I ran all around the Los Angeles Convention Center to provide the most in-depth coverage one man could possibly provide. My first booth of the day was Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. I had the opportunity to play as the fan-favorite character, Grimlock. He was a brawler and a brute character as he walked through the Insecticon enemies. Once he gathered enough rage, which was dropped by each enemy that he killed, he transformed into a fire-breathing robot dinosaur. Needless to say, it was all kinds of awesome. I managed to talk with one of the developers, who was at the booth, to confirm post-launch downloadable content for Fall of Cybertron. But then what else is new?
After that, I stood in line for an exclusive behind closed doors demo presentation of Splinter Cell: Blacklist. It was the same demo shown at the Microsoft Press Conference but it included: interrogations with a knife that the player uses, moral choices that are akin to Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory [the third game in the series] and the ability to cut through tents which was notably absent from Splinter Cell: Conviction [the fifth game in the series].
The demo also showed multiple pathways through missions and an electric crossbow that is useful for shocking enemies in pools of water. The player also showed the ability to set charges on a door and set up a strike on a room full of terrorists. The developers were stressing that they wanted to include much more gameplay variety than other Splinter Cells and they emphasized this with UAV drone gameplay that the player controlled. Ubisoft called it their most ambitious Splinter Cell game to date, which came across in their demo for Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
Once that was done, I headed over to the 2K Games booth to check out Borderlands 2. I got to play with another player who was also allowed inside the 2K Booth. I played as the cyborg ninja character, who could distract enemies and use a sword, and threw my upgrade points into whatever sounded cool from the descriptions. He chose the soldier class who could deploy turrets and then the two of us were off. Our objective was to activate a robot to take down several statues within the level. We failed the first time and then one of the aids to the game told use that there was a secret back way we could have taken. We lasted a little longer but our time ran out. My issue with Borderlands 1 was that it was one big desert environment and got repetitive and from the demo and trailers, they have included: jungles, cities, swamps, snowy tundras, etc. The game jumped to one of my most anticipated of the year, easily.
X-Com: Enemy Unknown was next on my list and we sat down for a quick hands-off demo of the game, which showed off classic X-Com gameplay, and enemies that could control the soldiers on your squad. I don’t know much about X-Com so my impressions are very minimal. I headed over to the Spec Ops: The Line booth and played a singleplayer demo of the game. It featured a grizzled and irritable main character asking his teammate to “say whatever you’re going to say.” The writing in Spec Ops: The Line is very engaged and evolved as the game continues. It was a very cool demo and left me wanting to know more about the story.
I walked by the Hitman: Absolution booth and got my butt kicked royally. I maneuvered through a China city with a full crowd and lifelike A.I. interactions and managed to assassinate my target. The cops, however, did not fancy that and I was gunned down very quickly.
Once my feet were worn down to the bone, I left the convention center to rest up for the second day of gaming coverage. Stay tuned, true believers.
Reach the reporter at shfawcet@asu.edu.
