A couple of weeks ago I was invited to go down to the Switch launch event in London. Along with other members of the public I was lucky enough to try the few games that have been revealed for the console and get some hands on time with the unit itself. The potential it has and my excitement for the system were somewhat dampened by the big presentation Nintendo held a few days before the event. There were too many variables that weren't addressed and the lineup of games wasn't that big, especially the amount that are being released early on. I thought the overall concept of the Switch was still great but that was shown to us last year. Apart from information regarding HD rumble (of which they didn't really explain) and a few new games, there wasn't much content to back it all up. As a brand new home console from Nintendo they could have gone in a very different direction that I'm sure would greatly please more dedicated gamers.
Overall, I'm very pleased with the direction and quality of games they are showing off with a few niggling issues that are holding back my overall excitement levels. It was only on the train ride home from the Switch event where the true potential of the system hit me. Having those console experiences on the journey would be game changing. The quality of the screen and controllers. The ability to play multiplayer games with just the unit itself. The ease of popping off a controller and giving it to a friend.
But then of course my mind wanders to the questions of battery life, range of games and storage space and the doubts and issues build up again, but for a moment I saw the possibilities of what the Switch could open up. A handheld that happens to be a console is such a straightforward yet clever idea that it seems unbelievable that no-one has pulled it off yet. Along with the quality of Nintendo's first party games, it could take off with a whole different audience who weren't even aware of the Wii U's existence.
Let's get straight into the games along with a quick grade to see how they stack up against each other.
As with Just Cause 3 last year, Dishonored 2 pretty much single-handedly sold me on my ticket to attend this years EGX. I'm a big fan of Arkane Studios' Dishonored, the 2012 steampunk-esque (whalepunk?) stealth game that combined excellent world-building, satisfying mechanics and brilliant level design to deliver something that I've replayed more times that I care to admit, and the opportunity to play the sequel was simply too tempting to pass up.
The mission I played is one that takes place around about 4 hours into the game, tweaked slightly so that those unfamiliar with the first game still have a fighting chance of completing it. Choosing to play as either Corvo Atanno (the protagonist of Dishonored) or Emily Kaldwin (the now grown-up princess from the first game with abilities of her own), players are are tasked with infiltrating the mansion of genius inventor Kirin Jindosh in order to put a stop to the development of his automated clockwork soldiers, while also rescuing an old ally who is being held prisoner deep within the mansion.
Go back a few years and the problem of having yet another plastic instrument taking up space in your house seemed like it would never happen again, but apparently both Activision and Harmonix think that enough time has passed for people to spend more money and find the floor space for a new one. Personally, I love rhythm games and I’ve put more than too many hours into both the Guitar Hero and the Rockband franchises, so I'm totally up for some new entries. However, whether the general audience is on board for more remains to be seen.
At the Eurogamer Expo this month both Rockband 4 and Guitar Hero Live were on display, and both were high on my list of games I wanted to try out. Since the over saturation of the market, only games such as Rocksmith have tried to fill the guitar playing void left by these franchises. This is now their chance to win back their previous audience as well as trying to gain some new fans at the same time.
I'm not really big on Assassin's Creed. I haven't played an Assassin's Creed game since Assassin's Creed 2 (despite owning most of them on Steam) and I've never been overly impressed with them anyway - fun free running mechanic and historical settings aside, I've never really found anything about them to be particularly enjoyable, from the repetitive combat to the dull present day parts of the story that focus on Desmond.
Maybe I'm not the best person to be doing this.
Regardless, I had the opportunity to play Assassin's Creed Syndicate on PS4 at the 2015 Eurogamer Expo (more commonly known as EGX), spending about 15 minutes on an assassination mission that gave me a couple of different ways of approaching my target. Naturally, I tried to do it sneaky - under the guise of having been caught by a guard (who was secretly on my side) I started to work my way through the building, avoiding getting too close to enemies who would be able to tell I wasn't really a prisoner, focusing on remaining undetected and slowly but surely making progress towards my target before finally pouncing on her. That failed and I died though, so I ended up punching my way through with ease.
If I'm being perfectly honest, Just Cause 3 is the reason I decided to attend the 2015 Eurogamer Expo (more commonly known as EGX). I'm a big fan of Just Cause 2 (which must be one of my most played Xbox 360 games) and I've been looking forward to a sequel for some time now, an anticipation that has only been heightened by the game play footage and trailers released recently.
I spent 20 minutes with Just Cause 3 in total, which was running on PC and played using an Xbox One controller. The demo opens with Rico leaning against a fancy looking sports car, looking calm, collected and inherently cool as he smokes a cigarette. After a second or so, he flicks it away from him, stands up and... that's the end of the only scripting or forced direction that the demo of Just Cause 3 contained. From then on I was given complete freedom of choice of what to do, the only limit being the amount of time I had to play with.
