Plaion, formerly Koch Media, had a relatively prominent place at gamescom, with a solid line-up of games to watch. Personally, I spent a whole morning there, and I saw 4 titles which are all supposed to land during the coming year (2022-2023, within a few months): Kona II: Brume, Scars above, System Shock et Kill Anomalies. Titles quite distinct from each other that I chained. A little extra: each game was playable, to my delight!
Kona II: Brume
After a first installment that achieved good sales and had very good feedback, the Canadians of Parabole decided to tackle a direct sequel to the first installment. Bad luck for me, I haven't finished the first episode yet, but that didn't bother me too much for the handling of this demo.
We find Carl Faubert, our well-known private detective from the first part, who seems to be in a very bad position. Posted on a boat in the middle of the night, he advances cautiously before hearing gunshots and diving into the water in the hope of avoiding stray bullets. Problem, the water in Quebec is a bit cold in the middle of winter, and he quickly finds himself in hypothermia. After getting out of the water, you walk in the dark until you find a small wooden shack in which you will find everything you need to light a fire, bandage your wounds and rest. After a nap of a few hours, we emerge with the different gauges in better shape. Health is good, body temperature too, so we can trudge outside to find the village. Unlike the first episode, a firearm is directly given to us so that we can defend ourselves against the local fauna, wolves in mind. We thus advance in this endless snow, before coming face to face with a totally frozen corpse on a van, and a freaking Geiger counter.
The atmosphere is still there and is more threatening than in the first part, we also feel the technical gap, with a game that is generally better polished and more pleasing to the eye, and a scenario that seems more anchor in the supernatural. This first grip motivated me to finish the first part anyway! No release date announced for the moment, but we can count on a year 2023 without hesitation too much.
Scars above
Admit, at the sight of the trailer, you thought like me "But it's a clone of return ?". Without actually naming it, the developers pointed out several similarities between the two works during the short presentation of the game. This was followed by a grip of about twenty minutes on the game. We control Kate Ward, a landed scientist on Metahedron, an unknown star that has entered Earth's orbit and transported an expedition corps to a planet that is totally unknown and, you can imagine, hostile to our presence. Armed with a power sword and then a weapon where we can use different types of ammunition (fire and lightning during the demo), we will try to overcome enemies or activate alien mechanisms, such as doors.
Through the prism of exploration, we will discover many audiologs that tell us more about the monsters and the planet as a whole. However, said exploration will not be smooth, since we will be attacked by dozens of critters, each more dangerous than the other, which will be resistant to certain ammunition and sensitive to others, and have attack patterns that 'one will have to learn in order to dodge at the right moment. During this brief introduction, I actually thought of Returnal many times. However, the game seemed to me a little less demanding in the state, with in particular more permissive dodges. Similarly in terms of finishes, we feel that the granted budget is not the same, the game still lacking a lot of polish. In any case, there are still many months of development to come for Scars above, let's bet that the final experience will be smooth and bug free!
System Shock
Released in 1994, the first System Shock brought a lot to the video game world, and many fans were waiting for an updated episode. That's good, that's exactly what Nightdive Studio offers, via its remake of the original work. It is via a fresh eye that I will approach this game, having never played the base game (released at a time when I was struggling to stand on two legs). The demo begins after a 2-3 minute cinematic introducing the universe. You embody a kind of hacker who accesses a computer and launches a hacking procedure before being interrupted by the Citadel's police.
A little middle finger signs our farewell since we get beaten up by the 2 henchmen and we wake up in a kind of laboratory. We search the area for a blunt weapon and get out. A robot attacks us, I spread it out with 2-3 strokes before finding a firearm which comes in handy for taking down possessed humanoid species. I don't really understand the reason for my presence here but I evolve in this labyrinthine maze until launching a hack which is in fact a mini-game that looks like a shoot'em up. We twirl from one room to another, shooting down many drones on the way to open the safeties that allow us to finish the hack. Back to reality. I take 3 steps, I open a door and I get picked up by 2 robots who kill me. Amused look from the developer who points to his watch and mutters "Time's up". Too bad, I was starting to get in the mood, and I would have liked to meet the famous SHODAN before having to wait an indefinite time to play the remake version of the title. Too bad, see you next year!
Kill Anomalies
Last game of this morning rich in emotions, Mato Anomaliess presents itself as a J-RPG where Detective Doe investigates the city of Mato in order to understand its mysteries. Soon, he finds himself in a curious dimension where strange creatures attack him, and he will have to count on the help of Gram, a kind of taciturn ninja, to overcome these monsters and survive in this other world. The game makes us twirl from one world to another, we explore a neo-futuristic version of Shanghai on one side, and another more ethereal world. The switch between the two worlds is done according to the quests entrusted to us.
This first grip left me quite skeptical. If I appreciate the work done on the city and the different cutscenes (animated like a manga page, with the boxes that appear one after the other), I remain quite mixed by the fights which offered me no resistance, and by Gram's extremely repetitive animations and lines. With each attack, the same reply, ad vitam nauseam... let's hope for a little variety at this level. Also, the mini-card game fell out of my hands, for the simple reason that I didn't understand the rules at all...
Several months of development will undoubtedly make it possible to review and refine certain systems. As it is, although the universe is intriguing, the lack of finish made me drop out a bit.
