Today I caught up with Neil Druckmann and Richard Lemarchand, co-lead game designers of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, to find out more about one of the most asked about games in the comments, and not only did they talk me through the section of gameplay we saw at the SCEA press conference, they showed me a brand new trailer that offers morsels of insight into the game’s storyline.

What came as a surprise is that Chloe Fraser, the female lead in the first game, is back along with Sully and Elena Fisher – a new addition to the series that we heard about some time ago.

The story begins with Drake finding a clue to the location of Marco Polo’s lost fleet. It leads him to the valley of Shangri-La and the possibility of an even greater treasure – the Cintamani Stone, regarded as the Holy Grail of Buddhist mythology that is said to give incredible powers to whoever discovers it. However, a Serbian war criminal called Lazarevic is also searching for it…

As the Jak and Daxter series, also created by Naughty Dog, pursued a darker direction with its sequels, I asked if Uncharted is following a similar path. “We’re exploring darker themes but we don’t want to lose that light-hearted feel,” replied Druckmann. “In the first Uncharted, Drake was kind of thrown into his hero role, but with the sequel we tried to think of what a modern day treasure hunter would be like, who he would associate with and what would motivate him.”

“It gives us the chance to explore different shades of the character,” added Lemarchand. “And the two female characters add to that in the ways that they mirror each other. Chloe has always been a morally upright character whereas Elena is wilder, with more of a thirst for adventure and self-preservation. She is from Drake’s world.”

To bring the characters to life, the actors performed both motion capture and voices, and they acted their scenes on a specialised set as opposed to a sound studio. “It really helps with that off the cuff humour that Uncharted is known for to have Nolan North, the actor behind Nathan Drake, improvising on the set and adding his personality and improvisations,” explained Druckmann.

“I don’t really know why more developers don’t work this way,” Lemarchand added, “but by doing so we feel we aren’t squandering the charisma and talent of our actors. They’re all passionate about the game and their input really helps.”

One of the often mentioned highlights of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was its incredible water physics, so I asked the guys which little details we would all be talking about this time around. “We think we did lush jungle and realistic water really well last time,” said Lemarchand, “and while they’re still there, snow and wind effects have been a big emphasis this time.”

“It’s the little details that you don’t always notice that really immerse the player,” said Druckmann. “For example, in the helicopter gunfight that you saw at the SCEA press conference, the leaves on the trees are actually swaying and rocking in relation to where the chopper is and the rotation of the blades.”

So what did you guys think of that helicopter scene at today’s press conference? I was totally blown away.

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As the real football season draws to a close, we can all look forward to the new virtual one – I got my hands on the first playable demo of FIFA 10 in a behind closed doors session on the EA SPORTS stand on the show floor.

The game’s line producer, David Rutter, gave a ten minute presentation to me and a small group of American journalists, although they disappeared shortly to look at NHL 10, leaving David and I to play a couple of matches between Manchester United and Barcelona.

“This year, 70% of our efforts have been refining the gameplay and responding to community feedback,” he said. “With the other 30% placed on innovation. We’ve been listening to the players and we’re addressing all of the areas that have caused frustration.”

The game certainly felt familiar and at this stage, it looks very much like FIFA 09, but there are a number of changes that seasoned players will notice right away. Dribbling, for example, has been greatly improved so that you can now push the ball in any direction. What David describes as skill dribbling allows greater freedom of expression on the ball and the Artificial Intelligence now includes threat analysis, so that defenders become more alert when danger is near and attackers are better at sensing an opportunity.

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“In many ways, it’s about making the technology invisible to create a feeling of magic,” Nicolas Doucet, the producer of EyePet, explained while showing me what is arguably the most ingenious and certainly the most adorable game on show here at E3.

EyePet uses the PlayStation Eye camera to bring a furry pet to life in your living room. You can play with him, feed him, dress him, stroke him and teach him, and his responsiveness is incredible. Waggle your fingers and he’ll run over to play; stroke him and he’ll nuzzle up to you and flip onto his back for you to tickle his tummy. And Doucet is right – while you’re always aware of the sophisticated technology bringing it to life, you don’t think about it because you’re completely lost in the illusion.

The game comes with a Magic Card, which you place on the floor once the PlayStation Eye is set up. It then becomes the control device for a variety of toys. For example, there’s a trampoline which you can move around by simply sliding the Magic Card across the floor, and each toy has an associated goal, such as gaining a certain number of trampoline bounces, to unlock further toys.
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Wow, what a day! Everyone has been talking about the Sony press conference hosted by Jack Tretton, President and CEO of SCEA, and with so many announcements, I’ll stop using up space with this introductory paragraph and dive straight in.

The PSPgo was officially unveiled on-stage by Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. CEO, Kaz Hirai. It’s 50% smaller and 40% lighter than the PSP-1000 and with 16 GB internal flash memory, it’s designed for those who like their digital media “to go”, as they say over here. It will be released on October 1, 2009.

Complementing this new evolution of PSP is a host of fantastic games coming to both UMD and PlayStation Store. Kazanouri Yamauchi, the mastermind behind Gran Turismo, arrived to show GT PSP, which will feature 800 cars, 35 tracks and will run at 60 FPS. He was followed by another legendary Japanese developer, Hideo Kojima, for the reveal of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, a brand new mission for Solid Snake, only on PSP, which takes place during the 1970s.

Completing the portable line-up were a brand new Resident Evil title; Buzz! Quiz World, which will also be on PLAYSTATION 3; and the news that Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines features interoperability with Assassin’s Creed 2 on PS3. And to make sure we see plenty more stellar titles for PSP in the future, Jack Tretton announced that the price of PSP development tools will be cut by 80%, expanding the opportunity for developers to create content for PSP.

Moving onto the PS3, Richard Marks of SCE research and development showed us a new motion sensing controller that works with PlayStation Eye to enable 1:1 movement response. The crowd was impressed by tech demos that allowed him to play sports, wield a giant sword and shield, aim guns and even write with astonishing precision. He spoke of “sub-millimetre accuracy,” which I like to think of as a metric shout-out to us Europeans.

There were absolutely loads of PS3 games on show, including a live demo of the opening scenes to God of War III; a gorgeous video of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves gameplay that climaxed with Drake taking on a helicopter; the trailer for Team ICO’s latest creation, The Last Guardian; a look at ModNation, which applies LittleBigPlanet’s mantra of play, create, share to the kart racing genre, allowing players to build playable tracks in a matter of seconds; Agent, a new exclusive title from Rockstar North; the surprise announcement that Final Fantasy XIV is coming next year, exclusively to PS3; and the first trailer for Gran Turismo 5.

The strength of this E3 line-up was best summed up when Tretton proudly announced that 364 games are coming out on PlayStation platforms in the next year. That and the number of semi-colons in the above paragraph.

So there you have it, which bit was best for you? I’m off to see what the rest of the SCEE guys are up to, although the words lying and down were being used quite a bit earlier.

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Today’s the day! The web has recently been awash with rumours and speculation about Sony’s E3 announcements, but now you can find out exactly what’s coming soon for PlayStation as the SCEA Press Conference gets underway in sunny LA.

The show starts at 7pm BST / 8pm CEST and Jeff from PlayStation.Blog.US is blogging live throughout – check out his updates below…

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