Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2024 i PLAY

Plenty of premises in the adult animated anthology Love, Death & Robots have had a videogame-y air: time loops; mech fights; special ops that go wildly off the rails – and that’s just season one. Bearing that in mind, the creator’s next project comes as no surprise. Secret Level is a series of 15 shorts each inspired by a different videogame series. Slated for an Amazon Prime Video premiere on 10 December, the series’ creators hope to add another dimension to some of your favourites. We’ve already seen Warhammer 40,000 Space Marines getting covered in bioluminescent goo, had a glimpse of the God Of War himself, and spotted at least one Armored Core pilot who’s a dead ringer for Keanu Reeves (though full cast details have yet to be confirmed).…

You can’t have a medieval RPG without a trebuchet, which Kingdom Come: Deliverance II brings up in its opening minutes, in the midst of a castle siege. It’s a thrilling way to show how Warhorse’s cinematic chops have developed over the past decade, all while committing to its vision of delivering a ‘historically authentic’ depiction of 15th-century Bohemia. Mind you, just because there’s a focus on realism – as in no dragons or magic – you’ll still have to suspend your disbelief at times, such as when your protagonist Henry miraculously survives what should have been a fatal fall and merely loses a few levels of progression. History bods would probably also have rolled their eyes at his journey of social mobility in the first game, where he went from…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA TBC / PUB THQ NORDIC / DEV TARSIER STUDIOS / PLAYERS 1-2 You know the saying, ‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ though what is all too often forgotten is the bookend, ‘Satisfaction brought it back.’ From the original developer of Little Nightmares (the third game is currently in development at cinematic horror expert Supermassive Games) comes this fresh horror. “HALFWAY BETWEEN INSIDE AND PET SEMATARY.” Much like in Little Nightmares II, you follow two masked protagonists – this time a brother and sister – through an all-new, skin-prickling tale of terror. The siblings carefully pick their way through a once familiar, now gut-churning landscape in search of their imperilled friends. It’s playable in both local and online co-op, players sharing the camera’s focus rather than seeking solace…

“YOUR JOB IS TO TAKE ON ANY AND ALL DELIVERIES ON BEHALF OF COMPANY WE DELIVER.” FORMAT PS5 / ETA TBC / PUB KONAMI DEV FAR OUT GAMES / PLAYERS 12 Sure, we all love to complain about delivery companies, but have you tried delivering things yourself? By the time the half-dead marlin flops out of your truck bed for the third time as you try to run it between factories (you’re passing it off as a rare white marlin to help a client win over the father of the love of his life), you’ll be regretting your words and deeds. Deliver At All Costs is part isometric driving challenge, part an excuse for the devs to come up with as many bizarre physics-based scenarios as possible. When we say…

FORMAT PS4 ETA OUT NOW PUB CAPCOM DEV CAPCOM PLAYERS 1 Who would’ve thought that five years after Phoenix Wright yelled “Objection!” on PlayStation for the first time, the entire series would be available to us? From the sound of it, not even Capcom thought this feat possible – following the release of the Phoenix Wright Trilogy and the Great Ace Attorney spinoffs, the company polled fans on whether it should release its remasters of the other main games in the series, now assembled in the Apollo Justice Trilogy. Perhaps it was this initial reluctance that made the announcement of Ace Attorney Investigations Collection (collecting both Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and Ace Attorney Investigations: Prosector’s Gambit) such a surprise, but sometimes if you ask, Capcom delivers. “In mid-2022, when…

Classic adventure games had half their screens taken up by verbs – use, pick up, talk to, and the like. When it was released for PC in ’93, Sam & Max: Hit The Road (which is still unavailable elsewhere) did away with that, LucasArts simplifying actions into contextual presses with colourful menus. All these years later The Devil’s Playhouse radically refreshes the dog and lagomorph duo… with more verbs! Far from being an overcomplicating blast from the past, though, TDP’s new verbs are smartly deployed. These are the type of actions you rarely get to play with in any game, let alone a puzzle-solver like this. They’re even tied to the narrative: Max awakens to psychic powers that come from another dimension. IDLE HANDS The trigger-happy rabbity thing’s brain primed,…

Perhaps you tend to avoid games with turn-based combat. If so, you should consider giving this one a go, and not only because you can recruit a robot named Dame Judy Wrench. Although let’s face it, that is a pretty good reason. While you need to play tactically here, the experience is designed to minimise confusion and maximise fun. If this has caught your attention but you missed the first game, don’t worry. Despite being set in a world of steam-powered robots, and referencing events and characters from the previous story, it’s a mostly self-contained tale using the familiar idea of living in the shadow of a famous, successful parent. There are also less familiar ideas such as robots somehow replacing their parts with bones, but it’ll all make sense.…

