EGX Games Preview

As quickly as it came, it left. EGX (Formerly the Eurogamer Expo) took place in September, and between darting around playing as many games as possible, we were left only an empty wallet, and a taste of things to come. The Xtreme Entertainment Network got to play a few upcoming major titles…

Splatoon

For the inner graffiti artist inside of us, Splatoon offers a way of getting paint everywhere without sneaking onto the tube rails at 3AM. The idea is to get as much of your teams paint everywhere within a time limit, while dealing with the other team, also trying to achieve the same goal. Eventually both teams are bound to clash somewhere in the middle of the very well designed arenas, and proceed to splatter each other like its 90% off at Homebase. The controls were a little bit iffy, you move the camera left and right with the analog sticks on the Wii U gamepad, but up and down are controlled by waving it about, kind of like how you do when the batteries in your TV remote are dead. Hopefully that’ll be changeable when the full game comes out.

Splatoon is scheduled to release sometime in early 2015 on the Wii U.

Oculus Rift

After queuing for about an hour, I got a paltry 10 minutes to play around with the Oculus Rift, but it was definitely worth it. I was lucky enough to play the as of yet unreleased Eve: Valkyrie, a multiplayer space dogfighting game set to launch with Rift. I was completely blown away by how effective the VR effect was, spending too much time marvelling at all of the controls in my cockpit, and getting blown to bits by everyone else. I think it’s safe to say that Oculus Rift is going to redefine what immersion means in gaming. If you can afford it, that is.

Far Cry 4

Set high up in the mountains of the Himalayas, the newest entry in the Far Cry franchise is set to be the most ambitious one yet. With some seriously impressive graphics and lots of activities to do in the mountains of Kyrat, I can’t see this being a disappointment.

Far Cry 4 puts you in the shoes of Ajay Ghale, who’s skills consist of being incredibly proficient with any weapon he picks up, blowing up elephants with explosive charges, and causing general havoc. Like its predecessor, Far Cry 4 follows a similar structure: You liberate outposts, you cause mass extinction amongst the local wildlife so that you can make belts out of their innards, and you kill anything that even thinks about looking at you the wrong way. It’s not a bad structure though, it worked well for Far Cry 3, and it works well here.

Far Cry 4 launches on November 18^th, available on all platforms, save for the Wii U.

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

The first Hotline Miami was not your standard action game; it was more a neon, 80’s inspired haze of blood, violence and electronic synth music. You weren’t given enough time to realise you were playing a game, because your brain was too busy trying to keep up with your hands, and your hands were too busy trying to kill everybody in the room before they could kill you. It was a unique and fresh experience, and Hotline Miami 2 offers more of the same, this time with a more expanded storyline, feature intertwining plots and characters with different motives for why they all engage in the occasional mass murder. Hotline Miami posed one important question to players when they first started the game: “Do you like hurting other people?” If yes, Hotline Miami 2 is a game you should be interested in.

Hotline Miami 2 will be bashing our skulls in sometime in late 2014, or early 2015 on PS3, PS4, PS Vita, and PC.

Lucas Curd