Gamescom 2016 has come to and end and this year’s focus revolved around showcasing some amazing games previously announced at E3. The public convention in Cologne, Germany differs from E3 in that regular attendees can come in and get their hands on the hottest games that are coming out over the next year. For the price of a plane ticket.
After watching nearly 100 hours of gameplay demos and stage presentations, here are our Top Ten favorite showcases from Gamescom 2016. I will break down why I chose each entry in hopes to install some hype directly into your brain. Take a journey with me and let me know your favorites in the comments below!
10. Recore
I have not been overly impressed with Recore when I see it. Its vague trailers and extremely short gameplay videos never gave the game room to breathe and show us what it really is. That was all fixed at this year’s Gamescom. The game looks to be a mixture of Mega Man like combat and Metroid inspired world traversal. Team members from the Metroid Prime games are working on this game. So expect the game to be semi open world where getting to new areas are blocked off until you get the appropriate equipment to move forward. Plan to do plenty of backtracking!
Finally we see how the combat works, and the gameplay also seems to be littered with environmental puzzles which will give many of opportunity for exploring the beautiful areas in this game. You have 5 separate core machines each of which can help with combat and puzzle solving. I have been waiting for this game to wow me, and it finally has. Be sure to keep ReCore on your radar when it releases September 13,2016 on Xbox One and PC.
9. Final Fantasy XV
Sure the delay of Final Fantasy XV has taken some wind out of my sails, but ya know what, more time in the oven is always a good thing. Plus when you get a large 1 hour demo of the hotly anticipated experience…that helps as well. This video just reminded me why I have been so excited for this game, and I don’t think anything is killing this hype until launch.
The rumors swirling around the internet about this game being “in trouble,” seems like rampant speculation to me. I have read so many hands on impressions by so many trusted industry types that I am deciding to just be optimistic about it, instead of adding to the worry and negativity that seems to be minimal yet vocal about the development of this game. I’ve played both demos that were wide released and had an excellent time with Final Fantasy XV. The demo seems to show some stuff from the beginning of the game, and finally reveals the voice cast which to me, sound great. We get to see the characters exploring, hanging out in diners, chilling in the car, as well as get some exploration and combat on. Seeing such a large chunk of this game has assured me that this delay, while crappy to hear, is for the best. The new release date for this epic is, November 29, 2016 on the PS4 and Xbox One.
8. Sea of Thieves
Sea of Thieves may just be the jolliest game that is on the horizon. There was a lot of whiskey drinking, tavern occupying, instrument playing, and open sea sailing in the 10 minute gameplay video. The idea of gathering a crew, getting some instruments and then playing ‘Ride of the Valkyries” as you head towards a ship, the music growing louder and louder to them as they realize they are about to be attacked and boarded…it is the stuff dreams are made of. Cannonballs rip through the hull of the ships and begun to flood the lower cabins as you and your crew must run down there and board up the holes so the ship doesn’t capsize…you just aren’t finding an experience like this anywhere else. be sure to check it out next year in 2017 on the Xbox One and PC.
7. Get Even
Get Even is one of the newer games presented at the convention. I had known nothing about this game but now…welcome to the list of hype Get Even. The trailer sets a very weird and freaky tone, but doesn’t tell you much about the gameplay. However, I did follow up with some people who got the hands on treatment. What they described sounds unlike anything to have come out before. The themes are supposed to blend the idea of reality and virtual reality where you don’t know where one ends, and the other begins. It is far from a grounded game, but instead aims for a surreal experience that is just enriched by the awesome atmosphere the game creates. I cannot wait to learn and know more about this one. There is no official release date yet, but the developers have said to expect it sometimes next year, in 2017 on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
6. Little Nightmares
Little Nightmares is another recently revealed game. The trailer was very bizarre looking on its own, but all the gameplay I have seen just adds more to that tone. The character you play is always on the run from what seems to be very hungry monsters, and it plays like a Little Big Planet of a 2.5D style side-scroller. The environments are spooky and the traversal puzzles seem straight forward. Playing as a child in the game, expect for childhood fears to play a big role in what drives the scares and atmosphere. I don’t wait to say too much more because the hands on gameplay videos do a great job at really showcasing the moment to moment gameplay. This will be another 2017 release with no official release date at this time. It will be coming to the PC, PS4, and Xbox One!
5. Blackwood Crossing
Blackwood Crossing was constantly on the verge of game of the show for me. It seems you play as a young boy who is being taken care of your older sister. That is about the only thing I can grab narratively from the trailer. It went on to show a very Alice in Wonderland looking adventure where the young boy either via his imagination or through grief (they have dead parents) go on a grand adventure between realities. It seems super narratively focused like many other recent first person experience like games. The real takeaway are the visuals, but what has me continuing to think of this game is the chance for a great story to be told. As somebody who has an older sister, I feel this one will land very heavily with me. The wait to 2017 for this game will be a long one. You will be able to nab it on PC, PS4, or Xbox One.
4. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
The amount of mystery behind Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, is a good example of how you market a game. We are being told it will be a lot like the originals. Yet every time we see the game it looks to be a first person experience closer to games like Amnesia or Outlast. Yet the director assures us that there will be combat, weapons, limited ammo, and everything that used to make a Resident Evil game a Resident Evil game. I thought the little cat and mouse gameplay we saw from Gamescom was filled with dread though. The idea that something is hunting you (Nemesis style) really brings a tone that I can’t wait to live in. Keep the mystery strong Capcom, because for me it is totally working. I find myself more interested in the game every time somebody shows off something new. The wait wont be suffered too much longer, as RE7 releases January 27, 2017 on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
3. Space Hulk: Death Wing
Space Hulk Death Wing is the Warhammer 40k video game I have been waiting my entire life fore. As somebody who played the tactical table top game religiously for years, my ears always perk up when I hear about a new Warhammer entry. Space Hulks are the war ships in the lore of the game. The idea in this experience is that you and your team of Space Marines enter a series of derelict ships. Inside said vessels they will battle the hive minded alien race known as the Tyranids. This is an epic dungeon crawler style first person shooter. The gameplay I have seen looks intense, and the gore is off the charts. Trust me when I say that this is not your average Sci-Fi shooter. This game is still slated for 2016, but don’t be surprised if it gets pushed back into next year. either way you can grab it on, PC, Xbox One, and PS4.
2. Vampyr
A Don’t Nod is making a new game? Who is that? The people who did last year’s Game of the Year nominee, Life is Strange? Let’s talk about how all in we are for this.
Vampyr is another choice based adventure by the people who can out TellTale even TellTale. The plot is centered around a doctor turned vampire who is slowly submitting what he has turned into.
How does one stick to his own Hippocratic Oath when killing and feeding on the innocent comes first nature to the creature he has become? You choose when, if at all, to kill. You can choose whom you kill and how you do it. Beware though, as everybody in the town you occupy has relationships. Killing off one person could alert a friend of the deceased into something otherworldly taking place. Choose whom you kill wisely. Know that even if they seem like a bad person on the outside, perhaps they have a sick son whom he works day and night for to keep alive. This game delivers those moral quandaries around every turn and I for one cannot be more excited for this game. The wait to 2017 will be a long one, but your PC, PS4, and Xbox One will thank you for picking it up.
1. Prey
The Mimic Creatures of Prey
Prey had one of the best reveals at E3 in terms of great trailers. Sure it was all CG, but there was something every artistic about the narrative the trailer was telling. Skip forward to Gamescom and now we have full gameplay. With combat and aesthetics that dances between games like Dishonored and Bioshock, Prey really proved that this was a must for me. I loved these aliens that the trailer introduces. They look like a blob of black goop that can morph into different shapes and sizes. It seems your character gets new weapons and abilities to fight off aliens while a Sci-Fi heavy storyline unfolds.
While it won’t be completely open world, it will insist on exploration in the larger areas, much like the original Bioshock did. I am not a huge fan of either of the games this experience is being compared to. However, I respect the hell out of both of those franchises and eagerly away for the end product of Prey. It is a day one purchase for me next year in 2017 when it releases on the PC, Xbox One, and PS4.
That’s it! That is Gamescom all wrapped up in a nice Top Ten list. This list is just gauging my personal hype levels for the presentations I deemed the “coolest” at Gamescom 2016. Write out your top ten list in the comments below and let’s discuss all things you are hyped for!
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Halloween is fast approaching (says the writer who has yet to start making his 1930’s Flash Gordon hot-pants costume) and to celebrate I’ve found a wacky bunch of informative and even a little spooky and all-together amazing books to share with everyone from Applewood Books, who specialize in new reprints of classics from yesteryear. These books are historical, odd, and are still helpful and fun even today. Parents, do you want you and your kids to step away from the TV, tablets and laptops for a little while? Many of these books are chock full of fun and interesting activities and things to do this fall and onwards into the future that will help unplug and interact. Don’t have kids? These books are still great to have and are great references especially if you babysit. Or actually like to have fun. It’s always good to have a party trick. Which leads me to my first pick:
Madam Le Marchand’s Fortune Teller and Dreamer’s Dictionary.