You’d be forgiven for assuming this is simply another basic rerelease of Id Software’s genre-defining demon-blasting FPS games. But it’s much more, and a must-buy. For starters, this remaster comes courtesy of Nightdive Studios, which is almost unparalleled when it comes to quality remasters. With a bevy of accessibility modes, optional motion control aiming, graphical toggles, and soundtracks to choose from, this pack feels premium. Not to mention the slick, rapid blasting is incredibly smooth. “The chance to play legendary mods Thatcher’s Techbase and MyHouse could come soon.” But this is also more than a simple duology, despite the name. As well as containing all episodes from the first two titles, it gives you Master Levels For Doom II, both Final Doom campaigns, No Rest For The Living, and Sigil.…

01 ALSO ON PS5 Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End Nathan Drake’s swan song remains Naughty Dog’s crowning achievement. Incredible action, massive levels, cheeky banter, and an all-important grappling hook combine with new characters and a ‘too old for this *blorp!*’ story that really works. Packing gorgeous detail, it’s only improved by its PS5 Legacy Of Thieves update that boosts the framerate, adds haptics, and comes bundled with The Lost Legacy. 02 Red Dead Redemption 2 There are a lot of open-world games, but none that make you feel like you’re a part of a world in quite the same way as Arthur Morgan’s wild west adventure. Tremendously physical, an epic story, and some of the most satisfying headshots you’ll ever find. 03 ALSO ON PS5 Grand Theft Auto V Laughing in the face…

Along with most of the world, we haven’t seen the new Borderlands movie. So we’ve got no idea if the 10%-on-Rotten-Tomatoes-scoring blockbuster (score correct at time of writing) is any good. But we can tell you that the game it’s based on is a fun, colourful co-op FPS that’s a fine example of a loot shooter done right. “Was going to skip it but my friends talked me into it,” says reader Carey Paypompee “and I’m glad they did because I’ve had a blast with the series so far.” A series that includes two sequels, a prequel (excuse us, pre-sequel) and two seasons of a narrative game. One great! The other… never mind! “Wonderful game!” says Alex Helme, of OG Borderlands. “Loved the style of it and have probably played…

Given that subtitle, you might be worried about a slew of poorly-aged jokes about the size of Ratchet’s wrench, but fortunately, it isn’t that sort of game. Unfortunately, if you’re interested in playing this because you liked Rift Apart, you’re in for a shock. This is the PSP version rather than the PS2 version (as usual), but the L/R camera controls have been mapped to the right stick.1 There are still awkward PSP legacy issues, such as impractical strafing and that weird ‘press a button to enter first person while standing still’ thing, but you can get through the whole game by ignoring the first and using the second only when absolutely necessary. On paper, this should have aged wonderfully. James Arnold Taylor and David Kaye put in great performances,…

“Gamescom has never been E3, but it does a pretty good job of matching the excitement.” As we descended onto the Koelnmesse exhibition centre for yet another year of Gamescom, there was a sense of excitement in the air. This year, the event brought out heavy hitters like Capcom, Sega, Ubisoft, and that newly established PlayStation developer, Xbox. Gamescom might not be the mega-event that E3 was, but it does a great job of bringing mid-year excitement and of hawking litres of sparkling water. Before the show floor opened on Wednesday, we were treated to another round of Geoff Keighley’s Opening Night Live, which gave us a glimpse of some of the best and brightest games coming to PS5 over the next few years. The show kicked off with a teaser for…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA 2025 / PUB CAPCOM DEV CAPCOM / PLAYERS 1-4 “THE COMBAT IN MONSTER HUNTER WILDS STILL FEELS FRESH.” From the moment Capcom confirmed that Monster Hunter Wilds would be playable at Gamescom 2024, it was almost inevitable that it would be our favourite game of the show. If the time we spent with it is anything to go by, the long-awaited followup to Monster Hunter World is shaping up to be the series’ new apex predator. While the series has been around for years, it was 2018’s Monster Hunter World that propelled it from being for us sickos willing to hold a PSP in the wrist-destroying claw grip to a series for everyone – World was the most successful game Capcom had ever made. Since then…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA 20 SEP / PUB SUPERMASSIVE GAMES DEV SUPERMASSIVE GAMES / PLAYERS 1-5 “THE SHIP IS HUMANITY’S LAST CHANCE TO SURVIVE AMONG THE STARS.” The next game in the Dark Pictures Anthology (though that branding has been minimised here), Directive 8020, feels like what Supermassive Games has been building towards for the last half a decade. With a more open design and new control system, this feels less like QTE cinema and more akin to survival horror such as Dead Space and The Callisto Protocol. “We planned through the course of the Season One games [that there would be] little steps towards this [but] this is a big leap forward,” acknowledges creative director Will Boyle as he introduces us to the game. While previous Dark Pictures games…

