STACK Jul #129

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JULY 2015 JB Hi-Fi
074
visit FEATURE GAMES
Raider and Monster Hunter – it had everybody
at the show talking.
On to Project Morpheus, Sony’s Virtual
Reality tech; we sampled this last year with a
title that involved street luge, and left believing
it still had some way to go before it ended up
on the shelf for sale at JB. This year we left
the Sony room buzzing, impressed with the
progress that had been made in just 12 months.
Out of the four trial titles we managed to
squeeze in during our allocated time, we began
with EVE: Valkyrie, a space shooter where,
sat in the cockpit, we took on waves of enemy
spaceships in a frantic dogfight. The suggestion
by the exhibitor to look around provided full
view of the cockpit, wings, and even a look
over our shoulder. In another, players are tasked
with finding a key to a safe whilst attempting
to avoid patrolling guards. Once discovered,
a shootout begins, and we used one Move
controller as a gun, and a second to reload the
weapon with a fresh clip.
Kitchen , a two-and-a-half minute horror
sequence, commenced with players sat
in chair in a kitchen with hands
bound. It felt like the opening
of a Saw movie. A man in
a suit was lying on the floor
next to a video camera on a
tripod. After pushing the camera
over, the man comes to, stands up and says,
“We’ve got to get out of here”. He reaches
for a carving knife and begins to cut through
his bindings. The environmental sounds drove
up the anxiety levels before a J-Horror-inspired
creature appeared behind the man, relieved
him of the knife and drove it through his chest.
It then slowly moved its face up to ours before
plunging the knife into our leg. The building
apprehension and sense of foreboding prior
to these events cannot be understated; it was
terrifying. We watched as a female Dutch
journalist leapt up out of the chair screaming
and ran straight into the booth wall, still wearing
the headset during the same demo. It remains
to be seen how developers implement this
tech with games like CoD – area and tethering
limitations will restrict the compatibility of some
gaming genres, but it will be perfectly suited to
others. While the tech still isn’t as visually sharp
as we would like it to be, Morpheus certainly
brings an intriguing (and immersive) new
dimension to gaming – and we felt no motion
sickness at all.
More Destiny DLC, Guitar Hero Live,
and yet another Call of Duty instalment were
amongst the titles on offer at Activision’s best
E3 line-up to date.
Following the game’s protagonist accidentally
leaking a photo on his Instagram account
confirming its existence, Tony Hawk Pro
Skater 5 was officially announced for
PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and
Xbox 360, with a release date of September
29. Having been a while since we last laid eyes
on a Pro Skater title (13 years to be exact),
we were wondering if this one would retain
the same vibe. Thankfully, bar a few new (and
welcome) additions, Pro Skater 5 picks up
where 4 left off all those years ago.
During our hands-on, we immediately noted
just how retro and consistent with the rest of
the series this game was, with refreshing new
additions to the gameplay. The “push” feature
allows you to propel yourself forward to gain
speed, rather than just jumping up and down
a couple of times as in previous entries. Your
special meter is now activated remotely rather
than automatically, an addition that is likely to
save many a wasted boost. Finally, the grind
system itself has changed as well – instead of
pressing triangle to snap to a railing, the same
button now performs a “slam” mechanic that
comes in handy when you feel like you’re about
to overshoot a jump.
Pro Skater 5 is a comfortable mix of the
things we loved from the originals, with new
and convenient gameplay features. Add to that
the drop-in/drop-out 20 player multiplayer areas,
and we’re sold. Time to hit the skate park.
Keeping the ball rolling, we were introduced
to a new offering in the infamous Guitar
Hero franchise – Guitar Hero Live.
Everyone’s picked up a Guitar Hero title at
one point in their life, but this one’s point of
difference is its live and responsive audience.
If you play badly, you’ll know it, but conversely,
if you nail that 30-second riff, you’ll feel like
a real rock star. Guitar Hero Live will be the
first in the series to provide gamers with full
immersion into their band performances, with
real-time reactions from your audiences. As
well as introducing a new controller, Guitar
Hero Live premieres GHTV – the world’s first
playable music video network. Fans can pick
from multiple channels and themed shows,
discovering new songs as they play, and can
also choose songs to play on-demand. In GHTV,
you can choose to play with friends in the same
room or against players from around the world
to see who has the highest score on a given
song, while completing challenges along the
way.
Not surprisingly, we were hit with another
title in the Call of Duty franchise – this time
‘round, a long-awaited return to Black Ops. The
third game in the series gave us a hands-on
with what we’ve come to expect from the CoD
games: lots of running, mantling over things,
and dying… a lot. It's how these elements have
changed that proved to be the difference. The
mantling mechanic has been improved, allowing
players to hop over walls we didn’t see behind
us, instead of getting trapped in a corner, and
being held at the mercy of our 14-year-old
adversaries. Another addition that we didn't
realise, but should've been obvious (hindsight is
a wonderful thing), is unlimited sprinting. It’s