Eurogamer Expo: Savage Moon

Last week here on the blog, I talked about Tom Clancy's EndWar and how it was using voice control to switch up the old RTS game mechanics. But that wasn't the only strategy game we got our hands on at the Eurogamer Expo (E2?), oh no! Savage Moon is a tower defence game, like PixelJunk Monsters, that swaps the cutesy graphics and 2D view for space insects and lots of grey.

Savage Moon is quite a different beast to Q Games' beautiful cult classic. Savage Moon is set on a 'moon' being used for mining of minerals. And whaddya know, some 'savage' creatures who inhabit the aforementioned moon are none too happy about this. But you don't really need a decent backstory with these sorts of games: long story short, bad creatures go round map and attack your base - stop them.

Really, if you want to know how the game works, just read anything ever written about tower defence games, but there is one feature that I haven't seen pop up elsewhere recently: as well as putting towers on high ground, you can also put them down in the path of oncoming creatures. The advantage of this is that you can sort of herd the creatures round a certain way to take out more of them before they get to your base. The flip side of this, of course, is that the creatures just might take a liking to your nice vulnerable tower and destroy the crap out of it. Its an intruiging concept, and was interesting to toy around with in the time I spent with the game and its overly controlling Sony handler, but whether it can actually make that much of a difference to become a regular feature in rounds I don't yet know.

There were a couple of issues that I had with the game that developer FluffyLogic needs to iron out prior to the games planned Q1 2009 release. Although I didn't experience any erratic crashes, the controller had a knack of randomly disconnecting (I was told this was a known bug, explaining why this game had a handler unlike the others at the Expo), and the menus need to be a bit more responsive to deal with the fast-paced play styles of lots of RTSers. But, there's plenty of time for this to be worked out, and I have high hopes for the game when it gets released to the PlayStation Network at the beginning of next year.

Eurogamer Expo: Mirror's Edge

Imagine the scene: it’s about 11.02am on a quite chilly Wednesday morning in London, and, recently equipped with entrance wristbands, hundreds of gamers are now swarming into the Old Truman Brewery (now converted into an exhibition space of sorts). Large numbers of them have memorised the floorplan and head straight for the Street Fighter IV or Gears of War 2 booths at the back of the room. Others – like us – simply head to the biggest brightest television in the room. It just so happened that the giant forty-something-inch screen directly in front of the doors was running the very bright Mirror’s Edge.

We perched ourselves on the two stools placed ridiculously close to the screen and I picked up the controller. A friendly Eurogamer staff member briefed us (briefly) on the controls and then we were off. First things first: this game really is good-looking. The white/blue scene presented in front of us was broken up by small parts lit in red and scattered around the level. My first few minutes with the game were – how can I put this – a little bit rubbish; the controls and movement in Mirror’s Edge are not like any other game. L1 is jump, L2 is crouch, R1 does a 180-degree turn, and R2 is punch/attack. The face buttons are used as well, but less often: triangle is disarm for instance. In fact, you’ll do best in Mirror’s Edge if you maintain your momentum, so the shoulder buttons are normally your best bet. There are combinations of controls that enable you to do something a bit special: when running, press crouch and attack to do a slide attack, or jump and attack to kick the enemy in the face. The real difference to any other first person game, however, is how you move. The left-stick is forwards and back and the right-stick is look/aim as ever, but moving the left-stick from side to side actually strafes – a difference that makes sure turning does not affect your momentum significantly – and this can take a bit of getting used to.

The level we played was called ‘The Edge’, and began with Faith (the main character) running across the rooftops to pass a package onto another runner, Celeste. It is one of the first levels in the game, and as such, the complex gameplay mechanics were minimal, however there were a number of sections that really required you to use your head to find out where to go. At one point you are in a rather bland corridor and the only indication of where to go is a red-rimmed entrance to an air conditioning vent. In the end, we worked out that you had to climb onto some storage cabinets, and then leap backwards to a ridge on the wall, then across again to land on a cooling tube which led to the vent. It’s these brain-taxing moments that make the game shine, as it shows how much effort DICE have put into making the most of the first-person perspective, and trying to solve these puzzles without losing too much time or momentum is even tougher. Later there was some melee combat as well, but the level was really about getting to grips with the controls. SIXAXIS motion controls were also present in the game, however they are not compulsory – you can use the left stick or motion controls to balance, and there are also gestures for rolls and other moves – and can be turned off completely in the options menu if you wish.

One thing I will say about Mirror’s Edge is that it has really leapt to the top of my most wanted list since getting some hands-on time, as you really have to experience it in person to understand how it works. For those of you who want to have a go, a demo consisting of a tutorial and the level we played is now available on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace, and if you have preordered the game, you can enter a special code to unlock a time trial mode in the demo too. Mirror’s Edge is developed by DICE and published by EA, and will be released for the PS3 and 360 on November 14th and later this year on PC.