The Big Three Part 1 of 3

If there’s three companies you’d expect at a gaming event, it’d be Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. And they were there, at Gameplay 2007, showing their games, boasting about their potential, and in general trying to outdo each other.

While I’ll try not to be keeping score in this article, and remain an objective journalist, some things are just easy shots. And who am I to try to resist those?

All you can actually see from the map alone is size, and shape. Sony and Nintendo went with a classic rectangular shape while Microsoft went with a slightly unorthodox round shape. The more observant among you will note that I haven’t actually told you anything yet. So where to begin? It seems that Sony took the prize in size. So in a dice roll sort of way we’ll start with Playstation.

The Playstation stand was an isolated stand, with small entrances and exits, it seemed more like a small fort than a stand. But possibly, that would be living.

When entering this structure, we were immediately confronted with a ridiculous amount of ps3’s hooked up to screens. Hey if you can’t sell em. Gameplay everywhere. A sharp contrast to other stands, which had a limited amount of playables, everything was there. Lines were survivable, so we actually got to play a couple of games, without having to engage in mortal kombat, which some had eagerly prepared for.

A myriad of games were present to be played, from Ratchet and Clank to Eye of Judgement, which, in action, looked awesome instead of geeky as you’d expect from a card game. For those of you unfamiliar, I’ll explain. You play with actual cards, which you lay on a cloth map, which the Playstation Eye scans, and then translates into creatures on your screen.

To me this translates as awesome. Which it was. Other games included Heavenly Sword, Lair, Drake’s Fortune and Time Crisis 4, which had a light gun. And fan favourite, standing where it belongs according to hundreds of angry gamers, DMC 4.

The stand had a nice vibe to it, the whole island in an expo thing made it feel homely, even more so than the Nintendo stand.

All in all, the Playstation stand was one of the places to be at Gameplay, minimum lines, which one feels is how it ought to be and good, playable, games. That’s not to say crappy games weren’t there, people just ignored certain screens, but they didn’t interfere with the general atmosphere.

This was the PS3 part of the Big three article, click here to go to the next part.

Dren Sokić
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