Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2023 i PLAY

Few series endure until their tenth entries but, after almost a decade of annual releases, there’s still no sign of The Jackbox Party Pack slowing down any time soon, let alone stopping. Each new arrival brings a collection of five standalone minigames to the table, all brimming with unique mechanics and tied together by a wide range of creative themes. Favourites like Quiplash, which challenges you to craft one-liners against the clock, and Tee KO, a bare-knuckle competitive T-shirt design-off, have become party staples, but development has been filled with many early concepts that have never seen the light of day. To discover how the magic happens, we ask the team how they identify the winners and which ideas need to be taken back to the drawing board. “Really, a…

The adventure game series that flourished on the original PlayStation is making a comeback. Like any good point’n’click, there are two avenues of puzzle solving to prevent you getting stuck in one route – a new sixth adventure, Broken Sword: Parzival’s Stone, is being joined by a remake of the PS1 classic Broken Sword: Shadow Of The Templars. Both titles star photojournalist Nico Collard and sometimes-lawyer George Stobbart and can be enjoyed as standalone adventures, though naturally it’s a thrill to see how far the pair have come in the 27 years since that original outing – that’s part of the joy of having both available. New mystery Parzival’s Stone will, of course, have the duo poking around historical legend, as always, but with an innovative visual style that’s designed…

“A LOVE STORY ABOUT ONE-OF-A-KIND STAR-CROSSED LOVERS – ONE ALIVE AND ONE DEAD.“ FORMAT PS5 / ETA 7 NOV / PUB FOCUS ENTERTAINMENT / DEV DON’T NOD / PLAYERS 1 You’ve heard of being haunted by the ghosts of love lost and won. Well, for Banishers’ protagonist Red mac Raith, this is literal. He’s one of the titular pair of ghost hunters, and the other is the spectre of the woman he loves, Antea Duarte. By switching between these fatefully intertwined protagonists, you might just be able to put the past to rest – or make it howl. Creative director Philippe Moreau tells us, “The main theme is ‘Can love overcome death?’ […] The couple took an oath at the beginning of the game […] to decide what to do for…

“KIRYU’S NEW FIGHTING STYLE IS CALLED AGENT AFTER HIS NEW UNDERCOVER OCCUPATION.“ FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 9 NOV / PUB SEGA / DEV RYU GA GOTOKU STUDIO / PLAYERS 1 We thought him gone, but Kazuma Kiryu lives on both in our hearts and on our gaming shelves – while his story officially ended with Yakuza 6, and Kiryu has since been replaced as Like A Dragon’s protagonist by frizzy-haired optimist Ichiban, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio seems as unwilling to fully let go of the Dragon Of Dojima as many fans are. Set ahead of the next mainline Like A Dragon game Infinite Wealth, Like A Dragon Gaiden (which translates as ‘side story’) follows Kiryu after he faked his death in Yakuza 6. As the game title suggests, he…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 10 NOV / PUB ACTIVISION / DEV SLEDGEHAMMER GAMES / PLAYERS MULTI The first back-to-back sequel in Call Of Duty in over a decade, this upcoming instalment in the rebooted Modern Warfare series aims to build on the foundations laid by last year’s excellent Modern Warfare II. The campaign picks up exactly where the previous game’s story ended, with sinister terrorist mastermind Makarov on the verge of tipping the world into all-out global conflict, forcing our heroes Task Force 141 into a frantic race to stop it. Sound familiar? Well, this setup bears an uncanny resemblance to the events of the original Modern Warfare 2 (2009), and that’s far from the only similarity that we’ve spotted so far. The multiplayer mode launches with 16 maps, all…

FORMAT PS5 ETA 31 OCT PUB DON’T NOD DEV DON’T NOD PLAYERS 1 Our hands are sweating as we grip the controller. We’re only an hour into our very literal hands-on with Jusant, and we’ve already climbed a fair way up the side of a treacherous cliff face, the ground now a dizzying number of miles away. Looking at the ledge above us, it’s just a smidge too far out of reach. To grab it, we’ll need to jump. Reciting the buttons needed to make this successful leap over and over, we take a final breath, and then leap. All we can say is this: Jusant is not for the faint of heart. In Don’t Nod’s upcoming action adventure you play as a traveller tasked with climbing a colossal tower…

