STACK Jul #129

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JULY 2015 JB Hi-Fi
064
visit FEATURE GAMES
winning opportunities, the result would’ve been
1-1, and the majority of the crowd would’ve left
the stadium satisfied.
EA’s conference took our breath away with the
Mass Effect: Andromeda intro and Star Wars:
Battlefront gameplay, while Ubisoft delivered its
customarily concise and action-packed offering,
throwing in new IP For Honor and ending with
the next Ghost Recon adventure, Wildlands.
Taking heed of the criticism levelled at
developers last year (Ubisoft in particular), it
was refreshing to see so many titles not only
featuring female protagonists, but presented by
female developers during the press
conferences, too.
Still buzzing from the
rousing media conferences,
and equipped with a decent
pair of trainers and a bag
of lollies to assuage the jet
lag, we hit the floor literally
running at midday, following
the crowds surging onto the
show floor like the Encierro
in Pamplona. First up was
a beeline to Take Two,
moving around a large crowd
snapping pictures of the life-
sized Battleborn figurines
standing guard on the corner of the booth.
A gameplay presentation of XCOM 2 kicked
off the visit (sadly, there was no playable code).
XCOM: Enemy Unknown made our top 10
best games of the year list in 2012, so we were
keen to see what was new. Twenty years after
the aliens arrived on earth, celebrations for
Unification Day are under way with a statue
erected in honour of the anniversary. However,
the resistance fighters are intent on bringing
it down in a morale-boosting action, and this
is where the demo begins. Visually, the game
looks different from Enemy Unknown, with
camera angles boasting a more cinematic look.
Keep an eye out for a new alien enemy in the
game known as the Viper – a snake-like beast
that crushes its enemy with its tail. This is
certainly a title we’ll be keeping an eye out for
when it releases in November this year.
Rising Tide is the first expansion for
Civilization: Beyond Earth, an entry in
the franchise that gave developers creative
freedom from the restraints of historical events.
But it was the online shooter Battleborn that
we fought off the crowds to see.
During a presentation, Gearbox announced
that there would be 25 playable characters in
this MOBA-styled title, which features single-
player story missions and multiplayer modes to
boot. Best of all, we got to try it out, jumping
into a five-player co-op game. Selecting Oscar
Mike, a character that most players of first-
person shooters will recognise (I know, it’s a
predictable selection to make, but he looked
so cool), our 20-minute session felt like it was
over in five. It’s colourful, varied, and features
a cracking score. Although Gearbox have yet to
reveal too much of the game, again, it’s a title
we’ll be keen to play on launch.
After procuring the license in 2012, we
suspected that Creative Assembly had been
beavering away on a Warhammer-themed Total
War long before its official reveal earlier this
year. At E3 we finally got to see the gameplay.
In a hands-off demo our hosts took us to the
Battle of Black Fire Pass, and enthused about
the opportunity they’d been given to meld
two different worlds into one exciting