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theshape108

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The 10 Best things I saw at the Indie Booth during PAX Prime 2013

I went to PAX last weekend and played a tremendous amount of games, some good and some bad and some absolutely fantastic. So here I present to you a list of the 10 best things I played at PAX in no particular order. I want to make it known that I am sticking with Indie games for this list because I feel like it’s a waste of words to tell you that Infamous, Titanfall or Watch Dogs looked pretty good. Because they looked pretty good and you should probably check them out when they come out, but you don’t need me to tell you that because the entire internet is telling you that. Instead I want to make you aware of some really amazing stuff that you should go check out. Also due to how the indie booth functions at PAX, it was incredibly easy to talk to the developers and find out what I could about the games which in some cases greatly increased my enjoyment of them.

That Dragon Cancer: Admittedly the only reason I even really looked at this game was because I was in line for Neverending Nightmare and it happened to be next to it, however the thing that drew me to it was the fact that everyone who played it started crying at the end. When you’re in line for a video game and the 5 people ahead of you all start crying by the end of it you tend to get curious. I sat down, played through the 5 minute or so chunk of it and was found myself completely engrossed by the voice work, dialogue and the slow realization that something very very horrible was happening. The art is crude at best but given that it was all done by the game’s creator who simply wanted to learn how to do polygons I can give them a pass. The general idea is simple; you are a father in a hospital trying to get your young child to stop crying and go to sleep. There is no gameplay to this as the game falls more into the category of Gone Home or Dear Esther in that all you really do is walk around and listen to a man talk, and by the end the child does sleep. The booth was setup with photos of a man and his children and after I finished I got up to find that the man in the photo was in fact the game’s creator and after talking with him for a few minutes I realized that I had missed a key part of the experience. The child in the photos was his, that child has brain cancer; this game was a real story from his life….just let that sink in for a minute. It made it utterly heartbreaker to think about. The games creator assures me that the final product will do more than just focus on the sad moments, instead showing the rollercoaster of emotions he and his family has been through. Personally I think it’s a brave and difficult undertaking to try and tackle something with that much emotional weight in a video game but if anyone has the will, the knowledge and the desire to do so, it’s this team. I cannot wait to see the final product.

Galak-Z The Dimensional: Ever since it first showed at the PS4 reveal I have been salivating at the chance to try this game out, and after having gone through the full demo at PAX this year I can say that this game is one of the things I am most looking forward to on PS4. I am probably more excited for this than I am for Killzone, Knack or Driveclub. The game looks right out of a 80’s anime with bright colors, overblown characters, commercial bumpers on loading screens, and enemies that announce their intentions in the most insane way possible. The gameplay is that of Asteroids if it was jacked up to 11, movement if fast, fluid, responsive, fast, and above all else, fast. It took me a few minutes to wrap my head around the movement controls as they give you a ton of freedom in regards to how you navigate and engage in combat by letting you boost, thrust and accelerate in any direction at any time while still firing guns and locking on with missiles. The level itself was massive in size and packed full of side quest, resource gathering and various enemy types that seemed as eager to fight each other as they were me, which added another layer to the combat as I often just got the devilishly smart A.I. to follow me into certain areas where they would be attacked by other aliens and then flew off cackling to myself. Overall a very enjoyable few minutes that left me wanting more and fast.

Super TIME Force: A 2d pixel art side scrolling shooter that pays homage to SNES games? HOW ORIGINAL! Okay, okay, fair enough, what if I told you it had amazing music? Still no? Packed full of humor regarding 80’s action movies? Not selling you? What about a time travel mechanic that can see you and the previous incarnations of you shooting through the level? Have your attention now? Super TIME Force has all the trappings of a game I would normally rolls my eyes at until you sit down and play it. The general idea is that you select one of the many characters in the game and play until you inevitably fuckup and die, at which point the game rewinds you to a safe location(or you can choose one yourself) and you can respawn as any one of the heroes. Now here is where it gets interesting, at that point the previous incarnation of yourself continues to play through his life until his death, still killing whatever you had killed earlier. So you can actually use your death as a benefit and method of solving puzzles, sort of a Braid with machine guns and none of the thoughtful questions about existence. Now you layer that mechanic on top of beautiful pixelart, a phenomenal soundtrack and it’s rather quirky sense of humor and you have a game that is as fun and interesting to play as it to look at.