In the spirit of Halloween there is first this fun “occult” gem and guide originally all the way back from 1863. This eerie guidebook to fortune telling provides an endless list of how to tell people’s, especially ladies, fortunes in various ways from rolling dice to tea leaves, palm reading, cards, counting people’s freckles or moles or egg whites, being able to calculate a person’s character and discovering truth from falsehoods. It also includes a nifty pre-Freud “Dreamer’s Dictionary” a glossary of dream symbols and their meanings to one’s future or current state , lists of fortunate and unfortunate days and even particular charms to enact. With this little tome kids at parties or get-togethers can recreate the fervid Victorian interest in the supernatural, read each others or adult’s fortunes and one can liven up any Halloween or Birthday (or even Christmas if you prefer the British tradition of horror and ghost stories) party with a real life Harry Potter Divination “lesson” or exhibition. It’s still fun stuff to do and weird people out. Speaking of finding things to do…there is then my second pick, which is actually two:
The Boys and Girls Own Books
Continuing the guidebooks filled with fun activities to do there are also two books hailing from 1829 and 1834 respectively that can fast become a great source of entertainment; The Boy’s Own Book by William Clarke, and The Girl’s Own Book by Mrs. Maria Child. Written long before the advent of electricity, radio, television, internet and videogames these books are stuffed to the brim with fun games and guides of activities kids can enjoy and play the same way they did two-hundred years ago. It’s not only fun to see what kids back then did, it’s just as much fun to revive them. Many of the games are still played today so many are still quite accessible.
The Boy’s Book is filled with rough and tumble gymnastic games and exercises and chemistry-based experiments and activities that would make most modern helicopter parents faint (yay mercury!), but there are also guides to other ball-based games and small “sports” games ranging from marbles to spinning tops. There are guides on swimming, learning sign language, archery, draughts and checkers, “ledgerdemain” or slight-of-hand and magic tricks, card-games and many other fun miscellaneous activities. One interesting one in particular is how to preserve rose-buds in early summer to bloom at Christmastime (this was before repeating roses were common and the planted varieties at the time only bloomed in late spring), arithmetic games and puzzles, riddles and guide to fishing, fencing and pigeon care. There is literally nothing left out in this little book and while a bunch of entries are purely comical or rather impossible to do now and serve more as a learning experience and a laugh, boys and girls both can still find fun and interesting things to do or learn how to do from this book. It’s super useful for those who watch kids, are a camp counselor or just want to be the “cool” cousin or sibling.
Likewise The Girl’s Own Book is chock full of games in which to play, and while somewhat dated in terms of the scope of what girls could do is still surprisingly engaging; girls didn’t just sit and play with their dolls in fact many of the games suggested in this book are still played today on playgrounds (if kids are even granted recess) by both sexes. The activities in this book are more group based; circle based both word and action games to do with friends most involving a little bit of roleplay. Some games like “Cries of Paris” involve a lot of roleplay, each child assigned to be a certain pedlar (cherries, umbrellas, water-bearer, flowergirl etc) which also involves the use of french phrases. Perhaps a helpful exercise and game for French teachers to try out. The Girl’s Own Book also features guides to archery, riddles and puzzles, tongue teasers and songs, active games like shuttlecock (similar to badminton), old out of fashion or rather forgotten games like the more or less exclusively female game la grace (small hoop throwing and catching back and forth on two rods) and even a guide to calisthenics. Additionally the Girl’s book is much more creative activity based, providing different things in which to actually “make” with one’s hands such as paper screens, many different types of baskets, paper cutting and folding, candle ornaments, engraving egg shells, butterfly and leaf impressions, and then domestic topics with guides to sewing and knitting and even encyclopedia-esque guides to bees and silkworms, on keeping animals and also gardening. While a bit less full to the brim with activities as The Boy’s Own Book it still is a extremely cool book full of activities to try instead of the usual offers. I’d gift both books together as a bundle for both girls and boys to get a complete scope of fun stuff to do or as a gift for teachers and babysitters.
Onwards to my third pick!
Goops and How to Be Them: A Manual of manners for Polite Infants by Gelett Burgess
A Goop and his wall drawings.
This 1900 book is a guide on manners full of small little poems and poem-y stories to teach etiquette and proper outstanding morals in children. It’s notable for its very stylized and simple illustrations featuring the titular ” Goops”, children who are depicted as these bald round headed little caricatures with noodley almost octopus like arms and simple but very expressive faces including quite a bit of side-eye. Many of the little ditties featuring these Goops as they both behave and misbehave are actually still pretty applicable to kids today, but the real charm lies in the artwork, whose simplicity and quirkiness looks like something someone today would come up with, not 113 years ago. The poems and little stories are charming in their own way and while somewhat dated the book can still be enjoyed for the illustrations alone which are quite different from most children’s book art of the time which leads us to my final pick….
