Konami E3 Press Conference

By Allison Bates

Though Konami’s E3 2010 press conference was quite lengthy, and it covered many games in enough genres to keep any gamer, casual or hardcore, interested in what they had to say.

One of the major areas in which they presented games at this year’s E3 was the music genre. With games like Def Jam Rapstar, which features a massive hip-hop playlist and social media sharing options, to a new Glee-themed Karaoke Revolution game, Konami seems set on helping gamers validate singing along with their favorite records with the help of their trusty gaming consoles. If you like your music games a bit more involving, however, the company is also bringing out Dance Masters, a title for the Xbox 360 Kinect that has people dancing to match the actions of an on-screen dancer to a variety of music genres.

Konami also had some sequels to previous successes on display, including Ninety-Nine Nights II, Saw II: Flesh and Blood, and a new Silent Hill title. Ninety-Nine Nights II, an action game for the Xbox 360 with a June 29^th release, appears to stick to the precedent set by its sequel by giving gamers a massive amount of foes and letting them hack them up. On Halloween, gamers will also be able to play the new Saw game, Saw II: Flesh and Blood, which promises to build upon the first game with such things as new traps and minigames, because when people think Saw, the first thing they think of is minigames. Rather than sticking close to the path set by its recent predecessors, the 8^th game in the Silent Hill series is said to return to the start of the series. From the trailer shown, it appeared to be quite creepy, and developer Vatra games is primed to present a proper Silent Hill experience.

Sequels, however, were not the only thing that Konami had to show, with new properties in the form of AAA Lucha Libre: Heroes del Ring, Otomedius: Excellent, and Never Dead. AAA Lucha Libre: Heroes del Ring is a Mexican wrestling title that appears to feature very fast paced fighting with a lot of personality, while Otomedius: Excellent will be the first entry in the US market for the Touhou-esque shoot-‘em-up series. Never Dead, an action game for the Xbox 360 and PS3, also appears to be an impressive game, featuring a demon-killing protagonist so unkillable that even a decapitation doesn’t faze him.

Konami took a moment to allow Hudson Entertainment to display a few new titles, too. Hudson started their display with Beyblade: Metal Fusion, an update of the Beyblade franchise for Wii and DS that appears to be very similar to previous games in the series. Two new games in the Deca Sports series were also announced, including Deca Sports 3, which finally introduces logging to the series, and Deca Sports Freedom for the Kinect. The last game of their segment of the conference, however, came in the form of the creative Lost in Shadow, a new platforming game about a shadow trying to reunite with the person it became separated from through a series of light related puzzles.

Another thing which Konami seemed set on imparting to the crowd was their dedication to providing software for new technology. In order to bring this across, they introduced Adrenalin Misfits, an extreme sports title for the Microsoft Kinect that features such sports as snowboarding, and declared that they were developing new version of Contra, Frogger, and Metal Gear for the 3DS.

Like most developers, Konami saved their biggest titles for the end of their press conference with details on new Metal Gear and Castlevania games. Though they showed the same fast-paced, dismemberment-filled trailer for Metal Gear: Rising that had been on display earlier in E3, they discussed the game more in-depth, including details on Raiden’s new ability to eat the batteries out of cyborgs and mechs in order to steal their powers. Details were also given on Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, an Xbox Live Arcade title set to include popular characters from several different games in the series and come out this summer, and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, a new 3D Castlevania title developed by Mercury Steam.

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