![Uncharted 4 - E3]()
In the eyes of many, Sony won E3 this year. Along with some incredible looking games
Like Horizon,
No Man's Sky and
The Last Guardian. Sony announced the remaking of
Final Fantasy 7, probably the most successful of all of the games in the
Final Fantasy saga, of which there are many incredible games. The crowd lost their minds, and the internet has been alive about it ever since. People are bringing up old screenshots and favourite moments of the game, and everyone who has ever played the original it seems is saving up to pre-order the remake. And then they go on to announce probably their biggest actual gameplay reveal at the end, the latest game in the
Uncharted series. Unfortunately, this reveal didn't go quite as planned.
Anyone watching the show may have been a little confused.
Uncharted is renowned for its cut-scenes being basically indistinguishable from the actual gameplay sections, a fact that has left me on numerous occasions suddenly grabbing for the controller as a brute bursts out from behind some boxes or I'm jumping out of a plane. So when the gameplay demonstration started and Nate stood still for 30 seconds, nobody knew what was going on. Did the game crash? No, because the people were still moving around. Did they load the wrong footage? No, because this was supposed to be a live demo. Then we noticed that the presenter, Bruce Straley, co-director of the game was frantically moving around. Here is the video showing the demonstration, including the awkward pause at the beginning:
[youtube id=1M0ssqKpDUs width="600" height="350"]
In an interview after the presentation, Straley explained what had happened. When he entered onto the stage he was accompanied by a stage hand who was to bring out a stool and controller for the demo. Unfortunately, Straley noticed a conspicuous lack of controller. That was ok, and the display guys held back the video feed for a few seconds after the lights dimmed so he could quickly grab a spare from offstage. He sits down, and you can see the horror on his face as he knows something is wrong.
Nate's supposed to move, I'm supposed to hit the analogue stick and he responds. This is gameplay, this is what happens when you're playing a game. Nothing happened! And then I start moving the camera, and nothing happened! Now my brain's not working, So I grab the backup controller. There is a backup controller unit, and I start moving that, thinking that they are crossed or something, and that one doesn't move."
Luckily the guys in the video control booth figured out what went wrong. The new controllers are linked to the backup PS4 that was supposed to be there in case something went wrong. They can see him moving around on the backup unit, so they switched the signals. That is why the demo restarted from before the cut-scene, and the game performed perfectly after that.
If you have had to do a presentation before, you know how nerve-wrecking it can be. Now imagine respresenting one of the biggest companies in the world at one of the biggest expos in the world, talking to thousands of people live and millions around the world, and your presentation doesn't work. Straley described the event as "Panic. Sheer Panic. Horrifying," and I don't blame him. Thankfully, the presentation spoke for itself, and when they got into the game it was incredible, living up to exactly what we expect from the guys at Naughty Dog. The game looks smooth, and if the rest of the
Uncharted series is anything to go on we should be in for a great game with
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
