Granted, I obviously didn't have the benefit of seeing the bigger picture when it came to storytelling or the classless ability system, but I came away a little cooler on Secret World than I had been. However, what I actually saw was pretty standard MMO fare, complete with fetch questing and point-and-click combat. I loved Longest Journey and still liked Dreamfall's world even with its multitude of other problems, so I'm genuinely curious to see if Secret World can finally be the one to break the cycle of World of Warcraft clones. The upcoming MMO from The Longest Journey developer FunCom, this was another demo I was excited about seeing. I liked Borderlands just fine for what it was though, so more of the same with some tweaks isn't a bad thing by any means. I didn't see anything noticeably different from the first game, though again I did not get much play time. I did get some hands-on time with it, but my session was only fifteen minutes long and nobody appeared to be available to answer questions. One of the games I was really looking forward to seeing. There was no playable demo at the show and the presentation consisted of a pre-beta build, but I liked what I saw and will likely be picking it up when it releases.īorderlands 2 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)
CHARLIE MURDER MODS PC PC
A re-imagining of the classic PC strategy series, Enemy Unknown gave me a very distinct Frozen Synapse vibe, which makes sense since it was itself heavily influenced by the XCOM games. I knew very little about XCOM before the show, but now it's one of my most anticipated titles. XCOM: Enemy Unknown (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC) The demo itself was pretty short, but I'll definitely keep my eye on this one. The distinctive art style from Dishwasher has been retained, and a brawler feels like a much more natural fit for this kind of combat rather than a straight 2D platformer. He was very cordial (I think he knew who I was after he saw my badge…) and happily answered my questions about Charlie Murder, and honestly I came away pretty impressed. I've heard horror stories about ugly confrontations between critics and developers when it comes to harsh reviews, including a few instances of blacklisting and even being thrown out of a booth, but I'm glad to say that didn't happen here. I wasn't the biggest fan of Ska Studios' last title The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, and I wasn't aware that James Silva's next game, Charlie Murder, was even at the show. After playing it for a few moments I realized that I was indeed at the Ska booth, and that I was standing right next to Silva. This may seem like an odd item to put first, but bear with me here, as this is easily the most interesting story of my entire trip. In fact, at the time of this writing I've now met a total of six GameCritics members in person (Brad Gallaway, Tim Spaeth, Chi Kong Lui, Kristin Taylor, Sparky Clarkson, and Trent Fingland) which I think is a record. In case the title didn't give it away, I attended PAX East this year, and I saw a lot of cool things and met some good people.