Sony's new handheld gaming platform will be heavy on big franchises but light on new ideas when it debuts at the E3 Expo next week.
Wired.com tested the new device, codenamed NGP for "next-generation portable," at an E3 preview event last month in Santa Monica, California. Boasting an array of
high-tech features centered on a gorgeous 5-inch OLED display, the NGP is the Rolls-Royce of pocket game machines. Then again, many players are deciding they'd rather have the Honda Civic of game machines, which is why Sony is investing heavily in
PlayStation-branded cellphones and tablets.
With NGP, the company is going after the hard-core crowd that demands something like a tiny PlayStation 3 in their pocket. To that end, Sony is leading with a version of Uncharted, its blockbuster cinematic action game franchise, as well as other proven sellers like Wipeout and Hot Shots Golf for NGP.
A surprisingly inventive music game from the creator of
Everyday Shooter showed the most promise, but none of the demos felt truly new. While there were certainly some intriguing ideas on display, Sony's NGP lineup felt more like style over substance.
Here are Wired.com's impressions of the games we tried out.
Above:
Uncharted: Golden Abyss
To drive home the point that NGP is like a game console that goes with you, what could be better than Sony's bombastic summer-blockbuster
action game series, Uncharted? In the continuing adventures of tomb raider Nathan Drake, he'll shoot it out with angry rivals and climb into, on and around ancient ruins in his quest for buried treasure.
In Uncharted: Golden Abyss, a great deal of that will be done through the NGP's two touch interfaces, one on the OLED screen and one on the reverse of the unit. The demo included lots of touching. Things kicked off with a fistfight in which fist and arrow icons appeared on the screen, and I could tap the screen to punch an enemy or swipe upward to kick him in the crotch.
Once that was over, it was time to explore. I could drag my finger across a set of bars to climb over them; swipe my fingers on the rear touchpad to hoist Nathan up over a rock wall; tilt the system to swing on a rope; swipe upward to vault over rocks; and on and on.
None of this was strictly necessary, which is good, since touch controls that stand in for simple button-presses aren't really the way to do touchpad gaming. Golden Abyss has been designed so that everything you can do with touch you can also do with the NGP's joysticks and buttons. Uncharted is graphically impressive and plays well, but the touch controls as demonstrated didn't add anything.
