There’s no shortage of things to play at Gamescom, but sometimes you get hands on with more games than others. So for all the demos that were quite short, or I didn’t get an extended booking with for whatever reason, here’s a quick recap of everything else from the show.
Dark Souls Remastered
Laura already spoke in depth about the Dark Souls Switch build, although I inadvertently had some hands-on time with it as well as part of a broader Nintendo booking.
I was mostly interested in the technical aspects of the build, since Dark Souls isn’t the kind of low-poly, low-hardware game that would natively run like a dream on the Switch. But, at least for the very opening section of the game, Dark Souls Remastered ran just fine.
It’s obviously locked at 30 FPS, and being restricted to the tutorial sequences makes the Switch’s life a lot easier. You’re never dealing with more than two enemies on screen at any one time, one at the most. The Asylum Demon is the most challenging thing displayed at any given moment, but it’s in a tight area, there’s not a lot of effects, and the demon’s attacks don’t clutter up the screen with much more than dust.
So it was still too early to say whether Dark Souls Remastered runs well or not. The opening section is smooth enough, but I don’t think you can really give any plaudits for that.
Insurgency: Sandstorm
I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Insurgency. It’s a great success story of another Source mod that found life as a standalone game, which always warms the heart. But it also fills a really neat role among military shooters.
While the game modes aren’t compatible, it’s got a pacing and style of gunplay that’s very familiar to Counter-Strike and hardcore Call of Duty 4. Maps aren’t gargantuan with millions of exposed angles, the time to kill is relatively low, but you’ve also got the ability to lean and an arsenal that would fit right at home in Battlefield.
Those interested in World War 3 will find a lot to like in Insurgency: Sandstorm, particularly if you just love the sound of gunfire.
I didn’t get much hands on with Sandstorm on the show floor: a single round of Push, which is a wave-based mode where the attackers have a certain amount of time and waves to capture points in sequential order. Insurgency requires a heavy focus on teamplay, so it wasn’t a surprise that my team (the attackers) got absolutely hosed.
Sandstorm is the kind of game that should be played with mates, or at least in a quiet setting where you can communicate and organise a little better. It doesn’t demo as well as something like a World War 3 or a Battlefield in that sense, because there’s a lot less space to hide and you’re more reliant on your team being co-ordinated to progress.
It’s looking real good, however, so keen to see the released version when it drops next month.
Pokemon! Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee
The Nintendo closed-doors session had a range of games available, including a quick session early on with Pokemon! Let’s Go. There wasn’t a whole lot to report here – only about 10 minutes of gameplay, really – but it was enough to jot down a few thoughts:
- The Pokeball Plus is not only smaller than expected but comfier. There’s a small analog stick in the centre – about the size of the joystick you find on the back of monitors these days – and you can push a button on the reverse of the ball as well. It’s mainly useful for capturing Pokemon, which you do with an underarm or overarm motion. It’s a bit tricky to get the timing and positioning down – some Pokemon move from side to side, and you’ll have to adjust the throw for different sized Pokemon.
- The menu system is pretty neat and slick, and it’s nice seeing Let’s Go! on the big screen. The major adjustment from the oldschool Red/Blue/Yellow games is that you’ll deliberately run into wild Pokemon, rather than randomly encountering them all the time in grass. This means at least you can run towards a Pokemon of your desired choice. A Butterfree showed up during my play session – which was pretty rare, apparently – but I hadn’t gotten the throwing motion down pat by then, so wasn’t able to catch it.
- I never got their name, but seated nearby was one of the Pokemon developers who was quietly having lunch. I didn’t want to bother them, but just asked offhand whether Psyduck was available in the build. We weren’t located anywhere near water, so it was a stupid question, but they laughed and mentioned that the cheeky duck was one of Pokemon creator Junichi Masuda’s favourites. Which is the correct answer, obviously.
- Transitions in Pokemon still suck, and should be turned off as fast as possible. The effects during battle, mind you, look good on the big screen.
[clear]
Airheart: Tales of Broken Wings
Airheart launched on consoles and PC earlier this year, but the dieselpunk twin-stick shooter is getting a Switch re-release later this year. It’s not gotten much buzz from what I could find, although there were enough neat elements that it caught my eye on the Gamescom floor.
