Although Pacer has too many shortcomings, he is nonetheless a good futuristic racer despite being fast and smooth. I was wondering whether there will ever be another authentic WipEout until I downloaded the Omega Collection on my PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility. Though you can trace the series’ PSP outings here, and at times they certainly show, this loving compilation of Studio Liverpool’s final three entries in one of PlayStation’s most iconic series may be showing its age. Nevertheless, it remains as sublime to play now as it has ever been, especially in all the 4K/60fps glory of the Omega Collection. It’s about as good as racers from the future can get.
I apologize for beginning our review of one game with a discussion of another, but when it comes to Pacer—a futuristic anti-gravity racing that deliberately invokes memories of WipEout—there just isn’t any way to do it. Given that part of the original development team worked on WipEout 3 while the company was still known as Formula Fusion before to its 2019 renaming, it has every right to do so. By enlisting The Designers Republic and Warp Records—two labels as closely associated with the 1990s bleep scene as WipEout itself—Pacer capitalizes on the heyday of Sony’s series.
It’s true that Pacer feels comfortable, and that’s a good thing. From the beginning ranks of the F3000 class, you’re working your way up to the almost unmanageable elite class while racing ship to ship at speeds of over 1000 kph. There’s a subtle hint there, for those of you old enough to get nostalgic listening to Autechre, to the F1 feeder class that pounded the streets of Birmingham in the late eighties, and the SuperPrix circuit seems like it would fit right in with Pacer. Compared to previous, more immaculate entries, this is a scuzzier, darker vision of the future, more akin to WipEout 2048.
Take a stomach-churning journey on Hyderabad’s rollercoaster, which drops sharply from the bronzed sky into underground street marketplaces. It’s thrilling stuff, and the 14 available circuits serve up a nice blend of flow and friction. The track design is generally fantastic. Pacer excels at flow; 60 frames per second is the norm on all platforms, and the different boats flow effortlessly over the impossibly steep cambers and nauseating drops and climbs until you get used to them. This is a great example of a futuristic racer in the hand.
It’s not quite unmatched, however; WipEout Omega Collection’s handling offers more depth, while Redout can summon a stronger feeling of speed. Much of it may be attributed to the fact that Pacer’s anti-g racers are, sadly, more susceptible to gravity than their competitors; they are skilled at remaining on the course and successfully reducing the pitch control that lends WipEout its subtlety. Therefore, Pacer is never nearly as gratifying, even when its twists may be found elsewhere.
For example, its weapon system substitutes the randomized Mario Kart-style pick-ups with customizable loadouts, and the on-track pads are utilized to replenish your resources. Although it’s a clever concept, Pacer’s implementation falls a little short of expectations. The game’s front-end is clumsy and has a few minor bugs, which can make customization difficult. Additionally, the weapons aren’t very impressive when used in combat; weak explosions from limp cannons and missiles make the combat aspect of Pacer feel uninteresting.
That being said, the multiplicity of modes is everything but. There’s a career mode that offers plenty of options, but it can be complicated to follow the objectives due to its gaudy design. Other options include elimination events, straight races, speed laps, and Storm Mode, which takes a surprisingly effective approach to battle royale gameplay by having you race to stay in the center of a deadly tempest. Additionally, there’s Flowmentum, a variation on WipEout’s Zone mode that makes your ship go faster as you cross each gate. It’s where the heart of both WipEout and Pacer can be found, as well as where its speed and smoothness shine through. Pulsing beats and whipcrack 303 basslines help you slowly enter your own zone. If there’s one area where Pacer clearly outperforms WipEout, it’s in the soundtrack, which is deep, varied, and as customizable as the crafts themselves.
In fact, it’s where the genre’s heart lies, and Pacer more than meets that expectation. The fact that it stumbles over its words far too often, never really finds its own voice, and there are undoubtedly better futuristic racers out there are moderately annoying. Pacer is nevertheless a great example of the genre, despite its inability to surpass WipEout; at the very least, it honors its legacy.
Tetris has always been a game about what isn’t there, or rather, a game about what isn’t there yet. It is timeless, instantly captivating, and completely merciless. It’s a game about all the foolish things you do in the interim while waiting for the jigsaw parts to arrive. Tetris, the way I play it anyway, is a tale about being so wasted trying to fight off pre-party worries that you had to leave early after the party really began. On the way home, you slipped into an exposed manhole and shattered your ankle.