Catapult for Hire: The Indie Mega Booth at PAX was weird(full disclosure, this was my first PAX), the booth was of course a haven for indie developers but within that booth was a row of 12 games that felt like the indie developers to the rest of the indie developers. This was a bunch of 1-2 person teams with a few NOTICABLE exceptions. Out of that group one of the real standouts to me was Catapult for Hire, the project of one Tyrone Henrie. Catapult for hire is the story of a knight who goes freelance during a bad economy and takes on whatever jobs he can in order to make a living. The game is a fully realized 3d world with an endearing art style and what seemed like a cute story but seemingly has far darker undertones to it. The real trick is the catapulting, which is made simple and intuitive by responsive mouse controls, you click and draw back to pull back, side to side to go…well side to side, simple. Once you fire a shot there is a convenient trace on screen of your shots trajectory that you can follow and adjust on in order to line up the perfect shot. In regular gameplay you’re hitting moving targets so there is a challenge of being able to fire fast and accurately as well though, however in one of the games many side quests/distractions (I played a round of catapult golf) the ability to tweak your shot until perfect is much appreciated. What really blew me away, however, was the scope of it all. Once we exited to the main map and took a look at just how much more was going on other than the shooting(Catapulting) I got the feeling that this was a game I could spend just hours exploring. The acquisition of gold is to build your castle, improve your skills and upgrade your catapult as well as defend it from gold hungry monsters. Gold is acquired by missions accessed from the over world map. Nothing in the game seemed overly complicated which is good because you would want to focus on mastering the catapult aspect of it, and then apply that to the rest of it. A quirky art style, great shooting mechanic, intriguing story and a wide breath of content made this game one I am instantly going to be watching for.

Samurai Gunn: The last game I played on the show floor after 4 days proved to be one of the most frantic and fun of the entire weekend. By now you’ve probably heard of this game but when I picked it up and played it I had literally no idea what was going on. So it speaks a lot to the game that within one round I felt like I had almost mastered it and was winning matches. This game seeks to dispel the rumor that couch co-op is dead by offering almost the ultimate pick up and play game for parties and get together’ s. The idea is simple, 2-4 plays select a Samurai and a map, each Samurai can slash in one of 4 directions, jump, fire a gun 3 times in one life, slash beats bullet, first to 10 kills wins. It’s easy to see why the creator of a card game for parties would take an interest in this game that is essentially for local party play That’s it, best I can tell there is no difference between Samurai at all. I don’t have much more to say on it other than it seems interesting, fun, and a welcome change up from disjointed online games with leaderboards and a level mechanic. Although at the booth I ended up playing with an actual 12 year old who called me a ‘cheating faggot’ ‘cocksucker’ and my favorite ‘gun shooting dick with no skill’, so I ended up getting a similar experience to an Xbox Live match anyways.

Lifeless Planet: An astronaut goes out on a 15 year mission to explore a planet similar to earth, when he lands he stumbles across an old Soviet Era village and has to figure out if he’s on Earth, the Soviets really did win the space race, or he’s just insane. Upon hearing that premise from a man dressed in a space suit I looked at him and said “That sounds like an old Rod Sterling Twilight Zone Episode” and it made the space man smile from ear to ear to hear that as it’s exactly the feel he was going for. The game is the product of a 3 year quest to make a game, and considering one man did the entire project it is nothing short of amazing how good that game looks. I played stuff from 15 person studios that weren’t pushing the visuals that he was. Gameplay is a simple mix of exploration and puzzle solving from a third person perspective as this astronaut tries to work his way through the colony to find out what is going on. The draw distance and scope of the landscape was a serious benefit to the feeling of oppressive isolation you felt almost the minute you took control of it. Punctuated by a lot of striking visuals and impressive establishing shots of this world he created which may be an alien world or a world made alien by nuclear devastation. I was very intrigued by it and looking forward to solving the mystery myself, when it is finally released.

Incognita: The new game from Don’t Starve and Mark of the Ninja developer Klei Entertainment was always going to be one to checkout but I was so impressed I bought early access on the spot. A turned based strategy game akin to the original x-com but with one simple twist, combat is the worst option at all times. No they seemed to have crafted the world’s first procedurally generated stealth action roleplaying turned based espionage noir RPG, or PGSARTBENRPG for short. The art style is that sort of technoir style where robots wear fedoras and trench coats. It also boasts some wonderful sound design and effects noise, with the “Corporate Action” noise being my favorite. Each and every demo level is generated on the fly; in it you were given 2 characters, and 20 turns. During those 20 turns while you tried to make your escape you could search for information, disable security systems, crack safes for money and resources and then make your way out. If you were spotted, seen on camera or engaged in combat then the amount of turns you had to escape before security found you dropped dramatically. Position was also critical as line of sight matters; at one point I had my back turned to a door and didn’t know it has been opened and I had been spotted until it was far too late. My agent was shot dead and I was informed that he was now dead for good; yes x-com style permadeath was in effect here. In the full game you’ll have a team that is recruited and taken on missions with different skillsets applicable to each mission. From talking to the developers it would seem that that is the entire game right now, although when asked about a meta-game they replied with a wink “we can’t talk about that right now but you can probably assume there is a reason to make sure everyone lives to the end of each mission”. Steam early access starts soon, which for the time being will be the ability to generate a level, explore it and escape it in 20 turns or less with 2 characters. As with Don’t Starve they’ll slowly bring it up to full release.