In essence, it’s a game about overfishing. You play as a young pilot called Amelia, who journeys through the clouds getting just enough fish to survive. If you overfish the current level, you have to traverse further into the stratosphere to get what you need. Naturally there’s more obstacles and enemies there, but also more materials and goodies that you can use to upgrade your aircraft.
Once you fly a few levels up, you can hit a button to essentially fast-travel back to base. It kicks off a fantastic transition where the perspective shifts from top-down to behind the plane as it plunges the levels. It’s a bit like that sequence from God of War 3 where you’re falling down the chain of balance, dodging debris and rocks along the way.
A good fit for the Switch, it seemed.
Scarf
A 3D adventure under THQ Nordic’s wing, Scarf is the product of Spanish outfit Uprising Studios. In a closed-doors session, the creators explained that they wanted to bridge the gap between a walking simulator and platformers, although the early levels of the game lend more heavily towards the latter.
The players control a white ghost called Hyke, who is adorned with a polymorphic scarf that changes throughout the level. Sometimes it transforms into a ghastly hook that grabs onto objects and people; other times it transforms into wings, letting the player glide between islands.
It wasn’t hugely clear where the scarf came from, or the connection between Hyke and the scarf. The developers were adamant that this was a story-driven game and a metaphorical allegory about diversity, sans the exposition.
What that means in practice is a bit odd, though. One instance shown was another rebel soul, a little child with a wooden-like mask who was playing at the base of the rock. It was explained that it’s necessary to earn the soul’s trust by playing hide and seek with it, which essentially just results in following the NPC around for a couple of minutes.
Once you do that enough times, the game lets you get close enough to the soul. The scarf then goes a bit Alien, morphs into a creepy hook and basically absorbs the rebel soul.
It’s supposed to be some kind of grand moral quandry, a moment that makes the player question the hero’s journey. I was never really sure why the scarf wants to absorb all of these souls though, and the developers struggled to explain what the souls were doing to the in-game world that gave the player a sense of purpose to begin with.
Laura from Kotaku UK, who had a Scarf briefing as well, had the same problem. Scarf‘s silent approach also makes it harder to give some sense of grounding. There’s obviously a grander narrative that the game wants to tell, but after half an hour with the developers and watching one of the early levels, it passed me by completely.
Bee Simulator
Didn’t have the chance to get hands on with Bee Simulator, but I did have enough time to stop by and grab some footage of someone else having a go. It looks cute enough, but never got a chance to see what kind of mechanics the developers have planned.
Ace Combat 7
I grew up on flight simulators and space sims – F117/A was my first video game – so it was heartwarming to see a relatively small, but passionate line for Ace Combat 7.
It’s looking like a great nostalgic trip. I’m saying that as someone who’s brother bought two copies of Hind so we could do missions on LAN, so I’ve got some odd prior history here. Ace Combat 7 drops for PS4 and PSVR next January, with a PC release the month after.
Torchlight Frontiers
Snapped this quickly on the Friday as I was en-route to another appointment. Would have loved to have given this a bit of a run earlier, but never got the opportunity to. It looks like a neat dungeon basher, although Frontiers is going for an MMO-esque element with shared areas between players.
The game itself, which launches on PC and consoles next year, will have procedurally generated dungeons for solo play as well. Not much of that is seen in the snippets above, although you’ve still got your pet companion who helps out in combat and ferries goods to and from merchants. There’s plenty of time until Frontiers is due for launch, so we’ll circle back to this game in due course.
For the rest of our coverage – including Laura from our British cousins – you’ll find all the meaty stories below.
