EGX Rezzed, First Impressions – Part 4

Kyn – Tangrin

Part 4 1

The best way I can describe Kyn is that it’s one of those RPGs that’s good for eating up your time with simple fighting and the ever addictive pursuit of loot; not quite Diablo, but still a lot of fun.

You control two characters that have awoken within a mysterious cave, and must traverse the land fighting goblins, bandits and various other fantasy extras. The combat sees you shifting between your characters, each of which has, well, a rather similar set of abilities. As you progress through the story you pick up new party members who I assume offer more variety. Still, this simplicity does ease the player very successfully into learning the combat mechanics, even if there is little variety to enjoy from the get-go.

Playing so early on in the game, there was not a lot to comment on. The controls were fairly fluid, and the location was attractive, but it lacked a real wow factor. More is needed for a real review, but as far as first impressions go this game seems to have a lot of potential.

 

Armikrog – Pencil Test Studios

Part 4 2

Ever wanted to combine Wallace and Gromit with Abe’s Odyssee? No? Then you’d never get a job at this developer’s studio.

Armikrog is a unique take on the 2D point-and-click adventure game, told entirely in stop motion clay animation. The cut-scenes are beautifully animated, and the main characters make for a hilarious duo. The designs of the enemies and environments are a strange blend of minimalism and the utterly bizarre. It creates a strange world that is solely Armikrog: I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

One thing I disliked about this game is that, even for a point and click puzzle adventure, items can be very hard to identify and spot. This kind of thing has always made me allergic to the genre, and though the charm of Armikrog certainly left me wanting more, this niggling problem will cause a lot of frustration for many gamers.

Armikrog is still in an early stage of development, and so it is certainly worth holding out for what could be an incredible game.

 

Titan Souls – Acid Nerve

Part 4 3

With a lot of retro-esque games, the charms of their antiquated designs are enough to draw in the average gamer. I have been fooled several times, thinking I would be getting a nostalgia themed treat, and instead getting a lazily designed pixel platformer.

With Titan Souls I was shocked to discover a mixture of the deliciously addictive difficulty of Dark Souls and the simple game mechanics of The Binding of Isaac. The game is made up solely of boss battles that you can tackle in any order. With only a one hit health bar and an arsenal consisting of a single re-usable arrow, this game ought to be instantly off-putting, and yet I couldn’t put it down.

Eventually having to give someone else a turn, I considered why I had enjoyed the game so much. The movement and combat controls are perfectly precise; there is no reason to think that any mishaps are due to flaws in the game’s design, which for a game this difficult is pretty significant. Titan Souls also makes up for your limited inventory by allowing you to draw the arrow back to you, injuring enemies along the way and thus introducing another fantastic combat mechanic, which is particularly effective given that you are constantly moving to avoid attacks. The designs of the bosses are also wonderfully diverse; no single one is the same, and the variety in their design is an absolute delight.

Titan Souls was very nearly my favourite game at Rezzed, and one that I would definitely recommend.

Knee Deep: A Swamp Noir Adventure – Just Adventure

Part 4 4

Ah, mystery adventure games; your following may be small, but they certainly know what they like.

This genre has been lacking since the early days of Lucasarts, and for old gems like Grim Fandango one of the things that still sticks out is charm. Knee Deep certainly has this in spades: you play an investigative reporter looking into the death of an actor in a wonderfully stylish ‘swamp noire’ setting that is oddly akin to House of the Dead: Overkill.

The setting of the game shifts as part of the make-up of an on-stage production, and though this has been done before, Knee Deep does an excellent job of conveying the drama of a good play. The plot at first comes across as linear, as the heroine moves between set pieces, but soon the dialogue trees and moral choice mechanisms add a lot of intrigue and possibilities, not only to the mystery at hand but how it will come to affect your character. You are constantly at risk of losing not only clues and leads, but the moral high ground and the respect of those that can offer you help. This again is not new, but for what is a shorter game than, say, Mass Effect, it offers a lot of potential for easy replayability.

This is another game I would’ve liked to play more of just to see if any of its potential was realised. Knee Deep is certainly worth looking into if this is a genre you enjoy.

 

Friendship Club – Force of Habit, Clockwork Cuckoo

Part 4 5

Another multiplayer, Friendship Club sees four players battling it out in a child’s subconscious for the sake of, well, battling it out.

That’s as much as I could be bothered to gather, so focused I was on the enchantingly raucous gameplay.

Friendship Club is a top down shooter where each player must exterminate the competition with a mixture of moving and shooting.

If the concept ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

There are a number of power ups, but the ricochet bullets of the original mode ensure that from the instant the shooting starts, players will have to keep up the momentum in order to avoid death.

There are also a lot of interesting modes to choose from. You can add NPCs who target everyone, or even allow defeated players to control the ‘Hand of God’ and smite those still in the game.

Friendship Club is a fantastic multiplayer shooter that’s easy to get into and infectively fun – go and check it out!

 

Super Glad – Coatsink

Part 4 6

Don’t you just love it when an innocent cartoonish game turns out to employ unforgivable dark humour? The developer of this game was particularly amused when I shouted “That’s not a moral choice, it’s just a dick move!”

You control Ruby and her teddy bear Lloyd as you traverse a dream world, solving puzzles as you progress. Programmer Sean Mitchell described the game as ‘very adventure time’ in design and tone, and he’s 100% right: the world and characters are varied and adorable, but a lot of the humour has dark undertones that can really surprise you and make you burst out laughing.

Unfortunately for me it was a demo version that I was playing. Though I got to experience certain mechanics such as switching between the two characters to use different abilities, I missed out on a lot of what the developers said came later on. Apparently as you go deeper into Ruby’s dreams, she will become much more of a lucid dreamer and you will be able to control more of the world around you. This would have been nice to experience, and I hope that further down the line a more complete demo version becomes available.

Despite this, I was utterly charmed by what I saw. Super Glad is set for release later this year and it’s one that I will definitely be picking up.


Posted

in

, ,

by

Comments

Leave a Reply