The second part of our Eurogamer Expo round up covers Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Medal of Honor, Bulletstorm, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Fallout: New Vegas.
Hunted: The Demon’s Forge
I had not heard much about Hunted: The Demon’s Forge so it had kind of fell off my radar. It is Bethesda Softworks 3rd person action game which is played co-op, I assume the second person is CPU controlled if playing by yourself. The game is very much co-op orientated and requires the characters to work together, the male character is primarily a sword fighter while the female is an archer, though both can change between either weapon if they choose. Magic can also be cast either against the enemy or against your co-player which gives them an attack boost.
We played through a complete level which saw a mixture of gameplay styles from close combat through to more open areas which was more suited for attacking using archery and magic. My personal favourite section of the demo was using a catapult to destroy some towers to stop the spawning of Skeletons, I also used it to quickly despatch some enemy Skeletons which was great fun! There are plenty of hidden puzzles which you have to listen out for, as the games sound was hard to hear over all the other noise of the show we were given some pointers and it involved lighting arrows to fire at fireplaces and statues in a certain order, the reward was an upgraded weapon for the player. This game was one of my unexpected highlights of the show as a fully co-op game is rare these days. A really good fun game to play in two player co-op and the graphics, in particular the scenery, looked great. We were not allowed to record videos of the game but I will be keeping an eye on this game for more coverage on the site. Also, thank you to the developer who took the time to talk us through the game, I did not catch your name but you made the game a much more informative experience!
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
There were plenty of consoles to play the soon to be released Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. I spent a bit of time playing a level that required you to slowly defeat a massive enemy character by breaking parts of his body. The graphics looked great and the scale of the enemy character I was fighting was quite epic! I was playing the Xbox 360 version and I did not notice any framerate issues which a few people had mentioned was noticeable on the PS3, I can’t confirm this myself though. Admittedly, I have never been a big Castlevania player but this game has me very interested! Below is a video showing the game in action.
Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor stand had a 16 player match up and running on the PlayStation 3. I had briefly played the beta version on Xbox 360 so I was interested to see if anything had changed since playing. To be perfectly honest I could not see much difference, the recoil on the guns is still near non existent which was somewhat strange as it spoils the the game compared to say Battlefield Bad Company 2. The action is more faster paced than BC2 and I am still undecided if this is a good thing or not, I prefer the more tactical and less frantic pace of BC2. I can’t remember if we was allowed to take videos or not but there was a bit of distance between the queuing line and the televisions so it would not have been worthwhile.
Bulletstorm
Bulletstorm was one of the games I was most looking forward to playing at the show. After queuing up for a while I finally got a chance to play it. If you are not familiar with the game, it is a first person shooter with a couple of twists. While you can play the game like a normal shooter i.e. shooting people, it is only half the possible fun. As well as being armed with a range of guns you have a leash which can be used to pull enemies (and some scenery) towards you, once you do so you can either shoot them at closer range or give them the boot which sends them flying off.Bonus points are given for creative uses of killing in this style, such as kicking the enemy into a spiky cactus or other scenery. There looks to be countless ways to kill them and many have often humorous titles.
The game did not disappoint and had me fully entertained with the over the top weapons and finding new ways to kill the enemies. The demo level was over all too soon as it ended just before what looked like a pretty decent boss taking the form of a large man eating plant. This was one of my favourite games of the show, hurry up February 2011! Videos were unfortunately not allowed for the game.
Donkey Kong Country Returns
Nintendo had a fairly small stand showing a few of their forthcoming games. Donkey Kong Country Returns was my main interest as the original SNES games are amongst my favourite platform games of all time. I got to briefly play on the brand new Wii version and I can safely say this is the game which will force me to dust off my Wii and boot it up. The gameplay feels just like the original Donkey Kong Country and has similar style graphics but now fully in 3D instead of pre rendered. We were allowed to video the game providing it shows the person playing the game (Nintendo’s request) but we sneaked in some full screen action of the game further into the clip.
Fallout: New Vegas
I was a big fan of Fallout 3 so I was hoping for more of the same in Fallout: New Vegas. Playing a RPG at a game show is not really the best way to experience the game but it felt like slipping back into your favourite pair of shoes. The gameplay is essentially identical to Fallout 3, the brilliant V.A.T.S. combat system is still there and before long I was performing headshots on other humans and mutant flies, just like the old days. The game is more of the same which is no bad thing as Fallout 3 was an amazing game. We was not allowed to take videos of the game but it pretty much looks like Fallout 3 so not a big deal.
That is all for the second part of our Eurogamer Expo round up. If you missed the first part you can read it here, part three can be read here.
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