SDCC 2013: Konami Games Roundup
It’s the first official day of the best gathering of geeks all year. Derek, Juan, and I were invited up to the Konami Gaming Lounge at the Westin. We met up with Robert the ruff and grumble (and awesome) driver at noon today. Once inside the lounge, we were greeted by the team at Konami and shown the setup. We got our hands on the three games present: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Pro Evo Soccer 2014 and the much anticipated (and just released) Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection.
Derek and I grabbed a beer and went upstairs to the MGS room, while Juan hit up Castlevania on the PS3. Metal Gear Collection certainly has all the MGS Games a fan would want: pretty much all of them. We sat down with some new friends and got the rundown. All the games but MGS 4 are on the same disk, with MGS 1 and the VR missions being PSN downloads. The collection also includes two digital graphic novels that were originally on the PSP, and have all updated with glorious motion graphics. The collection also includes an amazing 100-page art book that chronicles the history of MGS art.
After that we headed downstairs and caught up with Juan. He had been playing Castlevania and only had good things to say, so I then hopped on the PC version and played through the demo. The PC version looks a lot better than the PS3 version that was there. The edges were much sharper and it played much more smoothly. The game controls are very tight, it felt very DMC/ God of War but that isn’t a bad thing. The two set pieces we had available had awesome atmosphere and the mood was perfect.
The last game we got our hands on was Pro Evo Soccer 2014. The game was far from done, with a late fall anticipated release date. The graphics weren’t yet complete, but the player models were great. The game physics were extremely fluid and everything felt very real. The juggling and crossovers were intuitive and it felt as if they added a lot of depth to this year’s edition of the game. The only weird thing was that when we were playing it, the players in the background were getting into fights or getting red carded all over the place. Nothing of our doing was causing these incidents. We would suddenly be presented with a replay of a bad kick to the face that occurred on practically the opposite side of the pitch. The funniest moment was when two of my team mates did synchronous bicycle kicks into the chest of one of Derek’s team all Mortal Kombat style.
The presence Konami has at SDCC is very strong, their upcoming lineup is fantastic and everything we played was very enjoyable. Be sure to check them out on the floor right accross from the Geekscape booth row 3900!
