Last weekend, Boar Games writers traveled to one of the UK’s biggest gaming expos – here are some of their favourite games from Eurogamer Expo in London. 

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The Escapists

Platforms: PC (Steam) Release Date: Q3 2014 Developer: Mouldy Toof Studios Publisher: Team 17

With all the hype and the long, long queues you’d be forgiven for thinking that EGX was a show all about the blockbusters. However tucked away behind the AAA fare there were plenty of smaller games that might end up being this year’s cult classics: Case in point, The Escapists.

Presented in the cutesy top-down style of old Japanese RPGs, The Escapists tasks you with breaking out of a maximum security prison while keeping on the good side of guards and fellow inmates. It’s Pokémon Red meets The Count of Monte Cristo, and if that doesn’t excite you I suggest you seek medical attention.

The few minutes I played of it at the Xbox stand were bursting with the kind of subversive charisma and straight-up fun that define so many of my favourite games, even if that fun did come in the form of labour in a prison laundry and a brawl with a guard.

It’s hard to gauge from a brief demo exactly how this 16-bit Shawshank Redemption will pan out but its existence is a reminder of what makes me love videogames in the first place. The Escapists proves that innovation can thrive even alongside the biggest releases. [divider]

Elite: Dangerous

Platforms: PC, OS X Release Date: Q4 2014 (OS X 3 months after) Developer: Frontier Developments

Elite: Dangerous was the most impressive game on display at EGX bar none. Why? Because along with 3D printers and Netflix it is proof that we are more or less living in the future.

This space-em-up comes from industry veterans Frontier and promises to let you fly, fight, explore and trade your way across a staggering 400 billion star systems in a range of customisable spaceships. It’s a full scale model of the Milky Way. It’s borderline photorealistic.

Best of all, Elite: Dangerous is a trailblazer in virtual reality technology. I played the demo (a dogfight in an asteroid field) with an Oculus Rift headset strapped to my face and I loved every second of it. The experience of sharing a viewpoint with your in-game character is at once surreal and utterly immersive. When you hear more about VR in the coming months don’t just dismiss it as a fad; it really might change the way you play games.

To get the same experience playing Elite: Dangerous in my bedroom as I got at EGX would probably cost me north of £1500 in hardware. It’s testament to the game’s potential that I am already considering saving up.

Charlie Roberson [divider]

The Evil Within

Platforms: PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One Release Date: 14/10/14 Developer: Tango Gameworks Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Turning heads back in April 2013 with what must be one of gaming’s most messed up announcement trailers, the Evil Within is nearly ready to bring its mix of macabre atmosphere and strategic survival to the hungry horror masses.

And what better way to showcase the game than a level taking place in that most iconic of locations; a spooky mansion? Placing you in the shoes of vulnerable yet capable cop Sebastian Castellanos, the goal was merely to progress through a dark and gloomy house, scavenging materials and avoiding traps while hunting (and being hunted by) packs of mysterious undead monsters. Sound creepy enough for you?

The Evil Within very much bears the stamp of creative design lead Shinji Mikami, with the over-the-shoulder combat and unnervingly cunning enemies he made famous with Resident Evil 4 also featuring prevalently here.

But the game’s precise aiming controls don’t stop you from being woefully underpowered; Scarce ammo and ineffective melee attacks mean running away is often your best bet, and stealth is absolutely key for dispatching and avoiding foes who are clever, unrelenting, and extremely difficult to handle in hordes.

While I was unfortunately unable to explore the game’s crafting aspects too deeply, the game’s gritty environments, given an extra shot of detail by the Xbox One, really drew me in to the extent that I often felt more like I was in a Saw film than when I played the actual Saw games. Then again, Viva Piñata was probably a more effective horror game than the  Saw games.

