MonsterVine Goes to PAX West 2022 – Day 1

Paxaggedon is here. It’s MonsterVine’s wonderful return to the Penny Arcade Expo after two long years and PAX West is already off to a great start. While relatively smaller feeling in terms of AAA game exposure compared to our last outing at PAX East 2020, PAX West 2022 feels more relaxed. Indie games are aplenty and boy do they shine this year.

Dragon Ball: The Breakers
Asymmetrical multiplayer games are all the rage right now and Dragon Ball is getting in on the action. Featuring a 1 v 7 system, Dragon Ball: The Breakers has seven civilians trying to escape from one of Dragon Ball Z’s infamous villains (Freiza, Cell or Buu). I only got to play as a civilian (survivor) during my session which seems like it’s going to be the bulk of most people’s experience with the game. The goal is to find pieces to power a time machine that will allow you to escape the villain (raider) who’s here from another timeline. My time saw me scouring buildings for resources, finding things like senzu beans or rocket launchers to defend myself with, all while hiding from the player flying around as Cell. The raider player can permanently destroy sections of the map to make it harder to find the pieces you need for the ship, which is a pretty cool/horrifying sequence to see occur as the area they target erupts in lava. At one point I was scavenging a building while a fellow survivor was doing the same in an adjacent building, and at some point they were discovered by Cell and they were absorbed which allowed Cell to evolve into his next form. I unfortunately did not survive my time in Dragon Ball: The Breakers, but I left the game with a lot more interest in seeing how the full product plays since there’s definitely some fun to be had here.

WrestleQuest
I grew up watching a lot of wrestling, and while I’ve weaned off it since then I still like to keep semi up-to-date with things. WrestleQuest capitalizes on that nostalgia and packages it in a Super Mario RPG inspired game that was a complete treat to play through. Playing as a Macho Man inspired amateur wrestler, Randy Santos, WrestleQuest sees you going on an adventure to become the greatest wrestler of all-time. A game like this can’t work unless it’s fully committed to the bit, which it totally is. Combat always occurs in the ring surrounded by a crowd and part of the game’s balance is hyping a crowd up with your maneuvers to earn bonuses in combat. You’ll be able to bounce opponents off the ropes, pin them and even have to do things like throw matches for the sake of a storyline. An especially fun gimmick is how you can customize your wrestling entrance, down to the types of pyrotechnics and various other effects or participate in promos to get a crowd hyped before a fight. Besides Macho Man and Andre the Giant, both featured in the trailer, you can expect to see a few dozen licensed wrestlers that all play a part in the game, big or small, and it makes the wrestling loving kid in me giddy to see who made the roster in the final game.

Glitch Busters
I’m always a sucker for a good co-op game, but more so one that makes messing with your friends a core part of the experience. Glitch Busters tasks you as AI with exterminating viruses that have infected the internet world you live in. You and up to three friends will shoot and slam your way through hordes of viruses in an absurd virtual world while you compete for highscores at the end of a level. The world of Glitch Busters feels almost like if Wreck It Ralph was mixed with some Sunset Overdrive, with wildly inventive looking designs to look at as you progress through levels. The game features a fun mechanic where you can stack on top of each other which protects the players on top of the bottom person, at the cost of the bottom getting any and all points that are dropped from defeated enemies. It’s a nifty gimmick that encourages you to abuse it to get out of danger so your friend takes a hit instead of you, but is also used for puzzles or boss fights. The final boss in my demo for example started ending these massive waves at us that required us to stack in order for us to avoid the damage. I’m always big on when a cooperative game allows you to fuck with each other, and Glitch Busters seems to take that in stride.

Vice NDRCVR
Set in 80’s Miami, think of Vice NDRCVR as Papers Please meets Five Nights at Freddies. I know, it’s an odd pair but it works, trust me. You play as a cop, undercover in the cartel who’s snuck into their office building to poke around their computers for any dirt you can find on them. You’ll explore a fake operating system (think Hypnospace Outlaw) as you poke around databases and the internet to complete missions all while avoiding getting caught by patrolling cartel members which is where the FNAF inspiration comes into play. You only have an hour in-game time (about fifteen real minutes) to complete as much as you can and in that time you have access to the building’s camera system where you can view any cartel members moving through the building. If they get too close to the room you’re in you’ll need to hide so you’re not caught, or else pull out your gun and blow your cover. You need to be careful however, as janitors or office workers might also enter the building so if you’re not paying attention to the cameras you might end up pulling your gun on a civilian. I only got a tease of it in my demo, but the game features some narrative decisions where you can choose to either help the police or the cartel and I’m eager to see how the game plays out either way.

High on Life
High on Life was probably the game I was most anxious to play today. It’s from Squanch Games, notable for being helmed by Justin Roiland of Rick & Morty fame and early footage made it seem like it might have been doubling down on some of the cringier aspects of Rick & Morty’s brand of humor. Thankfully though, in context of sitting through a full demo I can safely say that High on Life catapulted to the top of my list of games I’m eager to get my hands on. Described as a sort of metroidvania, High on Life sets the stage as a do-nothing loser whose life is flipped when they’re teleported to an alien planet where they become a bounty hunter to stop an alien cartel who kidnapped humanity to throw into a “Hyperbong” to be used to get aliens high. The game oozes Roiland’s brand of humor, but it also feels wholly its own with its own personality separate from his previous works. My short time with the game had me cracking up from start to finish, and the bantering back and forth between the gun and NPCs or enemies never wore on me. The game is also stacked with a killer cast of comedians voicing some of the characters such as JB Smoove and Tim Robinson, which I’m surprised isn’t being advertised more. It’s rare to get a game you could classify as a “comedy” game, that makes you laugh consistently throughout, and High on Life might just be a treat of that.