On Day Four of EGX wasn’t just me as Luke made an appearance and as this was his first day we headed to Star Fox Zero which I played for the second time this week. If you have read Day One I found the controls a bit iffy on the boss fight but on a second go I found them fine.
I thought Star Fox Zero was absolutely cracking. The controls suited me, as someone who plays Splatoon with the motion controls on, and otherwise it played just like classic Star Fox. The graphics weren't anything to write home about, with simple shapes and dodgy textures, but they worked well enough and the skyboxes were breathtaking.
After we were done with Fox we played Mario Tennis against each other which I won quite convincingly as Luke only took one point that it was over quite quickly.
He got lucky.
As we left we noticed hardly anyone was playing Xenoblade Chronicles X as I was round the corner from where Luke was playing, I didn’t see him leaving and as we were split up, I headed to the 18+ section again.
I enjoyed a quick go on Xenoblade, but for the most part it plays like the Wii original. And playing a 5 minute demo of a massive, sprawling JRPG seems a bit silly. It does look bloody gorgeous though. Looking forward to release.
Where I eventually tried The Division but whilst in the queue, I and the two guys in front of me were interviewed by YouTube Gaming about women in gaming. I have tried to find the video on their channel but nothing so far part from highlights of the show each day & the developer sessions.
While Pengers mucked about spending a couple of hours queuing for a Ubisoft game, I had my first proper look around the convention; cosplays, cars, a massive Tie Fighter, all that, and checked out some Indie stuff. Among the games I looked at were Cast of the Seven Godsends, a solid side-scroller that looks like my memories of old Mega Drive games, and Word Party, a fun Wii U multiplayer game with word-based puzzles and minigames.
How the queue was set up we could watch Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate being played by people, the demo of that had be people playing as Evie Frye. I got to watch this for about an hour and all I can say is:
Finally I got to play The Division which was 3 v 3 v 3 with each team having an objective then all 3 meeting in the middle along with the NPC enemies which we could then work together or kill each other.
Despite mocking Masofdas for queuing up to play a ubisoft game when there are so many fresh, exciting indies just waiting to be experienced I then queued for nearly two hours to play Halo 5. Which is out in a month. But, y'know... Halo!
It was decent enough but wasn’t Ubisoft’s best game at the show that was Rainbow Six: Siege but it makes sense as one is out this December the other March, that with another 6 months The Division could be something special.
Once I was done I wondered toward the indie booth but on the way I spotted Luke, who had been taking the piss that I been in a 2+hr queue, in the Halo 5 queue but as I was near all the Xbox stuff.
Halo 5 was absolute bangers. Warzone is the first time Halo's multiplayer, which I've always been cold on, has felt like Halo's singleplayer, which I love. Action all around, Covenant and Prometheans getting involved, vehicles and weapons and everything else. Big open levels and freeform action.
I had a go on The Flame in the Flood which is from people that worked on Bioshock which was successfully kickstarted, it’s a roguelike survival game with a unique art style, whilst playing I managed to kill my character within about 5 minutes as I was mauled to death by a wolf.
As Luke was likely still waiting to play Halo 5, I continued towards the indie stuff where I talked to one of the PR people of Ysbryd Games whom are publishing YIIK which has been described to be Earthbound like and there other big game was Masquerada which reminded me a bit of Transistor whilst watching it being played, which the PR guy was very pleased to hear, he then went on to tell me Jennifer Hale will be one of the voice actors.
Then around the corner from that I spotted a game I helped back on kickstarter Strength of the Sword ULTIMATE, which I got to play for the very first time as I couldn’t the demo sent out awhile ago to backers to run on then current laptop and totally forgot I had it to try.
I played the odd thing with Oculus but nothing that interesting in till VR Karts which as its own game you wouldn’t look at, at all but with the Oculus a Xbox 360 steering wheel & pedals it was like driving an actual go kart and made sense for a VR experience as to why I was sat down.
Its dwarves, with a V, I'm barely shorter than you and I could kick your arse. Plus I was one of three people in the whole day who won the VR Kart race and you spent your time crashing into a wall.
By this point Luke had joined me and had a quick go as well on VR Kart, as the day was getting late we decided to head home but on the way out we played some Street Fighter V which was quite even in which I just took in the Ryu v Ryu winner takes it match.
So yeah, that's EGX. It was alright. Podcast incoming.