Having seen the nerve-wracking suspense of The Evil Within first-hand, I’m confident that Tango Gameworks will deliver a game that won’t be pulling punches where difficulty is concerned. Will you make it out alive? [divider]

Alien: Isolation

Platforms: PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One Release Date: 07/10/14 Developer: Creative Assembly Publisher: Sega

The Evil Within may be scary, but if there’s one game this year that I just know will make me want to curl up into a foetal position out of sheer terror, its Alien: Isolation. With every passing day I look forward to it and yet at the same time dread it. It’s like graduation, but with more loneliness and “game overs”. So in a way, its exactly like graduation.

The demo at EGX snuck a look at the game’s intense survival mode, which pit you not just against the Alien but the clock as you attempted to reach safety at the end of the level as fast as possible.

Well, at least I believed that was how the level ended. If I’m being honest most of my experience was spent cowering in one of the Sevastopol’s storage lockers, trying hard to breathe normally while H.R. Giger’s terrifyingly realised creation hissed and slithered mere inches from the vent.

To pull a positive from that rather grim scenario, from the vent I was able to observe the sheer detail of the Alien; it’s just one example of the game’s incredible authenticity, along with the game’s spine-chilling soundtrack and environments that could have been ripped directly from Ridley Scott’s original film set.

Like all truly scary survival horror games, Isolation is prepped to make you feel vulnerable, useless and alone. It’s basically how I feel standing in the Copper Rooms during Pop, which incidentally would be the ideal place to let an Alien loose.

Joe Baker [divider]

Batman: Arkham Knight

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Windows Release Date: 02/06/2015 Developer: Rocksteady Studios Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

One among many hulking plasterboard cubes at EGX last weekend, the Arkham Knight preview booth was dark, brooding, and gave off a vibe of the mysterious and impenetrable – much like its gliding, skulking protagonist. I didn’t really belong in the area, I had come for Kingdom Hearts, for the co-op of Dragon Age: Inquisition, I wanted to dress up Sackboy in custom threads. All these things I was destined to find on the second floor – but strangely, I was there, at the Batman booth, behind the red tape, craning over leagues of lifelong Bat enthusiasts to get a glimpse of a screen on a blank wall that teased a breath-taking vision of Gotham’s smoky skyscape. One of the attendants signalled for me to join the queue. Oh well, here goes nothing.

It began with Batman, suited up and drenched in pixelated rain that seemed as real as the wood beneath my feet, gliding down through the mists of Gotham’s broadest ever map. He swooped in on three enemies, took them out simultaneously and leapt into the Batmobile, which you can now call from your menu to any location. Batman’s movements, the transition from legwork to being behind the wheel are fluid, smooth as silk, not to mention incredibly cool.

Though I had never played Arkham Origins, I was assured that combat had significantly improved, with the additions of environmental takedowns (I watched Batman thrust one of Scarecrow’s lackeys into a fusebox) and combo attacks for up to three enemies. Switching control between Batman and his dark beast of a car allows the player to position the Batmobile where they want it, directly in combat for assists – Batman throws an uppercut, Batmobile guns down enemies in mid-air. Arkham Knight finally, with this and other new tricks, looks to be a Batman game that captures the synchronisation of man and machine – the Batmobile is now more than just a glorified taxi, it’s a potential game-changer in the fight against Batman’s new enigmatic enemy, the Arkham Knight.

As I stumbled into the flow of bubbling excitement leaving the mini theatre, the attendant who had pulled me in offered a poster of the Arkham Knight and hoped I enjoyed the preview. I don’t quite remember what I answered, if anything – I was too overcome with the sensation that ‘Batman the superhero’ had never impacted on my life, had never been something I thought could excite me, yet here I was, not only contemplating buying the game, but also its predecessors. And if five minutes of gameplay is enough to convert, suppose what an entire game will do. All I know is, I need a Batmobile in my life.

Gabriella Watt

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Eurogamer Expo continues to be a fantastic place to get hands-on access to new games, meet hundreds of other gamers and chat to developers – click here to find out about next year’s EGX Rezzed. [divider_top]

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