Staying in Ubisoft’s area which seemed to dominate the over 18s area of EGX 2015, I was able to try out the seemingly annual entry in the Assassin’s Creed series, AC: Syndicate. Having given up on Assassin’s Creed after the mediocre Assassin’s Creed III, I wasn’t expecting for my interest in the series to suddenly be ignited and this gut feeling was preserved after playing the demo. The section I played through had Evie, the female playable assassin, sneaking into the Tower of London to murder a Templar target. After scaling the walls of the Tower and encountering minimal resistance, a series of possible entry points were flagged up on the minimap as suggestions of how to get to my target. Coming off the open ended missions of MGSV earlier this month, this clear sign posting of ways to complete this mission made the whole experience seem limited. I felt obliged to follow one of these suggestions to complete my overall objective, rather than the game giving me the freedom to simply figure out what I needed to do, which has always been the golden expectation I’ve had for the Assassin’s Creed series.

I eventually took the option of linking up with a disguised Beefeater, who would pretend to capture me as a prisoner and lead me straight to my target. In order to get his assistance, I had to kill 2 disguised Templars who could blow our cover. With the introduction of the line launcher, which Batman must have lent to the Assassins as a sign of goodwill, most of the fun of traversal was cut out as you could quite easily zip past guards on rooftops and never have to touch the ground besides to kill your target. Even when I blew my cover trying to kill said disguised Templars, I was able to eviscerate every guard without taking so much as a scratch, throw down a smoke bomb and zipline out with no trouble at all. It was then just a case of slow walking with the Beefeater up to my target, shooting her in the face and then fleeing the scene. Unlike The Division, Syndicate did absolutely nothing to get me back on side with the Assassin’s Creed series. The textures looked muddy whilst running around, movement still felt jerky when trying to climb up a specific point and combat has not been altered to be any more challenging than it was back in Brotherhood. Unless you are still a fan of AC even after Unity, Syndicate is not going to have you taking the assassin’s hood from the back of the wardrobe.

Stepping back among the indies, Aaero was the first game I stopped off to play at EGX 2015 indie area. Aaero is a blend of rhythm game and shmup, with players having to fly a ship through a level constructed to the beat of a certain song. The songs seemed to all be dubstep tracks and even thought I’m not the greatest fan of the wubs, it fit the gameplay perfectly. During the bass heavy sections of the course, the player’s ship has to trace literal bass lines with the control stick, aligning your ship with a waveform in order to up your score.

The first level I played was to the tune of Bass Cannon by Flux Pavilion, which involved my ship doing loops and sharp turns in order to keep on the bassline. During the breaks in the song, I had to shoot incoming robot wasps and avoiding their fire until the bass started up again, where I had to shoot the incoming robots, dodge their attacks and blast doors which started to pop open as well as tracing the basslines for extra points. While it seems frantic, all of Aaero’s parts fit together beautifully to create a stressful, yet thrilling shoot ’em up. Aaero will launch with at least 16 levels, based on 16 individual tracks and unlike other audio based games like Audiosurf, you cannot add your own songs to the track listings as each level has been specifically created to fit the background track. If you are looking for a more hardcore version of Amplitude, this could be it. Aaero is planned for launch on PC, PS4 and Xbox One in early 2016.

Last Fight stood out straight away, thanks to the custom built arcade cabinet which housed the game. Last Fight is a 4 player brawler, taking clear nods from the likes of Power Stone and Super Smash Bros which seeks to tread the fine line between tournament fighter and casual party game. I was placed in 1v1 matches with one of the developers, who was showing me the more technical side of this fighter in between kicking my virtual teeth in. Much like Power Stone, Last Fight has you duking it out in 3D arenas, where players can jump up to higher vantage points, use various items dotted round the stage or throw interactable objects at opponents to deal damage. Each character has a basic attack, a grab, a special as well as the ability to dash and shield. One robot character had the ability to levitate by holding down the special button in the air and charging the special attack on the ground made him summon an electric wall, very similar to Urien’s Aegis Reflector from Third Strike. Specials can be used straight away, or be levelled up by landing more hits on an opponent and then unleashing them to continue a combo.

