First Byte: Fan Expo 2014 Gauntlet Part 2

When I initially conceived this two part series, I did not anticipate how busy school would get this early into the semester.  Although things are crazy as I seem to have a test or project every single week, I am committed to finishing this gauntlet up before any of the games in this final part are released.  If you did not get a chance to read the first part of the Fan Expo 2014 Gauntlet, it focused on the likes of Driveclub, Forza Horizon 2, The Crew, The Order: 1886, Far Cry 4 and Mortal Kombat X.  If you want to read my impressions on any of those games, click the link.  This part will preview the four games that I got over ten minutes of hands-on time playing.

While the majority of the games I played at the Sony Booth left me disappointed, the LittleBigPlanet 3 demo had me excited for more.  The demo was split into two levels, Tutu Tango and the Crypt.  Tutu Tango was a Toggle-centric level that focused on using Toggle's switching abilities to manipulate momentum in different ways needed to advance in the level.  On the other end of the spectrum, the Crypt was a level made entirely for Oddsock that had the dog companion of Sackboy bouncing off of walls and performing precise jumps at a frantic pace perfect for those who love speedrunning.  While both levels were completely different in pace, the controls were responsive and the platforming was spot-on, which are two mechanics not normally associated with previous entries in the series.  Even though the levels were made for specific characters, there were multiple hidden areas that hinted at in co-op play in both levels.  Without creators Media Molecule at the helm, I did not have much faith that LittleBigPlanet 3 could surpass its predecessors.  After playing this demo, LittleBigPlanet 3 has caught my full attention especially when it comes to the single-player portion of the game.

Unlike any game on the show floor, Bethesda pulled out all the stops to engross you in experience of The Evil Within.  The booth consisted of over 20 demo stations all equipped with noise-cancelling headsets and black dividers to keep your attention solely focused on the game.  Thanks to Bethesda's excellent booth design, it felt like I was playing The Evil Within during the middle of the night, which made all the scares that much more frightening.  Unlike any game on the market today, The Evil Within demo brought some true scares as I explored the eerie halls of a derelict mansion.  The atmosphere of the game was perfect as the expert audio design made you feel uneasy at all times and the unpredictable enemy AI, which changes every time you load the game, kept you looking over the protagonist's shoulder constantly.  Much like early entries in the survival horror genre, The Evil Within does not hold your hand as you are free to explore the mansion as you wish.  It also creates tension in a similar fashion by restricting ammo and the use of melee weapons.  From my 20 to 30 minutes with the game, The Evil Within felt like a return to true survival horror rather than the Michael Bay-like action games that some companies are trying to pass as horror these days.  If you are in desperate need of a game that gives you nightmares like the original Resident Evils did over 15 years ago, The Evil Within will certainly fill that void.

Out of all the games at the Microsoft Booth, Sunset Overdrive was the only one I wanted to play no matter.  Ever since I saw the game in action at Microsoft's E3 press conference, I was in love with the absolute insanity developer Insomniac is trying to pass off  as gameplay.  Insane is the perfect word to describe the chaos of Sunset Overdrive's gameplay.  The game flows at an incredibly smooth clip that may be to smooth, in fact, as it can be easy to get lost in the swarms of enemies and explosions.  Like all Insomniac games, the guns are always the highlight of the show with their creative designs and expert handling.  Switching between guns is quick as a flick of the right analog stick, which adds to the chaotic pace of the game.  Apart from the chaotic gameplay, Sunset Overdrive exudes humour and style through humourous character designs, funny one-liners, and unique respawn animations.  All-in-all, my time with Sunset Overdrive was easily one of my highlights at Fan Expo as it was just pure unadulterated fun, and nothing can beat that.

