Yesterday, my son and I, had the privilege of attending the GDC PS Blog meet up and it was incredible. Eager to check out the fine PlayStation wares, we arrived about 90 minutes early. Eventually Jeff Rubenstein and the PS Blog committee greeted and welcomed us in.
The doors opened at 7:00 PM and we were the first through the door. Everyone received a Killzone 2 t-shirt. If you had your PSP with you, you were assigned to a team number for later events.
The latest version of PixelJunk Eden Encore was set-up and ready for play on countless numbers of HD TVs.
My son and I both tried out the new levels that Eden Encore brings, and it’s definitely a fun game that expands on the addictive gameplay. All of the new levels for Eden Encore were available, and I tried my hand at more than a few. I only failed once, so I felt pretty good about myself. If you have ever played the game and enjoyed it, Eden Encore should be on your list of must haves.
There was a representative from Naughty Dog, Titan Studios (Fat Princess) and Resistance Retribution in the house.
I had a great discussion with the lead designer of Fat Princess about implementing remote play into the game for the PSP and he was very open to the idea. The control scheme for the game only uses the left analog stick and the buttons, so it’s very possible for an easy transition to the PSP via remote play. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for that.
After about 20 minutes of gaming and chatting, Jeff announced that there were door prizes and a Resistance Retribution deathmatch competition. The door prizes were a Naughty Dog t-shirt, a Silver Jak & Dax PSP bundle, an autographed litho of the Uncharted 2 Game Informer cover, and a few other items.
Sadly, my numbers never came up for any of the door prizes. I had to lay all my hopes of walking out there with some extra cool swag on my son and the Resistance Retribution Deathmatch competition.
He came in 2nd in the first round and that qualified him for the main event. He hadn’t played the game before but he’s a quick learner, so the 1st round was a good warm-up for him.
While waiting for the other rounds to finish, Fat Princess was booted up on all of the PS3s in the lounge and one huge LAN party was launched. I took some video with of the actual game play.
I played several rounds of the game myself, and it is clearly on my pre-order list. The game play is fast paced and can seem complex. Chopping down trees to help build your stations (and trying not to get killed at the same time) added another dimension to an already jam packed game. Deaths seemed to always be bloody, with body parts flying everywhere. The game uses different types of characters that have different tasks, and I really needed more than just 20 minutes to really get to know the game. There will be a demo released before the game is actually released, but the rep couldn’t give a solid date for that.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxWNSbwY7M4[/youtube]
At one point, Jeff Rubenstein broke out his personal PS3 from a back room and went head to head in Street Fighter IV with a rep from HipHopGamerShow.com and owned the poor guy. To give the guy some credit though, he did actually knock Jeff out once, so it wasn’t a total domination. The number of people crowding around the couch to watch was unbelievable. I’m sure they will be actual footage of the fight leaked as there were several video cameras taking in the action. Since the HipHopGamer lost though, their footage may end up on the cutting room floor.
As 9:00 PM quickly approached, the main event for the RR deathmatch contest was announced and all of the players went out to get their game on.
My son (916bandit) did quite well here is a screen shot of the final score from my PSP.
When the smoke cleared and the weapons were laid down, my son walked away victorious! He only won by 4 points. That is less than 1 kill. Assists give you 2 points while kills give you 10. I knew he was near the top, and I had to walk away when the final countdown from 10 seconds began.
We may not have won any of the great door prizes, but thanks to my son’s awesome gaming skills, we drove back to Sacramento with a brand new PS3 in the back seat and a free copy of Resistance Retribution!
If you ever have an opportunity to attend one of these events, by all means, go. A quote from my son on the ride back home, “I would break my arm to attend another one of these events”.
