Steam Summer Next Fest

Dispatch is a Telltale style narrative adventure game in which you manage a team of superheroes by assigning them to tasks that best fit their skills. The demo was very short, but it won me over with a fun premise, quirky characters and some very funny dialogue.

You get Telltale style dialogue choices to make and the ‘choices matter’ promise (don’t get your hopes up) as you play as an ex-superhero who must dispatch a team of dysfunctional ‘superheroes’ to tackle various emergencies across the city. The game is split between the animated dialogue scenes and the switchboard part of the job.

Each hero has their own strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to pick the best hero for the task. I’m not quite sure there’s any real way to ‘fail’ at this because the demo doesn’t make it clear what the benefits or consequences are for success or failure, but we’ll see how it plays out in the full release.

Whilst I may have my doubts about the ‘gameplay’ aspect of this adventure, everything else I’ve seen has me interested, so I’ll certainly think about picking this up at release.

No, I’m not a Human is more interesting in terms of concept than execution – at least based on this limited demo. You’re stuck in a house because it’s too dangerous to venture outside during the day due to something going ‘wrong’ with the sun. And at night, the mysterious ‘Visitors’ roam the streets.

The idea is that every night people will knock on your door. You need to decide if you’ll let them in or not and if you do, question them and try to determine if they’re Visitors or not. If you suspect someone is a Visitor, you get the option to shoot them – but you won’t know for sure if you’re right or not until you pull the trigger.

 

There are different ‘tests’ you can try to use to figure out who’s human and who’s not. It’s all very simple but, as I said, more interesting in terms of concept than execution. It’s really a game about paranoia but it all feels a little undercooked. I’m curious to see if the full game can expand on the idea in a more meaningful way.

ERA ONE is a space RTS game that’s clearly inspired by the Homeworld series. Actually, to say it’s simply ‘inspired’ by Homeworld would be generous. Just like Tempest Rising was ‘inspired’ by C&C, ERA ONE is a shameless Homeworld clone and just like TR, I’m totally okay with that.

If you’ve played Homeworld then much of ERA ONE will be instantly familiar which is good, because the demo has no real tutorial to ease you into things. Ship movement controls, tactical view, research types, building modules, resource collection – it’s all here and exactly as you expect, and the ship designs are lifted straight out of Homeworld.

That’s not to say ERA ONE has no new ideas of its own – I really like the ship customisation and the modular mothership aspect. But this demo certainly wasn’t perfect – the UI is an absolute mess to navigate and needs some serious streamlining. The combat / movement speed is way to slow, and ship / turret health balancing needs a lot of work.

Slow really is the key word and the reason I didn’t ‘finish’ the demo – at one point I watched two opposing fighter wings going at it for nearly 8 minutes. I’m glad the basic fighters aren’t made of paper, but this shit just got tedious.

And, of course, Homeworld wasn’t just loved for its gameplay but its strong narrative and setting. It remains to be seen if ERA ONE can provide a story and setting that’s not just a shameless copy, but something original that stands strong on its own merits. I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.