Secret Poncho: another one of the PS4 indie highlights, this is a 2 v 2 team shooter from an isometric perspective. Movement is pretty basic, as is the shooting with everyone having two weapons that require reloading. The weapons vary from character to character and are based on reload speed, range, accuracy, and damage. Powerups deploy in the environment for you to collect and hopefully use to deal death to your enemies. On that description it’s probably easy to dismiss this one but it gets a lot of mileage out of its very unique art style and setting. Sort of Guillermo del Toro fantasy meets the Old West. Couple that with its already pitch perfect movement controls and satisfying shooting and you have a recipe for a very fun and engaging multiplayer shooter that would be an easy one to fire up with a friend and go to town with.

Dead State: We made Fallout with Zombies! That’s a bill of goods I have been sold before and it has never turned out very well so imagine how skeptical I was walking into ‘’Dead State”. After seeing it running for 15 minutes or so I immediately understood that this team got it, they got what made the original Fallout such a classic. Not the combat, it was the ability to play a 60 hour game and never kill anyone unless you chose too, and then watch the world react to you as you played through it like that. That’s what blew me away about Dead State, there is zero incentive to engage in combat because in the apocalypse when toilet paper is a luxury item why would you ever risk fighting anything? You don’t level up, you might get some items but honestly what gear would a shambling corpse reasonable be carrying around that you might want? No the goal is to keep your damn head down and not make any noise in the hopes you can squeak out a miserable but safe existence in the post apocalypse. This 15 person studio using a heavily modified version of Torque 3D has crafted a massive reactive world running in real time with over 140 recruit-able NPC’s depending on your choices, and a sizeable main quest, as well as a multitude of side quests and something like 10,000 lines of custom dialogue, they have done this in a year. Ridiculous. It is not the most visually impressive game in the world by any stretch but who cares. The game is real time when walking around and talking but goes into turned based when in combat. Your characters die for good when they die so you had best try to keep them alive because many of them bring bonuses and knowledge to your sanctuary (an old high school). The sanctuary is the crux of the game; it’s your home base, your safe haven. As you recruit and improve it you have a chance of drawing other survivors in who can assist in making it a better place, however you also run the risk of attracting zombies or perhaps those seeking to create a life in the wasteland via murdering you and taking your stuff. Make too much noise and people will be afraid to join you. Also more people means more mouths to feed. The amount of systems and considerations the player has to deal with is astounding considering the development time and team size. I am so very much looking forward to getting my hands on this and seeing if I can survive their take on the wasteland.

Always Sometimes Monsters: Last but certainly not least, I watched this game being played on a Twitch stream with no audio and was curious enough to go check it out. Upon telling the games developers about this they nearly melted down with excitement at the fact that just from seeing it I had come down to check it out. If that doesn’t key you into the personal investment these two gentlemen have in this game then nothing will. Created in RPG maker of all things, developers Jake Reardon and Justin Amirkhani have crafted what on the surface looks (and sounds) like a SNES RPG, however on closer inspection you being to realize the depth of this very unique game. It’s advertised as focusing on emotional bonds rather than combat, which is a dangerous and difficult task to undertake in the medium of video games. The 20 or so minute demo that I played showed incredible promise on meeting that goal by letting me tackle three scenarios of adult problems that involved adult solutions. A friend trying to stay clean from heroine, my own efforts to avoid being evicted, blackmail of a sex pervert, and a child living with an abusive and mentally unstable relative, were just some of the situations I had to deal with. What was even more remarkable is that of the 4 people I talked to who played it every single one of them had a different experience through those levels. Some were unable to save the child, some were unable to save their friend; some encouraged their friend to partake in his heroine vice, the list goes on. Beyond that their experience was difference based on the characters that they chose. My main character was an attractive blonde 20 something and so I was regarded a little more than eye candy by a bouncer and my damaged friend advised I “give the doctor a handjob” to get out of paying him. Another run through as a larger African American could result in physical confrontations with both those NPC’s and having to put off the sexual advances of your friends girlfriend. The sheer depth of choice is staggering which when coupled with some very adult and very frank dialogue, made every single conversation a joy to read, and made we want to explore and click on every element of the game world. A lot of games at PAX surprised me or grabbed my attention but I think Always Sometimes Monsters impressed me the most of anything I saw purely from its pacing, attention to detail, gameplay and dialogue.

