STACK #129 Jul 2016

GAMES

FEATURE

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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 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 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

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

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

JULY 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

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