For Poirot’s sake, we hope the two eggs on his face are identical in size. He’s hired to protect a painting of Mary Magdalene on display in a London museum, and not only is it pilfered a short time before being unveiled, but one of the guests is murdered. Hercule Poirot is going to need your help for this one. This is a younger iteration of the character than fans of Agatha Christie’s novels will know. Following on from 2021’s The First Cases, the game depicts the first time the immaculately dressed Belgian detective collaborates with Arthur Hastings of Lloyd’s Of London. As the painting was insured by the company, they’re both in a pickle. The two have a nice rapport – each appreciating the other’s differences while also learning…

Drunk on power and tyranny, the chessboard’s black king has been abandoned by his entire kingdom, his once-loyal subjects driven to switch sides and join the white king. Twisted by bitterness, the black king decides to unleash his anger on those who deserted him. He chooses to wreak bloody revenge on the deserters using his secret weapon – the royal shotgun. Many videogames have attempted to capture the tactical nature of chess in a way that revamps the old rules and brings something new to the board, and failed. Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate manages to do it in a rather bombastic manner: by putting a shotgun straight in your hands. However, what at first seems like a silly joke that would make Bobby Fisher turn is his grave turns…

For the first ten minutes, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re watching a glorified advert for Gran Turismo 7. It’s one of many creative licences this film “based on a true story” takes, given that the GT Academy, originally a TV show designed to turn the world’s best sim racers into real professional racers, started years earlier, while Jann Mardenborough (played by Archie Madekwe) wasn’t the first winner. But if you can ignore how it plays fast and loose with facts and timeline of events, it’s a gripping underdog sports movie. Gran Turismo emphasises how much more physically demanding racing for real is. David Harbour relishes playing tough-love trainer Jack Salter, taunting his Academy candidates through punishing training montages, but coming to believe in Jann’s potential. That’s in the face…

Five games in, you know what to expect: lingering camera shots of gleaming bodywork, a passionate voiceover, and famous racetracks (now rendered in Unreal Engine 5). It’s a rider’s paradise. But the law of diminishing returns is in full effect, presenting something so ‘middle of the road’ that it’s basically a white line in this incarnation. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as sometimes you just want a high-quality, realistic, licensed bike sim to play at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second. And there’s a lot to be said for seeing the sun set dramatically over Snetterton’s devilish chicanes and Road America’s undulations. Sometimes you just want a high-quality, realistic, licensed bike sim to play at 60fps. FEUDAL TIMES The riding physics are a touch heavy compared to older…

Fans have been digging their spurs in for some time, desperate for the original Red Dead Redemption to be released on modern consoles. Rockstar has answered, having developer Double Eleven deliver a new port. While there’s plenty to grumble about, being able to play the game without a PS3 is great in itself. But its shortcomings need to be addressed, especially given the £39.99 price tag. Red Dead Redemption is presented much as you’d expect, with little more. There’s no PS5 version to speak of, so the best we get here is a PS4 port locked to 30fps. The biggest update comes in the shape of improved anti-aliasing options (which you can adjust in the menu, a rarity on console), defaulting to FSR2. Without getting into the technicalities, it means…

While Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was a juggernaut, by the time the prospect of a fifth game readied up at the half-pipe lip, it was clear it needed to bust some fresh moves. Enter Underground, with a simple story that charts the rise of your custom skater from newbie to pro. “THPS2 and 4 were legendary,” admits reader @SuperWidzy2. “Underground took it a different route and was really good!” RISING UP The game’s story might have been simple, but it was additive. “Defo think the Hawk games were best with these crazy story modes introduced,” shares @motombo87. “As good as the 1&2 remake was, it was still just a list of objectives with not a lot else. American Wasteland will always be my favourite in the series.” In large part…

