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Konami hosted a pre-E3 2012 show a few hours ago, with plans to make some big announcements, show footage of their upcoming games, exclusive trailers, juicy interviews and more. You can still watch it right below this article. However, we'll give you the lowdown here so you don't have to watch the whole thing. But before we do so, check out the three teaser posters below. What are they? It's obvious the one in the middle is Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, but how about the other two? The first one seems like it would be a Castlevania, perhaps Mirror of Fate for Nintendo 3DS, or even better, a big console production? The last one, on the other hand... it's a tough guess. Read more to find out. 

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While nothing may ever top the 2010 Konami E3 presentation, Konami's Pre-E3 presentation tonight was pretty by the numbers, with the biggest announcement arguably being the forming of an alliance between Konami and Zynga.

The San Francisco studio was revealed to be the primary home to Konami's new social games division.  The location was chosen in an effort to be closer to the headquarters of Facebook, Apple and Google, the first parties of social gaming.  Frogger Pinball and Twilight Carnival are titles the studio already currently has on Facebook, and the studio is currently working on Frogger Frenzy for iOS and Frogger Classic on Google Chrome. The most interesting tidbit mentioned during this segment was that the average title from the division takes about 6 months to fully publish, giving some insight to why social games are the newest arms race in the industry. Konami's approach to the competition is also unique, with their alliance with Zynga to be featured on Zynga's network different from the stance that companies such as EA have taken, aggressively buying out the competition in an attempt to topple the Farmville maker.

PES 2013 was a big focus of the presentation, receiving its own time to talk about the expanded gameplay options on both offensive and the defensive ends, as well as the game's unique animations. The A.I. will no longer just collectively run towards where the ball is, but it will exercise intelligent responses to what is happening on the field. Cristiano Ronaldo's dribbling and running routine has been recreated in this year's edition amongst other unique player actions, making the game feel more grounded in the real world. Also shown was expanded integration with Facebook through Konami's social networking app for the series, My PES.

The 25th Anniversary of Metal Gear Solid was observed here, with the series' feature at the Art of Games exhibit in the Smithsonian museum and some new footage of Metal Gear Rising: Revengance shown.  Being the first time the Revengance has really been shown since Platinum Games took over development, it doesn't look like too much has changed, but the announcement that the game will be playable on the E3 show floor will be the ultimate judge of that. The team showed off more of the game's cutting system, which looks as if the sword has a crosshair to determine how objects are cut and at which angle. Platinum also mentioned the game's "Ninja Run" movement system, which really just seems to be a fancy name for Raiden being able to maneuver around his environment well. Surprisingly, the game will allow raiden to use non-katana weapons, and it remains to be seen if the slice-and-dice gameplay will be removed when using these weapons.

A long-form commercial was shown off for Revengance, and then they said to expect an early demo with the fall release of the Zone of the Enders (Z.O.E) Collection. Almost 10 years later, and the Z.O.E. series is being used once again as a launch pad for a Metal Gear demo.  Z.O.E HD was revealed to have a new introduction created by Sunrise Animation.

The last titles shown were the follow-ups to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, shown in CG form only. In Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, the main character seems to have been turned evil, killing an army of armored knights before going to face a giant who looks like a medieval Transformer. The game looks to again take Castlevania's lore away from the Metroidvania-style and more towards something similar to God of War. The 3DS compliment to the sequel, Castlevania: Mirror of Fate was teased and will be shown on June 5th.  Premiere at Nintendo's conference, anyone?

Overall, the Konami Pre-E3 conference didn't announce anything that wasn't really known, with the latest issue of Nintendo Power spoiling the Castlevania news. At the end of the presentation, Konami tells everyone to stay tuned for more announcements.

Akil Henry   Followakilshohen Akil is a big fan of video games and music, specifically fighting games and R&B. Other interests include game design, and comedy. His background in game design combined with his unique worldview and sense of humor makes him someone to follow.

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