Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2023 i PLAY

Looking at this and thinking C-Smash VRS’s stripped-back futuristic aesthetic makes it feel like a distant cousin of Rez Infinite? You’re not wrong. The title it’s a reimagining of, Cosmic Smash, was also a Sega project originally released on Dreamcast during the console’s twilight years. And just like Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s masterpiece, this peculiar hybrid of squash and Breakout feels made for VR. “THIS HYBRID OF SQUASH AND BREAKOUT FEELS MADE FOR VR.” There’s a warm zen vibe to the minimalist space station you’re aboard, complemented by the soundtrack by Ken Ishii (whose work is also heard in Rez) and Danalogue as you hit panels in front of you with a ball and racquet. The racquet naturally adjusts to the dominant hand that you grab it with, while your other hand…

Wearing eldritch horror influences on its sleeve, Necrom is where Elder Scrolls gets weird. Offering a committed story with about 30 hours of questing, this tale will break away from the traditionally self-contained stories of earlier expansions to end on a cliffhanger. Necrom introduces plenty to test your mettle too, from a new 12-player raid called Sanity’s Edge to, oh, you know, just the unravelling of reality itself! That’s not all though, as the seventh expansion also adds the first new class since Elsweyr’s Necromancer in 2019. The Arcanist presents a wyrd mage three ways, with skills split between damage, defence, and support. The Crux system adds another ‘out there’ edge; some skills build up Crux points while others consume them, steering you away from a tired rotation. SPORES ON…

While we pretended to be all sorts of things as imaginative youngsters – wiggly worms, fantastic dragons, and as recently mentioned, cats – we’re not sure our childhood games ever involved someone pretending to be a can of gasoline. This is a surprisingly gutsy children’s fable – and we’re not just talking about the arson. There’s also bloody dismemberment, and a recurring comedic bit about a headless chicken who just won’t quit. None of this is presented in a way that works against Tchia’s charming tone, but it’s worth being aware of before sharing this tale with tiny tots. Though inspired by New Caledonia, the people and places you encounter don’t necessarily bear a strict resemblance to the islands in real life. That said, characters speak in French and Drehu…

Do you remember when, as a young ’un, you first declared ‘I want to be a…’? Where does that moment feature in the story of you? And who heard you? For protagonist Benjamin Brynn it’s his mum Elle, and their relationship is scored by the notes of the family piano. At the outset a familiar tale about parental expectations and legacy, it’s paired with a central mechanic that has to be seen to be believed. Ben’s life story is communicated via shrouded scenes1 that disappear whenever you blink. All interaction is mediated through your gaze, and try as you might to keep those peepers pried open, it’s only a matter of time before your fluttering eyelids close on the scene and send you into a new one. Many of these…

Oddball detectives come together to solve a grand mystery – a not-unusual setup for a death game. (Eat your heart out, Danganronpa.) Here, you follow Wato, a new member of the Detective Alliance, who’s given the unflattering alias of Incompetent Detective, as he and several other eccentric members of the organisation team up to try to get to the bottom of a string of grisly murders at the hands of the mysterious Quartering Duke. After gathering at the Alliance’s island HQ, another murder makes it clear that the killer is in their midst, adding extra pressure to their investigation. Plenty of secrets are uncovered, and blood spilled. Process Of Elimination is a decent visual novel with good scope for untimely demises and case-solving multiple choice sections as it is; on…

What a joy it is to return to the world of Zenozoik. It’s been ten years since developer ACE Team let us visit its singularly strange fantasy world in Zeno Clash 2, and while Clash: Artifacts Of Chaos is another brawler, a fair bit has changed since then. The psychedelic landscapes are now rendered in an artsy pencil-sketch style that is a wonderful complement to art direction that has always been the studio’s strength. You now get to see the world in third person (though first-person sequences do exist too, as a nod to all that came before) in the shoes of Pseudo, a thumb of a humanoid with a welcomely forthright approach to life, who decides to help out the Boy, an orphaned bird-child with a mysterious power coveted…

