I was at EGX today and should be attending the other 3 days too and thought a blog style post would be best just to go through the stuff I play each day.
And if anyone is interested in a particular game at the show, I could probably check it out and come back on it so let me know! :)
First Day
Super Mario Odyssey
This was my first time properly using the Switch and I had to use the Joy-cons separated. First impressions were that it was a little awkward to control. I put that down to just not being used to the joy cons. At the same time, I'd still say it's the worst way to play the game. At least have them connected to something.
Anyway, on to the game itself, I only had 10 minutes and went with the dessert level. It's incredibly jolly and colourful. Just jumping around the town and checking out the interesting characters, very cool. Capturing enemies can be a little disorientating at first, like Bullet Bill, just trying to figure out what direction you'll go in. It's very cool though and just adds so much more to exploring. The 2D section effects are just so good too. Overall, I'll say that I'm really looking forward to this, plan to play it again tomorrow and plan to get that Mario Switch.
Ni No Kuni 2
I checked out 3 different sections of the game.
First one was a mix of the Overworld and combat. I'm dug it with the cute aesthetics and seeing enemies on the field before having to fight them. As you can probably tell, I haven't played a tonne of JRPGs
Second section was the army fights. So I was controlling 2 groups of warriors and as you progress you're given more control on what they can do. Initially it's just rotating them around you, then some special commands etc. This looks like it'll be pretty fun if it is challenging as deciding when to use those special moves or your invincibility could become really important. Definitely encouraging.
Third section was a major boss fight. I already did some combat in the first section which ended in a shorter boss fight. All I'll say is that for an RPG combat system, I really liked it. I just felt like I'd a lot of options in how to fight as opposed to just attack or use magic and it being live action just made it a lot more fun to me. Now I'm fine with turn based, I just find it to be a bit slow at times while this all felt way more focused.
My only slight niggle was I thought most of the game had VO but it seemed like some of the cutscenes were missing it. Not sure if that's just due to the build or if that is the case.
Monster Hunter Worlds
Checked it out twice as it had a beginner and expert quest. The beginner quest being the big Lizard type monster and the expert being the t rex type one from E3. In the first run I didn't realise I could change my equipment so I went in with that iconic massive sword. This was a nice little taste into Worlds. Tracking isn't particularly difficult but it's still very satisfying to find clues that lead you to the hunt. I definitely need to learn all the combos in the fights but I liked what I played.
The only extra thing I'll add is that it's just super impressive to see the beasts interact with each other. When tackling the expert quest, the monster I beat in the beginner quest came out of nowhere and both beasts had an awesome fight. Another time it knocked over a tree and trapped itself. Stuff like that just makes the game far more interesting to me. Add co-op and I'm sold!
Detroit: Become Human
This was the detective demo we saw from E3 2016. While Cage has issues, I still enjoy his games. In this demo a few things bothered me. The camera gets really close into you at times, the character control isn't the best (same as his other games) and there are parts where you try to reconstruct a scene and for some reason it switches the movement to the right analog stick which really annoyed me. I left a comment on that one to at least just add the left stick too.
With all the negative out of the way, this demo is good. The situation just feels extremely tense as you gather as much information as possible quickly. The music and probability do a good job and conveying this. The actual interrogation itself was pretty easy but it still felt really heavy as for me, the android is killed. So I'm hoping the game is full of those types of outcomes. Definitely looking forward to it.
Sea of Thieves
Well I joined the queue thinking it was short. Turned out it was a little longer and the demo itself was 30 minutes long so it was a bit of a wait but it did mean plenty of time with the game and honestly, the time flew by. I played with 3 randomers and it was so much fun once we got an understanding of the game. We made our way to one island and couldn't find the treasure for the life of us. Instead of sticking around, we set sail for another island, saw another crew, blew up their ship and stole their treasure and the whole time I was just smiling.
My only sight worry is that this is the perfect 30 minute demo. I do wonder if it can be consistently fun when you're 10, 20, 30 hours in but right now, I'm very optimistic.
Superhot VR
I played this on the Rift and I think this version was more of a trial as opposed to the main game as I just kept repeating the same level to try and beat other scores. Either way it's an incredible game. Looking around, pick something up, shoot, throw, pick up something else and repeat. It's just a blast to play.
Bravo Team
In contrast to Superhot, this was a bit of mess I thought. So it's a co op shooter with the aim controller. I heard really good things about this controller but I don't know if it was the game or the controller, but I found the aim to be a bit all over the place at times. Add to that, it is a cover based shooter so you basically look up and move to the click to move to the next cover when it's available. This is kinda weird as it takes you out of first person and shows your character running and then goes back to first person.
Also another thing I didn't love was that you had to reload yourself. Really it should just do this automatically when you go back into cover.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Well it's absolutely South Park. Demo is set in a strip club and you can just fart all the time. I definitely had the odd laugh but probably found it a bit too crass for me personally. It did some cool stuff with finding items in the environment. There is like a detective vision but you still need to figure out exactly what you have to do to get whatever. As an example, an item is above a press. To get it, you need to hit the gas tank which will cause a small explosion and then to blow that little area up to get the item, you fart there. So silly fun stuff. Not day 1 for me, but I'm sure South Park fans will be happy.
Overwatch
'Wait what did you say, why did you play OW?' you say. This was purely just for me. I play OW at 30fps and lower than HD graphics and I just wanted to see what it was like and oh my, it's hilarious the difference. Played on a system that had it on ultra 120fps and it's beautiful. I'm absolutely building a PC relatively soon.
