Minit
Devolver Digital’s been on the forefront of publishing interesting indie titles and their latest is no exception.
Minit is about as minimalist as you can get — NES level fidelity, black and white colors, and chiptune sounds. In this game, you only have one minute to live and must complete tasks within that one minute before dying and respawning at your house. Any key items you collect in that time will stay with you, so you’re able to unlock more and more of the game each time, but you still only have one minute.
It’s an adventure puzzler — think Link’s Awakening — with a cool twist that’s definitely worth watching.
Coming to PC and “maybe consoles” mid 2017.
Beat Cop
Beat Cop is the story of Jack Kelly, a detective who has been disgraced and thus demoted to a beat cop.
The player will write parking tickets, catch petty thieves, and try to make the neighborhood a better place. Or you can take bribes, encourage dissent, and get rich off of the suffering of the community all while trying to find out who framed you for murder.
The gameplay is like a point and click adventure game, except the game is always running even if you aren’t. It’s totally possible to be called to be in two places at once and just have to make a judgement call on which is more important. It’s a really interesting game that’s part Papers, Please, part LA Noire.
Beat Cop is coming to PC this spring.
Strikers Edge
Striker’s Edge is a game with a simple concept — throw projectiles at your opponent until they die.
The system is reminiscent of Windjammers in that there’s two sides separated by a barrier and you have to use your reaction time, prediction, and special abilities to try and outplay your opponent. There’s not a tacked on story mode, no city building side quest minigames, just intense 1v1 or 2v2 action.
Striker’s Edge is coming to PS4 and PC in 2017.
Want more PAX South 2017 coverage? All you had to do was ask!
Monster Boy, Warlock’s Tower, and Has Been Heroes
Prisma and The Masquerade Menace, Sundered, and RiME
Arms, Splatoon 2, and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Prisma & The Masquerade Menace
Prisma & The Masquerade Menace is in the early stages of development, so early in fact that it’s not even on Kickstarter yet. That didn’t stop the developer from having a fully playable level from the demo at PAX South.
It’s got some rough edges, but it’s already rather polished. At its core, it’s a platformer game in which you take control of Ray, a girl who can switch between different colored dimensions to make objects appear or disappear. Each of these dimensions also gives her abilities like high jumping, fast running, and block destroying. Once you get used to switching between dimensions, it becomes much more like a Sonic game in which you feel compelled to go as fast as possible, switching dimensions quickly and trying to think on your feet.
Prisma is still in its early stages, but give their Kickstarter a look when it goes live later this month!
Sundered
Sundered is a game that leaps out at you from a sea of titles at a gaming convention. It’s art style has a way of pulling you in, making you want more.
Sundered is a Metroidvania style platformer/exploration game in which you take control of Eshe, a wanderer exploring seemingly endless, always changing caverns filled with eldritch horrors. The controls solid and responsive and the game’s difficulty is a little more than Super Metroid (we died 3 times in the demo), making it feel like a substantial single player experience. Details like the hand drawn art and pencil marks when the camera is really zoomed in all combine to make this a visual feast that also delivers on a tight experience.
Sundered is coming out to PS4 and PC in July but you can Kickstart it right now here!
RiME
In RiME, you play a boy exploring a strange island trying to work your way to a pillar in its center. Along the way, you’ll solve puzzles, meet a super cute fox, and try to figure out the mysteries of your surroundings and what could have happened to make it the way it is now.
RiME feels a lot like Zelda mixed with Journey in the best possible way. The art style is stark and gorgeous, varying dramatically for different areas in the game. The world is all laid out in a way that’s easy to understand visually, which is a good thing since the game features no dialog or text, so you’re relying on just trying things out and being observant to solve puzzles.
RiME is due out summer 2017 on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
Want more PAX South 2017 coverage? All you had to do was ask!
Monster Boy, Warlock’s Tower, and Has Been Heroes
Minit, Beat Cop, and Strikers Edge
Arms, Splatoon 2, and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Monster Boy
Monster Boy started as a Kickstarter project called “Flying Hamster.” Since then, the team welcomed Ryuichi Nishizawa and turned the game into Monster Boy, based off the Wonder Boy in Monster World, a mashup between the Wonder Boy and Monster World series. Please go look those up if you have no idea what we’re talking about.
The player takes control of Jin, a boy who can transform into five different monsters to solve puzzles and take down enemies with a variety of abilities. This platformer hearkens back to old school platformers in the 80s and 90s — simple gameplay, peppy music, bright visuals. Like a Saturday morning cartoon video game that you set your alarm for.
