Sony at E3 2011: beyond PlayStation Vita

E3 2011: Kobe Bryant (right) plays the NBA 2K11 game with a Sony PlayStation Move controller. Photograph: Chris Pizzello/AP

It was surely the right decision. Sony opened its E3 press conference with an apology for the recent PSN outage, delivered by Jack Tretton, head honcho at Sony Computer Entertainment America. He told a packed audience at the Memorial Sports Stadium, "My friends in the media tell me that nothing makes their editors more happy than controversy and bad news. So to all our esteemed members of the press I say, you're welcome." He went on to specifically thank third-party publishers for their support, before telling PlayStation fans, "You are the lifeblood of the company. Without you, there is no PlayStation. I want to apologise both personally and on behalf of the company […] We have been humbled and amazed by the amount of dedication and support you continue to give. Network activity is currently at over 90% of the original level before the Network outage. That is something we do not take lightly."

It was frank and funny, and it meant that the company would then have a gargantuan two hours to seduce us into forgetting the whole sorry business with a mass of demos and announcements.

And while Microsoft's event seemed like one long drawn-out advert for Kinect, Sony's was an assault on many fronts, taking in 3D, the PlayStation Move controller and of course, PlayStation Vita, the new name for the Sony NGP. The key theme was connectivity. "PS3 is the most connected digital device available today," said Tretton before announcing a string of cross-platform titles, such as futuristic racer Wipeout 2048, which will allow Vita owners to compete against PS3 players, and the fascinating action RPG, Ruin, which comes on both Vita and PS3 and features cloud-based game saves, allowing purchasers to play on the move, then take up their game at exactly the same point when they arrive at home and boot up their PlayStation console.

Equally intriguing was Dust 514, a persistent online first-person shooter from CCP, the creator of the space-based massively multiplayer PC game, Eve Online. It seems that somehow, Dust 514, which involves planetary combat against a range sci-fi enemies and craft, will inhabit the Eve universe, with the actions of Dust players having a direct bearing on the wider PC title. It's not yet clear precisely how this will work in practice, but you can read CCP's developer blog about the game here and you'll find a good description at the Official PlayStation Blog. Dust 514 is due out next spring.

Naturally, Uncharted was a vital element of the show, with the third title in the PlayStation 3 series as well as the wonderfully promising Uncharted: Golden Abyss on Vita. Developer Naughty Dog showed off a new level of Uncharted 3 set aboard an abandoned ocean liner. Nathan is seen running along decks, swaying and staggering as gigantic waves lash the vessel. He ventures inside and quietly takes out several bad guys in an opulent ballroom, before venturing into a lower deck car park, where he finishes off one enemy, by punching him a couple of times, then pulling the pin from one of his grenades, blowing him sky high. At the same time, gallons of visually impressive seawater is bursting in through lower levels, prompting a couple of swimming sequences. It's exciting and graphically lush, with moments of genuine tension, as Drake gets caught underwater lodged beneath heavy objects. A multiplayer beta will apparently begin on 28 June, with the game arriving on 11 November. We also saw a new story trailer.

There was new footage, too, of Resistance 3, the latest title in the historically-set sci-fi FPS series in which Earth is invaded by parasitic aliens known as Chimera. The action is set in August 1957, four years after Resistance 2. Earth has fallen to the invaders, and the player must now travel across the country from Oklahoma, gathering ragtag groups of survivors into one last resistance force. The level we see takes place in a battered St Louis, where a group known as the Remnants has attempted an ambush of a Chimera convoy. There's a pitched battle amid the burnt-out buses and cars littering the shelled streets, with an enormous skyscraper-sized Chimera beast wandering about, stabbing at the player with its insect-like limbs. The game is set to support both PlayStation Move and 3D, and it will launch with a special 'Doomsday' edition including the new gun-like 'Sharpshooter' peripheral, a Move controller and a PlayStation Camera, all for $150. No word on a European release for that package though. Resistance 3 is out on 6 September.

