveClub showed off the performance and high resolution graphics of the PS4 platform. The PS3 games included Diablo III and Grand Turismo 6 with full driving platform shells.
Microsoft had two locations – on the show floor with a Ryse the son of Rome and Killer Instinct both on Xbox One and the Xbox Lounge at the Hyatt down the street from the convention center. Killer Instinct had a custom controller for the fighting action for the game, and a modern update on the game that uses the increased processing power of the platform to have very smooth motion and action. Ryse was the big game on the show floor. The new game was demoed with a couple of different levels of game play. As it is early release software, most of fighting action only required 1 kill stroke and not a lot of progressive AI for the character as will be in the final game. The graphics were very high resolution on the new platform. However, the game play that was shown did not have any depth of field on the graphics – the details in the background were just as clear and bright as the foreground details. This made the game visually tiring as it was hard to focus on just the current action of your character. A number of the other people playing the game and myself got a headache from trying to focus on the main character. One of the developers at the booth said that the game would be adjusted to a proper cinematic view with depth of field in the final render for the game.
In the Microsoft lounge, they were showing both the Xbox One and the current Xbox360. Games being shown included Crimson Dragon on the Xbox One which has a total of 16 dragons and a lot of detailed fire and lava effects to show off the new console. On the Xbox 360, I had a chance to try the new Lego Marvell Superheros. This is a traditional Lego multi character game with a large number of characters and skills. In past games, a large part of the game play was figuring out which character to switch to in order to accomplish a challenge. In this version that game play is not enabled, as the tasks are color coded to the characters so you know who to switch to and there are hints that pop up that tell you to change characters.
Nintendo once again had their own area adjacent to the convention center in he Marriot. The area featured the Wii U and the 3DS with a number of games that were updated for the platforms. A special attraction was the get a photo with Donkey Kong to celebrate the release of Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. They also had the a launch for the Wii U version of Super Mario 3D World in multi-player mode. The booth had many anticipated titles for the Wii U and the 3DS, and was packed with players. Despite the reviews that the platforms were not doing well, the players and the entire room was filled with people with nothing but positive responses to the large variety of games, the platforms and the community in general – the Nintendo fans are both plentiful and loyal.
The games being shown for the Wii U included Super Mario 3D World, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD, Bayonetta 2, Pikmin 3 Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Sonic Lost World, Rayman Legends, Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, New Super Luigi U, Disney Infinity, Skylanders SWAP Force, Just Dance 2014, and The Wonderful 101.
For the 3DS platform they had: Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, Shin Megami Tensei IV, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, Yoshi’s New Island , and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.
Back on the show floor, Ubisoft was promoting the pre-sale of Assasin's Creed Black Flag and was showing preview scenes and pre-sale of Watch Dogs. To celebrate and promote the launch of Black Flag, they brought a fully equiped pirate ship in the bay behind the convention center, that had cannons, game stations, food and costumed actors/developers to discuss and give an opportunity to play the game.
PopCap was there with collectables for Plants vs Zombies 2. They were running trailers for PVZ Garden Warfare, but they did not have any open gaming stations with the games on the floor.
The placements of the games on the one edge of the show floor and the big expos being held in adjaent hotels allowed the traffice and access to the games and previews to be pretty resonable, with typically under 15min waitng times. The Comic-Con event continues to be a big game rollout conference for going direct to the audience, and the developers got to hear first hand, the comments of criticism and praise for the new games. Overall, people liked the new platforms and games, with the most postive priase and comments going to the PS4.
Images of the game play and conference are in the gallery at - http://www.mandetech.com/gallery/index.php/Comic-Con-2013