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PAX East 2014: Hands on with Project Cyber

by: Nathan -
More On: PAX East 2014

I have always been a fan of futuristic, cyber punk style sports. Smash TV, Super Monday Night Combat, Blast Chamber, Deathrow, The Grid, hell even TV show American Gladiators could somewhat fit into that category, it's its a genre and art style that I have always loved, so whenever I see a game of that style come along, I gotta check it out. 

I got a chance to play a few games of Project Cyber at PAX East and while the game is still early in development, I had a lot of fun and see tons of potential in the game. 

The game is almost a futuristic version of foosball and pits two teams of three against each other in an arena where you have to get the disk into the opponents goal to score points. Each team has three different characters. A goaltender that can throw up a wall and block incoming shots, a character that can use a gun to move the disk and a striker who can make key plays. It's simple but team coordination will be key if you want to win. You can't just run in and make a ton of goals, you will need to use the skills of everyone on the team in order to make those goals. Within a few moments of playing the game I was having a blast, but then something happened that made the game more intense. At about halfway through the match an event will take place. The event that occured during my match was that the map started to split apart, creating a giant hole down the middle. You can dash across it but if you fall it, you will be sitting out for about 5 seconds or so. Those seconds are critical as it allows the enemy team to make a power play before you get back into the action. 

All in all, I had a blast with Project Cyber and I cannot wait to see how the game grows over time. I can easily see this game be part of E-Sports in the future as it has plenty of action and I think this is a game that people would love watching. 

The other thing that I absolutely loved about Project Cyber is how Spearhead Games is going to make the community part of the developmental process. You can go to their website and sign up for a free Steam key right now you can see Spearhead constantly working on the game everyday on their Twitch.TV stream. Spearhead will constantly be in contact with the players everyday through all forms of social media, their Twitch stream and their official forums. I absolutely love when developers do this. Having a relationship with the developer where your feedback and the feedback of others make it into the game really makes the game feel more personal and I wish more developers were open to this idea.