It’s that time of year yet again where the infamous Tobacco Dock down in Aldgate, London becomes the UK’s bustling centre for all things gaming related! Having attended last year, we had high hopes for this year’s EGX Rezzed, so, after grabbing our press passes and making our way into the industrial complex of Tobacco Dock, what did we think of our second day at EGX Rezzed 2018? What adventures did we get up to…?
…And most importantly, what did we play?
Part 1: Whisked away to the Windlands..! Also admiring FiercePC’s cases…
First on our list for our second day was a little VR title known as Windlands 2, developed by Psytech Games, this admirable VR title acts as a sequel to their prior VR title, Windlands, a VR grappling hook-focused adventure that had you swinging from tree to tree to discover ancient secrets of a fragmented world – Windlands 2 brings to the series a brand new form of gameplay, however, in the form of 4-player co-op and bow-centric combat! I have to admit, whilst it took me a while to get used to swinging around, and had me exploring every nook and cranny for secrets and collectibles, the combat is really where the game comes alive – In our demo, four of us were tasked with first repelling a gigantic sand-snake akin to the Dah’ren Mohran in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, and then were set up against a robotic spider-bot covered in shields and armed to the teeth with laser cannons and electric fields… The game really does shine in a cooperative environment, with bosses scaling to your party level, and is all-in-all a bundle of hectic fun!
After we had departed from the guys from Psytech Games over at Windlands 2, we found ourselves admiring the impressive glass panelling on many of the EGX “Tentacle Zone’s” PC’s – Many were adorned in vibrant, glow-in-the-dark and luminated panels, all designed and provided by FiercePC, a 2-year-old pre-built gaming pc provider that has a rather unique selling point… Cases like these:
Regardless to say that, at least in my opinion, they look pretty damn sexy – One complaint that me and Clarice specifically had about these cases, however, was about the airflow of these cases – FiercePC’s representative at EGX had told us, however, that they’re looking to expand their range of cases and designs to better accommodate more enthusiast-level cases, such as Thermaltake, for instance.
Part 2: Another Sight & Shift Quantum stole our hearts…
Second on the list of appointments were Another Sight by Lunar Great Wall Studios, and Shift Quantum by Fishing Cactus – Another Sight follows the journey of Kit, a teenager in 1899’s London at the cusp of the Victorian era who, through the series of events that begin the game, loses the majority of her eyesight – Using Lunar Great Wall Studio’s interesting perception of echolocation, you need to navigate through a variety of puzzles and locales alongside your faithful companion, Hodge, a red-haired cat that stumbles across the poor girl trapped in the darkness – As you can expect, you control both characters in this title, and both have unique viewpoints of the world, with Hodge seeing the world in full colour, with Kat seeing the world in a darker, more dull sense with the only light she can see being either extremely strong light or the light of her surrounding ‘bubble’ of noise – Surprisingly, this leads to a bizarre juxtaposition with the presented themes, with the best example the devs showing us being a bright and colourful garden from Hodge’s perspective, with it turning extremely dark and mysterious environment upon changing to Kat’s perspective. For me, it’s interesting to see another indie game introduce a more unique interpretation of blindness and disability, and I can’t wait to see the full release.
Shift Quantum, on the other hand, moves less from personal struggles and more onto societal ones – Being a successor to the classic flash game Shift, this title developed by Fishing Cactus looks at a fictitious service that allows people ‘guaranteed’ happiness… In exchange for their personal data and deepest memories… It brings a more mature and somewhat grown-up tone to the once simple flash game, with it still retaining many of the same mechanics as it’s precursor – I did experience quite a few performance issues on the Nintendo Switch version of the game, which is set to release alongside all other versions of the game in a few weeks, however a member of Fishing Cactus assured me that these issues are being worked out before launch.
Part 3: Nintendo, Travis Strikes Again and hopes for the future…
Closing off our day was Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, the newest title from the madhouse that is Grasshopper Manufacture and Suda51, Travis Strikes Again follows the titular protagonist of the No More Heroes franchise, Travis Touchdown, as he investigates various videogames and the unique worlds contained within… A nice surprise from Nintendo’s demo at EGX Rezzed was that the demo was actually a sequel to the demo shown off at GDC 2018, making plenty of references and callbacks to GDC 2018 and EGX Rezzed, with the main villain for the demo giving us the “London Special”, allowing us to fight against his second form (Which was unavailable to those attending GDC 2018); it certainly put a smile on our faces!
The game itself is completely different to anything else Suda51 or Grasshopper Manufacture have done before, being more of a Diablo-like beat-em-up title, which obviously gives off an air of confusion and unfamiliarity, especially when some fans (Myself included) may have preferred a ‘traditional’ No More Heroes title – Saying this, however, I was pleasantly surprised at the gameplay; it’s a perfect fit for the Nintendo Switch’s pick-up-and-play mantra, and lends itself to short sessions rather than multiple longer ones.
So that was our adventure at this year’s EGX Rezzed! We can’t wait to (Hopefully) attend the larger EGX up in Birmingham in September this year, and to see what next year has to offer EGX attendees! A HUGE thank you to the staff over at EGX for securing us press passes to both days of the event, and we can’t wait to return to Tobacco Dock!