1. Ascend
Developer: Signal Studios Platform: Xbox360 Ascend: New Gods is Microsoft's foot in to the free-to-play console game market and from what I've played - it seems incredible. You start by creating your Caos Warrior, a tool of the old Gods used to overthrow the tyranny of the New Gods and convert villages to your chosen deity. You pick your allegiance to a god, your armor, looks and weapons and travel to the realm of the mortals in a fun and exciting hack and slash adventure RPG. The most exciting thing about this game for me is that they have included a multiplayer aspect resembling Dark Souls' own formula. You can see the ghost of other players fighting and choose to either send them aid in a healing blessing or banish nearby enemies into their brawl to finish them off. The game will include optional microtransactions for the in-game currency Souls (there's only one currency) that can save an hours grinding for a mere dollars worth of Microsoft Points. I'm looking forward to see the end product and hope it turns out as well as it has in the trial. http://youtu.be/BgBr6iYgWTw It was extremely hard to decide on my top 5 since there were so many I wanted to mention. Some - Dust514 in particular - have so many incredible concepts to the play through that can't be explained without an in-depth analysis into the game itself. I had a lot of fun at PAX and I hope you guys will enjoy looking into these games and playing them in the near future.