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Gamescom: Personal Highlights

The best, worst and weirdest of our week at Cologne.

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While you'll find plenty of straight previews and interviews from our week in Cologne elsewhere on the site - with more coming soon - as the show draws to a close, we take a more personal look back at the the last six days and recount those moments that stuck out the most.

Gillen

Life is Strange. Twice.

Gamescom: Personal Highlights
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Much like the dreaded convention cold, buzz from word of mouth is quick to spread under the Koelnmesse roof. Within a few hours of the first press day we'd heard the phrase "have you seen Life is Strange yet?" from seven different sources. Only one was the PR handling this mysterious new product, and a full half of the others were journalists. That's a lot of noise for a new title.

So on our second day at the show I wrangled myself twenty minutes between appointments to see this game, which turned out to be a story-driven adventure game focused on teen drama by Remember Me's developer. Easily my game of the show... and one I ended up seeing yet again on our last day.

See, there's plenty marked on our planning schedule as "unannounced game reveal" in the weeks leading up to the show proper, publishers unwilling to confide a name beforehand for fear of a leak. Our time at the show officially ended with just one such product, scheduled for our last appointment (4pm) on our last day (Friday). That slot turned out to be our official slot for Dontnod's newest creation - Life is Strange.

Rare is it to find more time than half hour on any given game, no matter how much we'd like to see more otherwise (sorry Fortnite!). Yet I happily soaked in the atmosphere of this teen-turning-adult story adventure twice, even if it was by accident. It impressed me that much.

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Oculus, Part 1: The biggest impact since Super Mario 64...

Gamescom: Personal Highlights

...would belong to a caped fox called Lucky. A run-of-the-mill 3D platform game ignited my senses when it was played through Oculus Rift. I used the VR headset to peer around an inclosed island, studying waterfalls and turning my head to track my character as he leap across ledges, leaning down to try and spot any secret areas. Lovely little touches were everywhere; Lucky turned to face me as the game began and gave a wave. I automatically returned it. Leaning forward to look at the character closely, Lucky turned his head towards me, twitching his nose, sniffing. The owls that swooped round the island would get flustered when I pushed my head in close. It proved the VR tech doesn't have to be reserved to first-person views...

Oculus, Part 2: Bullet Time.

Gamescom: Personal Highlights

.... though even first-person titles can be subverted wonderfully. Superhot's name had been ingrained into the brain with that Sony conference trailer. As a sell, it's hard to understand - much like Oculus - until you experience it. Move the controller and time moves as normal, don't and time slows to a crawl.

You can still move your character as normal with the Oculus headset; important as you have to move yourself out of the way of incoming bullets. Enemy shots cut red tracer lines through the world, letting you track their direction. Duck out of the way then use the controller to return time to normal. It's easy to avoid three bullets, harder when faced with a shrapnel storm from a shotgun blast. Essentially this was a puzzle game disguised as a first-person shooter, and coupled with the unique art style, made for another experience that came into its own on Oculus.

The Witcher Art Exhibition

Gamescom: Personal Highlights

Unless it's a prominent industry name, publishers don't inform us beforehand as to who we'd be interviewing at events. A problem when you want to discuss certain points about a game, but find your interviewee to be part of a different section of the development team. Sometimes though, it means you can do something different.

So come our Witcher 3 interview, I was introduced to the lead character and monster artist of the game. Given CD Projekt's business booth was kitted out with character statues, artwork and posters, we got an in-depth tour of all and a look at the work that had went into each. It gave me a better idea as to the thinking behind creating the game's fantasy world, and how much iteration goes into every scar and inch of chain mail.

Bengt

Bioware Austin's asymmetric crawl

Gamescom: Personal Highlights

A new game from Bioware. Need we say more? Probably not, but let's do so anyway. While assymetric multiplayer and 4 on 1 certainly isn't a unique approach these days it is nice to see Bioware embracing a more modern approach with regards to development by letting players in early in the process and building out the game based on player feedback. We're also intrigued by the physical presence of the Shadow Lord on the ground with the other players and the possibilities that brings.

Michel Ancel's Wild ambition

Gamescom: Personal Highlights

Michel Ancel's new project certainly surprised us and while we're not sure what such an obvious project means for his involvement in the develop of Beyond Good & Evil 2 we are most definitely excited about the prospect of Wild. And that's just down to concept as we're still in dark as to the structure and minute-to-minute gameplay. As for now there may be more questions than answers, but sometimes that's exactly what gets us excited.

The indie revolution rages on...

Gamescom: Personal Highlights

Typoman had me charmed from the first letter as it combined the basics of a puzzle platformer with wordplay and stylised visuals. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

Then there was Tequilla Works' gorgeous Rime. The intriguing prospect of Superhot. The grand ambition of Elite: Dangerous. And there's Dragon Fin Soup, Below, Dungeon of the Endless, The Escapists, Titan Souls, the lists goes on and on.

Claptrap stole the show

Gamescom: Personal Highlights

Claptrap might have been the shining star of Gamescom. Not only was he playable, but an animatronic version rolled around the halls of Gamescom accompanied by a band of cosplayers to the delights of everyone who saw him.

Catching up with old friends

Gamescom: Personal Highlights

We met Peter Molyneux to talk about Godus. No fancy booth, no flair, just a simple conversation about what's next for him and 22Cans. Refreshing.

We talked to David Braben about finally getting to make Elite: Dangerous after so many years of running into the brick wall of traditional publishers.

We even spotted John Romero ducking into a hotel nearby the convention.

Sierra returns

Gamescom: Personal Highlights

For the longest time it appeared as if Activision had simply takeall of the old Sierra and Vivendi licenses, locked them in a vault and thrown away the key. A shame as there is a ton of great IPs to pull from there. With the return of the Sierra label we're seeing a re-imagined King's Quest and Geometry Wars 3. A great way to get things running again. And we're certainly excited at the prospect of The Odd Gentlemen (The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom) handling King's Quest.



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