Games News: VGX 2013: all the announcements and trailers in one place

The VGX gaming awards, held on Saturday, and home to some interesting announcements

Every year, the eyes of the mainstream games industry turn wearily to US cable channel Spike TV and its rambunctious awards ceremony, which this year has been renamed VGX rather than VGA, because that is more 'next generation' or something like that. Anyway, the game of the year went to GTA V, with Naughty Dog getting 'Best Studio' and Bioshock: Infinite beating CoD: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 to 'Best Shooter'. The full list is on the official website if you want to take a look.

More interesting, though, was the range of trailers and announcements shown during the three-hours of web-streamed material. And just so you can find this stuff with the minimum of effort, here are the key revelations:

Game of Thrones

As rumoured, Telltale Games, developer of the brilliant Walking Dead adventure series, is making an episodic Game of Thrones title. Details are scarce but the developer is working with HBO and the teaser hints at the fact that this won't simply by an interactive re-tread of the books or TV series content – as with Walking Dead, it is likely to be a spin-off or side-story. We're certainly looking forward to some interesting character reaction indicators: "Ned Stark will remember that you threw his son out of the window while engaging in incest."

No Man's Sky

This was the big, big surprise hit of the night. Hello Games, the Guildford-based studio responsible for the Joe Danger titles announced No Man's Sky, a hugely ambitious space exploration game, which uses procedural generation techniques to craft a vast galaxy. "It’s a science-fiction game, but it’s not like most other sci-fi games," explains studio co-founder, Sean Murray. "We set out to make a game that challenges what it means to be next-gen, and what it means to be an indie title. It’s going to mess with people’s perceptions of Hello Games, and I have no idea how people will react. It’s different, and pretty much the furthest thing from what we’ve done before." The buzz was so great, Hello Games' web and email servers crashed last night under the sheer weight of global interest. Amazing times.

Broken Age

Double Fine showed off the world gameplay premiere of its Kickstarted point-and-click adventure Broken Age. The studio also announced a new member of its voice acting cast, with Elijah Wood signing up as the lead male character, Shay.

Dying Light

Dead Island developer Techland showed a live demo of its forthcoming open-world zombie adventure, coming next year to PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. With its focus on free-running elements, the kids are calling it Dead Island meets Mirror's Edge.

Titanfall

Respawn Entertainment got greedy at the close of the VGX event, showing not one but two trailers, each revealing a new mech from much-anticipated sci-fi shooter, Titanfall. The Ogre is a great big battle tank armed to the gnashing metallic teeth with deadly weapons. The Stryder, meanwhile, is the leggy athlete of the robotic vehicle world, scampering over battlezones like a startled deer.

Tom Clancy's The Division

Ubisoft showed a demo of its graphically stunning online multiplayer tactical shooter, focusing on the game's new engine Snowdrop. There's lots of advanced volumetric lighting and particle effects, plus a convincing day/night cycle. Oh, and the snow actually melts in real-time. To create slush. I wonder if the soldiers will start slipping over?

Quantum Break

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

Crystal Dynamics revealed its 'Definitive Edition' of this year's Tomb Raider reboot, which will be coming to Xbox One and PS4 in the US on 28 January, and Europe on 31 January. The developer claims to have ripped the game engine to pieces and rebuilt it with the next-gen specifications in mind, resulting in 1080p resolution and rezzed up visual details. There's also Kinect support for key menu actions like swapping weapons.

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Sorry, had to slip this one in at the end because I'm an idiot and find this 'ranged magic attack' sequence funny.

Source: Theguardian. com

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