FORMAT PS5, / ETA 2025 PUB PANIC / DEV OKOMOTIVE / PLAYERS 1 Okomotive is a Swiss developer whose games are all about the journey. Rather than nudging vehicles along as in its earlier series, Far, the studio’s next project sees you shepherding a livelier crowd. Horned, furry, and presumably quadrupedal – it’s a little hard to tell exactly what’s going on under those impressive coats – a herd of Calicorns pulls you forward through this pastoral adventure. You play as a young Calicorn herder, racing alongside this mysterious bunch of bovines on little legs that can scarcely keep up. Bringing up the rear of the pack, you’ll venture with them towards a looming mountain range, touring fields capped in a light dusting of snow, misty forests, and more all…

FORMAT PS5 ETA 15 NOV PUB UBISOFT DEV UBISOFT QUEBEC PLAYERS 1 Almost 17 years have passed since the first Assassin’s Creed game launched, and since the millisecond it hit the shelves in 2007, it feels like everyone has been asking, ‘But when are they going to do one set in feudal Japan?’ In fact, players have asked it so often that one of the first results for ‘feudal Japan’ on Google is an Assassin’s Creed Reddit post. It’s easy to understand why: swap the assassin’s robes for a shinobi’s shozoku and you’ve got a ninja game on your hands, plus the architecture of ancient Japan could make for some interesting level design. And yet, despite 12 sequels, a film, and several spinoffs, Assassin’s Creed has never taken place in…

Few worlds are as enticing to play in as Star Wars’ Galaxy Far, Far Away. Yet, while there are plenty of appealing environments and creature designs in Massive’s open world stab at the space, it falls down when it comes to figuring out what exactly it’s asking you to do within it. You play as amateur thief Kay Vess, accompanied by a little critter companion called Nix. Almost taking a page from fellow Ubisoft open world crimer Watch Dogs, Nix can interact with parts of the world on your behalf – stealing trinkets from marks, activating switches from a distance, and even attacking guards. It’s just like Aiden Pierce’s phone… if you had to wait a painfully long time for it to activate. Nix moves through the world in a…

Playing as an unexplained omnipresent detective spirit, it’s your job to unravel not only the mysteries of the titular golden idol, but the murder and mayhem that follows in its wake as conniving colonists, feuding family members, and conspiring cultists all vie to get their mitts on the strange artefact. Each case has you viewing a frozen snippet of time, often immediately after a confounding murder has occurred, usually across a few screens. By clicking around you’re able to peek within the scene, including digging through characters’ inventories and hearing what they’re saying at that moment. You can collect keywords and assemble them across solution boards. Most boards are optional, such as ones that ask you to correctly name each person in the scene, but completing them will give you…

Every great platformer needs a unique hook, and in Pepper’s case her grinder isn’t just a grapple, but also a mechanical key, weapon, and – primarily – a massive drill for tearing through the soil. Pressing R2 plunges her into soft patches of ground and propels her elegantly through it, enabling her to crest and jump out like a land-based dolphin (though it does spin you beneath the waves as well, albeit at a slower clip). Pepper is also propelled by a desire to reclaim what’s hers, orc-like Narlings having absconded with her treasure after she was shipwrecked on a mysterious island. In classic platformer fashion, the game’s split into worlds, each with a handful of fast-paced levels to blast through (and a bonus, secret level in each). DRILL SPEED…

Let’s make one thing clear right away: this is a thoroughly good time. It’s fast and fun, with superb variety to its characters, weapons, and abilities. It’s also a game with an identity crisis. There seems to be the detritus of an abandoned campaign mode at an advanced stage of development, unceremoniously killed in favour of live service, scattered around the game. Note the high-production-value, albeit intensely uninspiring, cutscenes. The huge amount of unlockable text that nobody will read in the ‘Galaxy Guide’. The way characters are introduced and referenced as though you already know who they are. Maybe it’s not a lost campaign; perhaps it’s just poor storytelling, as seen in the early years of Destiny. But either way it’s a bit weird. “You’re encouraged to swap characters; something…

