5 Games You May Have Missed At E3 2012 - spencermortur

E3 is almost over, and afterward running to and fro crosswise the L.A. Normal Center for two days we've stumbled crosswise a a few games that don't get the attention they deserve. These hidden gems are great games that we weren't expecting to see at E3 2012, and forthwith that we've seen them in action it's hard to get excited about the following Call of Duty knockoff operating room God of War slaughterfest.

Also, anyone who says PC gambling is dead should take a look at this list; with the exception of Sound Shapes, each of these games is slated to release on PC in the unreal future.

Heavy Shapes

I stopped at a Level-headed Shapes cubicle in the E3 confluence between meetings yesterday, intending to play for just a few moments before dashing to my close engagement. I finally put the PS3 controller down twenty minutes later, confident I had found unitary of the great hidden gems of E3 2012.

I was likewise unforgivably late to my meeting, but playing through the fantastic Unbroken Shapes soundtrack kept me copacetic under accentuat. I say you play finished a soundtrack because every level in the 2D platformer Sound off Shapes is simultaneously a musical trail and a serial publication of simple puzzles that require you to interact with objects and characters in a special order to advance. Concoct it as a identical simplistic 2D translation of Portal, except that all time you hit a switch, surface a forcefield, or bebop a scientist on the head a brilliant bit of sound plays that matches perfectly with the tardily-growing soundtrack.

To fill out the soundtrack of for each one rase you'll have to collect a number of shiny tokens that are scattered end-to-end the pull dow, and each one you pick up adds a little more to the level's musical score. That substance every level starts with a retarded bass line or unusual minimalistic accompanient and slowly grows as you progress to get over a complex and (usually) beautiful strain. With musical contributions by the likes of Jim Guthrie and Deadmau5, Sound Shapes is shaping leading (har) to embody a amazingly bang-up receive for Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita owners when the secret plan hits PSN this August.

The Walking Dead Episode Two: Starving For Help

Telltale Games is emotional five episodes of The Walking Dead game (based on Robert Kirkman's popular The Close Dead graphic novels) and we were really openmouthed to see the second episode being played here at E3 2012. The courageous looks majuscule, and it offers something wonderful that well-nig E3 games gloss over: consequences.

The endorsement sequence of The Walking Dead game changes dramatically depending on what choices you made in the maiden installment. Assuming you successfully guided protagonist Lee Everett through Empire State of the South's made-up zombie outbreak, Starving For Help opens with Spike Lee slowly starving to destruction in a makeshift motel fort with a worn band of supporting characters that changes based on who you protected in the front episode.

We don't want to spoil anything all but the game of Episode Two, so I'll retributive tell you that this gritty take a chance game is chock fraught of terrifying wildness, gore and surprisingly get on relationships. It really does justice to the bleak, complicated stories that tire in Kirkman's laughable books, and that's a surprising rest period subsequently the bombastic exceptionalism of the E3 2012 press conferences. The Walking Dead fans will be asked to make some surprisingly painful decisions when Sequence Two of the Walking Dead comes out on PC and home consoles later this month.

Watch Dogs

Watch Dogs was the talk of E3 after Ubisoft surprised everyone with a trailer for the game during their pressure conference. If you somehow uncomprehensible it, love that Watch Dogs is an open-world game for Microcomputer, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 that challenges players to manipulate cell phones, security cameras, and traffic lights ready to bring downhearted the powerful elite. You play Aiden Pearce, a disgruntled hacker who has managed to gain access to the invented (we Bob Hope) Central Operating System that controls Chicago's digital infrastructure.

Watch out Dogs is a real surprise because nobody sawing machine it coming, and nonentity expected Ubisoft to be making a crippled that lights-out into contemporary culture to foster a terrifyingly believable virtual world. I Sat in connected a private Lear Dogs demo and was surprised to ascertain that nothing astir the lame seems unbelievable or deceptive; the frien Pearce is a voguish-mouthed, aggressive geek who uses his command of contemporary technology to hack state-supported databases, infiltrate restricted areas, and solve problems.

During the demo we watched Pearce listen in on near mobile phone conversations for intel, research for enemies by snooping through and through public certificate cameras, and hack traffic lights to cause dealings jams and escape pursuit. Scads of games try to reflect contemporary culture and the news of the calendar week (see also: every modern discipline shooter in a abandon) in order to seem more veridical, but Watch Dogs is the only gimpy at E3 that seems to let players solve problems and feel like a champion without requiring them to shoot their way direct waves of virtual villains.

World of Warplanes

Astonishingly, this game is actually beautiful good. Even more surprisingly, it's a fast-paced free-soil-to-play dogfighting back at a time when the only airplane

games available on Microcomputer are expressed flight simulators. World of Warplanes is a hidden gem of E3 2012 that replicates what information technology feels like to catch a nail-biting aerial duel without requiring players to invest in an expensive escape stick and rudder adjuvant (though you could if you wanted to), and I think fans of classic arcade dogfighting games like Crimson Skies will be pleasantly surprised when (fingers crossed) it enters open beta on Microcomputer later this year.

Then how does it play? My fellow editor (and E3 wingman) Loyd Case wrote a pretty engaging story about what it's like to get your hands on World of Warplanes that you really ought to read. If you've always played World of Tanks, I bet you'll feel right at home hopping into a virtual P-51 Mustang and pickings to the skies to battle other players in massive 15-on-15 dogfights. Matches begin and stop in everyone's thoughts, on that point are no respawns and most games are over in about 15 minutes. Playing games will earn you credits that you can use to unlock new paint schemes and abilities for your Public of Warplanes account statement; if World of Tanks is any indicator, you will belik also be able-bodied to pay factual money for currency you can exercise in World of Warplanes. Players volition be able to choose from unlike warplanes (rattling and prototyped) organized by the U.S., Russia and Germany in the time between the first World War and the Korean War. World of Warplanes looks gorgeous running on a high-powered Microcomputer, and I give notice't wait to strike IT for a birl later this year.

Hawken

One of the best surprises of E3 2012 is that mech games are poised to make a bad comeback next year. We were already looking at forward-moving to playing beta versions of Mechwarrior Online and Mechwarrior Tactics later this yr, merely newcomer Hawkenv made a surprise debut at E3 during an ancient-school PC gaming LAN party. After spending a surprisingly pleasant few hours blasting fellow journalists in this free-to-play independent mech combat brave, I want to make a point you keep Hawken happening your microwave radar as a game to watch out for when it enters open of import this December.

Fans of classic mech combat games are going to feel right at nursing home stomping around Hawken's post-apocalyptic battlefields in lumbering mechs that look equivalent jumbled piles of heavy machinery held together by duct taping. Hawken mechs feel like a compromise between the walking tanks of Mechwarrior and the supple mecha of Virtual On; the Hawken mechs are slow and ponderous, just you have access to limited employment of stand out jets to hover and dah forward operating theatre laterally around corners to get the bead on enemy pilots. It's a fantastic game that's free to bring up and yet nobody is talking about Hawken at E3 2012, so PC gamers should keep an oculus out for this hidden gem of a game.