The Project Zero series is playing catch up, with the fourth entry now available in the West for the first time. Unfortunately, Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse seems to have come a little too late. It’s unlikely that being released after the much stronger Maiden Of Black Water is entirely to blame for how this game falls flat, but it doesn’t do it any favours. Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse lacks some of the usual Project Zero essence. In it, a girl named Ruka and her four friends are drawn back to a shifty hospital on the island they used to live on, where they were also involved in a mysterious incident none of them fully remember. Two and a half of those friends don’t matter and will barely be…

Should you be looking for examples of games that see an immediate improvement when ported from PSVR to PSVR2, we’ve got one for you right here. Two technical aspects that irked us about the original release – long load times and unreliable hand tracking – have been eradicated thanks to PS5’s speedy SSD and the super-accurate Sense controllers respectively. It’s also worth mentioning that Zenith has benefitted from (free) updates that have dropped in a lot of new content since launch, too. For example, we’re big fans of the Pokémon-style creature catching, where you wear down little critters by throwing balls at them until you imprison them for your amusement. Catch enough of the same creature and you can adopt one as a pet. And who wouldn’t want their own…

Just one part of the Wachowskis’ hugely influential multimedia experiment, this action adventure runs perpendicular to the events of the second film, The Matrix Reloaded. Playing as either Niobe or Ghost, you fight your way through waves of Agents using guns, martial arts, and occasionally swords. “I loved it. Path Of Neo was really good too,” reader Jassen LaPlant tells us. “I remember doing the menu hack to be able to use the sword the whole game.” Going hard on the turn-of-the-millennium hacker vibes – classic green command line and all – this particular cheat involved a surprisingly in-depth unlock process that saw you sniffing around file directories and even exchanging in-game phone calls with multiple characters before you got the sword. Peeling back these hidden layers remains compelling, as…

Film critic Roger Ebert once said that “one obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome.” While you can’t ‘win’ a museum, the other points don’t hold much weight – you can’t touch the works (a rule), they often give out checklists for their installations (points), you’re there to see art (an objective) and you will hopefully leave enriched (an outcome). Don’t even get us started on the gift shops (microtransactions?). While videogames are not a monolith, the following titles deserve to be considered works of art in their own right – and some of them are now housed in big-name museums themselves. And if a picture is a poem without words, what does that make the…

Getting you closer to PlayStation’s most exciting stories, people, and culture To begin with, your team defends an area against an onslaught of dinosaurs. Our latest hands-on with Capcom’s upcoming mech shooter, which is set in a future overrun by hordes of interdimensional raptors, is an absurd experience that leaves us with a few burning questions. The fundamentals here are solid but, at a time when we’re seeing more live-service titles close every month, the obtuse central multiplayer mode and signs of aggressive monetisation could lead to extinction. Accurately conveying what exactly goes on in your average match of Exoprimal is a Jurassic task. The title of its flagship mode, Dinosaur Survival, is deceptively simple. What might at first appear to be a basic horde match is actually a bizarre…

You thought being stranded on an apparently abandoned space station was bad enough. You thought the fact that many of the ramshackle station’s systems were powered down was just the icing on the cake. You thought that finding the shiny bauble that resuscitated those systems was such a stroke of luck – only to discover waves upon waves of crystal-crunching creepy crawlies standing between you and freedom. Rock, meet hard place. The sweet release of becoming bug food isn’t on the cards for you either. As you unspool the mysteries of the station – namely, how and why it keeps bringing you back from the dead – you’re in for a heaped helping of heavily armed pest control. Playable either alone or with buddies in three-player co-op, Endless Dungeon combines…

SQUISHMALLOWS SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG 10-INCH PLUSH TOY SQUISHMALLOWS £19.99 SEGASHOP.CO.UK Gun not included, unfortunately, but who wouldn’t want to cuddle up with this grumpy dark horse – er, ’hog? Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are also available if you can’t handle Shadow’s bad-boy attitude. None of them are in stock until August, though, so you’ve plenty of time to get your pre-order in. DESTINY 2 X FALL GUYS TITAN PLUSH ITEMLAB £45 ITEMLAB.DE/EN Time to get cutified, Guardian! Fall Guys-flavoured plushes of the Titan, Warlock, and Hunter classes are available to order. Even better, recycled material is used for the heroes and their tags, and CO² emissions from production and import are offset by climate projects. Now that’s saving the world. FILBO FIDDLEPIE PLUSH JMV $32 FANGAMER.COM Bring a piece of…

