The 16 amazing new games that made PAX West a success

SEATTLE – We already had a lot to say about the games we saw last week at PAX West. Our cover started with an exclusive tour of Valve Studio and a demonstration of his new card game Artifact, and we continued with looks at the surprise rebirths of the '90s and the Nintendo Switch offerings.

But as the only participant in PAX West 's Ars, I needed time off to truly treat the rest of what I had seen. And after a week to think about it, I'm ready to identify this year's great games. A fan-first expo is not necessarily the best place to judge certain types of games, especially deeper games, loaded systems, and loaded stories, and PAX lacks titles like megaton. Cyberpunk 2077 and Fallout 76 (although Bethesda distributed Vault Boy masks). But we think our choice of outstanding PAX demonstrations speaks volumes about the surprises and fun of the series.

(Stay tuned for at least one other article related to PAX West in the near future, by the way: a cat sitting with Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland about his first full-fledged VR adventure game, Trover saves the universe.)

Elysium nightclub: A delighted dialogue

Giving any game or demo a "best show" designation from PAX West is misleading, especially when many of the best games in this expo have made their debut at previous events. (A lot of good PAX West games, especially Mega Man 11 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, already made our list E3 2018, for example; retreading this terrain would be redundant.) But if you push me to pick a personal favorite of PAX West, in terms of novelty and surprise, this honor will undoubtedly go to Elysium nightclub.

Do not confuse this dialogue-oriented RPG with an interactive novel. This adventure from top to bottom, performed by a small London studio, includes puzzles and inventory management mechanisms that you can expect from a LucasArts classic. The difference here is the breadth of branched dialogue paths and optional conversations wrapped up in this PC adventure game in early 2019 – not to mention the hilarious and dark script that advances its humor from the beginning. horror.

Elysium nightclubWriters drink clearly in the pools of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. This is immediately proved by a black introduction in which you engage in a dialogue with an apparent overseer of all kingdoms – one that makes you drunk on the promise of infinite nothingness, only to draw you into consciousness by the bias to wake up from a wild hangover. It turns out that this conversation was invented in your mind as a drunken sleepwalking battle with a radio in your hotel room. You come as a nude amnesic policeman in an alternative future, but you have little time to spot you because you must immediately face a dead body hanging in front of the hotel where you woke up.

Even in this opening dialogue with Something-the devil? the end of the world? your own illusions? – players must fight with Elysium nightclubdice dialogue system. Many of the major dialog choices depend on whether your character's existing stats, combined with a random roll of dice, exceed the D & D number set at a given time. And your character can aim to master 24 properties – equally divided into "intellect", "psyche", "physical" and "automotive" – ​​to prepare for a wide variety of options.

All major games, from melee to perfection yourself in a mirror, depends on the options of the dialog tree. The good news is that in many cases failure is so delicious, so dark and humorous, that you just have to go – and that history often goes on, instead of stopping and punishing you. for failures. An example: at one time, I decided to try a "stealthy" getaway while chatting with an employee of the hotel, despite the fact that my stealth is his. The result of my failure was that I walked away with a loud sneer and giving the employee two heavily raised middle fingers – and the onscreen action unfolded in nature, with my polygonal character in the colors of the Celtic that overlays the works of d & # 39; 39 high resolution art hand drawn in the lobby of the hotel in question. And the game … continued.

That's not to say that there's no incentive to play on your character's strengths, especially when you're focusing on specific stats, and you'll have to do it to unlock that that the developers estimate to be more than 70 hours of gameplay. (You'll need about three games to find the divergent paths that add to this total, they point out.) No release date is yet set for this ambitious game beast, but I am already ready to buy the first day.

Independent Suites: Spelunky 2, Chance of rain 2

There was no shortage of suites at PAX West, but we had already gone with a lot of big ones at events like E3. Hilariously, one of the biggest suites we had tested before, Kingdom Hearts III, almost eclipsed a sequel that received its world premiere of PAX gameplay: Spelunky 2.

