Konami’s Pre-E3 2012 Show Written Detailed Summary With Embedded Trailers.
Before E3 2012 officially kicks off next Monday on June 4th, Konami decided to beat everyone to the punch and host their second annual Pre-E3 event ahead of everyone else. If you weren’t able to catch the video you can watch the embedded stream of the pre-recorded show over here, though stick around here if you aren’t able to watch the video, or if you just before the written word. I’ll be detailing all of the announcements, complete with some thoughts too.
Konami’s Pre-E3 2012 event was aimed squarely at the fans, reiterating their heritage and game library, complete with HD Collections, anniversaries and even some unexpected sequels, all kicking off with the classic Konami code.
Tomoyuki Tsuboi hosted the event, and promised an exciting show which would provide a behind-the-scenes look at what their studios are currently working on, new trailers from key titles, and made mention of the celebrations around 25 years of Metal Gear.
The first area of focus was on their new San Francisco based studio which is handling many gaming projects for social media websites. Frogger Pinball, Puzzle Chasers and Twilight Carnival were mentioned, and will all be published through Zynga, giving Konami a potential reach of 240 million monthly users of the popular social gaming service. John Coligan discussed the new team and their collaboration with close partners and talent in the area. Considering the huge boom in this recently emerging audience of gaming, Konami are on the right track to capture the casual gamer. Hopefully we’ll see some of their core franchises making the jump to a more casual audience, especially since other big names such as Ghost Recon and Assassin’s Creed have already made the jump.
More details were shared about PES 2013, ranging from new features and technical enhancements, to MyPES and a demo announcement. The gameplay montage (accompanied by some pretty cheesy music) featured discussion from Producer Masuda Kei on how they took feedback from both their Facebook page and forums to make this next entry the best it can be. New concepts such as Player ID and Full Ball Control make an appearance, with the former giving specific high-profile players extra treatment when it comes to capturing their unique movement and and technique styles. The video showed how they’ve captured Ronaldo’s distinctive style, and will provide that extra level of detail that fans will love. Death Touch Dribbling allows for new passing types such as low/fast and high/slow, and the Dynamic First Touch system allows players to flick the ball over opponents’ heads or even volley while the ball is in air, all in the attempt to keep the action flowing as seamlessly as possible. Konami have also focused on the defensive gameplay, providing more options for the player, as well as choices over tackling if you’re after intentionally fouling your opponents. The AI will be better balanced with improved response to the position of the ball, and the keeper will have new animations. To wrap things up, Konami discussed with MyPES playform which provides an out of the game experience where players can check stats among other features. A downloadable demo was also announced, and even Cristiano Ronaldo appeared via video, and in a summary, He likes it, you should too!
The next segment gave a good look at how the Zone Of The Enders HD collection is shaping up, showing how the HD treatment can improve a title, especially when it comes to the small details and decals which Hideo Kojima made specific mention to, as they’ve had to restore and update many of the assets for HD. Comparison images were shown to showcase the difference in quality, showing that they’re really putting in the effort to the update. Discussing the original inspiration for the title, Hideo mentioned that he really wanted to allow gamers to play a smooth, fast and graceful robot anime title, as opposed to the slow and clunky movement that is often associated with them. A new trailer/introduction animated cinematic has been produced by Sunrise and is available to view over at Konami’s official website as well as their YouTube channel.
As fans will definitely be aware, this year marks the 25th Anniversary of the Metal Gear series, born from Hideo’s concept to design something completely new and unique, focusing on stealth and avoidance of combat at the time when side-scrolling shooters were all the rage. He discussed the evolution of the series, the technological and gameplay enhancements, and the fact that games are slowly becoming more recognised as an art form, with mention of the recent exhibition at the Smithsonain entitled ‘The Art of the Video Game’ which featured his work. After mentioning that the fans are what keeps him going, he stated that we’ll be seeing more from the new FOX Engine shortly in relation to his next project. The HD Collection will be released for the Vita later this year, and the 3DS version of Snake Eater will be released in all territories soon.
Jumping, slashing and lots of blood were up next in a new trailer for Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, focusing on the story of Raiden and his loss of innocence when fighting in a civil war as a child and his dark past to which he is haunted with guilt. As expected, over the top violence was present, though one particular scene which showed an enemy slowly cutting the underside of a character’s shin was very nasty. Lots of gameplay was shown, providing a look at the fast and furious pace which is a far cry from previous Metal Gear titles, though not completely unexpected since it’s coming from Platinum Games who were on hand to proclaim that they make the best action games on the market. Honestly it’s quite hard to disagree as the in-game action looks very enjoyable, complete with many set pieces and slicey goodness. A possible new feature which showed Raiden scanning the environment (ala Crysis 2) was shown in the trailer, though it’s hard to gauge how much this will impact the gameplay. Physics come into play as you can cut through many objects in the environment, providing situations where you can use it against your enemies. Along with the new hashtag #makeitright, an early 2013 release date was revealed.
In this extended look at the title, Raiden’s backstory and reason for his focus in Revengeance was discussed. Yuji Korekado, Creative Producer at Kojima Studios made mention to the fact that previously gamers had only been able to watch Raiden in these intense action scenes, and it was time for them to be able to experience the action for themselves Atsushi Inaba, Producer at Platinum Games discussed their portfolio and their best of class action titles, and Kenji Sato, Game Director at Platinum Games discussed the core gameplay concepts of both fast paced slashing and the slower paced full control of the weapons that gamers are given. Etsu Tamari, Writer at Kojima Studio, mentioned how the battles are not only combat scenarios, but also a collision of character’s faith with Raiden. It’s not just about the combat, as both dashing and fast paced movement allows Raiden to get around the environment easily to attack from all angles. There’ll be more than just Katanas on hand to fight with with a variety of other weapons shown. The game will be playable at Konami’s E3 booth, and an advanced demo will come with ZOE HD, to be released later on PSN and XBL.
A new Mega 64 video was shown, and featured Raiden at an umemployment office where different types of work were recommended to him, complete with a pretty amusing mix of scenarios which saw him cutting cake at a birthday party, plumbing and working as a chef.
The conference was wrapped up by some surprises, including an announcement trailer for Castlevania Lords Of Shadows 2, as well as a mystery 3DS title which told us to ‘look into the mirror’ on June 5th. There’ll be more news on their website during the week, so expect to see more from these titles and more at this year’s E3.
That’s all Konami had to show this year, and they managed to pack quite a lot into the 30 minute show. They primarily played to the fans, and arguably it was more updates as opposed to announcements, but it’s certainly an improvement over a certain previous conference they did.
E3 2012 officially kicks off next week with the Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft and Sony press conferences on June 4th, with Nintendo following on the 5th. Keep an eye on our twitter @PushStartMedia for the latest updates, and check the site on Monday and Tuesday for the live streams.