Sony showcases ‘Beyond,’ ‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Wonderbook’ at E3

PlayStation fans got a peek at what games and entertainment they have to look forward to in the coming year at last night's Sony E3 keynote. Their presentation included an array of games to please hardcore gamers, as well as one less likely offering.

Sony opened their show with Beyond, a highly-cinematic game by Quantic Dream. Many gamers may be familiar with another title by that company, 2010's Heavy Rain, which was widely praised for its highly detailed characters and game environment. Quantic Dream has taken that one step further by casting a Hollywood actress as their lead character. Ellen Page plays Jody Holmes, a troubled woman who has a connection to a strange invisible force. You can see just how much effort has gone into accurately capturing the nuances of Page's expression in this trailer:

Fans also got a chance to see the previously announced PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royal. The game takes characters from popular PlayStation franchises like God of War and Twisted Metal and pits them against each other in various arenas. Sound familiar? The comparisons to Nintendo's Super Smash Brothers series have been swift and frequent. And gaming blog Kotaku's discovery that the trailer for the game was tagged as super smash brothers doesn't help the matter, either (the tags have since been changed).

You can judge the similarities for yourself:

Two new characters were also announced for the game: Nathan Drake from Uncharted and Big Daddy from Bioshock.

What many are likely to be talking about post-keynote is Wonderbook, an interactive story experience for the PlayStation 3 and a departure from PlayStation's largely hardcore gamer audience. See for yourself how the virtual story book works in this trailer shown at E3:

Sony has partnered with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling to create one of the first Wonderbook titles, Book of Spells. The player attends Hogwarts as a student and learns to cast spells by reading on screen instructions from the book. Many of the pictures in the book are interactive — in the demonstration, Sony showed the player casting a spell on a dragon, who flew out of the book and blew fire on it. The player had to then wave their hands to put out the fire.

There were other highly anticipated games shown to the crowd, too. The world got to see new footage of God of War: Ascension (coming March 12, 2013), FarCry 3 (September 2012) and Assassin's Creed III (October 30, 2012).

The PS Vita wasn't forgotten, either, getting the Vita-only Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, which features the first female assassin, and the ability to play PS One games.

Sony closed their show with The Last of Us, an original game from Naughty Dog set in a world where fighting for survival is everything. Check out the gameplay shown at E3 below (WARNING: video includes profanity and strong violence):

For all the latest gaming news this week, check out our E3 2012 page.