Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2024 i PLAY

After months of rumours, speculation, and Sony itself leaking an image of the design in the celebration artwork for the 30th anniversary of PlayStation (whoops), PlayStation 5 Pro has officially been announced. Great news for pro gamers, less good news for your wallet. But before we whine about that, let’s talk about the more fun numbers. The console’s GPU will have 67% more Compute Units and 28% faster memory. What that gibberish technobabble means is that you’ll get 45% faster rendering for your games. But you’re not reading the final issue of Meaningless Numbers Magazine. You want to know what all these impressive-sounding double-digits will mean for your games. Luckily, PS5 Pro is launching with a series of titles that will take advantage of its power. These ‘enhanced with PS5…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA 18 FEB / PUB DON’T NOD DEV DON’T NOD / PLAYERS 1 “IN 1995, SWANN WILL FIND HER CROWD, A GIRL GANG OF WHAT SEEM TO BE LIFE-LONG BESTIES.” Stepping into teenager Swann Holloway’s bedroom feels like heading home. Beyond the mismatched bedding and the cat, there’s no mistaking which decade we’ve stepped into. VHS cases scattered around, shelves stacked with supernatural horror books, and what looks a bit like a shrine to Dana Scully: it’s a summoning circle for the teen years we forgot. Swann will be leaving this all behind sooner than she likes, as her family is set to move away from her hometown of Velvet Cove at the end of the summer. We hear her mother calling from downstairs, but Swann would…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA MAR 2025 / PUB REBELLION DEVELOPMENTS / DEV REBELLION DEVELOPMENTS / PLAYERS 1 Like many of us caught in the hype of the Fallout TV series, the surprise announcement of Rebellion’s Atomfall – which looks like Fallout set in the UK – was a highlight of Summer Game Fest 2024. After going hands-on with it, we can say Atomfall is more of its own thing than a mere clone, which is certainly no bad thing. “RUFFIANS BASH OUR HEADS IN WITH CRICKET BATS.” Set five years after the real-life 1957 Windscale nuclear disaster in Cumbria and taking place in an alternate reality when part of Britain is a wasteland (no, not modern-day England, although we’d forgive you for thinking that), Atomfall is a survival game…

FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 8 NOV / PUB BOKEH GAME STUDIO / DEV BOKEH GAME STUDIO / PLAYERS 1 They don’t make them like this any more. That is our prevailing impression after playing through the opening minutes of Slitterhead in our hands-on demo. Slitterhead is a messy, clunky beast of a game, while also dripping with style and hosting a banging soundtrack. What else can you expect from the minds behind Silent Hill? In an era when every triple-A title is polished to production-line perfection, it’s refreshing to play a game with an edge, even if that does mean dealing with some jank. “PLAYING SLITTERHEAD TAKES US BACK TO THE PS3 ERA.” SILENT CHILLS Playing Slitterhead feels like being transported back to the PS3 era, when interesting, experimental…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA TBC / PUB SEGA / DEV TWO POINT STUDIOS / PLAYERS 1 There’s a subsection of games that felt specifically iconic to Brits growing up, ones we all played, such as Hogs Of War and FIFA 98 (we’re claiming Crash Bandicoot too, sorry). Another was Theme Hospital for PC, which was loaded with silly British humour. While the comedy manager genre was in decline for a while, Two Point Hospital arrived in 2018 to defib it, spawning a whole series in the process. Two Point Campus took the silliness back to school, but didn’t quite reach Hospital’s heights. You might expect Two Point’s next release to be another easy followup – Two Point Park, say, or Two Point Zoo – but Two Point Museum is, fortunately,…

With PlayStation’s 30th anniversary rapidly approaching, now’s a good time to take stock of the seismic technological leaps forward each successive console generation has made. It could be easy to look back at the once-revolutionary 3D graphics on the original PlayStation and write them off as dated now that smooth 4K and ray-traced visuals are the norm. However, there are indie developers who have been embracing this early low-poly style in their games, which have begun surfacing into the mainstream consciousness – titles such as this year’s Crow Country, as well as Fear The Spotlight, coming later this month. That said, this affection for low-poly visuals is nothing new. It can be traced back to Back In 1995, which was released almost a decade ago (although not ported to PS4…

