On 9th May
Sony streamed it's second State of Play, which to be frank, was a
fair bit more impressive than their first one. It had more games for
people to be excited about, managed to open fairly strong, and close
the show even stronger; which I already covered on Youtube.
As such, I thought I'd
pull out some of things I found interesting outside of that ending,
and talk about them (very) briefly.
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| © Capcom |
First up with have the
Monster Hunter World
expansion, Iceborne.
This expansion pack revealed a new area with new monsters, and new
adverse weather conditions, in this case the snow and cold. As with
extremely hot areas, the extreme cold will have an effect on the
gameplay, in this case it makes your stamina decrease faster; and
much like with the heat, you can mitigate its effects with certain
items. Although, we do also get some nice hot springs, allowing us
to chill out with the local wildlife, whilst also staving off the
cold.
During
the live-stream the devs said that this region, the Hoarfrost region,
would be the single biggest area of the game yet, and the appearance
of the hot springs at least promises some variety in the environment,
so it'll be exciting to explore it for myself.
Speaking
as someone for whom Monster Hunter World
was his first foray into the franchise, it will be interesting to see
just how the cold status effects my ability to hunt the game's
various mega-fauna.
The
snow aspect also looks interesting, as judging from the trailer, it
seems that it may impair movement somewhat. We actually see the
playing character slow down, and trudge their way through waist-high
snow, although whether this will have any effect when battles
actually start remains to be seen. If so, then this should make
hunting more interesting, as it would make catching or dodging
monsters more difficult. It's a good job we now also have the
ability to latch onto monsters, and pull ourselves towards them with
our grapple!
Of
course, with a new area comes new monsters to hunt. Some are
apparently returning beasts from previous games, whereas others are
brand new and created specifically for this expansion. However, as I
said, this is my first Monster Hunter game,
so they're all new to me; which means I'll be learning how to hunt
them for the very first time!
This
list of new beasts was topped off with the appearance of a brand new
elder dragon, Velkhana; promising us an interesting new story to go
along with this new area.
They
also showed off some new armour sets, which looks pretty neat,
although one of them is also pre-order exclusive so... Then of
course, there is the new armour and gear we will be able to craft
from hunting down all the new monsters include in Iceborne.
All of which should be made more interesting by the fact that
weapons skills and the like seem to have been updated somewhat,
meaning we will have new ways of fighting.
Given
that Monster Hunter World
has been one of Capcom's best-selling games over the last couple of
year, perhaps their best of all time, it's no wonder they're pouring
so much energy into this.
Man,
it's been a while since I last picked this game up, I'm going to be a
little rusty. I guess I'm gonna need to get some practice in before
Iceborne actually
launches in September, plenty of time...
Next
up we have the remaster of a PSOne classic, or a game that was a
classic to me anyway, with Medieval.
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| © Sony Computer Entertainment |
The
tale of an evil wizard who screws up immensely when he accidentally
revives his old enemy during his attempts to build a zombie army; and
the tale of the aforementioned undead knight, who must now put all
this to right. The original was a great game that a fairly dark
story with bright visuals, and a comedic tone; and it melded all of
these together very well.
The
short trailer we were presented with really only gave a brief
run-down of the story, showed of some of the cinematic sequences, and
some of the gameplay. Despite how brief it was though, it looked
really good.
Visually
it looked bright and colourful, but still with that cartoony yet
Gothic tone that somewhat resembles a Tim Burton film, that was
present in the original games way back when. We can to see Sir
Daniel Fortesque and his enemies in motion, and the animation
actually looks pretty good, still like the exaggerated movements of
the originals, but a lot smoother. A lot of the more fun and
ridiculous moves are also back, like Sir Dan being able to rotate his
entire torso to do a spin attack, what with him being a skeleton and
all, although that's to be expected.
If
there was one negative aspect of the trailer, it's that it looked
like the frame rate was struggling a little bit. That said it did
not bother me personally, and I think the game looks like it will
play just fine regardless, but it is something to be aware of I
guess.
The
visuals from the trailer were accompanied by a decent soundtrack that
managed to be both haunting and whimsical at the same time, perfectly
encapsulating the games as I knew them. The accompanying voice work
sounded absolutely fantastic, being delicious hammy and cartoonish,
without descending into outright ridiculous levels of narm. Of
course, they've retained the fact that Sir Dan has no lower jaw and
can not speak, so can only mumble; however, the animation seems
expressive enough that we should be able to tell what he is feeling,
without relying entirely on tone of voice like we did most of the
time in the originals.
That
said, I acknowledge that all of this is presented in a trailer
designed to show off the game in the best possible light, and a fair
bit probably comes from nostalgia on my part as well. So we will
have to wait until nearer to the game's release date to get a more
accurate view of what we can expect.
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| © 20th Century Fox |
Speaking
of which, the game releases just before Halloween on 25th
October. I guess they're hoping to get in on all those spooky,
Halloween live-streams.
Lastly,
we got a genuine surprise when Sony revealed that one of their
studios has teamed up with 20th
Century Fox (read: Disney), to create a video-game based one of their
properties. The game in question? Predator: Hunting
Grounds.
Honestly
the trailer showed off very little, it was nothing more than a
cinematic showing a group of soldiers slowly making their way through
a jungle, before hitting us with the reveal of the predator watching
them from the treetops. Honestly, it's no surprise that the trailer
was so short, as the game isn't actually due out until some time in
2020.
One
of the things we did discover however, it that the game is an
asymmetric online game that is being made by the same people that
made the latest Friday the 13th game;
so we at least know that it is being made by people with some
experience in this style. Although, it's far more likely that this
game will be far more action-focused, with the human players being
encouraged to try and win, rather than just survive. Which probably
means multiple different classes with their own weapon types and
specialities.
Playing
as the predator itself is more that likely to be the most interesting
part though. I Especially want to see how they will incorporate all
of its weapons and gadgets like the shoulder cannon, the stealth
cloak, or the self-destruct device.
From
what little we saw in the trailer though, we can infer that a jungle
setting will be one of the maps, but hopefully it has a larger
variety than just that. We could perhaps get the city from Predator
2, or perhaps a crashed ship like in Predators?
Whatever
the case, hopefully this game will avoid the same avaricious pitfalls
that Evolve fell into when it launched back in 2013. We'll
need to keep and eye out for that.
That's
it for now ladies and gentlemen. Like I said this second State of
Play was better than the first, and let's hope that a trend that
continues.
Until
next time,
PhoenixAct.
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