Gamescom 2016 is in the bag and our team has seen all there is to see and choose the best of the best from Europe's biggest gaming convention.
Best CCG or TCGGwent
Gwent is a funny one having begun its life as a mini-game in The Witcher RPG series. Though having taken on a life of its own over time, it’s little wonder that CD Projekt Red became inundated with emails from fans of the game requesting, and in some cases demanding, a way to play Gwent with friends. That is how Gwent came to be a standalone game and having checked it out at Gamescom, it is surely going to breathe new life into the well-saturated card game market.
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Most InnovativeProject Arena
We can't go a whole show without talking a bit about VR. While still in its infancy, it's the potential future of our MMO gaming. I can't say for sure this will ever come to market, but if it did, it would be a must have for me. Maybe VR experiences are getting passé for some, but for me? They're still fresh, they're still exciting and they still wow me. Project Arena is that TRON moment, that light disc battle from my childhood. Only this time it's all me and a friend in the Vive. I just barely got the win thanks to sudden death in the third round and I'd have happily spent all day playing it. VR was the new innovative technology, now it all comes down to what people are doing with it and Project Arena was my favorite.
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Best Mobile MMO or RPGShadowgun Legends
Sometime in the last few years mobile phones got powerful and I didn't notice. I griped when I realized my Note II was more powerful than my first computer but I never really considered what that meant until I sat down with Miguel Caron in front of Shadowgun Legends. It'll play slightly differently on mobile and tablet compared to the NVidia Shield I was on, but honestly... sometime recently games on mobile got gorgeous and I never knew. If I didn't know it was mobile, I wouldn't listen to anyone telling me otherwise. It just looked too good and played too smoothly for what I thought mobile could do. We're very anxious to see how it develops. Maybe we can convince Madfinger Games to put it on Steam, too.
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Best Indie MMOThe Exiled
Das Tal is now The Exiled. In the few years since it came around the entire look and feel of the game has changed. This small dedicated team has grown the game and turned out something genuinely pretty and compelling. Keep an eye on this one.
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Best RPGTyranny
Obsidian Entertainment know how to craft a beautiful RPG. They know what made those older games fun and how to make them compelling again. Tyranny starts us off in a world where evil won...what we do next is up to us. If you can't have fun with that premise or the spell creation system they were showing off, I don't know what to do with you apart from employ the Rimespike of DOOM (Developers shouldn't let us name things).
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Most AnticipatedWorld of Warcraft: Legion
There’s really no question over who wins the most anticipated MMO at Gamescom this year. It’s Legion. Launch is just around the corner and the excitement was palpable within the convention center and out in the streets of Cologne, and with a rather classy 7.1 reveal within the gorgeous Legion Café, it’s safe to say they cinched this one.
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Best of ShowBlack Desert Online
The Black Desert Booth was a wonderful gem in Hall 10. The awakening system was fantastic to see. Certainly compared to the Korean market it isn't new but it absolutely was gorgeous. Between the waiting high seas and the wrecks along the bottom of the ocean there is plenty to talk about on Black Desert. If anyone got a chance to go into the booth as well, well that pirate ship had it all. Games to play, competitions to win and the roar and billowing smoke from their canons. Definitely the most fun booth I visited, though Dreadnought came in a close second.
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