Monster Boy is simultaneously releasing on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One later this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ6DYSf5VNE
Warlock’s Tower
Some game developers try to emulate the style of classic pixel games and achieve something between nostalgia and amusement. Then you have a game like Warlock’s Tower, which just looks like it’s always been a Gameboy game and dares you to tell it otherwise.
The graphics of Warlock’s Tower look exactly like an original Gameboy game being played on the Super Gameboy player, complete with being able to change main color from green to orange yellow. All of that helps Warlock’s Tower in the charming area, but the underlying gameplay is really cool, too.
At it’s core, Warlock’s Tower is a puzzle game in which you take control of a mailman trying to avoid monsters and deliver a letter to the warlock of the titular tower. Each move you make takes away one life, but there are tokens on each floor to increase the number of lives you have. It’s a puzzle to be able to figure out which tokens to get at what time and using what directions. The game even has Twitch integration so you can interact with your chat while you play.
Warlock’s Tower is out now for PC.
Has Been Heroes
Has Been Heroes is a Roguelike inspired by Plants Vs. Zombies.
Oh, what, you need more?
In the game, you’ll take control of three characters, each with their own lane. Each character has a different number of attacks, attack power, and control of spells. It’s up to the player to time their attacks accurately, swap characters, and utilize spells cleverly to fight back hoards of enemies.
At first, it takes a bit to get used with character switching and the concept of enemies having points with which to block your attacks, but very quickly, you’re pausing the game less, attacking with one character, swapping another in after the shield is broken to follow up with a health attack, and using spells on the fly. It’s satisfying to feel in control, but also like your heart is in your throat trying to figure out if your abilities will be off cooldown before the next enemy reaches you.
Has Been Heroes comes out March 28th for Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Want more PAX South 2017 coverage? All you had to do was ask!
Prisma and The Masquerade Menace, Sundered, and RiME
Minit, Beat Cop, and Strikers Edge
Arms, Splatoon 2, and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Arms
If you watched our live stream of the Nintendo Switch announcement, you will know that we did not have a kind word to say about Arms.
After having played the demo at PAX South, I may as well be Shrek – because now I’m a believer. For a game with such a strangely picked title and looking like the least fun game on Wii Sports, Arms has no business being as good as it is. The controls are responsive, the customizing of characters feels good, but isn’t overwhelming, and above all else, the game is really fun. I also have a feeling the developers knew it was kind of a goofy game. I mean, it’s called Arms and one of the characters is called Master Mummy. Someone is in on this joke.
The game is also surprisingly deep with strategy, given how much jumping, dashing, cancelling, and your special can really make or break a fight. Overall, it’s quite fun and actually gives you a bit of a work out if you’re competitive. The only downside is you need two pairs of Joycons to play it, and jeepers, those are expensive.
Arms will be out at launch for the Nintendo Switch on March 3rd.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7s3UB_8dFM
Splatoon 2
Did you like the first Splatoon? Good, because Splatoon 2 is just like that, but slightly better.
Remember when Left 4 Dead came out, then a year later Left 4 Dead 2 came out and it was almost identical, but had better stuff in it? That’s exactly what’s happening here. Splatoon is a great game that just didn’t reach a wide enough audience because the Wii U’s sales were so poor, so it’s actually a great idea to add some stuff to it and release a sequel on the Switch where the user base will be, presumably, much larger.
There’s not much different between the two games, other than the addition of the Splat Dualies, dual pistols that focus more on PvP than painting the ground. They give you the ability to dodge roll, which is pretty powerful especially if your opponent is using the gyroscope and having to contort their torso just to see you.
Splatoon 2 is out this Summer for Nintendo Switch.
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
It’s hard to say anything new about Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. That being said, videos don’t quite do it justice.
We’ve watched trailers and gameplay videos showing the opening scene of Link coming into the world for the first time. It was impressive seeing it the first few times, but actually experiencing it live, immersed by the sound, experiencing that transition into the cut scene is like the first time you realize Final Fantasy VII doesn’t just take place in Midgar. Seeing Death Mountain way in the distance and knowing you can go there is mind boggling.
The game isn’t without its faults — some button mapping could use some work and if we’re being nitpicky, the lines on the edges of textures can be a little jagged — but none of it even comes close to tainting the sense of adventure, freedom, and wonder felt from the first time you pick up the controller.
In the short demo, we only activated a tower, fought some bokoblins, and did part of the magnesis shrine, but the world felt alive. The concerns about it maybe being too open and sparse may still prove to be correct, but at the present, no Zelda game has given us this many goosebumps since Ocarina of Time.
You can play Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on either Nintendo Switch or Wii U March 3rd.
Want more PAX South 2017 coverage? All you had to do was ask!
