So, what were everyones highlights from gamescom this year?
Mine:
- Star Citizen
- Dark Souls III
- Mirror's Edge 2
- Mafia 3
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
Putting the multi-crew demo from the Star Citizen presentation up first as that was quite honestly one of the most impressive gaming displays I've ever seen. Still work in progress of course but an incredible display and so great to see major parts of the "vision" coming together so well. Loved the social module footage as well (which is what started turning me onto the game in the first place) but the multi-crew footage was something else. It wasn't pre-recorded or cleaned up either, they ran through it twice, live. - If any of you
still haven't seen it then go, right this minute and visit the SC forum and bloody watch it already!
I still need to get to DS1 & 2 (still got a huge backlog lol) but Bloodborne really, really surprised me this year. It was in my top 10 most anticipated games for the year but I had it more towards the end of that list. Always loved the setting and art style of it but screenshots and videos didn't
always do it much justice or get me crazily hyped. Wasn't until I actually played the game at release that it blew me away and exceeded all expectations. One of the best games I've played this year (or ever), and only behind TW3 right now. Twas easily the most challenging game I've ever played and left me wanting more, as frustrated as I got with it at times haha. I
really want a Bloodborne 2 now (and I'll get the expansion for sure) but Dark Souls III looks like a nice mix of both. Very similar look to Bloodborne, slightly faster combat, (what appears to be) the same engine etc. Until I saw the multi-crew demo for SC, DS3 was the main gamescom reveal I kept thinking about and I can't bloody wait. - If you ever buy a PS4, make sure that Bloodborne is one of the first games you buy for it.
Been a fan of Mirror's edge since day 1 and has remained one of my most requested games to get a sequel for many years now. We're finally getting one and it looks
fantastic! Was expecting a gameplay trailer rather than a demo so was really happy with that for a start. Looks like more of the same (which is a good thing!) but much bigger and better. They've also removed the ability to pick up guns which was a great decision as they were one of my only complaints from the first game as they don't really serve a purpose in a game like that.
Mafia 1 is one of my favourite games of all time (and was a huge fan of 2 as well) so this was the game I was most excited for seeing, going into gamescom. Love the setting & location they've chosen for the third game (and putting you in the role of a mixed race guy as well). This is not the kinda thing we usually see in games so I'll be very interested to see what they do with that and the kind of issues they decide to tackle. I would have liked to have seen some more gameplay as well (if you only watched the reveal trailer then look up as there's some in the second video I linked) but since the game was only just revealed, I'll let em off.
Always loved the Mafia games for their soundtracks as well and going by the time period that this is set in (late 60s/early 70s), Mafia 3 could potentially have one of the best licensed music soundtracks ever. The reveal trailer gave us a great taster of that with Jimi's version of All along the Watchtower and House of the Rising Sun. If they manage to get some Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zep etc in there I'll be over the moon
Was juggling between Rise of the Tomb Raider and Battlefront here but decided to go with the former.
Twas nice to see a proper gameplay demo of TR this time, unlike one of the boring scriped sections they chose to show us at E3. Uncharted originally copied Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider (reboot) copied Uncharted and now Rise of the Tomb Raider is doing the same again but to The Last of Us as well lol. This is not a complaint though! Gameplay looked fantastic, much bigger areas to explore and most importantly, tombs and puzzles. My main complaint from the reboot game as there was hardly any of either. I mean, how can you have a Tomb Raider game without tombs? lol. Lots to explore in RotTR though which I'm really happy about. New stealth mechanics and crafting look great, albeit ripped straight out of The Last of Us. They've chosen well though as TLOU did both of those extremely well. Was quite surprised by the graphics as well tbh. As a PC gamer and someone with a current gen PS4, I'm not a fan of the devs who are still designing their games as cross-gen titles. Thankfully, this is happening less and less now (Ubi are only releasing for current gen now for example) but it still limits a games potential when you're developing for a previous gen console as well. Things get cut, scaled back etc. Still, despite also releasing for the 360, RotTR looked pretty great visually, to my surprise. That being said, I hope they go all out on current-gen for the next game.