PREVIEW “WHEREVER SHE ROAMS, THE BLOOD OF INNOCENTS FLOWS IN A SEA OF TRIBUTE.” Daughter of Hatred, Mother of the mortal realm, a figure as storied as she is horned – Lilith has returned to Sanctuary. Wherever she roams, darkness awakens in the hearts of all those near, and the blood of innocents flows in a sea of tribute to her. As macabre a picture as that paints, let’s pause for a moment to focus on two bit-players in her story: our custom protagonists Dokmai the sorceress and Athlynn the druid. They’re an odd couple for sure but they make it work, despite one of them occasionally becoming a bear – hey, no-one’s perfect! Their journey together gets off to a rocky start: after they clear a ruin of hell-sent…

Last year’s Sonic Origins is set to get a welcome ‘Plus’ version on Sonic’s 32nd birthday. (We know what you’re thinking: he doesn’t look a day over 31.) The new collection will add all 12 Sonic-related Sega Game Gear games, which is neat because the 8-bit versions are completely different adventures to the 16-bit classics we know and love. “WILL AMY HAVE TO RESCUE SONIC? WILL HE HAVE HEARTS ABOVE HIS HEAD?” The original 8-bit Sonic The Hedgehog has its own Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack (swoon), Sonic 2 lets you bounce across water, and Sonic 3’s equivalent, Sonic Chaos, even has rocket boots. Sure, there’s also yawnfest Sonic Labyrinth and the… let’s say ‘ambitious’ (read: ‘pants’) Sonic Blast, but in the bundle you’ll also get both the Sonic Drift kart racing…

We survey the war wounds scoring the bodywork of our station wagon. Out here, we only have each other. Unfortunately, it’s so much more than just the odd ding; we’re lucky to have made it back to our hub of investigations inside Oppy’s Body Shop in one piece. We’ll get to why in just a minute but first comes necessary maintenance on our car. We fill the tank, then flip the switch to discharge any lingering current still flowing through our onboard hardware. Blue electricity arcs all around the station wagon – how’s that for firing up the Quattro? Setting aside our playful confusion between various models of car, it’s time to sort out those dings. Ironing out the dents in the bodywork isn’t done in realistic fashion – in…

While Tekken 8 might not be the only new fighter on the horizon, it is the only big one whose developers are ditching last-generation hardware, dropping PS4 to focus solely on PS5. Sitting down to play the game in a room thrumming with the excitement of fellow players ready to battle, it’s clear this isn’t a cynical move; Tekken 8 makes the most of the console – sparring really does feel special in this brawler. Which is a good thing, as it’s something that’s been very much on the mind of Tekken Project executive producer Katsuhiro Harada. (Producer Michael Murray, who we also speak with, translates for Harada during our meeting.) Given the high cost of a new console, it had to be worth it. “We have a few goals,…

The best way to describe this, perhaps, is to say that it’s a cross between a ghost train, a shooting gallery, and that feeling of dread you get when you see a letter with HMRC stamped on it fall through the letterbox. All in VR, too, so peripheral vision won’t save you from the jumps you know are coming. It’s fun, occasionally scary, sometimes inventive… but never great. Not quite. While we say it’s occasionally scary, it’s more accurate to say that the experience is peppered with cheap (but no less effective for that) jump scares. In fact, if an important factor for you is just how disturbing the experience will be, then this won’t be a problem. Sudden jumps aside, it’s a trope-soaked experience that celebrates horror more than…