Monster Boy, Warlock’s Tower, and Has Been Heroes
Prisma and The Masquerade Menace, Sundered, and RiME
Minit, Beat Cop, and Strikers Edge
Star Fox Zero
Ever since last year’s kinda-sorta reveal of a Star Fox game, fans have been clamoring for more details. The series hasn’t had a great entry in quite some time, and with the unique two-screen design of the Wii U, the hopes for this game were high. After playing the game at E3, we can assure you of one thing — if you’re looking for a true sequel to Star Fox 64, you got it.
The demo plops you down in Corneria where you learn how to control the Arwing. On first glance, duh, you know how to control the Arwing. That is, until you try to aim. You see, the second analog stick isn’t what you use to aim, that’s reserved for acrobatics and movement (boost, brake, banking, etc.). Your reticule is instead controlled by a combination of your movement and the Wii U Gamepad’s gyro. Like Splatoon, more precise aiming can be achieved by moving the gamepad about, but unlike Splatoon, the movement also shows you more depending on the mode you’re in. With All Range mode and the new Targeting mode, the gamepad gives you a cockpit view of your Arwing and allows you to shoot in any direction regardless of your current heading. Having a cockpit mode in which you can aim independent of your movement and see more than what’s on the top screen is useful for flyovers on ground enemies and dogfights. That being said, it does take getting used to and requires you to move about while sitting on your couch, something we’re not sure anyone is a fan of.
The only transformation we got to experience in the demo was into the ChickenWing (our name, not theirs), and while it wasn’t the most useful thing, it gives you new perspectives on the level by showing you areas you can’t access with the Arwing. The Corneria level culminates in a battle where you must destroy a ship from the inside and have to use the ChickenWing to do so. When you breach the structure, you’re met with a really simple boss that consists of a few whirling weak points that grant you the opportunity to really test the maneuverability of the land vehicle, and it actually feels pretty good!
All in all, if you were hoping for another game like Star Fox 64, then this game is for you. It’s a beautiful game that adds to the classic Star Fox 64 gameplay arsenal with transforming vehicles while also adding in the fresh element of the cockpit view.
Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes
Legend of Zelda: Four Swords was an add-on for the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past port for Gameboy Advance. The multiplayer Zelda title was so well received that it was then expanded on to make Four Swords Adventure, a full game in which you and your friends teamed up to take down puzzles and bosses. Now, Nintendo is releasing an all new multiplayer Zelda title called Triforce Heroes for your and your friends to hate each other in.
Though the rupee grabbing elements of the game seem to be gone, everything else is in tact, from picking up your fellow players to using your items in conjunction to solve puzzles. One interesting new element added to the game is costumes. Though they don’t seem to affect gameplay, they affect auxiliary things about the game, such as luck or damage modifiers. They also affect how super kawaii uguu~ you are.
The demo had three players work through a dungeon together. In our particular level, we were using the gust bellows and bombs to navigate across gaps, hit enemies from afar, and totem up to hit switches. All in all, this really seems like another Four Swords game, just running on the Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds engine. If you’re in to that sort of thing, and we definitely are, then you need not wait long, as it’ll be out later this year.
Yoshi’s Woolly World
Some games, you just know are going to be too cute for their own good. Kirby’s Epic Yarn was one such game, and now the fabric-texture cuteness sinks it claws into Yoshi in Woolly World.
As is with the previous two games, it seems Nintendo is taking a note from their past selves and bringing back the gameplay elements and feel from the Yoshi’s Island games to this new, saccharine title. One notable difference, and in our opinion improvement, is that you can do two player with a gamepad and a Wiimote, meaning more adorable Yoshi, more cute adventures, and new, slightly difficult puzzles to solve with your friends. The game feels very fluid, adds in some interesting fabric-based puzzles like platforms existing only when behind a piece of fabric that has a light behind it.
We’re sure there’s some amount of story here, but it doesn’t really matter. I mean, look at that guy. He’s slurping up yarn and pooping out yarn balls. How cute is that? Speaking of cute, while we were in line to play this, we spied the three Woolly World Amiibos, and they are just as cute and soft looking in person.
Welllllllllllllllllllll, there are new maps available for Halo 4…
Please enter the url to a YouTube video.There’s a couple new demos out for the 3DS. Specifically Monster Hunter and Castlevania Mirrors of Fate….
And IGN is claiming that JoBlo is claiming that Superman is not only good, but it’s the best movie of the year. Or so I heard from my sisters best friends uncles teacher.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/02/28/zack-snyders-man-of-steel-is-the-best-movie-of-the-year-according-to-early-screenings