The honour of being the very last game I got to play at Fan Expo belonged to Evolve.  The demo for Evolve was one of the main reasons I wanted to go Fan Expo 2014 in the first place, so there was no way I would leave the show without playing this game.  While I got to play Evolve for a good 20 minutes or so, you definitely need to play the game more than once to get a true feel for its mechanics, controls and subtle nuances.  My first impressions are positive, but just a little tainted due to getting beat before seeing the full potential of the game and the lack of helpful advice provided by the developer/tester advising me.  I played as the Kraken and almost evolved to its ultimate form before I succumbed to the strength and teamwork of my opponents.  The Kraken was very unique to control due to its sheer size in the game world.  Much of my time was spent on the defensive as I avoided combat with hunters and focused on feeding on enough wildlife to evolve.  I felt extremely vulnerable as a level one monster, but became much more competent as I grew in level.  As a whole, Evolve was an incredibly tense game of cat and mouse that was very enjoyable to play.  Hopefully when the game comes out next year, I can get more time with Evolve to hone my skills and possibly avenge my embarrassing loss at Fan Expo.

First Byte: Fan Expo 2014 Gauntlet Part 1

A few weeks back, yours truly made the long trek to Toronto for Fan Expo Canada.  My main reason for going to Fan Expo this year was the plethora of upcoming games available to play at the event.  In total, Fan Expo had well over 30 games to play including Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor, Halo: Master Chief Collection, Assassin's Creed Unity and Destiny.  While I was hoping to play every game on the show floor, that ambitious goal did not come close to happening.  In fact, I only got to play ten games.  Although that number might not seem like a lot, I got to play the games I was most interested in trying, and those with the shortest lines.  Considering I did not get a whole lot of time to fully experience each demo, I will be doing brief impressions on the games I played instead of doing separate first impression previews for each one. As I cannot fit all ten games in one article, there will be two parts to this Fan Expo Gauntlet.  The first part focuses on the demos I got less than ten minutes with while the second part previews the games that I got much more hands-on time playing.

First things first, I learned a valuable lesson at Fan Expo: I am horrible at racing sims and that's a fact.  I played three different racing sims on the show floor in Driveclub (exclusively for PS4), Forza Horizon 2 (exclusively for Xbox 360 and Xbox One) and The Crew (available on all platforms), and each game had a unique take on simulation racing.  Driveclub was solely focused on providing an experience that expertly replicates the nuances of driving.  With crisp graphics and precise controls, Driveclub seems to be tailored for a gaming steering wheel and throttle.  While Driveclub focused on a pure simulation of driving in a pristine environment, Forza Horizon 2 took the similar precise controls and crisp graphics and threw it in an open world.  The race I played in Forza was very interesting as the race dynamically moved from tarmac to dirt to grass causing me to think on the fly about how to control my car through the constantly changing terrain.  Even the great grip of the tarmac can be easily erased by a downpour, all thanks to Horizon 2's dynamic weather.  Although I ended up last in both Driveclub and Forza Horizon 2, I enjoyed my time with each game.  The same cannot be said about The Crew.  Ubisoft's unique street racing sim with a focus on team-play did little to impress due to the incredibly loose control of the cars and the complete lack of direction.  It may be nice to have an open world to drive around and explore, but when the only person able to initiate anything in the demo is the Ubisoft rep, there's a big problem.

Coming out of E3, The Order: 1886 looked like a promising new IP from Sony, but I still had some reservations due to the lack of demos on the game.  Once I saw that the game was going to be at Fan Expo, I was ecstatic to play it.  In fact, it was the first game I played on the show floor.  My ecstasy for The Order subsided when the demo ended after a mere three minutes.  You are dropped in the middle of Chapter 3 of the game with the objective to escape the alleyway.  Using the termite gun, you fire off a few rounds, try the special bullet time-esque pistol move, jump from multiple points of cover, activate a quick-time event and the demo is over.  Three minutes is nowhere close to enough time to form an opinion on the game other than hoping there is much more in the final product.  With only six months left until release, I hope Ready at Dawn has a lot more up their sleeve than this three minute disappointment.

