A long weekend of gaming has now become a distant memory but the Eurogamer Expo did give me one thing – last impressions. Following my article earlier this week I have decided to complete a breakdown of the games I played, what I like and what I didn’t.
All in all the weekend was a grand success – thanks again Square Enix for my free swag, the lady from the Resident Evil stand who obviously thought I was pretty trim as she supplied me with a small sized t-shirt and also to Master Chief for letting me have a photo stroking his crutch (too much?).
Unpredictably I managed to avoid the Halo 4 rig for most of the day buy spent the last few hours queuing and playing the new build but first I ventured into the over 18’s section where I met these little beauties….
Metal Gear Rising: Reveneance
The best demi-titled game on show was fun and fast paced with relatively smooth graphic. The build is still early in development but being a massive fan of the stealth titles this one didn’t hit home with me as much as I’d hoped it would. Although Reveneance looks truly gorgeous as soon as the action kicks in the game just felt like an outdoor, shinny Devil May Cry – not that it’s necessarily a bad thing.
F1 2013
Getting to play this on the new F1 gaming chair was one of the real reasons I gave it a go. I’ve never been a massive fan of the realistic racing genre but I have been partial to short bursts on Project Gotham. In fact F1 2013 might well have change that for me as the blisteringly real feeling chair and the gorgeous track designs made this a pleasure to play – especially from a pick up and play perspective. I’m sure the eons of menu options will keep the hardcore invested but this really felt much better than any of the previous instalments I’ve played.
Fable: The Journey
Being a rather passionate Fable fan I’ve been heavily anticipating the new Kinect only game for quite some time now. In fact I’m not currently an owner of the hardware but had a strong inkling that this might change my mind… unfortunately it didn’t.
We got to play around with the tutorial and a short early game dungeon but even with the decreased difficulty and incessant reminders on how to do things I still found the whole experience completely underwhelming and clunky. The motion capture didn’t work very well and with the game being a few short weeks away from release this doesn’t seem like a good thing. Truth be told this might be the beginning of the terror inflicted when Mr. Molyneux left Lionhead.
Tomb Raider
The reboot of the Lara Croft saga is shaping up really nicely. I believe the gameplay I experienced was part of the tutorial section of the game showing of Lara’s abilities and introducing the new ‘survival’ ethic. The game runs very smoothly with action set pieces that affect the players decisions as tasks are undertaken.
My only gripe – and it’s a small one – was the AI on the deer used for shooting practice. After shooting my bow at them the darned animals ran for a couple of paces, stopped and then headed closer to me for an easier shot – stupid creatures!
Overall the whole reboot felt entirely fresh and the gameplay was both dynamic and cleverly planned. The sunlight passing through the canopy had a great reflection on both water and the undergrowth making the whole feeling of being stranded in the jungle that much more convincing as an experience.
Dishonoured
Playing this for the first time at Eurogamer was a refreshing example of the open sandboxes are becoming a requirement by gamers for all AAA titles in recent years. The game felt intuitive and had a good pallet of colour to keep you wanting to explore your surroundings. Although the game has already hit the UK high street I could recommend this to anyone.
Each ‘mission’ can be completed in multiple ways with the player utilising brute force, slow stealth or interactive abilities to reach and complete their objectives keeping the replay options high. The characters are interesting and the whole experience was nothing short of brilliant – and nothing less than you’d expect from Bethesda. The mission we played gave us ample opportunities to use the different powers, as they were all available during the trial, and created some interesting actions and consequences. The steam punk style is something I am personally a fan of anyone but the clever voice acting and area designs means you want to check around every corner.
Assassins Creed 3
While I love both Assassins Creed 2 and the Brotherhood edition I found that Revelations was a bit of a disappointment. Ubisoft tried to be too clever for their own good and made an entirely playable game too complex with exceptionally distorted pacing. As much as I am a fan of the franchise the fact that I ridicule Revelations so much pushes me into the depths of despair for the new outing too.
Thankfully I have been entirely wrong at the series we have grown to love has really gone back to its roots. The area of the frontier is bright, distinguished and brilliant paced for free running through the trees. The controls are very much the same as before but even the experienced players will still feel like novices in the trees until they learn to plan their routes properly.
The player now runs at pace just holding the RT button to ensure that they have full access to their actions while on the run allowing you to free up your thumb from constantly sitting on the A button. It takes a bit of getting used to but the frontier isn’t as forgiving as any of the cities we’ve experienced before. Run too fast and it’s likely you find a cliff face that will be your downfall.
Connor is a welcome breath of fresh air for the series, feeling weightier than both Ezio and Altair meaning the return of Desmond is shaping up to be a good continuation of the franchise we all love. Bring on 31st October!
Halo 4
The return of the Master Chief was on show at the Expo too with a queue that seemed to constantly steam from one end of Earl’s court to the other. Luckily I put myself through the wait on two separate occasions to get a view of the new multiplayer portion of the game.
Held on the new Haven map the King of the Hill style deathmatch was bright and enjoyable with specific loadouts and abilities introducing us to the new dynamics. Nothing unreleased was on display but I can tell you that if the red vs. blue was anything to go by then the Master Chief will be feeling chunkier than ever before – and not in a bad way. It’s the game we all know and love but with some additional content and minor tweaks to show off exactly why the Spartans we’re a class above the UNSC grunts.
The map was quite sizeable with force pads and various levels to deploy grenades, rockets and shotguns. The gameplay was the standard frantic affair that we are used to and made for some excellent close quarter gun-fights.
All in all 343 industries are definitely looking like they’ll deliver on their promise that this will feel like a Halo game but with a few touches to ensure the experience is still something they can call their own.
So with the Eurogamer Expo firmly behind us we can see there is a lot to be excited about over the coming months. Did you make it to Eurogamer? Do you have any comments on the above? If so get involved in the comments section below.
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