Hello peoples, and welcome to another day of Gamescom 2014 and my coverage... which consists of me watching IGN streams. I'm truly a hero.
This post consists entirely on my impressions of the streams I watched for various games, and it seemed to be pretty Nintendo focused today. Unfortunately, Gamescom is coming to an end, but never fear because tomorrow I will be putting up my Gamescom Awards post where I give meaningless -- in the grand scheme of things but dammit they're important to me -- awards to developers and games that will probably never see it anyway. Let's get into this.
Project Cars -- Project Cars is a sandbox motorsports racing game coming this fall.
The demo showcased the driving, obviously, and it looked pretty. Unless I played it I couldn't really comment on how it feels, and that's pretty important in something like racing. I'm probably one of the worst people to cover racing games though because unless it's Kart racing or something like Blur that has Kart elements, I probably won't play it.
The IGN stream restarted so I didn't get to see a lot of it. Then I watched the beginning of it a second time and it restarted... again. And again. And once more for good measure. Oh wait we aren't done yet, let's repeat again. What just happened? That's right, another repeat. Oh hai Project Cars... another repeat. I'm just going to stop writing something every time it repeats because this is ridiculous. I feel like I'm in Groundhog Day. Way to go IGN.
The worst part is, Daemon Hatfield has to keep reliving his screw-up on pronouncing Germany at the beginning, over and over again, so nobody will ever forget.
Then after they finally realized that we were onto them, they took down the stream and this was the last thing we ever saw:
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| IGN: Brought to you by Project Cars. |
IGN decided to finally show the stream, so while it wasn't live anymore, I could still watch the games in action.
Evolve -- A lot has already been said about Evolve. It's got incredible looking and exciting multiplayer, and I think it's a game that will do very well for itself. The 4 vs 1, hunter vs hunted, multiplayer where the environment is also dangerous, will be a lot of fun.
I just wonder how much replay value it will actually have. I thought that the game was going to have a single-player campaign to beef it up, but it turns out that you can do the same thing offline but with AI. I don't see myself playing this mode over and over again for hours upon hours, so unless I'm missing something I think it'll be a lot of fun for a short period of time.
Ori And The Blind Forest -- In the demo for Ori, they showed off one of the abilities: bash. Basically it allows you to slingshot yourself in any direction you want and it seems to be an important mechanic in the game. Because the person playing helped design the game, he's really good at it so it's interesting to see what a pro can do once they've mastered bash.
And my Lord, Ori is a beautiful game. The environments are detailed and colourful, though the level in this particular demo has a darker atmosphere. However, that doesn't stop it from having purples, greens and blues in certain areas to lighten it up. I love the visual style in this.
It also has light RPG elements in the sense that it has a skill tree. You are able to get all the abilities in the game in one playthrough if you explore and collect all the ability points.
The end of the demo is Ori escaping from the dungeon as water gushes up. This is something used a lot in games but it was pretty terrifying to watch.
Ori should be a special game.
Splatoon -- I pre-ordered this because I generally support Wii U exclusives, and I thought the multiplayer looked interesting. My fear going in is the same as Evolve, where I don't know if there will be a lot of replay value... because if you're just playing the same one or two modes over and over it'll get boring. Apparently there will be some sort of single-player mode but they didn't really talk about it.
If you are unaware, it's a third-person multiplayer game where you have to spray the ground with your ink. It sounds silly but looks prett fun and original.
The game uses the Gamepad as a map and a way to "super jump" to your team mates. You can tap on their image and you will instantly go to them.
I really like the concept so I hope it grows into something great that offers hours of value, because as far as I know it is a full-priced game.
Bayonetta -- Next we got to see Bayonetta. No, not the second one... the version of the first that ships with Bayonetta 2.
It has Nintendo elements to it, such as a hand cannon and the Master Sword. This demo has her dressed up like Samus, Link and Peach for a while.
I dig Bayonetta and I have since it originally came out. I love its brand of third-person, insane action. Bayonetta 2 is a no-brainer purchase for me, especially since you got two games for the price of one.
Mario Maker -- Here is a game that I'm really excited for, and I'm sure a lot of other people are too. The idea of being able to create a Mario level is an awesome one that should have been done before.
The creation tool is very inspired by Mario Paint, which just adds to it because Mario Paint was the shit. It makes me wonder why we haven't gotten a new Mario Paint, since the last one was on SNES.
In the demo we got to see some of the ways that the interface works, and it's very easy to do stuff so you won't get bogged down in useless crap. It's as easy as simply selecting things with the stylus and placing them, or shaking it to make Mario become Super Mario. Thelook of the game can change. The demo has two graphic styles; the classic style and the New Super Mario Bros. style. That's a nice touch I reckon.
My main concern is level sharing and it infuriates me that they still refuse to comment on it. This is an extremely important aspect of the game and it should be announced. It will literally be the difference between cancelling my pre-order (though now they aren't sure if its retail or digital only) or keeping it, because if you can't share it online with people and download the levels made by strangers across the world then it's not worth buying. And yes, I go on record saying that, because it doesn't matter how great the creation tool is, if you can only play it yourself or with your friends then it defeats the purpose.
Kirby And The Rainbow Curse -- Geez, more Nintendo, not that I'm complaining. Here we have a new Kirby for Wii U.
You use a temporary rainbow line to traverse the levels while collecting the stars. What this means is that you will spend a lot of time using the gamepad and drawing lines, which is great in a way because it's going to give the gamepad more of a purpose... but I don't think I'm terribly interested in a game build almost entirely around doing that.
Mario Party 10 -- I haven't played a Mario Party in years. I can't even remember the last one I played, so it's interesting for me to see where it's at now.
The demo started with a battle with Bowser, and the player was controlling Bowser and shooting fireballs at the other players. Then it showed a mini-game where the player controlling Bowser had to tilt the gamepad to move the world and hit the other players with the rows of fireballs. We got to see a bunch of mini-games where one person controlled Bowser. It's an interesting mechanic, and it plays into the recent trend of new games in development that do this "4 vs 1" multiplayer.
Super Smash Bros Wii U -- When you play a Smash Bros you basically know what you're going to get. They can tweak and change things, but the core gameplay is fundamentally the same. That's fine because they don't milk the series at all.
I actually don't bother watching Smash Bros videos most of the time because I know what I'm going to get, so outside of learning what characters are in it... it doesn't really matter. They got my money and I know I'm going to love the game.
They talked a little bit about Mega Man, showed off a new stage that's more open than other ones, and showcased the insanity that is Smash Bros.
You can also unlock different sets of special attacks in a variety of different ways.
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