Much like The Order: 1886, Far Cry 4 had a really good showing at E3 so again I was excited to get my hands on the game.  Very similar to my time with The Order, Far Cry 4 left a lot to be desired.  While The Order's problems stemmed from showing barely anything, Far Cry 4's problems stemmed from ridiculously long load times and severe pop-in.  You can give the benefit of the doubt to Ubisoft, but to show a game to the public in such a poor state does not help push pre-orders.  It will cause exactly the opposite to happen.  Despite those issues, Far Cry 4 gave you three scenarios in which to siege an enemy fortress: sneak, ride and fly.  I chose the ride option which allowed me to ride an elephant to siege the fortress.  While the destruction the elephant caused was a sight to behold, I found attacking the fortress to be ill fit for one person as I was easily swarmed and overwhelmed by the enemy AI on multiple occasions.  In my opinion, the demo would have greatly benefit from having two people cooperatively siege the fortress.  Due to the poor quality of this demo, my expectations for Far Cry 4 have lowered quite a bit.

In light of the small amount of time I got to play Mortal Kombat X (a mere three minutes, in fact), I am going to keep this short and sweet.  Mortal Kombat X was a lot of fun.  The controls felt responsive, it was a lot more approachable than past entries as I put together some unique combos with ease, the interactable elements were well integrated and the game has more than enough blood, gore and violence to keep any Mortal Kombat fan happy.  Although my time was short, I came away impressed with how Mortal Kombat X is progressing.  Finishing foes with fatalities cannot come soon enough.

E3 2014: Microsoft Press Conference Impressions

Welcome to the very first day of E3 2014.  Instead of roaming the floors of the LA Convention Center, press conferences will be broadcast to the world from various venues across the city of Los Angeles.  Every bit of anticipation and hype has been building for these sixty to ninety presentations.  The next steps towards the future of the video game industry begins right here, right now.  Following each press conference, yours truly will be sharing his impressions right here on Silver Bit.  These impressions will analyze the good, the bad and the ugly of each conference then wrap it up with a final grade.  As always, Microsoft kicks off E3 with their press conference.

Right off the bat, this press conference was one of the best conferences Microsoft has ever put on.  Much like last year's show, this conference focused solely on games.  The only mention of Kinect came in the brief minute Harmonix had where they spoke about Disney Fantasia and Dance Central Spotlight.  Another similarity to last year's conference came in the form of Microsoft cramming their ninety minutes with games, games and more games.  There was little to no room for anybody to breathe between game demos and trailers unless you count the incredibly awkward developer vignettes.  It was not hard to see that Microsoft wanted to hammer home that they listen to the core gamers, but those vignettes felt forced and completely unnecessary.  Although the pacing is something Microsoft needs to work on, it is a step in the right which should be a good sign for future press conferences.  The conference's strength came from the games shown.  Microsoft made a much better effort in highlighting the games coming from first-party studios. While none of them really made this writer excited, games like Crackdown 3, Fable Legends, Phantom Dust, Scalebound, Sunset Overdrive and Halo: Master Chief Collection will get some people interested in buying an Xbox One.  Along with all the first-party titles, there were a good number of third-party games showcased at the show.  The Microsoft presser saw the reveal trailer for Rise of the Tomb Raider, an impressive demo of Witcher III: Wild Hunt, a fun multiplayer demo of Assassin's Creed Unity and gameplay from both The Division and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.  Along with all the love for larger games, Microsoft made a little effort to showcase the indie games coming to Xbox One which they focused a lot of time on revealing Playdead's Inside.  The strengths came from all the content of the show, but Microsoft failed in one regard.  Microsoft did set their holiday lineup for 2014, but sadly it is very lackluster in this writer's honest opinion.  There is no real killer app among Forza Horizon 2, Halo: Master Chief Collection and Sunset Overdrive to elicit people to pick up the Xbox One this Christmas.  Their message came clear that all the games people will care about will be coming out in 2015 or later except that you can join the beta for every major game this holiday season.  Honestly, relying on betas to sell a system is not an effective business plan.  Microsoft needs to deliver on the games and soon because people are not going to wait forever.

Overall, the Microsoft E3 2014 Press Conference was really well done.  This holiday season may be very barren in regards to Microsoft's offerings, but there are some interesting projects down the pipeline to be excited about.  Although Microsoft did make some strides in impressing this year, it did play things far too safe with their reveals and demos than truly showcasing why the Xbox One is greater than the PS4.

Grade:  B