One character could save up her special to plant thorn traps, which would restrict your movement and allow you to start up a devastating juggle combo. Grabs allowed were also character specific, with a tough looking merman having an air throw while a street brawler could throw an enemy into the air to follow up with a juggle combo. Shielding worked similar to Smash, with shields taking damage and eventually breaking if you didn’t drop shield and let it recharge. You could ‘perfect block’ (think of power shielding in Smash) where hitting the shield button just as an opponent attacked gave you back some health. I quickly learned that attacking on shield could be punished by grabs, it was best to save up specials until they were at level 2 and that juggling opponents seemed to be the optimal way to deal damage. The items were quite diverse, ranging from a helmet which turned your dashes into attacks that could cause a wall bounce, or a rocket launcher which would blast you across the screen. I imagine you can turn items off but for the purposes of an open demo, they were kept on. Team mode was playable too, with teams sharing a joint life bar and it quickly turning into absolute mayhem when chairs, rockets and people were being thrown about the arena. Only time will tell if Last Fight will possibly develop a competitive following like Smash but it seems like a great party game either way. Look out for it on Wii U, Ps4, Xbox One and Steam next year.

Going back to the stall which had YIIK and Masquerada, I got to have a go on VA-11 HALL-A, which had the intriguing sub title of Cyberpunk Bartender Action. The easiest way to describe VA-11 HALL-A is if Papers Please had you serving drinks instead of stamping passports and rather than talking to desperate people seeking refuge, you were talking to racist cyborg corgis and androids streaming their entire lives to an online audience. This is definitely a weird one. It’s a hybrid visual novel/bartending game, where you have to serve drinks to either please or irritate your customers, while listening to their stories and immersing yourself in the world. The patron for the demo was a woman named Streaming-chan, a streamer who would livestream her entire existence through a head mounted camera.

Her dialogue flopped between obnoxious and humorous, with her stream chat actually flying across the screen at certain moments which led to some snorts of laughter while trying to mix a drink. The actual drink mixing is quite simple, as you have a database of all the drinks and instructions on how to make them but the fun comes from choosing to mess up a customer’s order on purpose, trying to get them completely hammered or being a righteous bartender. Pissing off some customers will lock future dialogue paths off while making sure a customer is welcome may open up a new story line. There are 20 different endings so make sure to pick your patrons carefully when VA-11 HALL-A comes out on PC in the winter and PS Vita early next year.

Heading over to the Leftfield Collection, the Pixel Tailors’ politically charged The Wall Shall Stand jumped out right away. On first glance, it looks like Pikmin crossed with the Communist Manifesto and to be honest, you would go far wrong with that initial judgement. You play as an unnamed worker, living in a world which is a very obvious analogue to Soviet Russia during the Cold War, where you decide to revolt against the oppressive regime and begin the rise of the proletariat. You go about this by putting up counter propaganda posters, riling your fellow man with political slogans and then, leading them to topple statues in defiance.

The build they showed off was still very early in development and only had you toppling two statues but the core mechanic is something which has real promise. Talking to the developers (should the game get some money behind it), it will have you leading the revolution from the front, with other revolutionaries taking your place should you be killed while championing the people. The mechanics on show link into the game’s political commentary expertly so should the team be able to develop the full game, I can’t wait to see what leading the revolution will be like.

Back in the Rezzed section, Untame Games’ puzzle platformer Mushroom 11 was the real standout of the day for me. You play the role as a rapidly respawning fungus, with the goal of making your way across a ruined wasteland by carefully breaking down and regrowing your cell structure to get round obstacles, manipulate switches and consume other lifeforms. You manipulate said fungus by using the mouse as an eraser, destroying the organism for it to regrow from a single cell. Movement comes from quickly erasing bits of the organism, propelling the green mass forward, up and over obstacles.

By splitting yourself into two separate sections, you could quickly hit a switch, erase the leftover matter and then push yourself forward onto a moving platform or forcing yourself down a narrow gap in the floor and flying through underground shafts. Once you wrap your head round how to effectively move and manipulate the fungus, you can gain speed at a rapid rate and really watch this organism consume everything in sight. The boss of the first chapter had you eating its nodules hidden in between its tendrils, then trying to fling your body up and over its thrashing arms before you were either burnt out or flung right back to the floor. I can imagine speed runs of Mushroom 11 will be a joy to watch when people get stuck into it in October. For the sheer inventiveness of its core mechanic and the great design of the demo level, Mushroom 11 was my game of the day.

So, that’s my opinion on all the games I got to play at EGX 2015. There are of course some big games I have missed out but due to many of them coming out in beta form soon or the queues being stupidly long, it would have meant I was unable to play some of the cool indies which often get ignored at big shows like this. What did you think of EGX 2015 if you attended? What was your game of the show? Tell us your thoughts below and expect previews, more news and possible reviews on all the games mentioned here sometime in the future.