We Happy Few
If you made a sauce of two parts Bioshock to one part Alice: Madness Returns, then poured it over a bed of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, you’d have We Happy Few. The game takes place in England in a village called Wellington Wells where everyone takes medication called Joy to be happy all the time. They can instinctively sense people who aren’t on it and are incredibly violent toward them. You play, of course, someone who’s gone off his Joy. The game features an interesting story and points you toward your goals, but everything between point A and point B is procedurally generated. So you may only have to go a mile away, but everything in that mile changes every time you play.
The game features a large degree of freedom, allowing you to explore buildings and sneak about, or be rowdy and really wreck everyone’s day with a pipe wrench. The more happy, outgoing, and well dressed you are, the harder it is to detect you’re off your Joy. But the second you do something to tip them off, god damn you’d better run. They are not screwing around in Wellington Wells.
The game is still a bit rough around the edges, but it’s coming along beautifully. There’s even a basic needs function where you need to drink, eat, and sleep just to keep going, which adds to the strategy of how long to stay out, when, and what to do.
We Happy Few is coming to Xbox One and PC June of this year.
Paragon
MOBAs have really taken off in the past few years, with the clear victors being DOTA and League of Legends. The concept has been wildly successful, but rarely iterated on effectively. Paragon hopes to do that.
Instead of having a top down view of the map, you play as a third person hero attacking and capturing bases. The mechanics, power ups, and design are no different than most MOBAs — each team has bases that can be captured, minions spawn from the bases, you try to take the last base to win. The over the shoulder perspective is interesting and makes it feel less like a MOBA and more like a team shooter.
That being said, the biggest problem Paragon has is how long it takes to play a game. League’s average game length is just over half an hour. This length is great — just long enough to fit in around 2 matches an hour. If you have an awful team or just can’t get it done, it’s over and you’re in another game relatively quickly. A match in Paragon, on the other hand, took 45-50 minutes in my experience. Not only was this painfully long to wait for at a demo, but if your team is dragging you down, that’s an extra 15-20 minutes of agony when you know you won’t win.
The improved mechanics are interesting and succeed in making it feel less like every other MOBA, but that average match length has to come down if it wants to take on League and DOTA.
Paragon will be out later this year for PC and PS4.
Metroid Prime: Federation Force
Nintendo has a lot of great series, Metroid Prime being one of the most incredible. Those three games are intensely satisfying, intriguing and took the series to a whole new level. When Nintendo announced Metroid Prime: Federation Force, everyone was a little wary. No Samus, on the 3DS, featuring Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass level graphics. But it’s a Prime title, maybe it’ll surprise with quality.
Nope. Sure doesn’t.
You know Warframe? How you and your friends take on baddies, explore spaceships, fight stuff then escape? Okay take out the wall running, downgrade the graphics, make the aiming mechanic halfway broken, and put it on a console without another thumb stick so you really can’t aim the camera properly and that’s Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Playing this game is an exercise in frustration as the game on a whole is slow, it has the “can’t aim up” problems that FPS games on the DS had before and never overcame, and overall feels like a cheap imitation of a Metroid game, let alone a Prime game.
If this game had come out under the name “Space Marines: Explore ‘n Shoot” and was marketed at 8-12 year olds with an accompanying cartoon show, it would make total sense to be mediocre. But it’s a Metroid game and it’s a horrible trick to deny gamers a proper game and rather give them what appears to be a mostly finished game that had some Metroid skins plastered on it.
Metroid Prime: Federation Force is out August 16th of this year for Nintendo 3DS, though after this preview, you probably don’t care.
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
First off, let me just say they may have started off the show in the cutest way possible — by making Iwata, Miyamoto, and Reggie muppets. They’re adorable.
Star Fox 0
The new Star Fox gang puts us back in the pilot seat of the Arwing to take down the forces of presumably Andross. One of the maps shown in the trailer looks like a completely revamped Corneria. You can still tell it’s Corneria, but it’s so so much prettier and more detailed. The game has a few different modes, like Star Fox 64, including All Range Mode and a new Target Mode in which you get a cinematic view of the action on the TV and instead rely on the Wii U gamepad to fly and shoot.
In fact, there’s a lot of emphasis placed on the gamepad’s importance in the new Star Fox since it allows you to aim in a different direction than your flying with a cockpit view. It’s very clever, but potentially concerning for people who prefer a joystick camera if there’s no option for that. The game also features the return of the landmaster and the addition of transformations. The Arwing can transform into what look like a chicken robot to run about on the ground for sections that may call for it. In Corneria, there are some areas that are much more easily accessed via ChickenBot (our name not theirs). This title looks to be taking the Star Fox 64 legacy and innovating the crap out of it, something we, and fans of the series, deeply appreciate.
The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes
You heard it! A new Legend of Zelda title coming to handhelds for everyone that’s missed Four Swords. In this title, you’ll take control of one of three Links to solve puzzles, kill baddies, and save Hyrule together as a team. The creator says instead of having a rupee-driven contest, the game has a more serious tone, like a normal Legend of Zelda title, just with two extra players. Another neat feature is that Link now has costumes, which will help distinguish your Link from your friends. We’re not sure if the costumes provide powerups, but Link can wear Zelda’s dress, which will definitely help people get his name right. You won’t have to wait long for the multiplayer chaos as The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes comes out this Fall to Nintendo 3DS
Metroid Prime Federation Force and Metroid Prime Blast Ball
Everyone’s been clamoring for a new Metroid Prime title, but unfortunately, these are not the droids games you’re looking for. The cartoony graphics of Federation Force feel so far removed from the serious ton of Metroid Prime that it’s difficult to call it a Prime game. It seems to be a fine enough title, but there was no Samus in the trailer and nothing felt very Metroid-y. Same with Blast Ball, though that at least feels more like their earlier pinball title. The games are probably fine, we’re just really aching for a new Metroid game.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer and Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival
For all you fans of the home building, town managing game series, Animal Crossing has a few new spinoff games to whet your appetite. First off is Happy Home Designer, which seems to be mostly about just designing and decorating homes. Looks like an Animal Crossing game, but without all the outside bits. If you hate the outside bits, that’s great, else, they have another title you may enjoy. Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival looks like a less hate-driven Mario Party in which your characters traverse a board to collect/dispense happiness. The winner is the one who has the most happiness at the end of the match. How adorable is that? It looks like it may be just an amiibo game, but this saccharine virtual board game should send fans into squee fits. Happy Home Designer will be on 3DS and amiibo Festival will be on Wii U soon.
Yoshi’s Woolly World
When the new Yoshi title was announced last year, fans took note of how much it looked like Yoshi’s Island and Kirby’s Epic Yarn had a baby. And that’s still true! This adorable platformer has you taking control of a wool plush of Mario’s best dino friend with some interesting mechanics to boot. Platform unravelling by slurping string, converting string to egg yarn balls, and super cute transformations make this title a lot more interesting than the previous entry in Yoshi’s series. Also the amiibos are absolutely perfect. Look forward to this game coming October 16th of this year.
Super Mario Maker
The concept of Super Mario Maker isn’t a new one — it’s been done tons of ways on the internet, most notably by Super Mario Brothers X. But since it’s a Nintendo game, there’s a lot to expect of the DIY Mario game. And it delivers. A stupid simple level editor, the ability to switch art assets and change Mario’s costumes using amiibos are all finishing touches on a strong, powerful engine to create your own Mario levels. Miyamoto also says it’s a great place for people to learn how to do game design through trial-by-fire, meaning if someone asks why you spend so much time in it, you can claim career development. Super Mario Maker will be available for download September 11th of this year.
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
