The developers actually got inspiration for the game from the music video for Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight.” Simply beating your way through all of the enemies makes for a pretty boring play, so you need to perform dazzling combat displays that please the audience.
Though, I’d suggest avoiding a lot of techno and dance music until you’ve got the hang of the game.įoul Play Developer: MediaTonic Platforms: Xbox 360, PC Launch: September 2013Ī 2D side-scrolling brawler set on a Victorian stage, complete with an audience, Foul Play lets two people play cooperatively as Baron Dashforth and his assistant Scampwick as they act out the “completely accurate” story of the Baron’s life. If you’re not keen on the music in the game, you can import your own MP3s, and the game will detect the beat of your music, so you can play with whatever music you want. It’s a kind of multitasking that’s more challenging than it may seem. If you lose the beat, you won’t move, but the enemies will. Being near an enemy means you’ll automatically attack it, but you have to take the time to learn the patterns of enemies in order to move in the right direction. You have to stay in rhythm while pressing (or stepping on) the right direction to move around, overcome obstacles and defeat enemies. If that wasn’t strange enough, you can use an old DDR pad to play, though it’s not necessary. I never thought I would put all those words together, but there they are. The developers said the empire-building aspect of the game would feature making allegiances with different gods, as well as keeping cities happy and quickly containing any revolts or plagues that might happen along the way.Ĭontrast Developer: Compulsion Games Platforms: PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, PC Launch: Fall 2013Ĭrypt of the Necrodancer is a rhythm-based old school dungeon crawler.
I only got my hands on the combat gameplay, but it was fluid and satisfying as it needs to be in this genre.
The combat plays like other games in the genre, such as God of War and Devil May Cry, but on a 2D plane. In order to expand your empire or keep it stable, you’ll play short combat sequences each with different goals, such as killing certain enemies or reaching a certain combat score. The ultimate goal of the game is to build up an empire large enough to change history by defeating the Spanish when they arrive. The game has a crisp black and white art style with backgrounds based on historically accurate Aztec buildings. Unfortunately, he turned out to be the narrator, so my demo ended, but that gives you an idea of how open-ended the choices are and their possible consequences.Īztez Developer: Team Colorblind Platforms: PC Launch: Spring 2014Īztez is a combination empire-building and beat ‘em up set in an ancient Aztec realm. When I played, I went for all out violence, choosing to shoot the first person I met. Either gender, any race, and any sexual orientation are available, but even that choice will affect the world. Players create their character up front to be pretty much anything.
Every choice has the potential for negative consequences for a character, and the developers said it would be impossible to go through the entire game without being mean to someone, just like in real life. Unlike popular RPGs with choice, the choices in this game aren’t classified into being a good person or a bad person. Along the way, you’ll have countless decisions to make, all of which affect the world in some way. Set in the real world, the story tasks the player with traveling across the country to stop the love of his or her life from marrying someone else. Always Sometimes Monsters is an RPG focused completely on choice rather than combat.