Honorable Mentions:

Neverending Nightmare: scared the shit out of me and filled me with dread in a way few video games can. Horrifying imagery, creepy sound design and a feeling of constant fear that you might actually be the monster in this story kept me hooked for the whole demo. I need to see more of what it is before I can make up my mind for certain but for right now the game looks to have incredible promise.

Dwarven Delve: top down action puzzle game that operates on a hex based level grid. It is an intriguing idea and gameplay that feels inspired more by board games than video games, focusing more on the puzzle aspect of modifying the map to keep your team alive as they delve deep into dungeons. Another one to watch as it develops.

Badlands: An Ipad game and part of the PAX 10 it has an awesome art style and one touch controls that have you piloting a little creature as it tries to escape the edge of the screen. Using physics based gameplay is what sets it apart as your creature bounces and careens off any surface it touches while you flee. Think of it as the Lantern Run mode from Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. Supports multiplayer where you attempt to screw your friend over and murder them, which is always a good time.

Shadow Warrior: the original was at best a marginally better duke nukem 3d that was so chock full of racism and misogyny that you couldn’t hope to take it seriously, even going so far as to have a secret room with a chained up Lara Croft in her panties, it generally set the bar about as low as it could go. So it’s interesting that the first thing the lead writer said to me when I told him I played the original is that he took out all the racism, left in some of the crudeness, and tried to tell a good story. None of that really showed in the demo which was just a combat heavy level with all the guns unlocked but who cares? That game was a blast to play, shooting, movement, enemy design all felt awesome and incredibly satisfying to blow up, eviscerate, stab, fill with lead, etc. Gameplay alone has me sold as I love a good fast frenetic shooter, but if the writer is telling the truth and the story end holds up as well then man that’s a tough package to beat.

There you have it, the best stuff from PAX. If you want to hear more than be sure to listen to the Unreasonable GamerCast every Thursday night. Cheerio!

Zack

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Gran Turismo 5 rewards system

I want to love GT5, I really do.  I poured so many hours into GT3 and GT4 is insane to even think about it.  But GT5 just thwarts my love at every possible turn.  Everytime they patch it I run back like a love sick puppy to try and see if now it'll be fun to play and every time I my heart stomped on like my high school prom.  First it was the ridiculous load times and installs, then it was the utterly contrived and useless menu system, then it was the remote play functionality that required me to run my game all day long, then it was the broken GT PSP integration, etc. etc.  
 
Now again, I constantly go back to it because the racing is fun, but at this point I feel that its transition from a hardcore racing sim that you have to spend hours upon hours at, into almost a casual title.  I play it for 30-40 minutes here and there.  With no real endurance racing series and individual racing series that take mere hours to beat it really begs the question of re-playability.  I mean was it really that hard to add a few more racing tiers and levels into the game?  Need for Speed Shift had the same issue where you got to max level and got all the best cars before finishing half the game, so why bother with the other races.  In GT5 you can't get to the really good damage modeling until you get to a high level but you'll have long finished all the races in the game and wont even by at level 20 out of 40, so why bother getting to max level?  Other then a mad desire to own nice cars from history, cars I already own in GT3 and GT4.  
 
The real point of this was to talk about my biggest pain point of individual races and racing series in GT5.  Mainly the rewards.  Now the experience earned seems to scale based on your car in comparison to the A.I. cars, which is fine, that actually in a rare instance makes sense.  No the problem is the money reward.  Once you get to the Extreme Series you'll notice that almost every race requires a 20 million dollar car, and features 5 races at around 25 laps each, with a 40-50 thousand dollar reward.  Now that would mean you would have to do those races something like 400 times to pay back for the initial investment on the car, and then you would have to do that 9 times over.  That's something like 3600 races to win 9 series events.  But to put a point on that there is the NASCAR series which requires a 500,000 dollar car, and features 5, 5 lap races with 70 thousand dollar rewards....so thats kinda fucked up.  I mean is everyone at Polyphony just caught up on Yamaguchi's mad desires for more paint colors and shinier wheels that they forgot to even look at the basic math behind things?  Maybe I am missing the point, maybe the driving is supposed to be so good that you don't mind doing 3600 races, maybe Clive Barker's Jericho isn't a terrible game...no wait none of that's true, and even if its the intent it's so glorious misplaced that I actually feel sorry for who came up with it. 
 
As it is GT5 remains the best driving simulator wrapped in the worst menu structure, and still not a very good racing game.  They can continue to patch, but the priority seems to be making new features while the core game goes untouched despite being flawed in so many ways.  I doubt this will ever be the game that I wanted it to be, but I'll keep plugging away while waiting for my dinner to finish so I can play a real video game.  
 
Peace, TheShape108.

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