You know what they say: in space, nobody can hear you scream ‘Oh my god, this is amazing!’ Okay, while your reaction to this PSVR2 version of the popular space explorathon might not be quite that extreme, a combination of PSVR2’s crystal-clear display, ultra-reliable Sense controllers, and yet more free updates from Hello Games make this impressive indeed. A whole universe squeezed inside Sony’s new VR headset! That’s not the exaggeration it may seem. For the benefit of the unaware, No Man’s Sky offers an essentially endless supply of unique planets thanks to procedural generation and, we assume, demonic magic. Any unique discovery you make – creature, plant, entire world, whatever – can be named and/or shared with the community for somebody else to stumble upon (with you given credit…

Even before this PS2 launch title was revived, its pyrotechnic twist on match-three puzzling had resurfaced by way of the PlayStation Plus Premium Classics library last year. But if you’ve revisited it via that service recently, you’ll have very little reason to splash out on what’s essentially the same experience in HD but pricier, and without any multiplayer. 1 While long-running puzzlers like Tetris and Puyo Puyo have found ways to iterate on their timeless mechanics, Fantavision 202X is quite content to do its thing over and over again. Across eight levels you chain together three or more of the same coloured flares in order to detonate them. Capturing multicoloured flares, meanwhile, enables you to change colours to make longer chains, resulting in some extraordinary light shows. Take too…

Remakes come easily to the great detective, who’s been interpreted across media in a myriad different ways. This reimagining of Frogwares’ cosmic-horror-tinged mystery recasts the tale, previously one late in Holmes and Watson’s partnership, as their first proper adventure, and it’s a thrilling one at that, if not a perfect mystery-’em-up. The Awakened is, at times, scattershot, but more often than not its ability to deftly shift modes of play is a strength. Holmes’ case pits the logical ponderer against a cult whose practices make little sense, and while he and Watson solve more than a few murders, their globetrotting journey also sees them avoiding alligators in a New Orleans bayou, infiltrating a corrupt mental institution, wrangling ancient lighthouse machinery in the midst of a storm, and more. Tense set-pieces…

Two rings, one cage, unlimited mayhem: 2K’s latest brawler finally delivers War Games. WCW’s most famous match was relaunched by WWE two years ago, and it’s everything you could want. Teams of four, lost in chaos. Weapons. Double-team moves. Daft leaps off the steel. You can easily lose the first fortnight to this match type alone. However, it’s given true longevity by two things: match mechanics and detailed modes. 2K23 performs resplendently on the first count. Animations and moves have been tightened up and expanded upon. A kick-out mechanic, where you have to flick the right stick up at the correct point on a timing meter, mimics last-ditch pin escapes. Stamina matters too; hare around hitting big moves early on, and your grappler lags later. It’s as ‘sim’ as WWE’s…

Out of all the DLC characters Midnight Suns has introduced, I know the least about Michael Morbius, probably because he stars in an… easily skippable film. Fortunately, this has the basics covered: he’s a pseudo-vampire who has no issues with sunlight, a bad history with Blade, and a good relationship with Spider-Man. Midnight Suns is simply not difficult enough to support all of these characters. His story (the next part in the saga of vampires trying to take over New York) is wholly untethered from anything that happens in the main game. Not only that, the overall plot here is astoundingly similar to Deadpool’s introduction. Morbius’ skills include chain attacks (which Wolverine already offers to greater effect), and attacks that inflict and/or consume Bleed (which you already have with Blade).…

On paper, this is a slam dunk so, unlike Oscar, I say bring on the remake. The logical successor to Resident Evil 4, all of that fantastic game’s best moments and mechanics reappear here in an expanded form. The annoying Ashley is gone entirely, replaced by a sentient (but sometimes equally frustrating in Oscar’s case [Ouch – ed]) co-op partner, the tense inventory management is now even more pressured, and the action has been dialled up to 11. There’s even a bag-wearing chainsaw-wielding man who chases you through the campaign. Directing a laser beam using mirrors had Oscar killing me time and time again. The problem is that, unlike in its predecessor, nothing here really works. Resi 4 felt innovative in 2004 but, when this entry was released half…