Joyous. There you go, that’s the review… Oh all right, since you insist! We’ll put our DualSenses down for a bit and elaborate – but after we file this review, we’re going straight back to Astro Bot. If you start the count from 2013’s PSVR title The Playroom, the little robot has been around for over a decade, though this full-priced release still feels like a glitzy debut, in no small part because a VR headset is not the price of entry for this particular lushly realised gaming event. Perhaps a better way of thinking about this platformer is as a final draft, and the culmination of all that came before. To begin with, it hasn’t been long since we last saw Astro; 2020’s pack-in game for PS5 is an…

Every game in the sprawling Shin Megami Tensei series has its charms, but essentially they’re all built around the same loop: level up, befriend demons (referred to as ‘persona’ in Persona, though designs are consistent with the rest of SMT), and fuse them into stronger forms, all while using them to clear enough mazy dungeons to make the presenters of Grand Designs sweat. It’s a great setup, especially as minor tweaks to the demons and fusion process can dramatically alter your journey. For instance, your stable of persona might have different base levels, or a different set of skills. Therefore, an SMT loop in microcosm (Episode Aigis lasting ‘only’ 20-25 hours as opposed to the 100 hours of the base game) is an interesting proposition. But without offering enough new,…

What exactly was Miles Edgeworth up to following the events of the first three Ace Attorney games? This final collection of rereleases will provide the answer. This time it’s Edgeworth who uses his (relatively) newfound sense of justice, logical thinking skills, and the usual Ace Attorney gadgetry to solve crimes entirely outside the confines of a courtroom in session. Following Ace Attorney tradition, the two games in this collection each comprise several cases that are eventually revealed to be connected. In them, Edgeworth learns about questionable judicial practices in the nation of Zheng Fa and a great conspiracy that needs unravelling at home. On his journey he is supported by friends old and new, but he also meets plenty of new opponents and, of course, a cast of kooky witnesses.…

01 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 of other…

Could this be the year of the big Bioware comeback? All eyes are on Dragon Age: The Veilguard to deliver the fantastic deep RPG this studio was once known for. It’s the long-awaited/rebooted/please-just-give-it-to-us-already fourth entry in a series that started with Dragon Age: Origins. “Fantastic game!” says reader Nicholas Thieme. “It’s been diminishing returns with each sequel since. The new one looks to continue that trend.” Oof! Slightly harsh words, but Nicholas is far from an outlier. “Love it,” agrees Andrew Kratochvil. “The other games are good but not like this one.” So what makes Dragon Age: Origins so special? Well, the excellent characters, over 80 hours of gameplay, plus the fact it was something of a spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate games. (Whatever happened to that series, eh?)…

Hotel Barcelona sounds like a dream indie collaboration: a 2D side-scrolling action title from the joint creative minds of Suda51 and Swery65. Although they’ve been friends for decades, the pair had never worked together prior to this, and a game about serial killers, parodying B-movie horror, is a match made in heaven for the pair. As you may guess from their respective catalogues of games, this is an eccentric duo, so it should come as no surprise that as we sit down with Swery65 to talk about the title’s development the origin story for the game is similarly unusual. Indeed, its entire existence can be traced to an off-the-cuff remark made during a No More Heroes talk show the pair attended in Tokyo in 2019. “Ever since we first met…

FORMAT TBC / ETA TBC / PUB SUKEBAN GAMES / DEV SUKEBAN GAMES / PLAYERS 1 Parasite Eve in a cyberpunk post-apocalyptic PS1-inspired RPG with a washed-up mercenary named Reila? Okay, we’re in. While the new game from the team behind Va-11 Hall-A is at least tonally reminiscent of that dystopian booze-em-’up about waifus, technology, and anti-capitalistic ideals (it was one of our favourites on PS Vita), make no mistake: this is a notable departure from that in other ways. “FIXED-ANGLE ENVIRONMENTS MAKE US SUSPECT THEY’RE HIDING SOMETHING.” The jump to 3D is a departure from the developer’s visual novels. The game utilises a real-time menu-driven battle system akin to that in the aforementioned Parasite Eve or Chrono Trigger. You can move while the action bar is loading to avoid…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA 2025 / PUB NACON / DEV SPIDERS / PLAYERS 1 The first Greedfall, released in 2019, was a smaller studio’s attempt to make a Dragon Age-style RPG epic, with a 17th-century setting, fewer of the familiar high fantasy elements, and, intriguingly, a story that cast you as a coloniser trying to mediate between different factions. This time around you play as a captured native, brought to a new island against their will. Set three years before the events of the first game, this change in protagonist and perspective removes a major point of contention. You’re a native of Teer Fradee, the first game’s setting, looking for a way off the island of Gacane, the all-new location where much of this one takes place. Once again, your…

