EGX: Games Galore For Every Type of Gamer! Tabletop, Retro, Triple-A and more!

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to the gaming convention EGX to scope the latest and hottest games - courtesy of press tickets #GamesEditorPrivilege #ApplyNow. The event was phenomenal, although its position at the distant ExCeL (Royal Victoria Dock) was less so. While the journey to the convention took about an hour, the journey back took two and a half, courtesy of signal issues on the central line. Putting my journey woes aside, the convention held some of the most anticipated upcoming games, including: Cyberpunk 2077, Pokémon Sword and Shield, Final Fantasy VII remake and numerous other triple-A hits. Not to forget the absolute onslaught of Indie goodness available to play and enjoy: Hollow Knight Silk Song, Untitled Goose Game and Castle Crashers Remastered.

So, what did I actually manage to get my hands on? Whelp, due to my lateness as a result of commute delays I couldn’t try out as many games as I would have liked. With every Triple-A game having a minimum of a 30-minute wait, Avenger’s was one of the worst offenders with a 2 hour wait queue. With what limited time I had left I managed to play RuneTerra, Dragon Ball Kakarot and Final Fantasy VII remake (the most devastating of queues). So, starting off with RuneTerra, the game’s visual aesthetic was on point giving the same glitz and glamour as its base material - League of Legends. The atmosphere and dialogue between cards added soul to the game as well as lore and immersion. The gameplay despite being slower than most typical card games was interesting, however, it does seem to be a Jack of All Trades (master of none) with respect to combining various features from other card games i.e. Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone. Gameplay was (as you would expect) back and forth, every turn the offensive and defensive sides were switched alongside every action the player makes, providing their opponent the opportunity to use/place down a card. Overall, I have a strong feeling that RuneTerra will definitely be able to compete against Hearthstone; alongside Riot’s backing it may even come out on top! I also got the chance to play the Perfect Cell boss fight in DB Kakarot, which in my opinion was one of the best fights in the Dragon Ball game series in terms of mechanics. My reasoning behind this is that the fight actually felt both strategic and bullet hell-esque whilst retaining the original DB fighting game style, with there being proper boss phases as well as interesting abilities and movements; in other words I cannot wait to get my hands on a copy of the game purely for its gameplay! Final Fantasy VII remake left me enamoured by its visuals, it was like I was playing Advent children but in game form, the gameplay felt like FFVII combined with FFXIV, when casting an ability time is slowed drastically to the point where it was borderline frozen (Za Warudo!), limit break is still available, surprisingly they took FFXIII’s staggering mechanic and incorporated it into the game. When asking other people how they felt about the movement mechanics, they stated that it felt slightly clunky, similar to that of Uncharted, here’s hoping that doesn’t become a point of frustration when playing the game.

In terms of indie games the show floor was bountiful and amongst it all what really caught my eye was the section dedicated to the new Streets of Rage 4 as well as Windjammers 2. Now, these games may not be on everyone’s top 10 anticipated games list, but for me it’s clear that these games are the epitome of the Switch’s intention, simple games with greater depth that you would love to pick up with a friend whilst on the go. Windjammers 2, featured fun gameplay with even more enjoyable strats and tactics, whilst Streets of Rage 4’s visual appealed to my love of side scrolling beat-‘em-ups alongside the ability to dish out my pent-up coursework frustration on random assailants. Other games that I wanted to play included Hollow Knight the Silk Song, but my desires were stifled by extremely long queues.

Whilst journeying through the masses of crowds I also visited the tabletop section, which was in my opinion, a table-topper’s dream with numerous games set up and free for anyone to sit down, play and have a laugh. As expected of the area there were tabletop merchants as well, something I was particularly happy about given that I was able to get the entire Dark Souls Card Game collection including the new expansion for £50 - an absolute steal in my book given the price of the base game alone. Other areas of the convention included the fight zone, where a fighting competition for Street Fighter V was held, and it definitely had a lot of gusto and fighting spirit given my ability to hear the crowd shout and cheer from across the room. Retro zone was a vintage fan’s dream with a massive selection of games to play with almost every console you can imagine being there, except for the commodore 64 - damn I really wanted to play asteroids on something that can’t even run MSPaint. And last but not least at the end of my journey I settled down and watched some of the speedrunners, the one I enjoyed the most being Spark The Electric Jester 2 played by Argick, my heart goes out to him for providing engaging commentary whilst dealing with some bullshit moments in the run. All in all, EGX is definitely something for Gamers of any type, may that be table-toppers, indie-lovers, retro maniacs and of course the Triple-A hordes.