By: Jurge Cruz – Alvarez
Once a year, the city of Boston becomes a welcoming host to the video games industry. PAX East, a yearly games and hobby convention, brings people from all over the world to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center for four days to celebrate games and pop-culture.
“I think it’s just an awesome collection of fans of games”, says Mike Burgess, a member of the press at this year’s show.
As the weekend goes on, more and more people fill the show. There’s always a palpable feeling of positivity and excitement on the show floor that is filled with massive booths and guests in colorful costumes they made themselves.
At the event, video game publishers and developers give attendees and press an early look at their games before they release to the market. Being at the show with The Omaha News, I was able to meet some developers and go hands-on with what they’ve been so hard at work on. Here are some highlights from the show.
Heave-Ho Developed by Le Cartel Studio, Published by Devolver Digital
PAX East sometimes also marks the world premiere of some games. One such game making a debut was the silly and colorful party game, Heave Ho. This game has up to four players controlling silly characters made up of only a head and two arms as they wobble around, make use of the games exaggerated physics, and cooperate to reach a goal together.
I played the game with three other strangers in front of a massive screen, and after a quick tutorial on how to play, we built a sense of comradery as we worked together to reach success. Of course, since we all need to reach the goal as one, when one person made a mistake, it led to some fun unplanned mishaps. The game’s tongue-in-cheek art, and the inherent ridiculous nature of what was happening on screen quickly lead to us all laughing together.
From what I played, Heave-Ho seems like a game that would be great at parties or for when friends are over. Thankfully, it’s simple enough to grasp that nobody should be left out. Heave-Ho is currently scheduled to release later this year on Nintendo Switch and PC.
The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan Developed by Supermassive Games, Published by Bandai Namco
Some of my favorite books when I was younger were choose-your-own-adventure books that let you choose your fate based on the decisions you made. Developer Supermassive Games has kept the spirit of those books alive in their games and in their newest title, The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan. A spiritual successor to 2015’s horror game Until Dawn, which started Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malek, Man of Medan is the first in the The Dark Pictures anthology of stand-alone horror games where your choices have an affect on the games’ narrative—and who survives.
The game follows and put you in control of four young twenty-somethings who are sailing off to party in the South Pacific. Things take a turn for the unexpected when they get caught in a storm and take shelter on a large abandoned ship that is anything but ordinary. This setup for this horror story may sound cliché on paper, but the interactive nature of it control makes it exciting.
Possessing impressive visuals and re-visiting a fun formula that the development team has followed before, there’s a lot of promise in Man of Medan. The section of the game I played was rather brief, but it did become clear from playing what this team has planned for with this series. My one concern and question after playing, is just how long will each of these stand-alone games be? Just how much bandwidth does this team have to give for such an ambitious project that will span multiple games with separate stories and characters? That remains to be seen, but the concept of The Dark Pictures series of games is very interesting. Man of Medan is currently scheduled to release in 2019 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Falcon Age Developed and Published by Outer Loop Games
While they may not be able to directly communicate with us verbally, many of us at some point in our lives have shared a bond with an animal. For me it’s my dog of eleven years of age and my two overweight guinea pigs who brighten up my days whenever I’m home. Falcon Age by developer Outer Loop Games places you in the role of Ara, a brave and strong young woman who must protect what matters to her with an animal she builds a bond with throughout the game, a falcon.
Being a game that is presented in the first-person point of view—meaning you see the world through the eyes of Ara—Falcon Age may be an action-adventure game, but it’s one that feels intimate due to the perspective. On you left arm your bird friend rests for the entirety of your adventure as you explore what appears to be a dying colony planet, but it’s a dying colony planet which you and your family call home. That same home is being invaded by automated, robotic colonizers who want to take the land for their creators, and there lies the struggle of the game—a game about fighting for what’s yours.
On the surface it may seem like a light-hearted game about interacting with a cute bird, and it still is that, but even from the short slice of the game that I played it was clear that there’s more than what lies on the surface. I was fortunate enough to talk to Chandana Ekanayake, co-founder of the studio and director on the project, and ask what went in to making this project a reality.
Falcon Age releases on PlayStation 4 and Playstation VR on April 9th
PAX East has so much to do and see, that it would be very hard to see it all. Regardless, these games were big standouts and are worth keeping your eye on as they release to physical and digital retailers.