The series, created by designer Derek Yu, has used PAX West in the past for at least one big revelation, with Spelunky HD He made his world premiere on the show in 2011 (while he was still calling it "PAX Prime", if you keep the score). The first major update of the series for years, a full suite, will be launched "in 2019" on Windows and PlayStation 4, and we had to rely on a single kiosk in the middle of the Sony PAX stand (and close to a line). -drawing Kingdom Hearts kiosk, to that) to see how it will differ from its ancestor.

All Spelunky Fans know better than watching the preview sequences of the sequel and laughing as "almost identical" to the original game. We are back to a familiar art style, which consists of square-sized sprites that fit into the famous roguelite system of randomly generated dungeons. The basic controls are the same: players descend into dungeons with a default whip attack, a limited number of bombs and climbing ropes, as well as a skyrocketing move.

Or Spelunky 2 differs is in the crazy amount of things that his worlds are populated. We could only taste this depth thanks to the brutality with which the current demo is in phase – which is consistent with the series' famous ethic. Among the new enemies we saw, there was a burrowing mole rat, a ruffled tattoo, an explosive toy robot and a jungle man, catapulting and the size of a boss. Meanwhile, existing enemies will sometimes mingle with the action on a mount … that you can drag for your own use. The two mounts we've seen – a turkey and a rock-covered dog – offer variations on standard double jump action, and they can also absorb the damage or offer a boost jump (if you'd like to throw them away brutally, Yoshi style).

All of this appeared randomly in my demos, just like a new series of caves lit by candles that hide treasure, a new water physics system that determines how puddles of water (and the lava) can spread. ), and a new Indiana Jones style trap mechanism close to the valuable "idol" pickups of the game. The latter seems designed specifically for cooperative play, forcing one to run on the path of the game. a trap, then seize and immediately cast the idol before it is crushed by a huge barricade. And Spelunky 2 Cooperative minded, with new online support and more cooperative specific options, including two-person puzzle triggers and the possibility for online cooperative players to have their own screens.

I burst out playing (and, yuck, dying) through mine Spelunky 2 attempts. But if you made me choose the best suite of PAX West, it would be a connection between the game above and the radical evolution of Chance of rain 2.

Some basic concepts have been repeated in this sequel, namely that the longer you take to reach the level of a boss, the more the final battle and the grunts that accompany it will be difficult. The difficulty is to decide: do you focus on the hidden boss of the level? Or take your time to accumulate wealth and spend it in various payment kiosks at the upgrade, while facing a more and more terrible attack?

In the following, this concept has been transformed into a very different mechanical game, from the original side scrolling action platform game to a 3D adventure in the third person. This transformation has clearly shaken the designers, who have created new classes of heroes that focus on resolutely different fighting strategies. Do you want to release firepower in a standard soldier style? Combine floating drone turrets and paying arcade grenades? Are you more interested in a quick teleportation-dashboard maneuver when shooting missiles in search of lower heat? Even at the beginning of the game, ROR2 already enjoys a strong spread of class types, and their specific powers are all the more crucial as combat can now fill your entire vision dome, as opposed to 2D-focused platforms. (And the enemies of the original game came back with improvements in kind, especially their new abilities to jump, steal and generally harass you.)

ROR2 already seems to reward replay with mostly intangible boosts. Each session generates players at a random point of a predefined map, where treasures, enemies and bosses are hidden randomly. Repeat play will help players better understand where interesting and dangerous content can hide. especially with the sprawling verticality in the three impressive levels we have seen so far.

As in the original game, some content, especially the new character classes, will be unlocked as players reach certain milestones. Most of the time, each session starts with fresh players. You will need to depend on your understanding of the class of a character, levels, and enemies that you have seen in previous battles to get anywhere, instead of unlocking health bonuses or cumulative damage. during repeated sessions.

We always want to see how classes gel or not, especially once the final game opens in cooperative mode (or dual-split mode) with four players and more character classes (including, hopefully, some) . melee options). But ROR2 already feels like a solid option for a quick PVE cooperative action with friends, and we look forward to seeing more (including a confirmed release date).

Picture of the list by Sam Machkovech