This year’s EGX may not have boasted the AAA titles we were all hoping for, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t awesomeness to be found on the show floor. Honestly, the absence of games such as Anthem was probably a good thing. Instead of spending the entire event queueing, we instead got to play some gems, and we’ve highlighted our absolute favourites below.
- Soundfall
A beautiful fusion of two of the best things in life, Soundfall matches euphoric bass-heavy tunes to action-packed dungeon crawling in vivid, colourful top-down environments. If ever an entire videogame could be described as ‘catchy’, then this is it.
Created by veterans from Epic Games (the studio responsible for Fortnite), the game sees a young audiophile named Melody transported to the world of Symphonia, where a great darkness, Discord, threatens to destroy the realm. Not only is the aim to reach the exit of the dungeon before the song finishes, a task that’s surprisingly difficult, but players must also time movements precisely to the song’s beat. Doing so ensures attacks are at their strongest or traversal across certain spaces is possible. The challenge can be undertaken solo or with up to three co-op partners, and is highly addictive as the craving for perfection takes hold.
The satisfaction that accompanies achieving that 100% completion of a dungeon is insurmountable, even more so when shared with friends. There’s nothing quite like smashing your way to victory in perfect synchronicity.
- GRIP
Having played Rollcage back in the late nineties Tim was especially intrigued by GRIP. Much like Wipeout or F-Zero, its frantic, fast and frenetic races across bombastic circuits were arguably the greatest adrenaline rush available at EGX. We’re pretty sure that this game adversely affected our blood pressure as we each had a go, especially on the ‘wild’ engine power – this moves too fast for me to physically be able to process with only one functional eye, so I sat that out.
No race is unwinnable, with the chance of a monumental change in race position possible at every second. Players can start out in first place, crash and drop to tenth and crawl back to achieve a top three finish in the space of half a lap. This, in part, is one thing that sets GRIP apart from other racing games. Being good at this game isn’t an outright necessity, which gives those of us that love racers but suck terribly at them a chance. The handling is superb with tight and responsive controls, and the cars have definitive weight behind them, even when flipping spectacularly through the air (which happened a lot).
GRIP is due for release early November, and you can bet we’ll be picking up a copy.
- Dead End Job
If your dream job as a kid was to be a Ghostbuster then you’re in luck, because this is exactly what you’ll do when taking on this dead end job! (*tacky pun klaxon*).
With an art style heavily inspired by 90s cartoons such as Ren & Stimpy and Spongebob Squarepants, twin-stick shooter Dead End Job brings a good dose of British sarcasm to delightfully smashable environments as Hector Plasm, Ghostbuster extraordinaire, sucks up the spooks from a variety of locations. The trick is to always keep moving: it’s too easy to get hemmed into the corner and ganged up on by ghosts, projectiles and ectoplasm. Hector can earn gear or ability upgrades as he’s promoted through the ranks, such as shoes that allow him to walk through ectoplasm without being slowed or better aim accuracy. Occasionally, Hector will have to fight more powerful (and pun-tastic) spooks such as the ZX Spectre, who have their own movement patterns and attacks to dodge. Much like Ghostbusters, Hector also puts every item he destroys on the invoice, encouraging players to literally destroy everything – sometimes there’s even cash inside boxes or desks!
Undeniably the best part is that finally, after so many years, players finally get the chance to beat up something so aggravating we all tore our hair out: Clippy the Microsoft Office Assistant.
- Catastronauts
AKA Overcooked: Space Edition But Without the Food.
What could be worse than being attacked whilst minding your own business as you’re venturing through outer space? Well, try having the enemy’s laser blasts putting cracks into your floors, them teleporting bombs into various rooms and maintaining the shockingly poor battery-life of your guns (whilst everything is probably on fire, including you). Oh, by the way, sometimes you might have to take refuge from massive solar flares (again, probably whilst you’re all on fire).
That’s exactly what we experienced when playing Catastronauts. Clearly inspired by the hectic hilarity of Overcooked, up to four players work cooperatively to maintain the ship while under attack. Much like its inspiration, many levels restrict player movement meaning objects like batteries or fire-extinguishers must be teleported from one side to the other. Presumably not repairing cracks causes decompression, though as our ship was usually destroyed by fire or flares first, we didn’t experience this. This game elicited the biggest laughs of the show for us, and is out now on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, with a Switch release in the near future.
