RPI’s Top 5 Games of Eurogamer Expo

At London’s Earls Court, Eurogamer hosted the Eurogamer Expo which has been growing ever more in popularity since it’s first year. I went down there on the Thursday and Sunday to try out many of the upcoming titles and this is the list of the top 5 games I was able to play during the expo. It was difficult to condense them all into the top 5 as there was a lot of great games, there was even some games where the lines were so big I didn’t have the chance to play them at all! But here are what I thought were the best from what I played and should defiantly be worth checking out when they are released!

#5 ZombiU – Ubisoft – Ubisoft Montpellier

Ubisoft has taken the concept of “Survival Horror” literally in ZombiU: one of the launch titles that will be on the Wii U when it is released in November. The catch line for the game is “how long can you survive” and they really do focus in on this element. During the campaign there is no set protagonist. You have to survive as long as you can with your survivor before you get infected.  If you do end up getting infected (which is very likely) you won’t be able to play as that character ever again and you start again as a new survivor who has to retrieve the survival pack off the last person.

You are timed over how long you can last and there will be leaderboards to reflect that. There will also be a game mode where you have to try and complete the whole game in just one life. I can imagine this will be horribly difficult as I lasted about 10 minutes!

ZombiU also utilises the new Game Pad perfectly seeing it as your “survival kit.” When you open your bag or try to open a lock, you use the game pad while everything else happens in real time. So you could be sorting out your backpack and then get infected by an unknown zombie. There are also plenty of other useful things you can do with the Game Pad also.

ZombiU also brings the tension you would expect to see from a survival horror game. As you only have one life and limited supplies you really have to be aware of your surroundings and make every shot count as one bullet could be the difference between life or zombification. Post Apocalyptic London looks scarily amazing. You really get the feeling a zombie apocalypse has just happened!

 #4 Aliens: Colonial Marines – SEGA – Gearbox Software

For those who are getting annoyed with the constant delays with the release of Aliens: Colonial Marines rest assured when the game comes out it will be well worth the wait! Having a try of the multi player I must give SEGA and Gearbox credit for how good it was. The main problem your going to come across when it comes to making a multi player for a game like Aliens is making sure that it is fair and balance. In the past AVP games this is has been the downfall but in Colonial Marines they have actually made the game FAIR.

As an Alien you will have to rely on stealth and getting behind them in order to pull off a kill as charging straight at them simply won’t work. Meanwhile as the Marines you will have to keep on your toes and constantly check your surroundings for any Aliens. Working as a team while being the Marines will make you last longer as you can watch each other’s sixes.

Fans of Aliens will want to get this as 20th Century Fox has confirmed that this will be in the Alien story canon and be the direct sequel to Aliens 3. Gearbox also worked with Ridley Scott which suggests there might also be references to Prometheus.

#3 Tomb Raider – Square Enix – Crystal Dynamics

Uncharted beware! Lara Croft has returned in Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics reboot and is certainly looking to be the best Lara Croft game yet! Going back to her roots in the demo we see Lara injured and looking for shelter and food after losing contact with her companions on the Endurance due to a storm. The traversal is very different to what fans would expect. You would used to see Lara Croft acrobatically leap from wall to wall like an Olympic Gymnast. In this game she makes the jumps by the skin of her teeth. This certainly shows a more vulnerable Lara Croft  but because of it, you feel that much more immersed into the story.

During the demo you are also introduced to the bow and arrow which works very well. By using LT to aim and RT to pull back an arrow with the accuracy and distance affected by how far you pull it back you set your sites on a deer to get yourself some food. The demo didn’t show off any combat but you get a good feel for how the bow and arrow works.

You will also be able to upgrade Lara’s abilities with perks such as arrow retrieval and extra experience. This allows you to customise Lara to suit your play style and needs. The amount of depth you will be able to go into in Tomb Raider will certainly exceed previous games and the Uncharted series.

