While PAX Prime 2014 was providing a lot of new and upcoming games through the show floor I had a lot of appointments set up for the week. This year my first appointments of PAX were with 2K Games. They had an amazing setup with three games being shown off. The first appointment was for Evolve, which some players have had the chance to already take part in the PC Alpha. I had played Evolve before at two other events, so I wasn’t going to have to deal with the full learning curve during my demo this time. This time the experience was much smoother and the monster strength felt toned down. In earlier demos, the monster was always winning and it left the teams of four feeling frustrated. I’m sure by launch, with a good alpha and beta testing phase that there is an opportunity to leave everyone feeling satisfied after a match. I played support and it was all about tagging, tracking, and keeping the monster in an area where we could fight it. I felt that if I missed a key skill in locking everything down in an arena or slowing the monster down, we would have a hard time winning. I have a feeling that on release, a good support can make or break a team and will definitely have the ability to be a shot caller that other players should listen to. Keep on the lookout for the testing phases and get your chance to go on the hunt.
Next, I had a chance to play through 50 turns on Civilization: Beyond Earth. I have a decent amount of casual experience with the Civilization series and I was excited to see if this was another game in the series that I wanted to add to my library. This was the least promoted of their three games at the show and was a private demo behind closed doors. I decided to jump right in and just click around. The game had a new feel with the alien landscapes and much different use of color instead of the starting areas that all Civ players are used to. With a few tips popping up for new mechanics there was still the slightly forgiving nature present that would allow any new player to at least play a passable game until some of the bigger picture strategies were figured out and nuances were noticed. Veteran fans and new players should both find something they enjoy and if you don’t want to be an early adopter, it will definitely be included in a steam sale down the line.
Finally, I ended off with Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. This is what people were clamoring over and I was pretty damn excited. For all of you hardcore fans out there, this takes place in between the first two games, but on the moon! I won the coin flip being put on the demo stations and got exactly what I wanted and got the play as Claptrap. He adds a very humorous set of mechanics to the game which mainly focuses around his action skill. “VaultHunter.exe” will give a random power up that is usually helpful to the situation around you. There will be at least ten different skills available. I immediately had two guns with a faster fire rate and the person next to me turned into a pirate ship with a bunch of cannons that just kept shooting. Between the new action skills, low gravity and massive amount of butt stomping, this is something that every Borderlands fan needs to pick up, play, and show off to your friends who’ve been missing out.