On the subject of Move, there were a couple of announcements for Sony's motion controller. Forthcoming basketball sim NBA 2K12 is set to feature a special Move-powered mode which lets gamers use an onscreen cursor to point and click on players as well as using simple pass and shoot buttons to direct the action. The idea is to create an intuitive version of the sim for non-gamers. The company also revealed a Move-powered action RPG titled Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest, which employs Move inputs for all of the weapons (including a sword, throwing stars and a long bow). Looking like a sort of first-person version of Zelda, the game also features environmental puzzles, and a nice, cartoon-esque visual style. It's due out in the autumn.

The other big story was 3D. As well as showing several 3D-enhanced titles, Sony revealed that it will be launching a budget-friendly PlayStation-branded 3D monitor and a pair of cheap active 3D glasses in September. The 24-inch display seems to be aimed at students and teenagers, and together with the glasses offers an absolutely inspired feature: it allows two-players to view different images on the same screen, effectively creating a new form of 'splitscreen' multiplayer, in which both participants get a fullscreen version of the game action. The gadgets can be bought together in a bundle for $499, which will probably translate to about £499. They're both arriving later this year.

Elsewhere, Sony revealed Starhawk, a multiplayer combat game from the makers of early PlayStation Network hit, Warhawk. The action appears to revolve around interstellar colonists fighting it out for territory on an alien planet. There are cyborg cowboys, robots that transform into jet planes and dune buggies.

There were also a few retro announcements, including God of War Origins, which combines the PSP games, Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta, into one PS3 package and remasters both in high definition and 3D. Also ready to be covered in HD and 3D magic dust are the long-awaited remakes of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. All are due in September.

On the subject of Team Ico, the biggest disappointment was the lack of a Last Guardian announcement. The hugely anticipated adventure is almost certain to be a no-show at E3 this year, despite appearing on almost every list of most-anticipated titles.

But this was a busy, breathless and very long event, with some interesting new concepts and fresh attempts to interest the world in Move and in 3D. A major irony was the emphasis on community, especially in relation to Vita and its many social gaming features. Having just tested the loyalty of its PlayStation Network users to the limits, the company now wants us to spend more time in its virtual realm. It has a lot of confidence-building to do, before beginning to seed this experience later in the year. Tretton joked about the PSN controversy, but unless the company's digital infrastructure is completely secure, hackers will no doubt have the last laugh.

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MWC 2011: LG unveils new Optimus 3D handset

LG's Optimus 3D handset which does not require special glasses to see the stereoscopic effect. Photograph: LG

LG has unveiled its Optimus 3D handset at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The smartphone features a 4.3-inch 3D-capable touchscreen that uses parallax barrier technology, which means that, like Nintendo's forthcoming 3DS console, it does not require the user to wear special glasses to see the stereoscopic effect. Also like the 3DS, the device has a slider which turns the 3D effect down – or off completely.

The addition of two 5mp cameras will allow owners to record video footage in 3D. According to CNET, the device can record 3D video at a resolution of 720p, while standard 2D films output at 1080p. An HDMI connection means users can view their footage on a TV – 3D films can also be uploaded directly to a dedicated 3D YouTube channel. The mind, quite frankly, boggles.

Powering the Google Android device is a dual-core Omap4430 chipset, by Texas Instruments, based around the latest ARM Cortex A9 instruction set and a PowerVR SGX540 graphics accelerator – the same technology that is driving Sony's NGP games console.

Early responses from the MWC showfloor have been favourable but there have been some reservations. Tech Radar stated:

There was a real depth to the images, to which the size of the screen also lent itself. We can't imagine 3D content on a smaller screen would be worth using. The background may have been spectacular, but the foreground was a little bit trickier. There's a definite sweet spot directly in front the face and if you mediate from here you end up with quite a bit of fuzz and loss of the 3D effect.

In terms of game support, the Optimus 3D will ship with three pre-installed titles from Gameloft: Let's Golf 2, Asphalt Origins and Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance.

