Previews// PAX Round-Up: Master of Orion, Mekazoo and Mini Metro

Chris O'Regan, host of The Sausage Factory podcast (which takes a deep dive into the development process with games studios, you should listen to it), has travelled to the future to sample the games that will be interfering with your older brain. When we say the future, we mean PAX Prime. When we say 'interfering with your older brain', that is exactly what we mean. Read on for what he found...


Master of Orion
Developer: NGD Studios
Format(s): Windows PC

Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate, the four 'x's in the 4X genre that few people know, oddly enough. Most know the first two as they are relatively benign, but Exploit and Exterminate makes people somewhat squeamish as such actions rarely lead to anything good. But that is exactly what 4x games require the player to do, whether they like it or not. Interestingly enough the term '4X' was coined by a preview writer for Computer Gaming World on a certain game known as Master of Orion back in the mists of time in 1993.

Twenty two years later and 4X games have come, gone and returned again thanks to the magic of Good Old Games, Steam and crowd-funding where the games we loved come back to life. Interestingly the one game that gave birth to the phrase and also suffered from iterations that almost saw it eat itself is Master of Orion, and Wargaming is about to publish a re-imagined version of it by Argentinean developer NGD Studios.

Now some of you may be re-reading that last sentence again, assuming you're familiar with the name Wargaming as a developer/publisher. They are most famous for their free-to-play military combat sims in the form of World of Wartanks/Warplanes/Warships.

Now, some of you may be thinking 'are we going to get the reprise of the debacle that was Dungeon Keeper on iOS and Android that not only killed off that well-loved game but also the developer itself?' All thanks to EA wanting to make a pay to function model of a game, which free-to-play developers do have a tendency to make.

Thankfully, Wargaming has put great pains to explain to everyone that this is not their intention with Master of Orion, which they plan to release as a traditional single purchase. There is the possibility of DLC and expansions after release, depending on the success of Master of Orion. There are no plans for any micro-transactions or hats for Master of Orion as Wargaming is committed to making it their first traditional release that is bereft of any trappings from free-to-play models.

Putting that aside, what is Master of Orion like? The word that immediately springs to mind is 'granular'. Yes this reeks of management speak and for that I apologise, but it really is applicable to Master of Orion as it does its utmost to stick to the core concept of the original while adding detail that used to be filled in by the player in their head.

Let me give you example: in the original game when you colonised a world an icon would appear over the world indicating that you had established a settlement on it. In Master of Orion a cinematic sequence would kick in showing a ship from your race looming over an alien landscape and proceed to colonise the planet in a very dramatic and awe inspiring fashion.

All of this is done to match the planet that is being colonised as well as the player's race, making for a very personalised experience that used to be soley in the player's head. It's this added detail that makes Master of Orion a very promising game that as a fan of the 4X games and Master of Orion II very excited indeed.

Sporting an up-to-date interface and contemporary graphics engine, Master of Orion is really shaping up to be something special and will appear some time in 2016 for Windows PC.

Mekazoo
Developer: The Good Mood Creators
Format(s): Windows PC, Mac & Linux

Sound and vision, the cornerstones of videogames that draw us into the worlds they create. The Good Mood Creators, the people behind Mekazoo, have shown that they understand this ever so well by creating a puzzle platformer that infuses both visual and sonic splendour to make a game that had me mesmerised from the second I started playing it at PAX Prime 2015.