The annual geek invasion of Boston began Friday as Penny Arcade and their legions of fans stormed the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Explosion.com was there to get our hands-on upcoming blockbuster games as well as independent titles and gaming oddities. Here’s a look at what we played on the first of this three-day expo.
The Penny Arcade Expo supports smaller game developers and we started our day with a look at Revolution 60, an upcoming iOS game that controls a lot like Heavy Rain while using Mass Effect style narrative choices, and sassy anime girl character designs.
We also got our hands on Metro: Last Light to play one of the stealth-based levels of this post-apocalyptic shooter. The first game in the series was published by THQ, who went bankrupt last year, but the rights to the franchise were picked up by Square Enix and the latest game is shaping up to be a solid shooter with the distinct Soviet flair of the Metro universe.
Square Enix was also demoing The Wii U exclusive Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut. This edition of the game not only compiles all of the DLC missions, but also adds in new features like Director Commentaries, and revamped boss battles that now include non-violent and stealth options for taking down the boss characters (Which originally could only be defeated by brute force in the other versions of the game). As of now this edition is only coming for the Wii U, but fans can hold out hope for an update to their PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions.
Deep Silver had a playable demo of the upcoming zombie survival sequel Dead Island Riptide. This time the original gang of survivors in back with some new friends to fight off unending hordes of undead. The demo gave players the chance to play a co-operative version of the campaign, and to try out the new features for building defenses around a base to fend off waves of attackers. This is a new feature in Riptide, and the ability to set up fences and other obstacles wherever players want adds a layer of strategy to the zombie chopping of the first game.
The strangest product we tried today has to be the Stinky Footboard gaming pedal. That’s the real name of this PC game peripheral that allows players to map four buttons to a large directional pad that lies on the floor and is manipulated by the Player’s foot. It’s a strange concept, but it does let players perform actions like making a melee attack in Battlefield 3 without having to take a finger off the WASD keys.
We’ll have more on the Stinky Footboard and the games mentioned above as they approach release, and we’ll be back throughout the weekend with more on upcoming games from Capcom and Ubisoft, along with a closer look at the highlighted indie games being shown at the Expo.
Explosion’s own Charles Battersby will be appearing on several panels throughout the weekend, so stop by the NAVGTR Awards panel on Sunday or the reading of That Cute Radioactive Couple on Saturday evening.
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