PS3 in motion

Sony gives the GDC a real-time glimpse at four upcoming games

Words: Mikel Reparaz on March 23, 2006

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Sony big-wig Phil Harrison's keynote speech at the Game Developers Conference on Wednesday was focused mainly on Sony's hardware and online initiative, but all that stuff is meaningless without games to back it up. Fortunately, several developers took the stage during the keynote to finally give us a glimpse of what the PS3 really looks like in motion - and for the record, it looks awesome.

Some of these presentations were strictly tech demos, albeit cool-looking ones - the first featured hundreds of fully detailed men being hurled like rag dolls across a vast, hilly plain by invisible, user-controlled explosions. (Here's to hoping it gets released as a downloadable game over Sony's online service - it looked fun.) Another showed a realistic-looking car - modeled down to the tiniest detail - which was then torn apart by a spray of bullets that sent tiny parts flying and left 3D holes in the metal.

A few actual games were shown as well, the most impressive being off-road racer MotorStorm. There wasn't much to it, just a dune buggy and a dirt bike tearing ass around what looked like Death Valley, but the developers seemed awfully proud of the mud. As they swerved around, the vehicles cut deep, 3D-modeled tracks into the dirt, which then hardened and acted like speedbumps. They then showed how the mud trips up smaller vehicles, driving around a dirt bike that repeatedly got stuck in the mud and sprayed filth all over a pristine white trailer bearing the game's logo.