PAX East 2011 Day 2 - 3DS, Child of Eden and more : Remote Synthesis

PAX East 2011 Day 2 - 3DS, Child of Eden and more

Posted on Mar 13, 2011

PAX East Expo Floor Day 1 was spent trying a couple games that I wouldn't play in front of my children. Day 2 of PAX East was spent with my 8 year old son, so everything I tried was "kid safe" (or at least my opinion of kid safe). While this meant that I would miss out on some notable upcoming releases like L.A. Noire, Star Wars the Old Republic and Red Faction Armageddon, I did get to try some of the most anticipated games and devices coming this year including the 3DS and Ubisoft's Child of Eden. In addition, I tried some very soon to be released games including Swarm, Carnival Games, and Pokemon Trading Card Game Online, and some already released games like Need for Speed World, Risk Factions, Raskulls, Pokemon Black and White and Mario Sport Mix. I spent the entire 6 hours on the Expo floor and here's some thoughts about what I saw and tried.

3DS - Steel Diver and Super Street Fighter IV
I was able to try the 3DS twice. Once in Nintendo's booth where, by virtue of my position in line, I was assigned to try a game Steel Diver. The game takes advantage of both the 3D and motion sentitivity in the upcoming 3DS. The object of the game is to use your submarine torpedos to target ships at varying distances in the water - it's a concept you're likely to have played before but not in 3D and not using motion controls. To target you turn your periscope by simply physically turning the DS. This was fun while standing but I can't actually imagine playing this on a plane, for instance. The 3D effect looked really good in this game however and the water effect was well done. Nonetheless, one would hope there's more depth (no pun intended) to the gameplay in the full version of this game.

The Capcom booth had demos of Super Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil on the 3DS, the latter which I did not get to try due to the watchful eyes of my 8 year old companion. I was able however to play a local 2-player match of SSFIV. This game was a lot of fun and much easier to pick up than the console version of the game, since special moves are mostly handled via the touch screen. The Capcom person also made a point of stating that all the characters are included by default, including ones that are DLC on the console. Despite the 3D effect however, this was really still a 2D game - but a great one.

As for the 3DS hardware, I only spent minutes with it on both occassions but it didn't feel dramatically different than the current DS. There was both an analog control plus a d-pad on the left. The 3D screen had a slider on the right that allowed you to adjust the 3D effect or turn it off entirely. The device seemed slightly thicker than a standard DSi though obviously smaller than a DSi XL. The 3D effect was very well done in general though playing a game like Super Street Fighter IV, I occassionally saw double when the top screen might be not directly in front of my line of vision. Also, I'd say that the 3D effect was interesting on a game like Steel Diver but totally superfluous, though still cool, on Super Street Fighter IV.

As those of you with young kids might suspect, the Nintendo booth kept my son's attention for some time. He was particularly taken in by Pokemon Black and White on the DSi. Neither of us had ever played a Pokemon game before. I played it too for some time and it was fun - I can see the attraction. Mario Sports Mix however was one we disagreed on. He enjoyed our match of Mario Hockey, I thought it was pretty lousy. The controls were lame (typical shake the Wii remote type things) and the gameplay was bad too.

Online Games - Need for Speed World and Pokemon Card Game Online
After the Nintendo booth, we moved to some online-only games. Need for Speed World was fun to play, but that may have partly been a matter of the full car seat, wheel and pedal controls. Apparently the game is free to join and is an open world game where you can race online opponents. Next, at my son's urging we tried the Pokemon Trading Card Game Online which, I might add, was built entirely in Flash. The game launches next week and will apparently be free but you'll be able to bring cards you purchase offline into the game (though I don't recall the details). We'd tried to learn how to play the Pokemon card game offline before and I never quite understood it. This was still complicated but the game system helped you along by only activating those actions or cards that were legal to play at any given time. If you already know the game, this should be easy and fun to pick up and play against online competitors. If you don't it's definitely an easier way to learn than the instructions provided with the physical cards offline.

Kinect - Carnival Games
Next we went to the Kinect booth which had a couple of upcoming games including some Michael Jackson dancing game and Carnival Games, the latter which we tried. While the full Carnival Games will have some 30 mini-games, we only got to test the skee ball and roller coaster games. Skee ball was fun and pretty much as you'd expect it to be. The motion contols were good, but I've always been generally impressed by the accuracy of Kinect. The roller coaster game involves you motioning your hands to collect coins and avoid obstacles while riding a coaster. This game wasn't that impressive; my son wasn't really taken with it either. Nonetheless, Carnival Games seems like a fun option for a family with Kinect at home.

XBLA & PSN Games - Swarm, Raskulls and Risk Factions
We tried a handful of XBLA and PSN games, one, Swarm, is soon to be released while the others, Raskulls and Risk Factions are already available. Risk Factions was fun though Risk is admittedly a hard game to test in minutes. It's not the most fast-moving game but all the things you like about risk seem to be there with surprisingly fun cartoonish graphics. Raskulls meanwhile was one of our favorite previews from last years PAX East and continued to keep mine and my son's attention - so much so that we picked it up on XBLA this afternoon. From the same company that makes Fruit Ninja, Halfbrick, Raskuls involves racing your character through levels with tons of obstacles that you can make disappear with your wand. It's a simple concept with simple controls that is addictively fun to play.

Swarm was a game where you begin a level with fifty of these little blue creatures. Your goal is to navigate the level losing as few of the creatures to the various traps and falls throughout. You will lose many, but that is expected and you will periodically be able to gain more creatures at intervals throughout the level. It's a fun variation on the standard platformer though it wasn't easy. It's supposed to be available soon on both XBLA and PSN.

Child of Eden
Our final trial of the day was Child of Eden, an upcoming Xbox Kinect game from Ubisoft. Visually you might compare it to something like Rez HD and the gameplay was somewhere between a typical space shooter and Flower. You target with your right hand, releasing a pulse of some sort by thrusting your hand forward. You can also shoot a more typical rapid fire shot with your left hand. Some enemies can only be harmed by one shot or the other so there is some skill involved in choosing which hand to fire with as well as aiming at the variety of moving targets or knowing when to best release the pulse shot.

In fact, of all the games I tried at the show, Child of Eden was one of my personal favorites, alongside Gears of War 3. I really wish I could have made it to day 3 a bit but the demands of family prevented it. Still, this year's show was a blast and significantly larger and more impressive than last year's. In fact, I could have spent several more hours just on the expo floor picking up swag and trying new games - perhaps next year.

Red Faction Armageddon