Shooters (Hands On at EB Expo 2015)
The night before EB Expo 2015 really kicked off, we were invited to a media evening. As we moved between the Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation booths I noticed a very obvious theme: almost all of the games that I heard about and played on the night was a shooter.
When I was in high school, I was told I had to be either a Halo person or a Call of Duty person (which is quite strange, considering they play very differently), but I was never really a shooter person at all. While there are a couple of franchises I really enjoy—like Borderlands and Gears of War—I’m definitely not the best equipped to judge the upcoming and recent releases that I played at EB Expo.
But perhaps my lack of experience is actually an interesting lens through which to look at big titles like Halo 5: Guardians, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, and Star Wars Battlefront, or smaller titles that aren’t necessarily ‘shooters’ but still involve guns, like Splatoon, Ratchet & Clank, and Cuphead.
When we arrived at the media evening, we started at the Nintendo booth. Here I played Splatoon, a cute third-person shooter that was released earlier this year. With the help of Nintendo representative Asher, I fumbled my way through a tutorial level with a squirt gun that resembled an SMG but couldn’t be called an SMG. Splatoon is a fast-moving game that involves a lot more strategy than simply shooting your enemies with ink, and I had a lot of fun with it; I likely would have enjoyed it even more if I was familiar with moving both the thumb stick and controller itself to direct the camera, as the Wii U requires.
Splatoon wasn’t the only light-hearted shooter I played at EB Expo. Cuphead—an upcoming indie title being published by Xbox (which they are apparently quite proud of, according to the press conference we attended)—is a lot of silly fun. You play a person whose head resembles a teacup and who shoots enemies—like a snake-spitting potato and a carrot with crazy eyes—using your thumb and forefinger in the shape of a gun. Early news about the game boasted a cruel difficulty level and awesome retro 2-d graphics reminiscent of early Disney cartoons, and it didn’t disappoint. I’m looking forward to the game’s release in 2016.
Another exciting game that played on my nostalgia was the reboot of Ratchet & Clank that’s coming out on PlayStation in 2016. I have a soft spot for the Ratchet & Clank franchise, with Ratchet & Clank 2: Locked and Loaded being the first game I managed to complete before my dad. Revisiting Ratchet & Clank felt simultaneously familiar and totally different. The control scheme came back to me instantly, but the graphics are now so crisp that I was often too distracted admiring the scenery to focus on the task at hand.
While in the PlayStation booth, I had the chance to experience another reboot: Star Wars Battlefront. I haven’t played many shooters like Battlefront, with its large teams and vehicle focus, and I found the game difficult to pick up and play. We played 'Walker Assault' in the tundra of Hoth, and it took half the round for me to find a weapon that I enjoyed using. Once I did find a long-range weapon that suited me, I finally started to hold my own, but it was too little too late. This game has quite a learning curve, but I’m not totally discouraged; I’d happily try it again (when I don’t have to queue for three and a half hours to pick it up, as was the case on the open-to-the-public days of EB Expo). I won’t be waiting long, with the beta starting on October 8, 2015.
I was led from Star Wars Battlefront to Call of Duty: Black Ops III by a very enthusiastic PlayStation representative. I bypassed a briefing room and was taken straight to the action, where another rep—this one possibly more excited than the last—told us that the first thing we needed to do was choose our Specialist. We were given a few minutes to look through the options and decide on the special ability that we thought would most suit our play style; I opted to play as Seraph, who can unlock a one-shot-kill pistol.
We played ‘Kill Confirmed’ and ‘Hardpoint’. I was familiar with both of these modes from previous games in the Call of Duty franchise, but not familiar enough to make considerable comparisons between what we saw and what has come before Black Ops III. What I can say is that the water in this game is beautiful and that swimming around was a distracting delight. I’m sure those who are fans of the Call of Duty franchise will have more detailed opinions, but mostly I liked Black Ops III because it was easy to understand and enjoy even in the short amount of time that I was able to spend with it, while also clearly having a high mastery level. I would like to return to it so I can test out the abilities of all those new specialists, though I’m not sure I would survive as well when the general public (including all of those diehard Call of Duty fans) is in the multiplayer lobbies with me when the game is released in early November, 2015.
While I found Black Ops III enjoyable, my favourite ‘serious’ shooter of the day was Halo 5: Guardians (which is a sentence that would have started wars if I was still in high school). After listening to multiplayer design director Kevin Franklin share his joy regarding the new title (which comes out at the end of October, 2015), we watched a gameplay video that showed some campaign action and a briefing video explaining the ‘Warzone’ multiplayer mode that we would be playing. Then, finally, I was let loose on a fancy new Xbox Elite controller.
Now, pardon my brief interlude while I rave about the Xbox Elite controller. I know, it’s just a controller, but it’s a nice controller. It doesn’t look much different to the Xbox controllers I’m used to, but it feels different. They’re smooth, they’re comfortable, and the shiny gamepad is sleek and impressive. I want one.
In contrast with the familiar Call of Duty modes that I played in Black Ops III, Halo 5: Guardians’s ‘Warzone’ is something new and exciting. Two 12-player teams fight each other and AI to control locations and score points, and eventually try to destroy each other’s base. This was another game that took me awhile to find a loadout that worked for me, but once I did I had so much fun. Generally I struggle to find my way around a map quickly, but even though the map we played on was huge, I worked out where most things were very early. Everything felt excitingly chaotic, but still made sense to me. And my team won, so you can’t get much better than that.
Overall, I was impressed by the range and quality of the shooters featured at EB Expo. They each had something special, though there were more niggling disappointments in the ‘serious’ shooters than the light-hearted cartoon-style varieties. There was more noticeable innovation in games like Splatoon and Cuphead as well, because regardless of improved graphics and new game modes, the franchise shooters all felt like something we’ve seen before.
Still, familiarity is not necessarily a negative trait and I’m sure fans of each franchise will find something to love in these new titles. Perhaps I would be more excited for each of them if I was as obsessed with realistic shooters in my high school days as those who fought over whether Halo or Call of Duty was the superior franchise, but mostly I’m just pumped to play the remastered Ratchet & Clank in all its beautiful, nostalgic glory.