PAX East 2024 roared in like a kaiju this year in Boston, Massachusetts. It was a strange one this year. There was no Devolver Digital or tinyBuild. Dear Villagers wasn't present. Capcom wasn't even there to celebrate the release of Dragon's Dogma 2. Nintendo made a surprise appearance but didn't have anything celebrating Peach's Showtime, the newest Nintendo game that launched that Friday.
Still, PAX East was a PAX East, and there were many games to be played and celebrated. From Disco Samurai to a new GI Joe game, here are the top five games I played at this year's show:
Lunar Lander: Beyond
Atari, yes, the Atari your parents grew up with, has been making a comeback, delivering reinventions of established classic games from Berserk to Yar's Revenge. The company is at it again with Lunar Lander: Beyond. This reinvention of the classic Lunar Lander infuses the same classic gameplay with a whole new twist.
Featuring a multitude of ships, scores to keep track of, and a fully voiced single-player campaign, Lunar Lander: Beyond is shaping up to be not just a great arcade game but a solid indie game that bridges the old and the new.
Phantom Fury
Shelly Bombshell Harrison returns for another outing as the no-holds-barred cyborg soldier. This time, she's on a mission that could spell doom for the world while confronting her greatest enemy yet: her past.
Featuring a stellar retro presentation reminiscent of an early 00s shooter, Phantom Fury promises over-the-top action, wicked weapons, and a hell of an adventure as Shelly battles mutants and an army to save the world.
Disco Samurai
The cyberpunk genre has found itself in many games, including shooters, strategy, RPGs, and so on. Disco Samurai is doing something very different. It combines the futuristic cyberpunk dystopia with the rhythm of music.
Disco Samurai promises sick beats with plenty of shooting and slicing with neon-soaked katanas. The demo was short but demonstrated a great game in the works, with a plethora of ideas for a slapping soundtrack!
Astro Duel II
It's easy to forget that in this day and age of online multiplayer, the best kind of multiplayer is the one on the same couch. It's a Saturday evening. Pizza is running hot, and ice cola is in the cup. It's time to throw down on a video game. Astro Duel II is one such game.
Featuring quick, razor-sharp gameplay akin to Adult Swim's Duck Game, this intergalactic action game combines starship and melee combat in a battle to the death among the stars. It's fast, it's quick, and it's a planet full of fun.
Memory Lost
The mind is the ultimate weapon, and in the world of Memory Lost, it is the ultimate tool to fight and survive. Memory Lost takes an idea that reminds me of Altered Carbon and turns it into an action game where body swapping is everything.
While it's a bit rough around the edges, I found it hard to pull myself away from this game. Fast, action-packed, and teasing a solid story with good humor, this isometric twin-stick shooter is shaping up to be unlike anything else.
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