- Beyond Blue
Effectively meditation in gaming form, Beyond Blue takes the award for ‘most relaxing game at the show’. Swimming beneath the surface of several different oceanic biomes, marine biologist Mirai documents and observes sea life, namely a pod of sperm whales.
Beyond Blue is developed in partnership with the award-winning BBC documentary Blue Planet II, so the game feels a lot like a playable documentary. Even though there are more heart-pounding moments and encounters, players don’t have to worry about running out of oxygen and therefore suffocating in an underwater cave which takes much of the tension out of the experience. Sea creatures can be scanned to obtain information about them, from size and weight to their behaviour patterns. When it’s impractical for Mirai to reach locations herself, she retreats to her submarine and operates a stealthy drone instead, disguised as a sea creature.
This is a game that’s not a game, it’s a learning experience. It’s a chance to explore the oceans and celebrate the life within it whilst also raising a degree of awareness about how precious this life is. An educational tool that’s useable in schools is potentially in the pipeline, containing more unseen content from Blue Planet. We really hope this will become standard in school, seeing as gaming is such an interactive and immersive media.
- The Endless Mission
Without a doubt the most ambitious game at the show, The Endless Mission truly lives up to its name – this unfortunately makes the game unbelievably difficult to quickly summarise.
There is a story mode, where players explore the Terminal, a hub containing portals to different game genres. The demo contained real-time strategy (RTS) where players had to survive invasion by a zombie horde, a futuristic-looking kart racer and a platformer similar in aesthetic to Spyro. However, it’s the creation mode where the game’s ambition truly lies, and boy is it immense.
A barebones version of this creation mode was available in the demo, showing off the potential of the software but also sensibly restricting what was possible. Players could mash together aspects of the three levels available: to give an example, Tim played the kart racer but in the platforming level’s map, driving through the colourful volcanic island instead of the track. The parameters of each level is entirely customisable, so players can also do what Tim did in his RTS mashup and up the health and strength of his own side so as to bulldoze the opposition (it’s not cheating if the game mechanics literally allow it!) The final release will have the opportunity to modify everything. That’s no exaggeration.
Destined to snap at the heels of the Minecraft market, The Endless Mission celebrates total open creativity, with community-created levels to be shared and displayed in the Terminal’s ‘Hall of Celebration’. The Endless Mission truly left us reeling with its staggering potential for community driven creations, and the fostering of an interest in game development to boot.
- Kingdom Hearts III
After thirteen years of waiting, it’s finally here.
Beautiful beyond measure, Kingdom Hearts III is a graphical masterpiece, matching and often surpassing the visuals of Pixar movies past. This comes as no surprise, given that both companies have a reputation for exceptional visuals and top quality vocal performances (Final Fantasy X aside). Being able to play in the settings of our favourite Disney movies is inspiring, and running around Andy’s bedroom floor alongside Woody, Buzz, Rex and Hamm delighted our inner kid.
With a plot likely to be so convoluted it would make Hideo Kojima blush, Kingdom Hearts returns triumphantly to PS4 and Xbox One next year to confound and utterly delight us.
- Disco Elysium
Nihilistic, darkly hilarious and utterly compelling, Disco Elysium presents an alternative world that is difficult to describe, yet fantastically captivating.
Not-quite cyberpunk, not-quite noir, this RPG thriller has its policeman protagonist waking up from a drunken coma, with no memory at all of who he is, creating the perfect blank slate for the player – blank slate is somewhat literal, as the player can genuinely play through the story without any clothes on (Tim’s detective wore only one shoe, whereas when I played at Rezzed earlier this year, mine had no shirt). However, with a decomposing body hanging from a tree, the detective must team up with an officer from another precinct to solve the case and unravel the mysterious world he’s found himself in. To compound matters, the detective has his own mind and body to contend with as they provide a running commentary of what’s going on inside him.
A point-and-click RPG, Disco Elysium is beautifully presented on luscious pre-rendered backgrounds. Interaction with people and full exploration of environments is simple but incredibly in-depth, with important objects painfully easy to miss. Certain inquiries can also be failed if the relative trait is not high enough, such as empathy. These traits can be upgraded, but players can also choose an archetype to start with dependent on the type of personality they wish to foster.
Suffice it to say that this game is absorbing. After what felt like ten or fifteen minutes I looked at my phone to discover we missed our next appointment by half an hour, because that ‘fifteen minutes’ was actually one-and-a-half hours! The world, its characters and environments are so immersive that we totally lost track of time, and if that’s not the sign of an absolute winner then I don’t know what is.
For Science, You Monster 