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/one-hour-of-cyberpunk-2077-makes-me-want-hundreds-more/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/cyberpunk-2077-4-410×231.jpg” title=”One Hour Of Cyberpunk 2077 Makes Me Want Hundreds More” excerpt=”I’ve just finished watching an hour of Cyberpunk 2077’s first-person open-world futureshock, and I’m exhausted.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/more-people-should-be-talking-about-biomutant/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/biomutant-1-410×231.jpg” title=”More People Should Be Talking About Biomutant” excerpt=”When you parse a lot of the coverage from Gamescom this year, you’ll see a lot of fanfare about games from all walks of life. But one game that’s flying under the radar is a plucky little kung fu RPG called Biomutant. And that’s a mistake.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/battlefield-5-has-a-problem-and-its-name-is-world-war-3/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/world-war-3-410×231.jpg” title=”Battlefield 5 Has A Problem And Its Name Is World War 3″ excerpt=”I got to play a good chunk of Battlefield 5 over the course of Gamescom, and the grand scale shooter is coming together largely as you’d expect. But I also got to play another indie FPS on the show floor, one that nearly replaced any excitement I might have had for DICE’s efforts.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/lets-talk-about-super-mario-partys-steak-game-for-a-bit/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/super-mario-party-steak-time-410×231.jpg” title=”Let’s Talk About Super Mario Party’s Steak Game For A Bit” excerpt=”Super Mario Party is filled with mini-games, to the surprise of absolutely no-one. The fun part is how some of those games take advantage of the extra rumble and gyro controls in the Switch’s JoyCon controllers – and one game, shown at Gamescom this year, does so with steak.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/supermarket-shriek-let-me-scream-at-a-goat-in-a-crowded-room/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/supermarket-shriek-410×231.jpg” title=”Supermarket Shriek Let Me Scream At A Goat In A Crowded Room” excerpt=”Back in January, Kotaku UK published a huge list of British developed games which were due to release in 2018 that we thought were worth keeping an eye on. While Supermarket Shriek (geddit?) got pushed out of its 2018 release window to Q1 2019, it’s still one of the games that we were most excited to check out when the year began.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/a-tip-for-metro-exodus-try-not-to-run/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/metro-exodus-1-410×231.jpg” title=”A Tip For Metro Exodus: Try Not To Run” excerpt=”As became quickly apparent in a hands-on demo with the new Metro, running is often the worst possible idea.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/ori-and-the-will-of-the-wisps-gamescom-2018/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/ori-will-of-the-wisps-1-410×231.jpg” title=”Ori And The Will Of The Wisps’ Controls Are Bloody Good” excerpt=”Ori and the Will of the Wisps won’t release until next year. I was totally fine with that, until I saw just how fluid the sequel’s movement could be.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/im-a-bit-worried-about-starlink-battle-for-atlas/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/starlink-battle-for-atlas-1-410×231.jpg” title=”I’m A Bit Worried About Starlink: Battle For Atlas” excerpt=”Out of all of Ubisoft’s games, the one that’s the closest to launching is the intriguing space shooter, Starlink. Battle for Atlas. It’s due out on October 16, and after spending about 20 minutes with the game, I’m a little worried.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/in-devil-may-cry-vs-gamescom-demo-nero-kept-ripping-his-arms-off/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/devil-may-cry-5-gamescom-2018-poster-410×231.jpg” title=”In Devil May Cry V’s Gamescom Demo, Nero Kept Ripping His Arms Off” excerpt=”I’m on the show floor at Gamescom this week, and one of the first things we rushed over to check out when we got in was the demo for Devil May Cry V. We’ve seen CGI trailers at E3, and a little bit of hands-off gameplay footage, but this was our first chance to see how Capcom plans to revitalise the series and feel the controller in our hands — which is rather important for a series where smashing enemies in stylish ways is the whole appeal.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/what-the-golf-is-basically-dad-joke-the-video-game/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/what-the-golf-1-410×231.jpg” title=”What The Golf Is Basically Dad Joke: The Video Game” excerpt=”What The Golf’s hook is simple. golf for people who don’t like golf. But the game’s actually hiding an even bigger secret. dad jokes.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/battlefield-5-has-too-much-film-grain/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/battlefield-v-2-410×231.jpg” title=”Battlefield 5 Has Too Much Film Grain” excerpt=”Immediately after Nvidia’s RTX 20 series reveal, press were allowed to get hands on with a bunch of games on PC using the new hardware. After some wrangling, I got some hands on time with Battlefield 5 – and immediately started coming to grips with the aggressiveness of the game’s film grain.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/forza-horizon-4s-minimum-specs-are-lower-than-forza-horizon-3/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/08/forza-horizon-4-1-410×231.jpg” title=”Forza Horizon 4’s Minimum Specs Are Lower Than Forza Horizon 3″ excerpt=”It’s not that long ago when Forza Horizon 3 helped exemplify the problems with Microsoft’s strategy for PC games. The open-world arcade racer had a torrid launch, with performance issues, broken cross-play and stuttering. The developers kept toiling away, however, and the knowledge and experience of FH3 has been fed back into the upcoming release of Forza Horizon 4. And one of the surprise benefits of all that hard work is some staggeringly good optimisation.”]
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