It's hard to believe that PAX East 2011 is already a week gone. The Co-Opticrew got some great hands on time with a ton of awesome games and are more excited than ever about the upcoming year of co-op titles. Here's the round-up of coverage.
Getting your hands on a new piece of hardware is always an exciting experience. I feel that waiting until a week after trying out the newest in the line of Nintendo handheld’s has given me time to process the experience, and separate it from the excitement for a fair preview. While trying out the 3DS I also happened to play the first co-op title on the system - Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. I suppose we could call this a double whammy, two birds with one stone, or the most convenient hardware trial available to a co-op website at PAX East.
Sometimes, the announcement of a title seems to be the answer to your prayers to the video game gods. LotR: War in the North was one such case for me. I’d been whining for some years about how the current generation of consoles suffers a shortage of truly great dungeon crawlers and fantasy hack-and-slash games. I think many of you share my lament in this area, and we’re quick to point to titles such as Balder’s Gate: Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath (both developed by Snowblind) as great games of this type on the last generation of consoles. When Snowblind announced they were working on a new title in the LotR universe, I was pretty darn happy. After getting some hands-on time with the title PAX East last weekend, I can safely say this game is living up to my extremely high expectations.
This s#!t like Tribes yo. That was the official one sentence description given by our own Mike Katsufrakis after playing Red 5’s upcoming free shooter Firefall. It should come as no surprise then that the game’s lead designer, Scott Youngblood, was also the lead designer on Tribes 1 and 2. Trust us when we say this is a really good thing.
Demiurge Studios has been around for quite some time, working closely with companies that we adore from a co-op standpoint, such as Gearbox for Borderlands. Recently the studio took a break from working for others and has decided it’s time to make their game - Shoot Many Robots. Their message here is simple: Robots are bad, we should shoot them. In order to deliver that initial message, we get a plethora of tools to help us out aside from plain old guns. It’s Borderlands meets Metal Slug on a drinking binge as Demiurge describes it - and that’s scarily accurate.
Most of the experiences at PAX are “All right! I finally get to play this game I’ve been hearing about,” but this isn’t the first time we’d seen Slam Bolt Scrappers. Last year an early version of the game was present on the show floor, and Nick and I tried it out. In the last year, the games developer Fire Hose Games has grown by leaps and bounds, and so has Slam Bolt Scrappers.
I would be a bloody liar if I said that Guild Wars 2 wasn’t one of my major reasons for going to PAX East. I’ve been playing the original Guild Wars since the launch of GW: Factions back on April, 2006. Guild Wars is the game I always fall back on when I’m in-between games, and as a result, I’ve logged over 2,000 hours in the game. It’s safe to say I’m pretty darn excited about the sequel. That may or may not have come across in the preview I wrote up last fall. Mike and I had the opportunity to have an interview/demonstration with the developers and Mike, Nick, and I all had a chance at other times during the event to try out the game for ourselves.
This year's PAX East 2011 show floor was jam packed full of gamers and gaming goodness. The show saw a record breaking 69,500 atendees - the biggest PAX convention on any coast to date. Despite that many people the new convention center was wide open with plenty of space. With that many people and that many things to see we don't always get a lot of in depth time with soemthing. Still, there were plenty of things we saw that we want to share with you.
Tim Schafer’s Double Fine studio has been coming on strong recently. After putting out Brutal Legend a few years back they’ve come right back with Costume Quest and Stacking. With a Sesame Street game for Kinect on the horizon its hard to believe the studio has time for another title - but they do - and that game is a downloadable title for Xbox Live Arcade called Trenched. We got some hands on time with the game at PAX East and came away pretty impressed with another take on the tower defense genre.
F.E.A.R. is a series of horror shooter games that I had an interest in to begin with, then it waned with time. I primarily blame the fact that I don’t normally enjoy shooters that leave me on my own. In the case of F.E.A.R. 3 that loneliness is not only gone, but you’ll end up terrified together quite effectively. Tally and I played through a bit of the F.E.A.R. demo at PAX East in a mode very fittingly titled “F**king Run!”
I know what you’re thinking: “didn’t you guys just preview Section 8: Prejudice last month?” Why yes, yes we did. However, Nick hadn’t played the original for a solid comparison preview. The PAX East preview of Section 8 Prejudice is for both the experienced Section 8 players, and the people who just want to get into a game that offers some pretty hardcore strategy and shooter elements.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. Yup, I said it. Its a game that is often referenced but rarely replicated in the console world. Now it seems only fitting that the inspiration for the Baldur's Gate series has become the basis for the game that's going to replicate Dark Alliance's gameplay style. Understand the paradox? After getting some hands on time with Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale at PAX East, I can confidently say this game feels perfect for fans of the Dark Alliance series, action RPG fans, and people with only $10.