01 Umurangi Generation VR They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, this modern classic sees that aphorism and raises it with righteous, rebellious rage. Ostensibly an immersive photography game, you have a range of lenses, camera settings, and filters to play with but there’s a far bigger picture to be seen. Not only a master class in environmental storytelling, this is also testament to art as a powerful act of resistance. 02 Synapse This roguelite shooter offers satisfying, stylish action in a monochrome world punctuated by colourful violence. It puts power in the palm of your hand – and your eyes. Going one step beyond point and shoot, PSVR2’s eye-tracking tech allows you to glance and grab. 03 Horizon: Call Of The Mountain Manages to make level after level of…

FIFA and EA FC Ultimate Team revolve around football player cards. Cards feature in many roguelikes, like Monster Train and Slay The Spire. Red Dead Redemption’s card games kept players busy for hours. There have even been Top Trumps videogames. KING OF GAMES Yu-Gi-Oh! draws close Loads of real TCGs have been adapted, many recent ones trying to ride live service hype for big money. Our favourites are earlier experiments that put new twists on rules and balanced narratives. PS1’s Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories (2002) is tough but memorable, and PS2’s Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists Of The Roses (2003) is (very loosely) based on the actual Wars Of The Roses. OLDER YU-GI-OH! GAMES OFTEN CAME WITH LIMITED-EDITION CARDS, MAKING THEM VALUABLE TO COLLECTORS. ■ Metal Gear Acid takes Solid Snake on the…

With Falloutmania strong after the success of a certain streaming show, the latest major update for 76 needs the strength of a super-mutant to carry expectations. Designed to reward existing players while smoothing the road in for new ones, all powered by six previous years of serving the community, it just might pull it off. One addition is caravanning, making use of the recently added Skyline Valley area. “We wanted to keep the action going in that region by taking advantage of Skyline Drive, which kind of circumnavigates the whole new area,” explains creative director Jonathan Rush. “Caravanning is something that’s really a staple of Fallout, all the way back to Fallout 1. Fast forward to Fallout 76, and we have our own caravanning faction, the Blue Ridge Caravan. An…

With 25 years of experience in the industry, Near Light co-founders Paul Mottram and Ben Hebb had always agreed they would only make non-violent games, even at their previous studio, Wide Games, when they made the stealth-based World War II: Prisoner Of War on PS2. So it might come as a surprise that the studio’s first game since being acquired by NDreams is Frenzies, a multiplayer VR shooter. However, one look at the announcement trailer tells you it’s a stark contrast from a typical military-themed FPS or even NDreams’ own VR shooters. With bright colours and avatars running around in onesies, its vibe is more similar to Fall Guys’. “We try to make sure it’s over-the-top, a bit like when shooting fruit,” says Mottram, in reference to the studio’s PSVR…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA 29 OCT / PUB SQUARE ENIX DEV DECK NINE / PLAYERS 1 “MAX WANTS TO GO BACK IN TIME, ONLY TO FIND HER POWERS HAVE CHANGED.” The Life Is Strange universe has grown large enough that you could play quite a few games without any relating directly to the first Life Is Strange. The games are now established as more of a concept than a firmly interconnected series, so it came as a surprise to hear developer Deck Nine had decided to work on a direct sequel to the original. Double Exposure will at no point assume you achieved a particular ending in the first game. Instead Max’s dialogue options will allude to either one or the other. While this idea of honouring both endings might…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA TBC / PUB WHITE OWLS / DEV WHITE OWLS / PLAYERS 1 The collaboration of Swery65, known for his horror work like Deadly Premonition, with the wild mind behind No More Heroes and Killer7, Suda51, feels like one made in heaven – where they walk, cult classics follow. While they’re long-time friends, Hotel Barcelona marks the first time the pair have created something together. So, exactly what sort of game do you get when you bring these two together in the same room? Well, you get not just one room, but a whole hotel, and a potentially endless one at that. At a strange hotel on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, serial killers have gathered. And you’re one of them – even though you’re a policewoman, you…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 10 OCT / PUB SEGA, ATLUS / DEV STUDIO ZERO, ATLUS / PLAYERS 1 An idea so good someone should really have had it before – Metaphor: ReFantazio really feels like someone took the Persona games and transplanted them into a fantasy world. That’s no huge surprise, given that developer Studio Zero is helmed by Persona director Katsura Hashino and features other familiar faces such as character designer Shigenori Soejima and composer Shoji Meguro. You play as a travelling boy who belongs to an oppressed race, and who isn’t a silent protagonist this time around – although he uses his words sparingly. Unlike most people, he has neither horns nor elf ears, which marks him out as the member of a lower class. When the…

