“Move over, you impudent scumbag,” the grumpy old woman shouts, scolding me as I collect twigs for her in a two-dimensional forest that looks like it fell out of medieval manuscripts. “Take the last one,” he points to the lower left corner of the screen. As soon as I approach him and choose the “steal” option, a fateful warning flashes through me: This decision will affect the story. And here I am quite smiling in the middle of a huge hall with a controller in my hands, a journalist standing next to me in headphones on his head calmly rummages through imaginary vocabulary and I think to myself “ah, so this is Gamescom”.
The covid pandemic has significantly impacted one of the largest gaming fairs in the world over the past two years. Cologne, like other cities in Germany, has limited the organization of public events, so part of Gamescom was held online. That stayed the same this year when Geoff Keighley once again hosted Opening Night Live and presented some enticing demos from games like Atlas Fallen, Dead Island 2 or Lies of P.
But that’s not what Gamescom is about. Its biggest benefit is being able to try out some of the upcoming games on the spot, or meet the developers and discuss how many wrinkles they’ve added since the last crunch.
Puppet and fighter rolled into one
The aforementioned Lies of P was just such a case. Many had previously written off this book for the soul as “Bloodborn for the Poor”, but when Martin Zavrzel and I approached the stand with a large drawing of the protagonist, mild curiosity turned into enthusiasm.
I won’t lie: I can’t play Souls games even though I really like their aesthetic. I lack the patience to survive a few deaths and the ability to bite the bullet and slowly recover. So Martin went up to the screen and moved the main character, the fairy-tale character Pinocchio, who… er, mows down enemies.
There was a dramatic silence. But the gloomy game from an essentially unknown Korean studio even looked great over the shoulder. Like Bloodborne, of course, but without the slightly offensive nickname. The hero moved smoothly, and the dark world attracted me as a spectator. After a while, Martin spoke again: “Excellent.”
We both had cautious expectations for the game, as the video demos can easily be confusing or not showcase everything in its true glory. But thanks to the opportunity to “touch” it on the spot, we discovered a wild card at the very beginning, which even among other Gamescom journalists began to whisper about.
There were usually a lot of gloomy credits on set. Alone in the Dark, The Devil in Me, or a nearby mystery booth for the upcoming game The Callisto Protocol were all tempting to try. On the first day, the queues were still relatively small, colleagues even uttered the absolutist “I haven’t experienced this in twenty years.” The fair was full of journalists, YouTubers or traders, and crowds of ordinary visitors were not expected until Thursday. So, when we saw a queue of several curious people for the Callisto Protocol horror movie, there was no time to find out what we were about to see.
Will it be a longer gameplay demo? Or maybe the game itself? At the entrance to the black soundproof booth stood the porter, who let the threes through and did not want to reveal anything. When it came to us, he led us to a big screen and showed us where to stand. Suddenly, we noticed that the camera was filming us and projecting us onto the screen… like skeletons.
We waved in mirror image with our bone buddies. They blew a kiss. In principle, we became friends instantly – after all, these are tortured souls somewhere in the depths of space. But suddenly a nameless monster jumped on the skeletons. She knocked my poor partner to the ground, attacked her colleagues… and it was all over. It was just a joke that made me feel like the exact opposite of Lies of P (which is a good thing).
swear in Bavarian
There were quite a few halls with trial games, but at the same time it was clear that the fair looked smaller than before. One of the eleven giant rooms was temporarily closed, and in the rest there was very little space left between the individual booths. Their rent costs a lot of money, as you yourself can calculate.
Several video game companies were absent, the largest being Sony and Nintendo. And those who came to represent their titles sometimes did so on a motorcycle, on which fans could take pictures under the big Gotham Knights sign.
Of the consoles without two competitors, the Xbox was left, which attracted several games with its green booth complex. But those who expected the sci-fi Starfield or Redfall shooter had to be disappointed, because the photo was again the only thing they took away from here.
In the middle, there was a queue for the new part of the A Plague Tale series, which, for unknown reasons, could only be tested on a very limited number of screens. And as if on the sidelines, Pentiment remained, the adventure game from the Obsidian studio mentioned at the beginning of the article, which takes place in the 16th century in Bavaria.