This is one of those games where, even if you haven’t played it for yourself, you’ve almost certainly heard of it. Several games and one TV show later, the 1995 original is officially, legally playable in the space year 2023 on modern hardware thanks to PS Plus. Y’know, if you decide that you really want to. This isn’t a game that has aged brilliantly, but that doesn’t mean it has nothing to offer. The basic concept is ahead of its time: it’s essentially a battle royale fought with heavily-armed road vehicles (albeit with a maximum of two human participants). There’s a generous number of vehicles to choose from, too; 12 in all. And the fact is, any game with a cast including a taxi driver, a police officer, and a…

Today, Warframe is one of the most successful, content-rich free-to-play games on the market, with a huge and passionate community of players. Ten years is a long time for a developer to keep one game going, and there’s no sign of this one slowing down any time soon. Had Warframe struggled to find an audience, however, it could easily have been Digital Extremes’ last. The company found itself in a tight spot in the months leading up to the initial release. When we ask how the game first came to be, former Warframe art director Geoff Crookes’ instant, wry answer is “Desperation”. “We had lost a publishing contract,” explains Digital Extremes’ chief creative officer Steve Sinclair. “We had laid off 50 people, I think.” (“Pretty painful for the size of…

Nestled in the heart of London’s Camden Market is Bandai Namco’s new Cross Store, the first of its kind outside Japan. It’s easy to understand why such a bustling locale was chosen; this multi-storey “retail experience” has a surprising amount in common with its market surroundings – which in Camden is actually several adjacent markets and includes buildings as well as traditional outdoor stalls. Culturally, it’s a perfect fit. “Camden is a very uniquely eclectic place. It’s a mix and match of every culture that people are enjoying,” Suguru Ueda, the manager of IP development at Bandai Namco, tells us. “There are lots of foreigners and lots of tourists, so we thought Camden would be a good match.” CATCH ’EM ALL Inside the store feels like something of a market…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA EARLY 2024 / PUB SLOW BROS / DEV SLOW BROS / PLAYERS 1 Often developers aren’t able to bring more than a cardboard cutout of their characters to a show, but when we meet Slow Bros we also meet Harold Halibut, standing calmly in a small glass case. Harold is as real as any game character ever gets, because he, like everything else in Harold Halibut, is a handmade clay model. Developer Slow Bros initially chose this way of painstakingly creating its first game because it was what the team members knew how to do – the process of creating digital 3D models was arcane, the art of making real-life clay models much more familiar. Now, over ten years on from the initial ideation process,…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 24 OCT / PUB KONAMI / DEV KONAMI, BLUEPOINT / PLAYERS 1 Plonked in front of this collection of Metal Gear games released on PS2 and earlier consoles, we’re pleased to report in via Codec call that we still have the muscle memory to complete our sneaking missions. It’s a comprehensive collection, consisting of the first three Metal Gear Solid games plus both the pixel-based MSX and NES duologies, with additional goodies to boot. (The games are also available to purchase separately.) The precise, maze-like threading of vision cones in the MSX2 Metal Gear 2; pushing forward then pulling back as guards are drawn to our footprints in PS1’s Metal Gear Solid; and cartwheeling into guards and then running away cackling in PS2’s Metal Gear…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA TBC / PUB KONAMI / DEV KEELWORKS / PLAYERS 1 Long-time reader? Then you’ll know this cinematic shmup’s been on our radar for the last few years (long before KeelWorks signed with Konami). As we sit down in the pilot’s seat to give it a go, the slick visuals draw us in. Founded by brothers Meher and Nareg Kalenderian, the Scottish studio has an animation background, Nareg having worked at Pixar. However, Cygni has solid mechanics to back up the good looks. The impressive graphics also benefit how you play. After an animated opening movie, we’re thrown into the first level, which introduces us to the chaos to come. Visuals are crisp but easy to read as our lone ship blasts away at the vessels that…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 ETA 17 NOV PUB ATLUS DEV P-STUDIO PLAYERS 1 At this point, we fully expect Persona 5 to become a never-ending standalone source of games of varying genres. Seven years after Persona 5 was originally released, Atlus still can’t let go of Joker and his friends. The next Persona-shaped offering, following the series’ 25th anniversary, is not Persona 6 but another P5 spinoff: Persona 5 Tactica. How about a Destinyland park builder next? A Café Leblanc management game, maybe? Nothing seems impossible at this point. Persona 5 Tactica is a turn-based strategy game with a completely new story featuring the Phantom Thieves. Perhaps a strategy game isn’t as left-field a choice for the series as it may initially seem – Japan has seen a minor resurgence in…