Test Drive Unlimited games have always seemed a little too ambitious for the hardware they were running on, so surely super-powerful PS5 is finally going to realise the potential of this long-running, open-world racing series. Well… Now set in Hong Kong, there’s plenty of varied scenery to take in, but somehow it still feels miles behind everything else. What gives? Fundamentally and very importantly, the driving is good. Cars exhibit real inertia and there’s loads of satisfaction to be taken in pulling the handbrake to skid into a 90-degree corner, just clipping a telephone box to reduce it to a mess of boards and glass, then flooring the throttle and accelerating away. Add in pleasingly slippery rain effects as you dynamically shift to nighttime and then some off-roading events so…

Nostalgia can be comforting, but it is also anaesthetising; live in the past, and you never have to confront the future. James Sunderland returns to the resort town of Silent Hill, a ‘special place’ for him and his late wife Mary, after an impossible letter promises that she’s waiting there for him. That’s the premise of Konami’s 2001 survival horror classic on PS2, and now Bloober Team’s ground-up remake only on PS5. Silent Hill 2 has always been a story about longing to return to a time and place that no longer exists. Understandably, news of a remake was met with scepticism, to say nothing of Bloober’s own dubious track record of crafting horror that handles sensitive subject matter tactfully (we weren’t left in two minds about 2021’s The Medium…

With an insurmountable number of zombies on screen, and permitting you to use almost anything as a weapon, the original Dead Rising may have been arcadey but it was a technical showpiece, instantly becoming an iconic series for Capcom. Almost 20 years later (after the rather mediocre Dead Rising 4 resulted in the series being put in the meat locker), it’s back, but as a remake rather than a reboot. Because yes, despite the title sporting the word ‘remaster’, this feels more like a full-blown remake. While it has the original game’s plot and mechanics (given a fresh coat of RE Engine paint) at its core, the devil is in the detail for what is now the definitive way to play this classic title. MALL RATS Once again you pop…

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…

All three Timesplitters games are now available on PlayStation Store, but we’re going to talk about the second, which has been scientifically proven to be the best one. Not familiar with the series, which sees you adventuring in times from the 1850s to the 2400s, or haven’t yet played this particular entry? Ooh, you’re in for a splitting good time, we tell you. Whether you’ve played this yourself or not, you’ve doubtless heard others gush about it. It doesn’t happen often, but even when those people (us included) tear off the rose-tinted specs of nostalgia and look at it in the cold, hard light of 2024 there’s still a brilliant game to see. The 4:3 aspect ratio is an initial shock, but you’ll quickly forget all about it. You’ll be…

Time-hopping RPG Chrono Trigger has a swathe of conclusions.Time paradox? Many choices pay off in The Witcher 3’s lengthy ending sequence. Many visual novels, like Tsukihime, have bucketloads of oddly gory bad endings. WHAT TO DO? Many routes, many endings The narration-heavy The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe doesn’t only feature 42 endings, it offers just as many different routes through. You can play through most sequentially, as trying to break free of feeling on a set path is the whole point, as is being forced to repeat the game over and over again. Though, considering that, there’s not much repetition – it’s smartly done! THE ORIGINAL THE STANLEY PARABLE HAD 19 ENDINGS. THERE’S A LOT MORE TO ULTRA DELUXE THAN THE NAME! ■ Resident Evil’s original endings were based on…

