E3 Konami – New Silent Hill, Never Dead, and…Castlevania?

So if you’ve been paying any kind of attention to our E3 topic in the forums, you know there’s a lot of shyte flying around at this year’s E3. Today was Konami’s press conference, of which I was particularly interested in due to the BLOW OUT that was last year’s huge Konami reveal. (Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, if you were taking up residence under a rock)

Much went on in the hour Konami reps took the stage. Def Jam Rapstar and Glee! version of Karaoke Revolution were announced, as well as the newest attempt at reliving DDR’s faded fame, Dance Masters. Ninety-Nine Nights II was dropped and explained by producer Tak Fuji as now sporting co-op, online leaderboard, harder difficulty, and has been upgraded from hack-n-slash to EXTREME hack-n-slash.

The big guns came out with the announcement of the newest Silent Hill game, the 8th in the survival-horror series, along with a trailer.

Looks promising, especially considering they say they’re doing away with the anti-combat from Shattered Memories, though sadly will be the first game without long-time master composer Akira Yamaoka.

New game Never Dead was spoiled, revealing the concept of a game where the protagonist can never seem to die and can stitch himself back together when injured. Very interesting idea that sounds like could lead to equally interesting gameplay, which thus far looks to have a twist of Devil May Cry thrown into it.

The big disappoint is the lack of anything new from the Castlevania podium regarding last year’s monster-drop, Lords of Shadow. Perhaps this is due to the release date being in the fall and they want to keep the bulk of what’s left to be spoiled until then. The only new info lies with Castlevania: Harmony of Dispair – the Xbox Live Arcade CV game that’s main features are that it’s multiplayer and it’s in HD. (thought reuses sprites from previous games) Series longtime producer Koji Igarashi took the stage briefly (something he didn’t do last year, interestingly enough) to explain the game came about because IGA wanted to “fill an entire HD screen with Castlevania pixel art”. One can only hope that wasn’t his only reason, because this could either be really cool or the final nail in Igarashi’s coffin. (pun intended)

Here’s some gameplay:

There was also some more dropped about Metal Gear Solid: Rising. The game, also revealed last year to be featuring MGS2 protagonist Raiden, will take place between the former game and his appearance in MGS4, explaining how he is the way he is in the later. It will also focus on speed-stealth, rather than Snake’s customary box-n-crouch stealth. So far, everything looks pretty out of this game, which has come to be expected of Mr. Kojima nowadays.