FORMAT PS4 / PUB SONY / DEV EVOLUTION STUDIOS / RELEASED 2014 You never forget your first time. The sun glints through the clouds as the race starts, and you slide your Ferrari gracefully around the first few corners, picking up a few places in the process. But then the skies darken and burst like a water balloon, drenching the track. Good luck staying graceful now. The weather effects in Driveclub are still as awestriking as any in gaming, and even more so when they erupt mid-race, as if God has decided to douse your petrol-headed pleasure. Playing through early campaign events, you get used to driving in the dry, with night-time races the only challenge from the elements, which only makes it all the more extraordinary the first time…

After there was no sign of any kind of E3 showcase last year, digital or otherwise, there was a certain concern around E3 2023 that’s now turned out to have been warranted. Apparently due to a lack of interest from exhibitors, the plug has been pulled on both online and in-person elements of the show. In some ways it is surprising, as ReedPop took the reins last July and seemed poised to deliver at least some type of show. As the force behind most big geeky in-person events, including EGX, PAX, and MCM, to name just three, the company seemed to be a steady hand. Whether E3 landed on its doorstep too late in the day to be viable, or if other factors arose due to the games-lobbying group ESA’s…

Dreams is a seemingly endless source of creativity, talent, and quality; so much so that Media Molecule even hosts its own annual awards ceremony. This year competition was as fierce as ever, but 3D platformer Trip’s Voyage proved so impressive, it walked away with an armful of awards to itself. So, which awards did it win? Well, it was victorious in (deep breath) Creation Of The Year, Creator/Team Of The Year (Eupholace), Excellence In Art Direction, Excellence In Gameplay, and Evolving Experience. Try the game for yourself and you’ll realise why. Were it not for the faint Dreams watermark, it could easily be mistaken for a standalone indie game. Nintendo’s Super Mario Odyssey is a clear influence in terms of control and design, but Trip is no copycat. It’s a…

The chill environments of Viewfinder, with its blend of space-white, vaguely Modernist architecture and the odd bit of vegetation, makes us think of both Portal and The Witness. Like them it’s also a first-person puzzler, with the latter’s sense of mystery as to exactly what’s going on and where we are. But, just like our enthusiastically voiced protagonist, we’re mostly occupied by what we can do. Before we start talking about the game’s main hook, we have to say we’re pleased to have the ability to rewind our actions like a video. For one thing, it’s the only way to escape a pit we fall into after a platform we’re walking across suddenly collapses. However, although the fact these levels are just environments floating in the sky means we fall…

Boasting an all-star cast of antiquated action legends including Chuck Norris, Michael Madsen, and Danny Trejo, this isn’t just a throwback to the Hollywood crime thrillers of the 1990s but an era of gaming long past. A heist-’em-up in the vein of PS3’s Payday 2, there’s plenty to look forward to in its improved gunplay and roguelike elements despite the somewhat scrappy overall presentation. Set in the titular Rockay City, a fictional metropolis heavily inspired by ’90s Miami, the single-player story campaign follows a rookie criminal’s rise to fame in the city’s underworld. Centred on a protracted turf war, your progress is charted by a colour-coded map that gradually fills in to show your gang’s control of a region. Most early missions involve some form of heist and the money…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA 16 JUN / PUB BANDAI NAMCO DEV LIMBIC ENTERTAINMENT / PLAYERS 1 Theme park builders are nothing new, but Park Beyond innovates with rides that couldn’t be built in real life, such as free-flipping rollercoasters and animated octopodes dunking visitors in water tanks. The standard game’s story-driven campaign can be bolstered with ‘impossification’ sets, including a schlocky ‘Zombeyond’ undead theme pack and a Pac-Man-themed collection of park elements (plus a DLC season pass), if you pre-order the Visioneer Edition. We’re very tempted.…

Almost ten years after it was announced (and from the sounds of it, spending a fair chunk of that time in development hell), they finally managed to release Dead Island 2. In many ways, that itself is an accomplishment, and nothing but respect to Dambuster Studios for pulling it off – but rather than a magnificent rebirth, it feels more like the cursed half-revival of one of the zombies you’ll be carving down, in a frame as creaky as those undead joints, unable to support the few things that do manage to work. Your hero of choice may be a dab hand at brutalising infected into bloody pulp, but the narrative is pretty much standard zombie fare, requiring you to set up a safe house, rescue fellow survivors, and try…

