I fancy myself a bit of a gamer. Here on our world tour, I\u2019ve allowed myself a PS Vita as my luxury item. It\u2019s helped feed the addiction in between sight-seeing and eating\/drinking. I check the game sights every few days to keep up with the latest news, releases and reviews. But in my most significant Geek Out moment of the journey, I tuned into the live stream of Sony\u2019s and Nintendo\u2019s E3 press conference and watched replays of Microsoft\u2019s and a handful of game developers. Along with getting excited about several games I won\u2019t be able to play until returning to the states\u2026and a few I can play on the Vita while on the road\u2026I was left with strong impressions of the serious themes addressed by the more popular (and promising) games. What follows is a brief summary of sorts of the games and tech developments that grabbed my attention.<\/p>\n
1. Beyond: Two Souls<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 Developer Quantic Dreams, the geniuses behind the 2010 genre creating\/bending hit Heavy Rain<\/em><\/a>, returns with what appears to be another narrative-driven game, but one that contains much more action. David Cage\u2019s address revealed that Beyond<\/em> will address life after death and the connection that it\u2019s lead heroine, Jodie Holmes, played and voiced by Ellen Page, has with it. The religious\/spiritual\/theological connections are readily apparent. In a genre built on death, it\u2019s interesting to see another game daring to imagine, and pushing us to imagine, what follows\u2026aside from pressing restart.<\/p>\n 2. Watch Dogs<\/em><\/a>. Ubisoft is bringing the heat this year with multiple must-play sequels (see below). They\u2019re releasing a new IP later this year called Watch Dogs<\/em>. It\u2019s an open world game in the style of GTA<\/em> or Infamous<\/em>. However, in this case, the city itself, or more specifically put, Aiden Pierce\u2019s (lead character) control of it, is the weapon. In the not-too-distant future setting of the game, everything is connected under one Central Operating System. Fears of loss of control, hacking, spying, etc. are at play here. Other games give us Divine control, but this time around, Watch Dogs<\/em> lets us take control of Big Brother.<\/p>\n 3. Assassin\u2019s Creed III<\/a> <\/em>and Assassin\u2019s Creed: Liberation<\/em><\/a>. Ubisoft\u2019s award-winning, action-packed assassin\u2019s take on world history has drawn heavily on religion (the Knights Templars, Christianity, and Islam), morality, and ethics. Of course the very basic questions have always been centered on who the assassin\u2019s serve, whether they are doing good or evil, and the limits to the knowledge of their missions. In the third installment, we are brought, relatively speaking, into a more recent era, the American Revolution. It will be interesting to see how religion (and politics) function in the narrative and who our new assassin will be \u201cforced\u201d to kill. Liberation<\/em> is a completely separate take on the Revolution and features the series\u2019 first female assassin.<\/p>\n 4. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2<\/em><\/a> and Medal of Honor: Warfighter<\/em><\/a>. Of course, the requisite war games were on display at E3. A central theme of the first look into Black Ops 2<\/em> is drone warfare (advances in warfare technology) and the threat of the enemy taking the keys. It\u2019ll be interesting to see the role and portrayal of U.S. forces in another imaginary conflict. It seems that Medal of Honor <\/em>is turning its attention to global special forces and basing the events on real-world battles. Again, what will be the U.S. role and how will gamers be able to re-enact it?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n 5. The Last of Us<\/em><\/a>. Few things (entertainment-wise) get me as fired up as a good post-apocalyptic narrative. There\u2019s not much info on the story behind The Last of Us<\/em>, but if the setting\u2019s any indication, some massively destructive event has taken place. The game follows two characters Joel and Ellie, a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. Trailers have revealed human dmore monstrous \u201cenemies,\u201d but the E3 gameplay footage revealed an intimate, brutal level of violence that makes one of its lead characters a force to be feared as well. It will be interesting to learn what \u201cthey\u201d are the last of and what or who \u201cthey\u201d are surviving.<\/p>\n 6. The Playstation Network\u2019s commitment to indie games. There was, albeit brief, attention paid to the indie games on offer through the PSN later this year. While gamers can enjoy indie games in a variety of networks, many of them on PSN are more lengthy, substantial experiences whose artistic design frequently enhance rich emotional and thought-provoking experiences.<\/p>\n 7. Tech Changes. There are some minor and major hardware changes that are interesting. The PS Vita\/PS3 connection is an attempt at making gameplay even more ubiquitous and constant. If you\u2019re playing on the PS3 and need to leave the house, you can keep playing on the PS Vita. While it\u2019s been used almost solely on sports games so far, it could be interesting to see what developers could do with more narrative-driven gameplay. PlayStation also unveiled their new Wonderbook<\/a>, a large piece of Augmented Reality hardware that is set to make reading a more visual and immersive experience. I\u2019m really skeptical of this, but it is getting at something that I think the Kindle and iPads are missing out on. Will it enhance or distract from reading? Based on the presentation at E3, I\u2019m unfortunately leaning toward the latter.<\/p>\n The Nintendo Wii U<\/a> is also building on the \u201calways connected\u201d theme. They are continuing to push gameplay innovation with a completely new controller (don\u2019t even <\/em>compare it to the Dreamcast controller!). Nintendo President and Chief Operating Office Reggie Fils-Aime<\/a>, who always sounds like he\u2019s on the verge of curing cancer, had this to say about the new platform: \u201cThe new controller and gameplay will change your life. [\u2026] It\u2019s the tool of together. Family\u2019s distracted by their personal devices will be brought together. [\u2026] The promise of Wii U is simple. Together is better.\u201d If you didn\u2019t know that he was talking about a video game controller, you could have easily thought it was something much more meaningful like faith.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I fancy myself a bit of a gamer. Here on our world tour, I\u2019ve allowed myself a PS Vita as my luxury item. It\u2019s helped feed the addiction in between sight-seeing and eating\/drinking. I check the game sights every few days to keep up with the latest news, releases and reviews. But in my most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":2749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-video-games"],"yoast_head":"\n