But LG did not have the 3D scene to itself today. Qualcomm has also announced its new quad-core Snapdragon APQ8064 chipset, "for next generation tablets and computing devices". The technology is designed to achieve speeds of up to 2.5GHz per core, while minimising power consumption. It will also support HD gaming and stereoscopic 3D photo and video capture, and will output in full HD to 1080P displays via HDMI.

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Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D – review

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D ... it's a kind of magic

Ocarina of Time is a game about curiosity and the joy of discovery. It's not simply a role-playing game that includes a bit of exploration, it is a game that asks you to remember – as Miyamoto famously does – what it was like when you were a kid and your neighbourhood was a place of wonder and mystery, and there was something interesting around every corner. The land of Hyrule can still take you back there if you let it.

But you could, of course say, well, this is Ocarina of Time – again. Another nostalgic re-release for an industry suffocating under the weight of technical demands and budgetary heft. But it is also the perfect reminder, in an era of relentlessly governed, ruthlessly prescriptive corridor shooters that there is something profoundly right about giving players a world to explore, a few hints and tips on its rules and the freedom to go out there and get hopelessly lost.

The story, of course, is still the guiding line – with young hero Link charged by Princess Zelda to see off the threat of the evil Ganondorf. But there are multiple side-quests, some that you just discover, others handed to you by the cast of idiosyncratic characters (I think these challenges represent a child's view of adult-imposed chores – at once filled with import but also mystifying and irrelevant). Everything has to be discovered, everything spins out from the hub world that is Hyrule field, a vast meadow that represents the game's and the player's imagination.

And the sense of exploration is layered in on itself. It matters what time you get somewhere (thanks to a simple but vital day and night system), and there are the masks that can be loaned from a shop in the market and worn to elicit new responses from characters. How these systems sit on top of each other without becoming unfathomably complex and repetitive only Nintendo knows.

The controls, once so carefully mapped to the N64's unique controller, have been expertly converted to the handheld console. Players are still able to assign items and weapons to any button they like, but it's also possible to access your entire inventory – as well as the camera controls – from the touchscreen, so there are multiple set-ups available. Aiming the bow or catapult is achieved with the left trigger, though you can also opt to use the motion controls, moving the 3DS itself to aim, which is remarkably intuitive.

In the midst of combat, I sometimes found it difficult using the small 3DS analogue controller to leap and strafe, while aiming and intermittently protecting myself with the shield (using the right trigger) – everything's so bunched up on the device, as opposed to the comparatively enormous N64 pad. But, of course, another beauty of Zelda is its generosity; for the first few hours enemies are pretty soft and there are always plentiful heart symbols to replenish your health. This is not Demon's Souls.

Visually, Nintendo has pulled off a clever trick here – the game resembles your memory of Zelda on the N64, but it has been enhanced to match modern standards of clarity and resolution. It retains the cartoonish impressionism and the slightly drained patina, but the textures are more complex and many subtle effects have been tweaked. It does not look as good as, say, Kid Icarus promises too, but that is part of its charm: playing Ocarina of Time feels like nostalgic reverie, and the iconic visuals play into that.

The 3D capabilities of the device don't add much of practical use to the game, though they do help to enrich the sense of immersion in certain locations. Hyrule field, for example, becomes a much more impressive expanse, while set-piece locations like the Spirit Temple are lent an architectural grandeur that the small screen would normal detract from. The animated sections, though, benefit most obviously – the lovely legend sequence, which shows the three goddesses leaving the Triforce behind, is a sumptuous, almost psychedelic, firework display of falling comets and expanding star fields that comes alive again in three dimensions.

The thing is, and this is way off-message as far as Nintendo is concerned, it doesn't matter. Zelda is Zelda. The important element, alongside the textural updates, is the transportation to a handheld console. The pleasure is the same as the original handheld Zelda: Link's Awakening way back on the Game Boy. It means the vast game can go everywhere with you; it means you can curl up with it in some shabby old armchair, preferably in front of an open fire.

