With so many incredible titles and peripherals vying for attention at Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, I wanted to take some time to share the very best of what I saw. Naturally, “best” is in the eye of the beholder, but these are the games and hardware that had a lasting impact once the show had ended. In no particular order, here are some of the niftiest things I got to check out at GDC 2015.
King’s Quest
A reimagining of the classic King’s Quest adventure series, the upcoming episodic retelling of those classic tales is shaping up to be a nostalgia-laden joyride through the life of King Graham. If you grew up playing King’s Quest in the ’80s and ’90s, the upcoming remake will take you through some of your fondest childhood memories, as King Graham recounts his adventuring days to a young Gwendolyn.
Each episode will focus on a chapter of King Graham’s life as an adventurer, and the decisions you make will shape not only the story, but the decisions Gwendolyn makes over the course of the game. She’ll be your protege, learning wisdom, strength, compassion – or not – based on how you play out Graham’s memories of his youth. From his quest to become a knight to his eventually being crowned a king, you’ll encounter myriad puzzles and characters.
The first of five planned episodes of King’s Quest is scheduled for a Fall 2015 release on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, and PC.
Schrodinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark
If you’ve never heard of Schrodinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark, you’re not alone. Despite having a background in Physics and an innate love of all things quantum, I’d never heard of it either. Combining puzzle-platforming action with over-the-top physics jokes amidst the always-entertaining character dialogue, Italic Pig’s Schrodinger’s Cat brings some of the best and nerdiest jokes to life.
Schrodinger’s Cat is the XKCD of platformers. It’s intelligent, witty, and above all, fun. The basics of the game are approachable, regardless of your knowledge base, but many of the jokes will zip right past those uninitiated in relativity. If you’re not familiar with Feynman, then The Cat’s “Fists of Feynman” attack won’t mean much to you, but you’ll still have fun clobbering the big, bad bosons that get in your way.
Schrodinger’s Cat launched on Steam last Fall, but is coming to Xbox One and PS4 in April 2015. Physics geeks will adore it, but even the least scientifically-inclined gamers can find something to love.
Mortal Kombat X
The latest in the classic fighting franchise, Mortal Kombat, by NetherRealm Studios, has a heavy focus on the single player story. I got some hands on time with the first chapter at GDC 2015, where the devotion to storytelling was blatantly obvious. While I can’t attest to the entirety of the campaign mode, the section I got to play felt less like a fighting game and more like a kung-fu fantasy flick where you’re in the starring role. Cut scene after cut scene moved the story along, while you did battle with a string of baddies in between the cinematics.
Brutality has long been a staple in the Mortal Kombat series, and MKX is looking to be no exception, and may well even be stepping up the franchise’s gore game. With devastating x-ray cam maneuvers, you’ll be spending a not-insignificant portion of your fighting time watching in-fight cinematics as you shatter skulls, demolish vertebrae, and disembowel your opponents.
In addition to the cinematic-heavy story mode, you’ll have your favorite multiplayer options available in MKX, as well as meta-level games, like Faction Wars. You’ll have access to roster staples like Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Johnny Cage, and Sonya, but each character will have three distinct variations, so 20 characters will actually offer 60 fairly distinct choices.
Mortal Kombat X is slated for an April 14 release on Xbox One and PS4. There’s a free-to-play mobile release on iOS and Android as well, which will serve as a companion app, allowing you to perform various tasks on the go, and unlock content on the console game as you collect rewards.
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions – Evolved
Any Geometry Wars fans who enjoyed the extra difficulty of adding a 3rd dimension to the already-frantic GW experience have a very special treat in store. Come March 31, you should be able to download the Evolved expansion for Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions, which will add two new game modes, multiple new enemy types, and a whopping 60 new levels to contend with, and it’s all absolutely free for those who already own the base game.
The new game modes are Scorpion and Stock. Scorpion is something akin to Pacifism, in that you don’t get to use your weapon, but instead of traditional Pacifism killing, you’ll destroy the enemies by leaving a trail behind you, much like the classic Centipede. Instead of killing you, though, your tail will destroy the enemy shapes that pass through it, so you’ll spend most of your time running circles around the bad guys, then leading them through your death ribbon to finish them off. Stock, on the other hand, is something like Sniper, in that you’ve got limited ammo. In Stock, however, you’ll have an ammo cap, and there will be ammo pickups for you to collect as you blast your way through the enemies.
There are several new enemy types, but one of the coolest I got to see was a multi-colored shape that split up on death into its colored components, making for a particularly nasty enemy type. Finally, there’s hardcore mode, which strips you of your companion drone, and ramps the difficulty even further, to really test what you’re made of.
Did I mention that it’s free? If you already own GW3, you’ll be able to more than double the content of your purchase for absolutely nothing. If you don’t own GW3, you probably should come March 31, as it was already a stellar deal for the price, and this just makes it even more so.
Steam Controllers, Steam Machines, and SteamVR
And then there was Valve and its collection of upcoming Steam products. The first portion of the Valve booth tour had me sitting down to a small collection of Steam Machines, which are finally, officially launching in November 2015. From the circa $500 Alienware option to the $2,000 Falcon Northwest rig, there’s a Steam Machine for virtually every budget. Even on the low-end machine, the graphics were stellar, though the Falcon Northwest machine certainly took the proverbial cake, running games at 60 FPS in full 4k resolution. There’s even a $50 Steam Link option for those who would rather utilize their existing hardware to stream to their TV. With ethernet and wi-fi capabilities, Steam Link will allow you to stream directly from your Steam library to your TV via your existing PC setup.
Steam Controllers are also shaping up nicely, with years of development behind them, and dozens to hundreds of prototypes built to refine the feel of the keyboard/mouse substitute. The dual track pads offer haptic feedback based on your mode of operation, so when you have it set to mimic a trackball, it actually feels like you’re spinning something tangible. The interface is a tad unintuitive for those accustomed to the twin sticks of console controllers, but after only a couple of minutes, it seemed fairly easy to get the hang of it, and the customization options available in the virtualization layer will help even the most tenured console player acclimate to the setup. Retailing at around $50, the Steam Controller’s primary purpose is to make PC games playable on the couch by imitating a keyboard/mouse setup.
Finally, there was SteamVR, which was announced only recently, and offered the most impressive VR experience I’ve had to date. It is important to note that my experiences with both Morpheus and Oculus were on early iterations of the platforms, and this is likely a near-final iteration of SteamVR.
Hands down the neatest aspect of SteamVR is the tracking technology in use. I’m not technically savvy enough to make strong arguments for or against any particular method, but the idea of setting up little black boxes in opposite corners of the room that then fill the room with lasers, which SteamVR uses to track your motion, seems like fine trappings for the sci-fi-iest of settings. According to Valve, these laserboxes can even be used by multiple SteamVR users at the same time, so you can actually share the VR space with a friend with the correct setup.
The demos themselves were largely technical in nature, ranging from poking around in a sunken ship to trying to make soup in a kitchen. There was a particularly hilarious Portal-themed demo as well, where GlaDOS tries to teach you the basics of repair work. The most fun to play demo, however, was certainly the three-dimensional painting. You’ve got a color palette and a texture palette, which you’ll use to decorate your surroundings. The fact that someone as artistically un-talented as I am could so thoroughly enjoy this demo is particularly telling of the power of the technology.