Blasting forward with a tap of , our mech hurtles forward between skyscrapers. Squeezing the triggers, we annihilate a drone with a burst of laser fire, before two snipers take aim at us from their nearby highway perches. We bank left to avoid the shots, deploy a stack of missiles to eradicate one foe then, energy nearly depleted, turn off our engines. Letting the momentum carry us toward the final target, we lurch the rest of the way with one final touch of p slicing clean through a hefty shield and armour plating. Armored Core VI is all about these moments - the buzz of slick mech action (which is more than its choppily performing PS3 predecessors can boast) urging you to return once you’re done with the story for…

You’re an Immortal, a member of an elite Magni task force trying to turn the tide of the Everwar. Hailing from Lucium, the only kingdom still resisting the invading Rasharnian armies of Sandrakk, you need to do whatever it takes to stop this evil force from taking control of the Leylines – magic channels that connect Aveum to the Shrouded Realm. Confused? Well get used to it, because dialogue throughout this magical FPS feels ripped straight from the first page of a mediocre self-published fantasy novel. It’s an endless stream of confusing proper nouns, punctuated by utterly embarrassing attempts at humour. The limp one-liners that spew from unapologetically bland protagonist Jak (no, not that one) are awkward at best and make him come across as a veritable charisma black hole.…

Out of a huge pile of Overcooked-alikes, the first Moving Out was the best, thanks to a fantastic core gimmick: moving house with friends, dealing with increasingly trickier buildings and hazards while slapstick comedy ensued. Rather than just delivering more of the same, Moving Out 2 adds loads of new twists, but ends up losing its way in a sea of new gimmicks. After a few early missions in Packmore that feel of a piece with the first game, your crew of up to four players accidentally open a portal to three parallel dimensions. To seal them shut, you must free the gnomes trapped within them. You can loosely work your way through the fantasy land of Middlefolklore, the sweet-toothalicious Snackmore, and the futuristic Pactropolis City in any order, with…

We’ve grown used to Teyvat’s map expanding with each major update, so we feel some initial disappointment at the size of Fontaine, made up of islands with a huge lake at its centre. As we discover areas in the water’s depths, there’s more to Fontaine than meets the eye. That’s forgiven, however, once we discover that in the nation where everyone worships the Hydro Archon we can swim under water. It feels like a gamechanger after several years of getting about by gliding and climbing. It’s deeper, not wider. It’s a joy exploring Fontaine under water, the sensation of swimming conveyed better than in many other open world games, not least because you don’t have to worry about running out of stamina and drowning. (Instead there’s a new blue stamina…

01 Valkyr? I barely know ’yr! Depending on when you last played, you probably won’t have a clue what some of the more important new mechanics are. Completing story missions to catch up is the best thing, along with completing weekly Nightwave activities to understand how the game’s combat works now. As for everything else, pick one thing you’re interested in, such as feeding the Helminth, and focus on that. In addition to teaching you about that mechanic, it’ll end up teaching you about other connected features. 02 The open-world trap Some of Warframe’s most exciting additions are its open-world areas, but although you can access them right away, you shouldn’t. Pretty much every open-world area is for higher-level players with a good grasp of the combat;…

“It’s true Lovecraftian eldritch; it’s very different.” The New War proved that Digital Extremes doesn’t like to move Warframe forward with a bang, it likes to move it forward with an earthquake. That update brought a solo quest lasting at least half a dozen hours, playable cameos from enemy units, and a mass of new co-op content besides. So, what next for the game? Let us tell you. We have seen the future, and it is called Whispers In The Walls. Whispers is the latest cinematic quest (though unlike The New War, players will be able to dip in and out before the story’s end). It will bring players closer to understanding just who (or what?) the mysterious Man In The Wall is, in part by providing a completely new…

