These thoughts are brought to us by our own Chris Demon from up north. Bonus Level had the opportunity to party with this cat over the course of our stay in Boston and the general consensus is: the dude just fucking rules.
Anyways, he wrote his local Bonus Level representative asking if he could post some thoughts on the games of PAX and we happily obliged. I mean, given the fact that we were pretty much wasted the entire trip, SOMEONE has to do our work for us… THANKS, DEMON! Hope that waitress works out for you! Here we go!
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AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
A game developed by Dejobaan games out of Boston for the PC, where through a first person perspective you base jump off buildings in a wing suit to build a high score. Fun fact: the city scapes you’re jumping through are based on Boston.
Once you’re in the air you try to hit target plates as you fall adding toward your score. Hugging close to buildings adds extra points referred to by the developers as “hugs and kisses” as well as flipping off, thumbs up and spray painting buildings on your way down. Going a bit off trajectory will cause you to spin out like crazy and only with grim determination can you get yourself back on course. At the end of a level you activate your parachute to level off your landing and not explode once you hit the ground. I’d say try it out, if only to see if you can get some motion sickness out of it.
Klei’s creative team works out of Vancouver BC, which only recently had a staff of 10 and now has a staff of 17, supposedly due to their growing popularity and deal with EA for Shank. Shank is set to be released for PSN, XBLA and PC.
A side scrolling beat-em up with fluid animations and you in control of Shank, a burly guy with an axe to grind. You stab, shoot, grenade, chainsaw and shank everyone in sight, with a little bit of bullet time thrown in for good measure.
The combat system — though having no real depth past the aforementioned sentence above — makes great use of its slick art style and excessive blood use. The combat had me thinking back to Street Fighter 3, at how smooth everything flowed with enemy collision. It was almost as if you were watching a cartoon, albeit a violent one. The part of game play that sold me had me on a rooftop at sundown. Enemies were attacking me and everything was silhouetted on top of the sun drenched backdrop. Shadowy figures slugging it out, making it look amazing. Suffice to say I lost my shit in all the right ways, right there a then.
Klei’s creative team is led by Jeffrey Agala, a long standing director for the hit cartoon series Atomic Betty. He has more than 10 years of experience in professional animation.
Uber Entertainment came out of Kirkland, WA to bring us Monday Night Combat a class based third person shooter for XBLA. This game brings 6 distinct classes to choose from, which all have varying degrees of cartoony humour to them. No, it isn’t Team Fortress 2. It’s a game that is only similar to TF2 in structure and look. Okay that sounds like it’s a lot like TF2, but trust me, it isn’t.
The game’s objective is to get your team over to the enemy’s side and break their floating money ball in a symmetrical arena. The catch is, there are robot drones on either side of varying shapes and sizes that are used as fodder to cause an interesting push and pull mechanic for the game. Also at your disposal are turrets that can fire rockets, shoot lasers or cause disruption in character speed and can also be upgraded. The 6 classes that I spoke of are: Assault, Gunner, Support, Tank, Sniper and Assassin (My favorite). It’s a fun game that shows promise but has a lot of competition for Xbox live supremacy to weed through.
Developed by Gaijin Games, published by Aksys Games and only on the Wii. This is one of my favorite games of PAX. A game I label as aggravatingly awesome. You control the Bit Trip Runner runs on a 2D plane, jumping, ducking and kicking everything in your path. The game has you in constant motion, never letting up as you barrel through levels at increased speeds. Scaling up cliffs, ducking under fireballs and jump kicking walls. On a streak you’ll notice two things: 1.) The game’s own music mixes with your movement as you get points or complete a specifically insane run. 2.) You literally cast a shadow of a rainbow behind you, giving the game a very simple yet pleasing aesthetic. It’s got a great soundtrack to compliment the stellar game play using chip tunes. It’s a very close second for my best of show.
Deathsmiles is a horizontal side scrolling shoot ‘em up, or ‘Shmup’ for short, developed by Cave out of Japan.
Coming to XBLA, you control little maid girls and your pet owl. You proceed to blow the ever loving hell out of demons, animals, plants, trains and anything else that decided to attack you.
This high consequence game enthralled me to no end as filling the screen with more enemies only left me to fill the screen with more beams of energy to kill everything. I’m relatively new to the Shmup scene and a game like this makes me want to play a lot more of these types of games. If you enjoy insanely fun game play and ridiculous concepts you should get this.
Raskulls is a video game independently developed by Halfbrick. A game where you and some friends race across a 2D plane as little adorable skull men in different get ups. Ranging from a dragon suit to Mr Destructoid, the customization seems diverse. The objective is to get to the finish line by using your wand to blow out squares that are blocking your way as you rush through. Using special abilities you can stun your enemy to get the lead or to have more blocks fall on them, stunning them even longer. The abilities range from lightning bolts to firewalling straight through someone. Imagine a mash-up of Mario kart with bomber man and you’re about half way there. It’s fun, fast, colorful and guaranteed to be a hit on XBLA.
An Ubisoft release of the Splinter Cell franchise. A more action based attempt at the series that didn’t particularly interest me and left me wanting something more. The demo on offer was a co-op between you and another human teammate. It had you moving through a facility to an objective. An objective I never saw because my teammate believed in the old ‘run and gun’ and got us killed right quick. I had a general lack of enthusiasm for this release.
Super Street Fighter 4 [BEST OF SHOW]
I love this game! I love everything about it! I love the new characters! I love the new ultras! I love Capcom! I love the fact it’s only 40 dollars! FAPFAPFAPFAPFAPFAPFAP.
Bonus Level Radio 114:
Saved By The Cell 45:
Pop Culture And Pilates 08:
Paperweights 08: