Pax Prime 2015 Day 3 Recap

Hey everyone! Ragachak here, offering you the biggest and most interesting developments to come out of Seattle at Pax Prime 2015! My personal high points are probably significantly different from others but that’s okay! Today we’re going to look at the recent developments of Blade: Redemption, Civilization: Beyond Earth, and the recent project from WG Labs (Wargaming), Master of Orion! Originally this was going to be written on the plane, but as of right now there is not enough room for the whole laptop thanks to a gent in front of me.

I was just incredibly excited to be at PAX Prime and to have both of my PAX experiences be positive press events. It’s a huge event for console and PC gamers, where people of all fandoms can come together and enjoy their hobbies together, but for us press folks it’s meetings and photographs all day and night. I did meet some amazing people though, and have some pretty big news on the gaming front! Though today I did get to check out Battleborn, I will not be filling you guys in on it, though I can confirm that it was incredible; some people might just complain that it’s not Borderlands, but it will feel similar enough to get people into it if they were fans of the Vault Hunters. Anyway, on with the news!

Master of Orion

Masters of Orion! Any fan of classic strategy games in outer space are familiar with this wonderful title. Spreadsheet look and simplistic design aside, it was still what we had in the dawn of pc gaming. WG Labs is a new initiative by Wargaming, looking to expand outside of their domain of “World of” titles, looking for the best and brightest in the gaming industry to add to the Wargaming fold. And this was probably the biggest move for the company in their acquisition of the Master of Orion property. The goal is the same, to get to the center of Orion, and there are lots of ways to win outside that, from simply annihilating your enemies, to diplomacy, and much more. Master of Orion is more than simply a new Orion game, and much more than a visual overhaul. There is not a huge influx of solid turn based strategy going on right now either, but all of the titles I’ve seen in that genre are solid; luckily the Master of Orion franchise was a powerful one in its day so I am certain that it will be welcomed with open arms into the modern gaming community.

Consider this a revival of a legendary franchise; the UI was smooth and easy to understand, and I have to say, one of the most useful parts was organizing how workers function on a planet. Unlike Civ, where you click a bunch of tiny icons of people or resources, there is a menu with rows of workers that you can drag and drop to where you want their focus to be, or rather click the button to auto sort them where they need to be… It’s beautiful, and I can’t say enough about how pretty it was, and the idea that every game will play vastly different, and the races are the same from the original, and will have a diverse array of personalities that you will have to bear in mind if you want to survive and conquer. I think my favorite feature was the Galactic News, an animated feature similar to the original, but with new animation, terrific voice acting, and changing dialogue depending on what’s going on in the galaxy. It brings a tear to any true fan’s eye. It was fun, and seems to be just as challenging as the original. There will be an announcement of the Collector’s Edition soon, which will include the original 3 PC titles, as well as skins for your spaceships to resemble the original blocky Minecraft in space style, in case playing the originals wasn’t enough to scratch your nostalgia itch.

Continue on to Firaxis – Civilization BE and XCom 2