PAX 2013
Probably my favorite piece of gaming news for now: PAX Prime was this past weekend in Seattle. Some of you may remember that I attended last year, and it was totally awesome. There are tons of panels, tons of booths, and tons of people to see and talk to at PAX, it's a pretty awesome time. There are a few noteworthy things that came out of all the PAX Prime news this year, but what most caught my eye is the new game by Gearbox.
A new Homeworld game is being made! Homeworld is a sci-fi series that was based around fleet actions. It's a real-time strategy game that is so expansive that you were allowed to build massive fleets of capital ships, escorts, and fighters. It was so in-depth, that you could actually follow the actions of individual fighters. It was a difficult game that required a high attention to detail. The new game is called "Shipbreakers" and appears to be a brand new game rather than a remake. Should be fun to see, it'll be produced by Gearbox Entertainment. Check out some of the news sites for more info, there's a lot of indie stuff that came out of PAX this year.
X-Com: Enemy Within
It has come out recently that there is going to be a pretty large expansion to X-Com Enemy Unknown, a game released this past year. They are adding the option to upgrade your soldiers with cybernetics and genetics. It would appear they are making an attempt to balance the game more between humans and aliens. My guess is that this will make the game much more aggressive, allowing humans to charge up the middle better than they used to.
It's going to be a large expansion, requiring a full separate game for those people silly enough to buy it on console. I was a huge fan of the original, so when it came out I made sure to purchase this remake. It does pretty good service to the original, but there are a few things I would have changed. Regardless, I still spent many hours playing this new version and quite enjoyed it.
With this expansion, it feels like it will play more like a new version of the old Syndicate game. Some of you may get what I'm talking about. It was a pretty awesome game back in the 90s... back when games were still difficult (ahem!). I played Syndicate a ton, so making this game feel more like that is a bonus in my book.
Space Hulk: Deathwing
A studio called Streum on Studio is creating a new Warhammer 40k Game called Deathwing. The idea is to bring the awesome action of the Space Hulk boardgame, and the original Space Hulk video game, to a new generation of gamers. It will be an FPS game taking place on huge, dilapidated space ships called space hulks. In this universe, their ships are massive, reaching more than 15 kilometers long on some of the larger ones. What will make this game interesting is that these ships, similar to our own ocean-going vessels, are limited on space. A hulking space marine in a huge set of armor can't move around all that well in cramped corridors.
I think the game could be an excellent combination of horror and action. The player will be fighting an alien species called the Tyranids - which is what the Zerg from Starcraft are based upon. In a simpler explanation, the aliens are giant insects that consume everything in their path. In particular, they will consume any biomass they encounter to add to their own species. Think of them as a biological Borg species that adapts what it consumes. I think this makes for a potentially awesome game, and I pretty much have no choice but to buy it.
There you have it. Looking forward to some upcoming games. Talk at you again, soon!
-Jack
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