Just Push Start was fortunate enough to attend this year’s EGX event in Birmingham, UK. With comfortably over a hundred games at the event, including triple A blockbusters, all the way to indie games from one-man development teams, is was extremely hard to whittle the games down to a top 5 of the event. We have tried to get a good mixture of huge and indie games on the list, and without further ado lets kick off the list in no particular order!
Assassin’s Creed: Origins
After taking a hiatus from the standard churn of an Assassin’s Creed game every year I went into the event hoping for big things from this famous franchise. I was not disappointed and I left wanting more, something only the thought of the 2-hour long queue could put me off doing. Forget the likes of Altair and Ezio, Bayek is primed to star in the biggest and best Creed title to date. The openness of the map, the stunning visuals and the new combat system all work together to re-energize the franchise. Dare I say… it had a Witcher 3 vibe to it, we can but hope.
The Occupation
The first indie game on the list and one that is interesting in concept and reality. Players will get to become a part of what is a living, breathing world. Taking inspiration from the likes of Thief players will be able to interact and affect elements of the game world. Do you want to get past a guard? Perhaps you could pull the fuses out on the roof to cut power to the area. You could simply wait until he moves onto his next job or goes to the toilet. Impressively, players could even change the temperature of rooms and each NPC will have their own tolerances to change. While the game might not be the longest to play from the short hands on we got you’ll want to play through multiple times to see how you can tweak and change the world to get the outcome you want.
Mantis Burn Racing
Announced pretty much at EGX, by having the version at the event, the team at VooFoo unveiled Mantis Burn on the Nintendo Switch. The game was great fun to play and with simple racing controls that made a light quick to play game. This RC like racer, played incredibly well on both portable and docked mode of the Nintendo Switch. The gameplay is reminiscent of Micromachines back on the PlayStation 1 and focuses very much on almost top-down racing fun, filled with drifting around corners and boosting across a range of game modes.
Tracks – The Train Set Game
If you are looking for a game to completely chill out to look no further than Tracks. Originally made as a project at a game jam, Tracks is thankfully being turned into a full game. Ringing all of the nostalgia bells, players get to mess around with an old styled wooden train and track set. Piece by piece gamers can build rather huge tracks in a free build mode, complete with tiny trees, fences and other awesome decorations. There are even tiny wooden people to pick up and deliver to a station in a challenge mode. What more could you want?!
Star Wars Battlefront II
I’ll be the first to admit I was excited when EA decided to reboot the Battlefront franchise. I was, like many, disappointed by their first attempt. Thankfully, it seems that they have decided to make the game that players deserve when it comes to Star Wars Battlefront II. While we didn’t get hands on with the singleplayer story at EGX the multiplayer was incredible fun to run around as Battle Droids, Boba Fett and even Darth Maul (the best Sith despite being in one of the worst Star Wars films). With 40 players battling it out on one map the game felt awesome to be a part of and if they can capture that excitement for the storyline, EA are onto a game of the year contender.
That’s the top 5 from what was a great event. Some honourable mentions go to Strange Brigade, which is a fast-paced exciting coop shooter that was fun to play and Project Cars 2 which takes shiny to a whole new level.