Over the last 20 years, it’s fair to say the Mana series has been struggling somewhat. The third mainline entry, Trials Of Mana, initially didn’t make it to the West (we eventually got it nearly a quarter of a century after its Japanese debut); Dawn Of Mana for PlayStation 2 is best forgotten. But happily, we can say it now: Visions Of Mana, the all-new mainline series entry, finally gets the series back on track. You’ve probably heard this story before: in the world of Visions Of Mana, young people chosen by the elemental gods become so-called alms, tasked with travelling to the Mana Tree, where they have sacrifice their souls in order to ensure the continued flow of mana to the land. Hinna is chosen as the alm of…

So, a soulslike based on the classic Chinese novel Journey To The West? Whatever next? A soulslike based on Pinocchi…oh. Honestly, there are worse influences for an action-RPG than an epic tale of a monkey exploring beautiful lands and hitting everyone they meet with a big stick (we haven’t read the book, so we’re assuming this game is a 100% faithful adaptation). Of course, we all know the real text that developer Game Science is drawing inspiration from is Dark Souls. Punishing combat, gargantuan boss battles, no map screen, enemies hidden tiresomely around corners… all present and correct and increasingly clichéd. Fortunately, Game Science has enough ideas for Wukong to just about stand out within gaming’s most oversaturated genre. MONKEY MAGIC We shudder when we start the game, thinking we’ve…

Rebecca’s turning her life around after a tragic past, but her new job at a mortuary becomes more demanding when the task of putting the dead to rest escalates to banishing demons – the place is haunted. A whole host of randomised haunting events brings tension to each shift as you wait to learn what terror awaits her that night. Horror games with a simulation angle have seen something of a boom in recent years, and The Mortuary Assistant is a shining example of how well the genres blend together. As ghosts sneak around in your peripheral vision and you do your best to resist impending demonic possession, there’s a certain amount of pressure to fulfilling the otherwise mundane routine of Rebecca’s day job duties. Hauntings or no, things still…

Valorant A great hero shooter with some villainous pricing We’ll say it straight away: this is one of the best PvP experiences available on PS5 right now. A 5v5 attack and defence bomb-planting setup, with no respawning, is built upon with carefully designed maps and a great range of character abilities. Both best and worst of all, Valorant is free to play. Before we get onto the monetisation, it’s important to stress that this really is so much darn fun to play. The lack of respawns is just one reason why you’ll find yourself carefully sneaking around corners and keeping your back to walls. Some ‘Agent’ abilities (which, like weapons, you have to purchase with limited funds between rounds) can reveal your position, temporarily blind you or limit your vision,…

The Sony executives must have been cheering, high-fiving, and celebrating by going out for frosted-tipped haircuts when they found out their new handheld PSP console would be launching with a Metal Gear game. But their frosted tips must have melted in horror when they discovered Metal Gear Acid has as much in common with a normal Metal Gear game as British rivers do with water that’s safe to swim in. It’s a top-down 3D stealth game that looks like the real thing until you try playing it. Whereupon you discover it’s turn-based (!) and played with… cards? At first it feels stiff and awkward, a needlessly slowed-down version of a stealth great. You start with a hand of six cards. Each card has a unique power or can be used…

Licensed’ doesn’t always go hand-in-hand with ‘quality’. After all, if the licence is good enough, it’ll sell itself – so why bother investing properly in a game’s development? That’s not the case for the games featured here, though, whose developers leveraged their licences to deliver creative and ambitious game adaptations. We’re focussing here on movie tie-in games designed to complement the releases they were attached to, allowing players to extend their time in the worlds depicted on screen by playing at home, which means we’re eschewing great broader licences like Alien: Isolation, and legacy tie-ins like The Thing. Peter Jackson’s King Kong FORMAT PS2 / PUB UBISOFT DEV UBISOFT / RELEASED 2005 01 This isn’t just a solid adaptation of the sort-of-okay ’00s remake of King Kong, this is an…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / PUB DROOL / DEV DROOL / RELEASED 2016 You’re moving so fast that the background whizzes past in an abstract smear of light and colours. Up ahead, something weird and angular and threatening looms. It twists and writhes in time to the beat, while you slide down the rail towards it at a furious pace. Suddenly, a countdown: 3, 2, 1, ⊗. You hit the button just in time and fire a pulse of light so intense that it bends reality around it. The bolt fizzes down the rail and strikes the squirming titan, which seems to chitter in pain – a harsh, industrial rasp added to the pounding track that scores this moment. The question that Thumper’s developers seem to pose here is: just how…