PAX Picks: Warp

Warp might be my favorite game shown at PAX. Though I'd never even heard of it before, it caught my eye on the show floor. Additionally, there was no line at all to play it — unlike Portal 2, LA Noire, and 3DS. The demo could be played through in under five minutes, but it totally demonstrated how the core mechanic of warping works. It also showed off the various uses of the warp, while simultaneously hinting at future uses that would be required in later challenges. To say the game is like "Metal Gear Solid if Snake could warp" would be accurate, although that probably oversimplifies it a bit.

You play as a little orange guy (see screenshot above), an alien that has been locked up in some sort of high-security facility. That small, bright dot in front of him is where he can warp to. There's only one button used in the demo, the warp button. Because you can warp, it is trivial to bypass walls and locked doors. Enemies patrol the area and can kill you almost instantly upon sight. You can avoid them altogether via stealth, or you can teleport into them. While in an enemy, other enemies cannot see you. You also immobilize that enemy while you are inside him, and even for a brief period after you warp out. You can jump from enemy to enemy in order to quickly escape unseen. You can also kill enemies by getting inside them and then shaking the left analog stick.

You are also able to warp into certain objects, generally those about the same size as your character. This includes power generators that supply warp-resistant barriers. When you arrive at such a barrier, you'll need to find the power source, warp into it, and shake the left stick to destroy it. You can even use these explosions to knock out or kill enemies. In fact, the last scene in the demo is a cliffhanger in which enemies are shown surrounding themselves in warp-resistant shields. Luckily, the room is full of power sources to leap between and explode.

I'm a big fan of stealth-based games, so this game seems to be just my style. I love the ability to warp in quick succession through walls, enemies, and obstacles. If the developers are able to extend the uses of the warp throughout the game, it will definitely be a must-have title.

PAX Picks: Skullgirls

Video Games | Skullgirls | PAX East 11: Infinite Walkthrough (Cam)

Xbox 360 | PlayStation 3 | Nintendo Wii | PC Games

Over the weekend, I attended PAX East and got to play a few upcoming games and to talk with some developers. By far, the most enthusiastic developer was Mike Z, who you may know from his old-school Marvel videos or his impressive Tager in BlazBlue. He's also a Long Island native and was really excited to talk fighting games (and particularly grapplers) with me. Mike's designing and programming Skullgirls, an upcoming fighting game that uses tons of clever design to preemptively prevent players from breaking the game.

The main innovation for preventing abuse is detection of infinite combos. The game does not try to inhibit characters' abilities in order to prevent repeatable loops. Instead, the game will detect if a loop is being performed more than once. If it is, the defending player can simply press any button to do a burst-like combo breaker. If players are creative and find long combos that do not repeat simple patterns, then that combo would be unbreakable.

There are a bunch of other innovations that Mike was proud to point out. The game uses dynamic lighting. The 2D sprites are lit by lights in the background and the attacks' hit-sparks. There's also a neat programming trick involving 360 motions. If your character has a 360 attack, performing a proper 360 motion will not make her jump! You can safely buffer a 360 without taking to the air, as long as you don't press a button. In most games, 360 characters already have hindered mobility, and then they are required to have a slow jump in order to pull off 360 motions. In Skullgirls, grapplers aren't required to have a slow-as-molasses jump. It's a small innovation, but it shows how Mike Z just understands how fighting games can be subtly improved. I'm looking forward to the finished game, which should be out on XBLA and PSN this year.