We deliver dreams.” So reads the corporate motto emblazoned inside mega-corporation Jüngle’s gigantic fulfilment centre (or JFC-1 for short), where employees are also romantically referred to as ‘explorers’. And that really should be singular, because in reality there’s just you, Kurt, a man who’s somehow avoided being replaced by robots. The actual work of locating and delivering packages of consumer junk feels absurd when outside the world is burning. Still, there’s a futuristic glamour to The Last Worker’s daily grind as you explore a warehouse on a floating pod, using a gravity gun to pick up and deliver packages. The menial labour has a methodical rhythm as you also have to check packages are correctly labelled in size and weight, as well as not damaged. Those that don’t pass muster…

At times, this one’s code seems to be falling apart like a rotting corpse, which is appropriate, if nothing else. Even if we were to ignore the technical issues, however, we’d still be left with a deeply flawed experience. This game can be (and sometimes is) brilliant; but it’s also at war with itself… and you. Retribution begins moments after the end of the first game. If you didn’t play the original Saints & Sinners, therefore, you won’t know who anybody is, what they’re doing, or why. The paper-thin plot means that this isn’t much of an issue, at least. If you did play the first game, you probably did so on PSVR1 (if you missed it, it has just been ported to the new hardware). The Sense controllers are…

Despite being the 24th game in the alchemy-centric RPG series, and wrapping up a trilogy of adventures, Atelier Ryza 3 is far from playing things safe. With an open world scope, it’s a big, mostly successful, shift in direction for Atelier. Series vets may remember this isn’t the first time Atelier has ditched zone-based maps in favour of an open world – Atelier Firis did the same in 2016, and wasn’t met with a great deal of praise. Ryza’s journey fares much better thanks to the way the maps feel designed to empower you and constantly push you forward. There’s plenty of variation between the regions of the four large worlds, you can use fast travel to jump around, and the way side-quests have spilled out to be all over…

This long-running series has finally ditched its tired system of annual releases and transitioned to a live service model. You hadn’t realised? Well, don’t be fooled by that boxed ‘2023 Edition’ you see on store shelves, it only contains a DLC code for a downloadable song pack. This is, however, one live service relaunch that I can get behind. Buying a new entry every year in order to get the latest batch of tracks was always tiresome and expensive, especially considering that most of your mileage with Just Dance came from the expansive catalogue offered by the game’s inexpensive subscription service, Just Dance Unlimited. This subscription is still front and centre, and while the base game is now technically free it only includes access to two songs. Fittingly, the updated…

By 2002, PlayStation 2 had seen off Sega’s Dreamcast console, which was a massive deal – like PS5 pushing Xbox out of the market today. The official line was that Sega was now a third-party developer, creating games for any console it liked, but in reality it felt like Sony was parading the heads of Dreamcast’s royalty on sticks by releasing games like this. And Virtua Tennis truly had been a king. The series began life as a coin-op, before winning the hearts of Dreamcast owners with its deceptively deep single-(ish)-button control scheme. Sure, there is a secondary ‘lob’ button, but mainly you move your player into position with the left stick, then start your swing. The computer works out which animation it needs to make contact happen between racquet…

RPGs of the early noughties had a few bright ideas for keeping players engrossed in the heat of a surprisingly polite, turn-based spar. Final Fantasy IX has its well-known Active Time Battle system, Shadow Hearts enjoys the whip crack of the Judgment Ring, and The Legend Of Dragoon jumps into the fray with the rhythm-game-like Addition system. As on-screen shapes align, tapping q at just the right moment threads together attacks, experience, and much more besides. Protagonist Dart’s quest to prevent the return of the God Of Destruction revolves around the titular Dragoon Spirits; pop off strings of successful Additions and you’ll rack up enough Spirit Points for your party members to transform into their winged, Power Ranger-esque Dragoon forms. Powerful, and the only way to get at most of…