8. Unbox
The cardboard box has been largely underrepresented in the video game sphere. Previously nothing more than a hiding place for stealth agents or something for a plucky hero to kick around and loot through, it’s finally time for that six-faced storage cube to claim the limelight. In Prospect Games’ Unbox, you play as a cardboard box. What else?
Unbox has both a single-player and multiplayer mode. The single player is basically an open world to explore, find collectibles and complete challenges. Multiplayer has several different modes for couch co-op fun, such as races and battles. We tried out single player at EGX, and it was great fun. Graphically, it’s very impressive. Set on a tropical island, the locations are lush, and the bright, vivid colour palette is a treat for the eyes.
Unbox is set to release on PC in May 2016.
7. YIIK: A Postmodern RPG
When you hear “RPG” you instantly think of battling hellspawn, trawling dark dungeons and saving the world from its impending doom. YIIK (that’s Y-two-K, by the way, not “yik”) tackles the genre slightly differently. Whilst it does have dark and supernatural undertones, from the outset, YIIK looks very ordinary. You play as Alex, a very ordinary mid-town guy, just home from college, who stumbles across a strange internet forum that leads him on a journey of adventure and discovery.
YIIK does everything you’d expect from an old-school RPG – exploration, puzzles, turn-based battles – and from what we saw in the preview, it does it all extremely well. The art style is stylistically simple; brightly-coloured blocky 3D graphics are a pleasure to look at, and whilst the nitty-gritty of the story remains something of a mystery, it certainly looks very promising. It’s set to release later this year on PS4, PS Vita, Wii U and PC.