There's something to be said about experiencing a game on its original platform, with its original interface – but Ocarina of Time on the 3DS is exactly the right way to update a treasured game, and it makes one of the fundamental achievements of this industry available to millions of people who never saw the original and aren't prepared to hit eBay for an N64.

Because be in no doubt, Ocarina of Time is one of those rare works of art that transcends taste and simply is great. It should be a set text on every game design course on the planet. It should be shown to every studio that thinks the term "cinematic" is somehow exactly synonymous with "linear" – indeed, it should be shown to every studio that thinks "cinematic" is the loftiest aim of interactive entertainment.

It isn't. The aim is to construct a world – however mannered, however repetitive and surreal – and make it worth exploring. All games should be about curiosity and surprise; it's not just violence and lulz that make Rockstar's titles so successful. The likes of Red Dead and GTA (alongside the works of Valve, I think) are the true western heirs to the Zelda hegemony. I wonder how Skyward Sword will fair in this context? I wonder how anything will ever better Ocarina of Time in its small but vital corner of this bloated industry.

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EA's Frank Gibeau: PS4 and Xbox One will revitalise console gaming

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Sony PlayStation phone to launch in March

The Xperia PLAY handset: 3D gaming, PlayStation controller, 50 titles from launch. Photograph: Manu Fernandez/AP

Sony Ericsson has announced that its PlayStation-branded Xperia PLAY handset will be launched worldwide in March. As expected, the Google Android device features a four-inch multitouch screen and a slide out PlayStation-style controller which boasts a d-pad, two analogue touch pads, two shoulder buttons and the iconic PlayStation circle, cross, square and triangle buttons.

According to Sony Ericsson's 'gaming ambassador', Jonas Berg, the controller is designed to free up the display for game viewing, so that players don't need to use an onscreen 'virtual joypad'. "When playing games on a smartphone device, you're actually covering up part of the experience... we've added the next layer of gaming," he explained. A built-in accelerometer also allows for motion controls.

The Xperia PLAY uses the Gingerbread (version 2.3) of Android. The 1Ghz CPU architecture is based around Qualcomm's high-end Snapdragon chipset, together with an embedded Adreno GPU graphics processor. In a press release sent out tonight, Sony claimed the device would be capable of, "silky smooth 60fps 3D mobile gaming". It will be the first Google Android handset to comply with Sony's PlayStation certification scheme, which means it will have access to a range of classic PlayStation titles. The PlayStation Suite programme, will launch later this year.

The phone and its game development environment are apparently the result of close collaboration between Sony Ericsson, Sony Computer Entertainment and several of the games industry's leading publishers. Electronic Arts has Xperia PLAY-enhanced versions of Sims 3, Need for Speed and FIFA 10 on the way, the latter with online multiplayer – a first for the mobile version of the series. Elsewhere, Ubisoft will be bringing Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell, while Namco Bandai apparently has Tekken ready and Activision ironically opens its PLAY account with the recently axed Guitar Hero. Mobile gaming specialists Digital Chocolate, Gameloft, Glu and Fishlabs are also onboard. It is reported that 50 titles will be available for the release of the phone – they will be downloadable from the Android Market. Several games will also be embedded on the device at launch.

The handset will also support the widely-used Unity games development platform, which has been heavily used by iOS developers to bring fast 3D visuals to handheld platforms.

Importantly, the battery will allow for up to five hours and 35 minutes of 3D gaming time, according to Sony's own calculations – a better figure than some pundits expected and comparable with the iPhone 4 (though that has recorded up to six and a half hours on minimum settings). The Snapdragon processor uses ARM's v7 instruction set, used throughout the mobile sector and designed for high performance at low power consumption. ARM technology is also used in Sony's recently announced NGP handheld games console.

As for networks, all five of the majors – Orange, T-Mobile, O2, 3 and Vodafone – will carry the handset in the UK.

Sony Ericsson has produced a range of videos to support the launch. They can be found on the manufacturer's YouTube channel.

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Press Start: Press Start: Rockstar talks of Bully sequel, Nvidia dismisses consoles, and more

Dan Houser would like to make a sequel, but not set in the GTA universe

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