Coming out November 15 and coming directly to Game Pass, the game offers a fresh take on medieval books but paired with modern written dialogue. It seems to work on opposites, which then enhance the impression received by the player. On the one hand, you’ve drawn characters that move slowly and look like they’re from books and chronicles that aren’t usually easy to read. Add lines that appear on the screen as if someone were writing them by hand – you can even hear the soft sound of a pen gently scratching the paper. On the other hand, the farmer will tell you that his son is a spoiled child who does not want to work in the fields.
But … All this then turns into criticism of local representatives of the church and intelligent dialogues that simply do not evaporate from the head. If I’ve seen my personal game of the year at Gamescom, it’s Pentiment, and I’ve been looking forward to trying it for over a quarter of an hour.
Pentimento creator Josh Sawyer, who is also behind RPGs like Fallout: New Vegas or Pillars of Eternity, was also walking around the fair, and those who were lucky enough to see him and maybe have a few words with him (not me and yes, it bothers me). This happens not only while walking around the Czech city – many developers come from the USA, Japan or other European countries. But the fair erases boundaries, shortens distances and provides an opportunity to ask the creators “what they really had in mind.”
And if you are a journalist and have access to the business part of the complex, you can play the game that they have been creating for the past few years.
The main thing is not to cross the beams
As I walked through a hall full of stands dedicated to different countries of the world and their names, I passed by, for example, Canada or the smaller Colombia. It was nice to see this South American country from a different angle than “there are drug cartels and death.” At the end of the road, the American studio IllFonic was waiting for me and their new cooperative game Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, where four people work together, and the fifth plays against them, possibly with artificial intelligence.
The recent multiplayer thing Predator: Hunting Grounds from the same studio frankly did not excite me very much. But at the same time, Ghostbusters is my favorite childhood game, so I was curious to see the gameplay.
Founder and head of the studio Charles Brungardt and lead developer Jared Gerritzen were already seated in the closed part of the booth. “Let’s play together,” they announced, handing me the remote. “But you’re lucky, you’ll be playing as a spirit against us.
It only took a few minutes, and it was like we were old friends getting together for a few rounds of Ghostbusters. Compared to Predator, this time it felt like a party game. That Illfonic has learned to make it fun and easy. You will quickly understand the controls, and the goal is clear to those who have seen at least one of the films in the series: to catch the ghost that terrorizes the neighborhood. Or terrorize.
“Can I lick him?” I asked, sneaking up on Gerritzen’s hero. “Of course!” he shouted excitedly, pointing to the corresponding stick on the controller. “You’re kind of fast and I’ve got a bad partner,” the pair began to dig into each other when things got bad. But in the end it worked – the foreign journalist was not allowed to win. And in the last remaining seconds, a trap clicked behind my pink spirit.
Udder in action
Pure fun is something that is sometimes overlooked in games. I myself prefer deeper dialogue or a smoother combat system. But I know that sometimes you just want to relax or play pranks.
When I ran into a promoter with an udder around his waist and a bell around his neck, I hesitated. Damn where did I go? But there was a Goat Simulator 3 banner nearby, and everything immediately became clear.
This series is essentially GTA, but you play as a goat. And even the third part is not rejected. For example, you steal a tractor and use it to destroy carefully placed crates. You will be electrocuted by a fence around a herd of pimps, and you will be electrocuted by a farmer who naively turned away from you. And while you’re looking at yours and merrily looking for a pile of dung to scatter around, the game crashes. Black screen with a code on it. And the nervous promoter with the udder makes a long excuse that this definitely shouldn’t have happened.
Gamescom is about that kind of experience. About good, pleasant surprises and heartfelt moments, like when you sit next to the creator of the Czech RPG The Last Oricru and with a smile stab him in his own game with a character with whom he clearly has a strong relationship. Or the worst, when the host ten years younger than you does not let the show because you do not have a red bracelet for visitors over 18 years old. By the way, in what year will even this be a flattering and pleasant surprise?
The Gamescom 2022 report on ZING.cz features Acer Nitro gaming laptops with processors up to Intel Core i7.
Source :Indian TV