Freaks and Frolics of Little Girls and Boys by Josephine Pollard
If this book title doesn’t belong in an October review then someone help me. This lushly illustrated book of poems and little ditties about mischievous, overtly emotional or just naughty children in the era of being seen but overall not to be heard or fuss is different from the above book in that it is more conventional in it’s “playing it straight” Victorian earnestness…but…. there’s something amiss and extremely compelling amongst its gorgeous color prints. While a great deal of the entries are straightforward tales about little girls such as “Foolish Fanny”, and “Stupid Jane” (things that don’t age too well) and boys like “Teasing Tom” and “Inky Jake” all of whom express “too much” of a certain emotion, or are vain, or get ink everywhere, essentially examples of what not to be…there….seems also seems to be….oh….a poem-story about a kid catching on fire as a warning not to play with fire. Okay. Let’s see…oh god she’s getting attacked by winged pies….and oh god a boy makes himself into a kite….another boy getting attacked by poultry and other farm animals in his dream…..oh….oh my. He actually gets dipped into a vat of ink? Oh god. This is some weird stuff. Help. Help.
Amidst the earnestness and some rather dated and “cutesy” stories there are somewhat macabre or fanciful additions to teach those kids who are seen as less than good or well behaved a “lesson” that truly put the “freaks” in the book. These are further emphasized or rather contrasted by the very pretty, conventionally detailed and idealized artwork of the time which is a treat to look at especially for those interested in what I’ll assume is mostly middle and upper-class fashion and activities of the time for children. The array of socks, bows, stockings and shoes and jackets the little boys wear is just as interesting to look at as the girl’s smock dresses maybe even more so as the boys fashions are no longer really worn whilst variations of some of the girls’ dresses are still used and worn by little girls even today. Much of the behavior seen in the book would not be seen as freakish today either but more reflects what was seen as bothersome to Victorian sensibilities so it’s further a curious read to see how things have changed and realize how things have changed since then too. Yet another book that is great for checking out for the illustrations, fashion, and bizarre stories alone.
So if you can, take a look into the past this week and pick up one of these books or seek them out to have or give to others as they’d make a perfect gift for the right kid or person. You might learn something frighteningly good if you do!
See you next week!
Max Eber
Staff Writer/The Doctor
max@sub-cultured.com
Twitter: @maxlikescomics
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The Ponds may be gone as companions but their involvement in the Who mythos isn’t quite over (and might not be over at all). The in-universe book Summer Falls as seen in the Series 7 part 2 opener The Bells of Saint John has, following the success of the Melody Malone The Angel’s Kiss: A Melody Malone Mystery prequel to Angels Take Manhattan has earlier this week been released by the BBC as an ebook. Discussed between Clara and her ward Artie in the episode, Clara treated it like a classic children’s novel and delivered the metatextual line when asking Artie about which chapter he was on; “Eleven’s the best. You’ll cry your eyes out… the good kind of crying.” Most eagle eyed fans noticed this book was written by none other than Amelia Williams aka the much missed Amy Pond.
Amy you’re a former model and published 1950’s classic children’s author beloved by maybe millions can you please not get any better. You’re not even here. Stop making all of us look bad.
It seems playing into Amy’s meta-nature about stories, fairytales and her past inclinations towards literature our time displaced companion did what many thought she would do as a career for herself; she became a children’s literature author. Summer Falls, written in 1954, is the first example of Amy’s writing seen in universe aside from her also time-loop inducing message to the Doctor in the afterward to River’s novel , perhaps one of a few to come (let’s hope?!).
Unlike The Angel’s Kiss which serves a purely narrative prequel, Summer Falls is its own stand alone fictional adventure as if written by Amy. It follows a girl named Kate trying to solve a mystery in the seaside village of Watchcombe. The book is extremely British, and extremely aware and pulls from Amy’s time with the Doctor, basing characters on her family and friends (The Doctor and River in particular have their own iterations in her novel and my good friend and partner in crime Jen posits Kate as possibly an analogy to Clara.)
It’s okay guys, I’m not gone. I got this. Imma write you books. People love books.
The book also indulges with a wink and a nod to the well informed Doctor Who fan, having plenty of tiny snippets of witty references that even Amy wouldn’t know but are without a doubt clearly there for the fans. So it serves quite a number of functions and does it all rather well if just a bit under-edited. The short and rather quick read is a well written adventure in its own right but it also seems to give possible thematic if not overt hints and visual clues for this current second half of the season and the 50th anniversary. The villain and other elements match the current threat of the The Great Intelligence and readers have already speculated if these allusions are purely for us viewers and readers as breadcrumbs for the fans to enhance this season’s progress or does Amy know something the Doctor does not and is trying to help without setting anyone’s fate by outright saying it? Or is that hoping for too much. We’ll have to see.
another look at that cover. Look at it. Look at this cover.
Would you like to have a whole ongoing series of “Amy Pond” penned books?
I think it would be a great idea. Let me know what you think!
You can purchase Summer Falls on Amazon and Itunes for your e-readers.
Max Eber
Staff Writer/The Doctor
max@ihogeek.com
Twitter: @maxlikescomics
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