Last week was a good week to be a gamer in Europe. Gamescon was held last week in Cologne, Germany, and European gamers were eager to get their hands on the latest and greatest gaming has to offer. For those of you who've never heard of it, Gamescom is basically Europe's answer to E3. And while many of the titles on display were shown at E3 earlier this year, such as Assassin's Creed, Battlefield Hardline and Bloodborn, there were a few new announcements and surprises the show had to offer. Here are some of the most anticipated and more interesting titles to come out of this year's show.
Quantum Break
Time may be relative, or according to Doctor Who, a big ball of "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" stuff. But in Quantum Break, time is both your greatest weapon, and your greatest enemy. You control Jack, a man who was caught up in a time-travel experiment gone wrong and now has the power to bend time to his will. And that means, of course, a lot of shooting, speeding past enemies, slow-motion punches to the face, the usual third-person shooter fare, at least according to the first gameplay demo.While the initial press conference demonstration may have been a bit lackluster, the second demo, which focused on platforming and some wild "destructive timeloops," showed that Quantum Break is anything but typical. Between time collapsing in on itself and multiple timelines and time loops crashing into each other, there's a lot going on with Quantum Break, and it's definitely got my interest piqued.
Until Dawn
When Until Dawn was originally announced, it was envisioned as a PS3 title that would make extensive use of the Move motion controller. Then, it disappeared into the depths of the dreaded development hell and was never heard from again...until now. Until Dawn has been reborn as a PS4, and thankfully motion control-free, horror title that plays like an interactive slasher movie, where you decide who lives and who dies. You can play as any of 8 characters stranded on a desolate mountain lodge, and even if the character you play as dies, the story will still progress without you, sort of like in Heavy Rain. (only executed much better, hopefully...) This game already looks like a must-have for slasher film fans. And while we're on the subject of scary games...
P.T/Silent Hills
The Silent Hill franchise was once a survival horror giant, but it's more recent entries have turned out to be less scary survival horror and more failed attempts at action horror. (Homecoming, anyone?) Metal Gear Solid producer Hideo Kojima and popular horror director Guillermo del Toro are looking to change that. 7780 Studios put out this nerve-wracking demo of a game called P.T. which, in true Kojima fashion, was later revealed to be a brand new Silent Hill game, called Silent Hills. The demo itself is truly terrifying, providing many at the show with some of the most genuine scares I've ever seen in a game. And given Kojima's panache for trolling gamers and del Toro's history with brain-stabbingly scary demons and monsters, Silent Hills looks to not only bring Silent Hill back to the top of the horror game franchise, but also to deliver on Kojima's promise to, and I quote, "make gamers s*** themselves."
Metal Gear Soild V: The Phantom Pain
Speaking of Kojima, Phantom Pain, the latest entry in the Metal Gear Solid series, made its appearance at Gamescom with a few new surprises, such as adaptive enemy AI. Unlike it's prequel Ground Zeroes, which was released earlier this summer, Phantom Pain's enemy AI will tailor itself to how you play the game. For example, if you constantly pick off guys with headshots in the same area, the enemies will wise up and start wearing bulletproof helmets. This will help prevent multiple missions in the same area from getting stale, which, after playing through the base in Ground Zeroes over and over again, is a welcome change.
Indie Games Rule
One major difference I noticed between E3 and Gamescom is how indie games almost stole the show from some of the bigger names like Sony and Microsoft, whereas the aforementioned gaming giants were the stars of this year's E3. There are some amazing titles that only got a brief mention at E3, but took center stage at Gamescom. For example, Superhot is a super-stylized first-person shooter, spatial puzzle hybrid where time only moves forward when you move forward, allowing you to doge and duck under incoming bullets, projectiles, and whatever else is flying your way. The Tomorrow Children is an intriguing title where you must mine fallen giants in a post-apocalyptic Marxist society. Ori and the Blind Forest is an absolutely gorgeous platformer that looks to harken back to old-school Metroid styled side-scrollers. Indie game fans definitely have a lot to look forward to on the next-gen consoles.
What were you favorite games from Gamescon 2014? Let me know in the comments below!
No comments:
Post a Comment