While visiting a game studio recently I introduced myself as writing for a website. “Uh-huh” came the standard reply – then I mentioned I was once the editor of Official PlayStation Magazine, and there were smiles all around. Magazines mean something to everybody, not least game developers who grew up reading them, appearing in them, and desperately wanting to be on the cover… It means something. It’s a great shame then, that PLAY magazine is making its last issue. This is a magazine I launched when OPM was finally closed by Sony and myself and the team worked long into the Covid-lockdowned hours to rebrand and relaunch. It’s another notch on my CV but more importantly it’s one of the best magazine teams I worked with; Oscar, Jess, Mim, and…

1 CALL OF DUTY ZOMBIES We all remember finding our first hidden track in COD Zombies. There’s a real satisfaction in realising you’ve forgotten to put any music on and suddenly being invigorated by a surprise hit of apocalyptic female vocals and face-melting riffs. 2 DOOM From the original Doom’s 8-bit MIDI soundtrack to the fleshy riffs of Doom Eternal and beyond, the Doom series has wielded one of the most iconic metal OST’s to ever grace gaming. Ironically, none are from the ‘doom metal’ genre – each game touts a corpse-grinding flourish of instrumental speed metal. 3 METAL GEAR RISING: REVENGEANCE Electronic, melodic metal interspersed with dubstep-style segments and intense guitar solos, this game’s soundtrack is a fascinating fusion of genres. Written for the game, each song’s lyrics reveal…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA TBC / PUB NEKKI DEV NEKKI, BANZAI GAMES / PLAYERS 1 “NEKKI IS DEVELOPING A GAME THAT IS AN ODE TO MOVIES LIKE HARD BOILED.” Few movie fans remember science-fiction actioner Equilibrium – in part because it’s best watched intoxicated. Starring Christian Bale right before he donned Batman’s cowl, it’s ultimately not a good flick. It is, however, something of a cultural landmark, leaving behind the idea of an elite police force trained in ‘gunkata’, where handguns join swords in close-quarters combat. Gun-fu existed for decades before this mediocre Hollywood action movie, emerging in Hong Kong action films such as A Better Tomorrow. These ‘heroic bloodshed’ movies were pioneered by John Woo and his favourite leading man Chow Yun-fat. As gaming aficionados, we naturally think about…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA Q2 2025 / PUB PEARL ABYSS DEV PEARL ABYSS / PLAYERS 1 “KLIFF’S ABLE TO USE SPECTACULAR SPECIAL MOVES LIKE A THRUSTING STINGER.” Sometimes a game trailer has a peculiar ‘tech demo’ flavour that makes us suspect either a) the game it’s promoting might never be released or b) if by some miracle the game does hit the shelves, there’s no way it’ll manage to live up to the hype. Crimson Desert was announced in 2020, and what we’ve seen of it certainly impresses us, but also makes us wonder what it would feel like in the hands. After all, Crimson Desert is in many ways a departure for developer Pearl Abyss. The creator of Black Desert Online is certainly capable when it comes to combat,…

FORMAT PS5 / ETA 2025 PUB THE GAME BAKERS / DEV THE GAME BAKERS / PLAYERS 1 “YOU CAN ATTEMPT TO CLIMB ANY MOUNTAIN, ANCHORING YOURSELF TO ANYWHERE ON ITS SURFACE.” Game developers have certainly discovered climbing in recent years, their approaches varying from frustratingly realistic in Death Stranding to a more meditative style in last year’s Jusant. It’s fun to see all the different interpretations – interpretations that French studio The Game Bakers thinks it can still improve on. In Cairn, climbing is so strenuous you can almost feel it, but with that hard work comes immense satisfaction. We can only watch helplessly as protagonist Aava tumbles down the mountain face, landing in a heap of limbs made gangly by game physics. We were doing so well, right until…

FORMAT PS5ETA 2025 PUB KONAMI DEV KONAMI PLAYERS 1 The Cold War, the 1960s. An operative for the United States’ newly established FOX (Force Operation X) is sent behind enemy lines to extract a scientist whose experiments are tipping the balance of power, and with it the world towards nuclear armageddon. Naked Snake’s alone in Soviet territory on this mission – and he looks suspiciously like Solid Snake, who starred in the first Metal Gear Solid many years later. What do you mean, ‘Who’s Solid Snake?’ You have got to be kidding. But for series producer Noriaki Okamura, it’s a very real concern – and one that informs the developers’ approach to remaking Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. BOSS’ WILL “One of the things that really sparked us to do…