Getting you closer to PlayStation’s most exciting stories, people, and culture Alan Wake 2 was a Gamescom show stealer with a new slice of gameplay. We’re watching the (perhaps overdone) glitz and glamour of Opening Night Live, the show that kicks off Gamescom with announcements and updates. But rather than watching from an awkward corner off to the side of the room, this year we’ve crowded around another journalist’s tablet, discussing the show in real time while enjoying the excellent food and drink of Cologne, Germany. (Yes, plenty of currywurst has been eaten.) Gamescom has always had a different energy to LA’s E3 (the future of which remains uncertain). ONL itself featured some announcements of interest, but Gamescom has never been built around one presentation. Loaded with booths across business…

PlayStation Portal (formerly Project Q) has been revealed, and the big question remains: can it offer anything new? Priced at £199.99, it’s essentially an eight-inch 1080p LCD screen capable of 60fps, wedged between two halves of a DualSense. It sports a 3.5mm audio jack, but can also connect wirelessly to accessories via PlayStation Link (not to be confused with discontinued phone app PlayLink), supported by the Pulse Elite (a fancier version of PS5’s launch headset) and Pulse Explorer wireless earbuds. With this kind of remote streaming, you need a good connection to avoid headaches with input latency. Despite PlayStation itself leaning further into supporting cloud streaming, and devices built around that cropping up left, right, and centre, PS Portal is not that. Requiring a Wi-Fi connection, it connects to…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 30 NOV / PUB PLAION / DEV CYGAMES, ARC SYSTEM WORKS / PLAYERS 1-2, AND LOBBY MINIGAMES This is so much more than a rematch. Once again adapting the popular mobile game Granblue Fantasy into a 2.5D fighter, Rising is billed as a sequel to Versus rather than an expanded rerelease. Beyond the introduction of crossplay, rollback netcode, and an extra layer of polish to an already fantastic-looking anime fighter, this distinction is being made for a few reasons. FACTRICK Game director Tetsuya Fukuhara explains what’s in a name: “We’re kind of rising or powering up the elements on all fronts, and so it really plays a large role when it comes to gameplay, [with] the features of the game moving into the next generation…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA Q4 2023 / PUB EVENT HORIZON / DEV EVENT HORIZON / PLAYERS 1-2 Which kind of RPG combat do you prefer? Real-time or turn-based? Why not have both? Mixing together those styles is Dark Envoy’s main draw, giving you additional flexibility as you navigate its unforgiving science-fantasy world with sibling heroes and relic hunters Malakai and Kaela. That said, it may find having its battle and fighting it a tricky balancing act. Featuring both types of combat doesn’t mean there are two types of battle going on. In practice you effectively choose when to take control of a turn. The action slows by default when you have an encounter, and you can pause it completely if you choose, but then have to manually unpause once you’ve…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 29 SEP / PUB NETEASE GAMES / DEV THUNDERFIRE, NAKED RAIN / PLAYERS MULTI Since Genshin Impact’s massive success, everyone wants a piece of the anime open world live service pie. Project Mugen’s big twist is a compelling one: it’s set in an urban sprawl and you’re empowered to bounce around town like Spider-Man (in fact, some of the animations and moves are very similar to Insomniac’s take on the webhead). Vehicles, however, also feature, allowing your team of four colourful heroes to use their powerful abilities to fight Chaos wherever it arises.…

This tough-as-a-leathery-religious-tome metroidvania returns to ask the question: is Christianity kind of messed up? The answer seems to be yes, and you, The Penitent One, awaken in a world once again fighting The Miracle. The world ahead promises faith-twisting monstrosities, no objective right or wrong, and lots of combat. Some of these things hit, but others lack conviction. The best parts of Blasphemous 2 tend to be the ones you’re not actively engaging in. Take the giant lady who upgrades your health and healing abilities. She’s a little terrifying, but she gets her skin stripped from her body by tiny cherubic beings that you rescue as you go through your journey. We don’t know why that’s the case, and we can’t imagine we ever will. In another part of the…