#2 DmC: Devil May Cry – Capcom – Ninja Theory

As a huge fan of Devil May Cry I was initially a little worried to play the reboot DmC: Devil May Cry in-case it didn’t live up to the others or if Ninja Theory went and butchered by beloved Dante. Thankfully they haven’t done either and DmC is a fantastic game that lives up to it’s predecessors. Initial worries was the fact the frame rate was being dropped by Devil May Cry standard 60FPS to 30 but you really don’t notice that much of a difference. You can still pull off fantastic combos and I even saw some people get SSS ranks.

Combat has changed a little bit. On top of your normal move set you have angel and demon moves which will need to be used to defeat certain enemies. This makes remembering controls a little harder as well as having to remember enemies and what they are weak too but it keeps the action interesting as you will sometimes encounter enemies that will need the use of both angel and demon moves to beat them.

The demo also showed off a boss battle in which they looked as messed up as ever. The bosses are what you expect from a DmC game, you first need to work out the weakness and then focus on it. Along with this you have to use the angel moves to zip Dante between platforms. It certainly was a satisfying boss battle which is what you want from a Devil May Cry game.

For those of you who say “I’m not buying the new DmC because Dante has changed” then slap yourselves for being so narrow minded and not giving Ninja Theory a chance. They have pulled off an excellent game that is worthy of it’s own merit. In fact this would of received Game of the Show, if it wasn’t for this…

RPI Eurogamer Expo Game of Show

Metal Gear Rising: Revengence – Konami – Kojima Productions – Platinum Games

After playing this, Game of the Show was literally no contest. This was fantastic and takes the Metal Gear series into a whole new direction, a Hack ‘n’ Slash direction! Or to be more accurate, a “F**k em’ up” direction.  You would be surprised to know that this game was almost dead if it wasn’t for Platinum stepping in to assist them with making the game.

In Rising you play as Raiden several years after the events of Guns of the Patriots. You are now a bad to the bone cyborg with an energy sword that can cut enemies like melons! And melons like they’re enemies…  In Rising you can attack quickly with square or strongly with triangle but the best bit is “Blade Mode” which is activated with L1 this draws Raiden’s energy sword while also slowing down time. You then with the right stick line up your slash and then slash them! You can then do this multiple times to essentially make their body just collapse into little slices. While’s using “Blade Mode” I thought that this would actually make good use of the Playstation Move controller. I could see Blade Mode being utilised perfectly with the Playstation Move.

The game is split into sections where you are timed and assessed based on your skill. In the end you will be told your time and your grade with the highest rank being S. Think of it like Bayonetta but instead of the action stopping, it’s all fluid. This keeps you immersed into the action. The boss battles are also surprisingly intense! A chainsaw wielding cyber dog really does pack a punch and require you to know it’s weaknesses to even stand a chance against it!

Some Metal Gear fans will be sad to hear there is almost no stealth in this game. You can bring up a tactical overlay which presents where targets are and also allows you to do stealth kills but beyond that, you’re going to need to run up and start slicing and dicing! I think this is refreshing to see a series take a new approach and deviate from it’s norm but to pull it off to such an amazing scale is rare. This is certainly one to watch when it comes out in the UK in Febuary and more than deserves RandomProdInc’s: Eurogamer Expo Game of Show!

You think that’s all the awards? NAY! There is one more special award that goes to a team of people that caught my attention while in the Capcom area…

Brraaaaaaaiiiiinnnnnsssssssss Award for Services to Zombification of Humans

Resident Evil 6 Make Up Team – Capcom

I just wanted to give a special mention to the guy’s that were at the Resident Evil 6 area Zombifying actors to make what was some of the most realistic zombies I have ever seen. It was one thing to see them turned into zombies with the assistance of extreme make-up but then to see them walk and groan and they walked towards unsuspecting members of the public was staggering. When I first saw them my initial reaction was “Oh s@!t it’s begun already, grab my shotgun!” but then to see that it was in fact all make up and the process of how they do it was amazing. Normally you only see zombies like that in the movies but at Eurogamer, you could see them in the flesh! Or what’s left of their flesh…