Although this is (as you’d expect) best appreciated if you’re a fan of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, don’t despair if the word ‘Ultramarine’ puts you in mind of nothing more than a really, really good shade of blue. You’re primarily tasked with killing things, and then killing even more things. We can all understand and appreciate that, right? That’s not to dismiss the world of the franchise, or the enormous amount of work that’s gone into representing it here. In terms of atmosphere and storytelling, Saber Interactive has pretty much nailed it. The Imperium Of Man is a brutal fusion of a religion, an army, and a government. It’s a rich vein to mine for satire and social commentary, but here, it just is. It’s simply the world you and…

When we first meet redheaded protagonist Sauge, she’s running through a glossy space station to catch a shuttle that will whisk her away to her home planet. It’s not exactly a celebratory homecoming, though. Her sister, Garance, has been reported missing, and on top of that, her return dredges up complicated feelings as she tries to reconnect with a place she once knew intimately. However, as she gets reacquainted with the rugged landscape and its community, Sauge soon realises this check-in has been long overdue. It’s a sweet sentiment that sits at the very heart of this cosy adventure. Caravan SandWitch feels like a comfort game that’s best played over a couple of evenings. It’s a lightweight jaunt through a futuristic desert world, complete with puzzles to solve, places to…

We’re sure our verdict comes as no surprise – this definitely doesn’t suck. The hordes have already come for a number of other platforms; perhaps you’ve glimpsed a colleague pouring company time into the web-based version of this, or had a pal turn up late with the excuse “I’ve just been super into this game recently…” Allow us to elucidate the source of this strange fixation – and maybe dispense with the flowery language. Taking inspiration from Castlevania, the game allows you to choose from a roster of monster hunters and take on waves of hungry horrors in a slow-paced shoot-’em-up centred on short roguelike runs. Each character boasts a unique automatic attack, leaving you to focus on picking a path that most efficiently scoops up experience gems while avoiding…

The Sims series features some of the best comedy writing in games. Sure, you’re mostly creating your sim and designing their life, but an integral part of the series’ identity and lasting appeal are its shrouded, omnipresent narrator and its background lore. In this Sims 2 spinoff, its rambunctious voice takes centre stage in a narrative-driven adventure that’ll have you creasing. Forget everything you think you know, as the classic Sims management fare is mostly ditched in favour of third-person mission-based action better suited to a handheld console. Scaling back on limitless creativity and introducing perks that practically negate having to attend to your sim’s Urgencies ensures you focus less on traditional activities and can therefore marvel at its bizarre tapestry. After creating a basic Sim you set off, unaware…

FORMAT PS2 / RELEASED 2003 / PUB THQ DEV KUJU ENTERTAINMENT / GET IT NOW £10, EBAY “[Games Workshop] made us feel part of the family, and certainly when we visited them, that’s how they treated us.” The 41st Millennium. War rages without end. Across a million worlds, the Imperium Of Man fights constantly to destroy the other races inhabiting the galaxy. Among them is the T’au, a young, technologically advanced race seeking to bring order to the universe through adherence to the Greater Good. Yet man and xenos are not alone. Behind the veil of reality lies the seething, psychic realm of the Warp. There dwell the demented powers of Chaos, whose daemonic legions seek ever to break through the barriers of time and space to twist all creation…

FORMAT PS4 / PUB BETHESDA SOFTWORKS / DEV ARKANE LYON / RELEASED 2016 They say you can tell a lot about a person’s character by poking around their home – if that’s true, the Clockwork Mansion makes one thing clear: Kirin Jindosh is an utter tool. The gleaming hardwood surfaces, the extravagant art, and the sensuous fabrics all pronounce his wealth, but that’s not enough for Jindosh. No, he needs you to understand that he’s ingenious. So, at the touch of any number of buttons, the Grand Inventor’s house transforms. Walls, floors, and ceilings all swing, slide, and pivot into fresh configurations as one room folds into the innards of the house and a new one appears seemingly out of nowhere. As if that architectural peacocking isn’t bad enough, Jindosh is…