EA at PAX East 2015: Day 2

Saturday was even more jam packed than Friday, both in terms in what I saw and the amount of people in attendance.  I managed to fight my way through the nerdy hordes and checked out the following games.

A Fistful of Gun

Developed by FarmerGnome and being published by Devolver Digital, A Fistful of Gun is a western shooter that has the unique hook of featuring 11 characters with vastly different control schemes.  Some are played on a controller with the dual sticks, some are controlled by the mouse and some are played on the keyboard.  There’s variation in those three control schemes as well, like one character, for example needing the left trigger of the controller to prime his blunderbuss and the right trigger to shoot it.  If you can wrangle it, you can have 8 characters at once for co-op or a competitive co-op that has the players vying against each other to become the Sheriff while still fighting off the waves of enemies.  The game is currently looking at a Spring release on Steam.

RONIN

RONIN is from Tomasz Waclawek and features a female assassin trying to take down five high powered officials of an organization and the action borrows elements from games like Gunpoint and Mark of the Ninja and combines them with a turn based combat system that makes you feel like you are the Matrix or something similar and it’s really cool to see where the enemy bullets are going to come from and plan your next move to avoid them, as one hit kills you.  It’s still pretty early in development but you can follow it on Steam.

LA Cops

So 70’s you almost grow a mustache playing it is LA Cops, from Team17 of Worms fame.  Taking control of two cop partners, you head into missions to rescue hostages, bust up drug deals, etc. but takes much more strategy than simply going in guns blazing.  You control one partner at a time, so you have to make sure you don’t just leave the other cop hanging, because you’ll probably need the combined firepower to make it through. It’s also got a funky art style and score, which you can see in the trailer above. It’s currently out on Steam in Early Access and it’s coming soon to Xbox One. (I also played a little of The Escapists, where you navigate a deceptively cutesy prison, which is also coming soon to consoles and is currently available on Steam)

Leap of Fate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfEWRxOX49k

Leap of Fate, from Clever-Plays Studio, is the first game, that I’ve seen, to apply the kind of Shadowrun, cyberpunk aesthetic to a top down shooter style game, as you control a mage who must use his magical powers to blast through hordes of enemies in a trial of combat.  I played the game on the Ipad and the controls were probably some of the best mobile controls I’ve experienced, it uses the kind of invisible thumb sticks on either side of the screen but I never felt like I was fighting them like in some first person shooters or other mobile games that use a similar scheme.  The game is looking at a release on iOS, Android and Steam.

Gigantic

Full disclosure, I knew nothing about this game going into PAX East, but apparently I should have, as the studio behind it, Motiga, had a massive presence at the Con, with a huge booth, a featured place on the swag bags and a private demo area on the 2nd floor.  The game is a team based multiplayer action game that has the players pick a hero character and then battling another team of heroes.  The thing that sets Gigantic apart though is the Guardians, a giant monster that each team has and is the key to winning a match.  As you kill enemies and capture points on the map, you power up your Guardian and your team and you can eventually stun the enemies’ Guardian, allowing you the chance to attack their weak point and score a “wound”.  Three wounds and your team defeats the enemy team.  There’s a huge range of characters that seemingly will let anyone jump in and play, I chose the robot HK-206, who has a machine gun and rocket launcher and can plant himself like a turret and the team I was on won with the help of our Community Coaches (the best Alpha players that Motiga had come to PAX).  It’s coming this fall to Windows 10 (yes, that’s right, Windows 10) and XBox One.

Enter the Gungeon

On a quest to find the ultimate weapon, a gun that can kill the past, your brave adventurer heads into the depths of the Gungeon and must deal with the anthropomorphic bullets, grenades and other weapon enemies in your path.  It’s setup sort of like a classic adventure game like Zelda but with a fast paced shooter style of combat.  There’s tons of weapons to pick up as you battle through hand designed rooms that are randomly placed to make up the levels of the Gungeon.  It’s from Dodge Roll Games and it’s coming to PS4 and PC later this year.

Paradise Never

Featuring a Minecraftesque aesthetic, Paradise Never, from Kitty Lambda Games, puts you in a time loop of 3 days where you and your friends plan a revolution to free your island home from the imperialistic rule of France but, if someone dies, the goddess who rules the island resets time.  It seems really open to experimentation as you complete various missions and interact with the inhabitants of the island.  It’s pretty early in development but it’s coming to Steam TBA.

Downwell

Currently being developed by @Moppin_, Downwell is super fast paced game coming to Steam and mobile sometime this year.  The game has your character jumping down a seemingly never ending pit full of creatures and treasure and he must use his rocket boots to shoot through the floor and kill enemies.  It has a very cool old school look and it played great on the iPhone.

Super Rude Bear Resurrection

While waiting for the aforementioned Downwell, I got to check out the nearby Super Rude Bear Resurrection in the Indie Megabooth.  Being developed by Alex Ross, the game is a hardcore platformer, similar to Super Meat Boy, but with the difference being that each time you die, your corpse stays on the map and you can use it as a platform on your next run through.  You also have a kind of a robotic fairy ally who you can control and manipulate things in the environment or clear corpses.  It’s still early but Sony is helping fund the game, so it could possibly hit PS4 as well as Steam.

Necropolis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sVSy8GuBsI

The last game I saw on Saturday at PAX was Necropolis, a stylish take on the Dark Souls style game.  You play as an adventurer entering the titular Necropolis, which is full of creatures and is constantly shifting around you.  The combat is very similar to Dark Souls in that you have to be very precise with your attacks and blocks in order to survive the enemies.  It was pre-alpha at PAX, so it’s a ways off but it’s looking like possibly a Fall release on Steam.