With the Electronic Entertainment Expo — E3, parishioners — just one week away, we’ve still got a slew of games to preview. Welcome to Day Fih!
***DAY FIVE, June 5th — DISHONORED 2, RECORE, MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA***
Archives:
“MAGDALENE” MICHELLE KISNER @robotcookie
DISHONORED 2 (Arkane Studios/Bethesda – PS4, X1, PC – November 11) – The first Dishonored game was a welcome addition to the often overlooked first-person stealth action genre. It followed the exploits of royal bodyguard-turned-assassin Corvo Attano, a man also imbued with otherworldly powers to help him in his quest. These powers allowed him to stop time, teleport and other mystical feats which could be combined to unleased Rube Goldberg style death traps upon his victims. There were also many ways to go about accomplishing the missions in the game and you could beat the entire game without killing a single person to include the bosses. Despite getting mostly great reviews from critics, Dishonored was a bit of a sleeper hit. Luckily, fans of the original game will be blessed with a sequel this fall, and will enter a new city called Karnaca. This time around, there will be two playable protagonists: Corvo and a female assassin named Emily Kaldwin–the child our protagonist was protecting in the first game. Let’s just say that 15-years have passed since and life has not improved much. Arkane Studios promises even more superpowers to utilize–with the ability to now combine and experiment with different assassination techniques–all the while providing an upgrade from the aging Unreal Engine 3 to the id Tech 5 based “Void” engine. Of course, Dishonored had a unique, stylized steampunk look that added to the atmosphere and there’s no doubt this new game will creep slowly in its footsteps.
“DEACON” FELIPE CRESPO @theheelternal
RECORE (Armature/Microsoft – X1, PC – TBA 2016) – Know what was cool? Metroid Prime. Know who’s cool and knows a thing or two about games? Keiji Inafune (considered, for a second, misspelling it on purpose just for the nerd rage comments/mail). Now imagine if the creators of Prime and Inafune came together to make a game… Well you don’t have to, because ReCore will soon be here. Well, hopefully soon. It’s Inafune, so personally, I’m already psychologically readying myself for the announcement of a delay or two (or three or four). To add to my delay concerns, we haven’t seen a hell of a lot of anything aside from the E3 trailer from last year. What we can gather is that it’ll be set in a post-apocalyptic world where you’re a female heroine with robot buddies. You can switch out their cores to other robots for different abilities/effects. While I have no problems with the setting — seeing that 80% of games share it — it’s refreshing seeing one with vibrant colors and playful characters (though not so much the enemies), and the hinted gameplay mechanics should get the mind running as to what puzzles the Metroid Prime team might have in store for us. Can’t wait for ReCore: The game that makes you want to have blue balls.
“MONSIGNOR” TRAVIS MOODY @travmoody
MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA (BioWare/EA – PS4, X1, PC – 2017) – Is there a more anticipated game set to be shown at E3 than this one? I highly doubt it, unless all you play is Madden or COD. Even with all its ending blunders (to some, not necessarily this critic; although going in as a 99% Renegade to witness a strictly pure Paragon ending was a bit disheartening), no other sci-fi RPG shooter can live up to the 225+ hours that was the Mass Effect trilogy. It’s what Destiny originally aimed to be, then quit when they realized they had no chance matching ME‘s superior character depth and narrative; thus, of course, not “aiming” for any of the RPG elements Mass Effect 1-3 oh-so-perfected. Andromeda will take place “far away from” and “long after” the previous installments, exploring an all-new galaxy as either male/female (as usual), with a whole new cast of characters you can spin around in a new Mako. Hey, that’s just more POP Vinyl Dolls for us to buy. Be sure to tune in EA’s presser next Sunday, June 12 (at 1 PM PT/4PM ET) for the game’s first official trailer, and–if we’re lucky–a live demo.