You’re probably wondering, hope against hope, “Is it like the Tony Hawk games but in VR?”, and the answer is… pretty much, actually, yeah. The environments and the boundaries of what’s physically possible are more akin to something like Skate or Skater XL, but the overall experience leans towards an arcade feel that demands you have just one more go. Then another. Then another, then – oh, is that really the time…? We should point out that although the store listing indicates this can be played sitting down, that’s not really practical – and the game requires you to stand up for calibration each time you load it anyway. It says something that this is one of our biggest complaints, though. There are tutorials, which we strongly recommend taking the…

The unnamed hero who rises to greatness is an RPG staple, and Atlas Fallen’s protagonist is no exception. We learn very little about them after we’ve customised them – only in the world of Atlas, being unnamed isn’t just an RPG staple, it’s a marker of social class. The Unnamed are slaves, doomed to work for the more fortunate. Much of Atlas Fallen’s worldbuilding and story could do with a little more explanation, but it feels like the game is eager to get you to the combat straight away, which is fair enough as that’s the meat on its hulking monster bones. So don’t expect to play this monster masher for its story – what’s there is serviceable, and it’ll get you moving forward, but it’s quickly forgettable. After your…

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. Jack and Jess are workers on a Mars base. They get a distress call from the nearby Fort Solis, so Jack pops over to investigate while Jess keeps him company over his earpiece. You’d probably get a similar setup if you asked an AI to write a generic science-fiction horror plot for you, but it’s nicely performed and executed well enough to intrigue. Jess has a charming way of needling Jack. At one point she performs the Friday The 13th theme down his headset, which is A+ jerkwad behaviour. The first act, where you walk around the base, trading quips and trying to figure out what happened, does a great job of layering on the where-the-Hell-is-everyone atmosphere. Then everything starts to go…

When we say ‘if you liked Firewall Zero Hour you’ll almost certainly like Ultra’, that’s not quite as positive a statement as it might seem. In some ways, this is Zero Hour. Most of the maps are the same with minor changes, the main mode is the same, and heck, even the menu music has been lifted from the 2018 original. In case you missed the first game, this is primarily a 4v4 tactical shooter in which two teams take turns at attacking or defending a laptop (there’s also a four-player PvE mode that’s basically the same). There are no respawns, but there are cameras and explosives, so care and attention is demanded at all times. It’s much more Rainbow Six Siege than Call Of Duty. Most weapons and equipment…

Ridge Racer will always be inseparable from PlayStation, having been a star of the original console’s launch lineup. But it’s the fourth entry in the series that really stands out as being the high point in the series. From the moment cover girl Reiko Nagase sits in her room in the opening cinematic, it’s clear you’re in for something special. The game launched in Japan towards the end of 1998 and took a few more months to come out over here. But it did so at a turning point for PlayStation. New ‘performance analysis’ software had been developed to allow coders to see how much of PS1’s hardware was being used at any time, allowing a previously impossible level of optimisation – and the difference was marked. As Sega’s Saturn…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / RELEASED 2022 / PUB DOTEMU DEV TRIBUTE GAMES / GET IT NOW PLAYSTATION STORE, £19.99 (BASE GAME) While we all love the way four turtles and a rat were forever changed by the Ooze, becoming martial artists and projectors of justice, there’s something to be said for the constants – the things in life that don’t change. Whether you were grabbing a couple of pads in the ’90s to beat your way through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time, or wrangling a pair of DualSenses to play the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, much remains the same. The important stuff does, anyway. “Shredder’s Revenge was always imagined as a spiritual successor to the great TMNT beat-’em-ups, so researching these was a natural starting…

FORMAT PS4, PS3 / PUB SQUARE ENIX / DEV CRYSTAL DYNAMICS, EIDOS-MONTRÉAL, NIXXES SOFTWARE / RELEASED 2013 Until the 2013 reboot, we knew Lara Croft as an epitome of the ‘strong woman’: she looked fantastic; she would train guns on tigers with no hesitation; and she could evade even the most cunning trap with a few flips from a standing position. But she was wish fulfilment. She was an avatar, not a person, and real people don’t start out that way. Real people go to hell and back. Developer Crystal Dynamics wanted players to see that in order to become the Lara Croft, Lara first had to face a lot of hardships. No quippy Nathan Drake here, Lara would stumble, fall and bleed, often with only herself for company. The…