Fan Expo 2015: Play-testing and impressions

As part of my study abroad exchange to Toronto, I have access to a fair few events in the city. The first of these was the Fan Expo, which I went to on Sunday the 6^th of September. The show had a surprising amount of games on show and I tried to make my way around as many as possible. While I wasn’t allowed to take any video footage from the games, I did take down a fair few impressions from the games I managed to play. It was also a refreshing change to not have to wait in line nearly as long to play some games. Had I been at Gamescom in Cologne, I probably would have had to wait at least an hour to try out a game like Star Wars Battlefront. Here are a few of my personal impressions of the games at Fan Expo 2015.

Star Wars Battlefront

The new Star Wars Battlefront has been ten years in the making, and for what it is I haven’t had the most faith in the project. Leaving out the Clone Wars, not having Galactic Conquest or space battles and having planned DLC packs; it all feels like the game will end up feeling incredibly stripped and lacking when it comes to features. At the Fan Expo I finally got the chance to try it out and see if the gameplay will make up for this. I played a coop mission on Tatoonie in two player split-screen in which two rebel soldiers took on six waves of Empire forces ranging from the basic Stormtroopers to wandering AT-STs. The basic shooting gameplay feels pretty solid, particularly when defeating jetpack troopers sends them flying all over the place. It definitely has a noticeable “Battlefield” feel to it, but the Star Wars theme and setting does allow the game to set itself apart. The weapons have no ammo counts and overheat, and both players can choose their own items for the mission. We both had jump packs as standard to reach higher areas, along with shields and a missile launcher for downing tougher opponents. Enemies pursue the player relentlessly and you’ll have to make use of cover in order to survive; this was very apparent when we were tasked with capturing and defending a resource pod. In addition, there were also specific power-ups, such as air strikes and extra lives which are shared between the players. Although the two player coop in Star Wars Battlefront is fun, I personally would have liked to have seen a higher player count; we’ve reached a point where technology can support more players at once and having only two does feel a bit basic, considering how the new game has every opportunity to take steps forward from its predecessor ten years ago. Star Wars Battlefront will be released in November this year, just in time for highly anticipated Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

Ratchet and Clank

I was a massive fan of the Ratchet and Clank series many years ago, and while it’s a little disappointing that the newest game in the franchise is a reimagining of the first game, it was still really fun to play. I played two separate demos at Fan Expo; one took place in Metropolis Kerwan (one of my favourite locations in the series) on a speeding train and the other took place in a dark underground location where the duo squared off against the blargian snagglebeast. The game impressed me not just with its smooth gameplay, but its absolutely stunning graphics. I didn’t think the series could climb any higher when it came to transporting its fans inside the game world, but Ratchet and Clank looked amazing on PS4. Metropolis had a wider variety of colours and moving parts, whilst the Snagglebeast’s lair boasted some fantastic looking lava effects that gushed from the arena where the creature was fought. Despite Insomniac Games having all but moved on from the series, Ratchet and Clank is still going strong with both the new game and a feature length film set to arrive in early 2016.

Kitchen (And Project Morpheus)

Kitchen is a very elusive tech demo for Project Morpheus, a VR project that has to be seen to be believed. It was unquestionably the one demo that both I and my friend wanted to try out when we saw that Sony’s device was at the event. The company has been very tight lipped on Kitchen, withholding details about the tech demo for increased impact; I noticed that quite a few people waiting in line didn’t want to try the demo for this very reason, which only made it all the more intriguing. In the demo, you’re a nameless individual tied to a chair in a blood-soaked kitchen; a second man gets to his feet and attempts to cut you free, before a grotesque girl brutally murders him and drags him away round the corner of the room. After a few moments of deathly silence the girl approaches from behind, grabbing your face and peering above you. A sinister smile forms on her face and the demo ends. Project Morpheus is coming along quite nicely; there was a slight blurriness to the image, but I didn’t feel nauseous at any point. As for the demo itself, it showed that there are masses of potential for horror games on VR. Many of the biggest horror franchises in gaming have been butchered into action fests, but with VR immersing the consumer fully in the game, a new breed of fear could be on the way. Project Morpheus is still a ways off of full release, expected to come out in 2016.

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate

Sadly, I’ve had to save the worst for last; the ninth entry in the tired Assassin’s Creed series didn’t set a very good impression when I tried it out. The demo took place at the Tower of London in which Evie Fry was tasked with assassinating Lucy Thorne. It appears the series may be going the root of Dishonoured, attempting to offer multiple methods of assassinating targets, but there isn’t really much reason to vary your approach. Why use the rogue guard to sneak to the target, when you can simply air assassinate them like normal? I found the camera and climbing controls to be quite fiddly at times as well; in combat, the camera was erratically bouncing all over the place, especially when Evie landed a finishing move on a guard. The way the game looks wasn’t really that impressive either; mouth animations on NPCs felt really off and the character models as well as the environment in general lacked detail. I also noticed a few bugs, such as a guard vanishing into a wall during combat and another player hopping over a grass hedge next to a wall and getting stuck. These may not necessarily be in the final product as this was only a demo, but nevertheless I’m not feeling too confident about the state of Syndicate and indeed the series in general. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is due out at the end of October 2015.

That just about covers my impressions of the games at Fan Expo. With luck I should have a few reviews for the films at the Toronto International Film Festival out soon. Watch this space!