Put another way, Tetris is similar to Hokusai’s wave and the FedEx logo in that it serves as a kind of covert introduction to the power of negative space. In the thirty years that I have played the game, I have learned to recognize the shapes I need to build and that these shapes are actually just the opposite versions of the pieces that the inebriated Tetris lords who reside at the top of the eternal well are so desperately trying to give me.
Attest! Tetris Effect, as its name implies, is a Tetris game that doubles as a Tetris-related game, and it’s finally here. It’s a kind of Tetris Variations and a profound meditation on the game Tetris. Additionally, it’s the most recent game by creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi, whose earlier creations include beautiful titles like Rez and Lumines, in which virtual space transforms into light and music, the two of which are strangely inseparable from one another. Thus, Tetris Effect incorporates music into the geometry of the most basic and austere puzzle game ever created. Levels gradually weave themselves into songs, and I notice so much more of what isn’t usually there, like a bat seeing the fast-paced nocturnal world around them emerge through the flighty neon shimmers of echolocation.
The thing that makes Tetris Effect’s audiovisual features so life-affirming is how much they emphasize the human element, which is especially remarkable for a game you would think would be equally at home with gods or robots behind the joystick. In Tetris Effect, there is a sound response to each action. Each round of a Tetrimino block, each lane change, each hard or soft drop, and each clear. This implies that all of the weird things I do while I play are now audible to me. Tetris Effect provides my hesitation and indecision a voice. It arpeggiates my horrifying misuse of limitless spin in the final game. Investigating synaesthesia—the fusion of sensations that aren’t normally directly related in the central nervous system—has become Mizuguchi’s vocation. When waking up, the days of the week may each hang at a different height above the bed for those who have synaesthesia, or numerals may have distinct colors. Rez and Lumines are two examples of games that help people who are not synaesthetists (I apologize again for using that term) understand the features of this high-altitude state of consciousness.
But such games have to take you someplace fresh in order to do that, and I never realized this until today. The terrifying power of Tetris Effect comes from the way it transports you back to a location you are familiar with, activates synaesthesia, and then causes everything to start over. Jewels create chains that swing on a tinkling wind; whales and mantas flash and explode above; horses and riders composed of tiny shards of light gallop through eerie geometrical gorges. Nevertheless, Tetris remains, wonderfully, a game about what isn’t yet there. You continue to lean forward, looking through it and playing five seconds into the bright future despite all of the brightness and noise, the fast changes in artistic expression, and more.
Of course, there is more. Tetris Effect fixes the only real flaw in Tetris, which is that it isn’t more like Lumines, if I were forced to explain it to you and I couldn’t mention the word synaesthesia—for example, if we were chatting over instant messaging and I didn’t want to admit that I can’t spell synaesthesia correctly without using a spell checker.
Listen to me. Tetris and Lumines are two games that are often mentioned in conversations because they both include falling blocks that need to be cleared by fitting them together. As a consequence, they both take place over the rough mesas of your own mistakes. However, Lumines is a marathon while Tetris is a sprint. On a smooth, airless slope that glides higher and higher until mortals like me can no longer play, Tetris grows faster and faster. Although this is effective, I’ve never found it to be totally satisfactory. I’m not being undone by my own faults at a specific pace. The fact that I can’t really react to what’s coming at me is what’s pulling me apart. I’ve been eliminated from the game.
But Lumines keeps everything moving at a different speed the whole time, making it possible to play for as long as it takes to fully charge a Vita. However, this does not imply that Lumines is without difficulty; throughout gameplay, the pace fluctuates and odd, unexpected things occur. It moves pretty slowly at times. It might go from being extremely sluggish to very rapid at times. Remarkably, it may be quick and simple: plenty of excellent clears, with the board being narrowed down in brief spurts of decision-making. And it may be quite difficult and sluggish at times: there are a lot of obstacles to go over, and the timetable to do so drags horribly.
Tetris Effect combines the dynamic speed change that Lumines offers—the fun twisting of Tetris’ difficulty curve—with Lumines’ constantly-evolving skins, which allow you to play amid the vastness of space one moment and the ocean floor the next. With all of that, it offers a campaign mode that lets you play Tetris for an extremely long period. Of course, the more you play, the more quickly things tend to go, but this is the cadence of a hit song, album, or spin class. Maybe there will be an easy part on a single skin, followed by a middle-eight of severe jerkiness. After you blow past it, it slows down once again. You made it through. And suddenly everything is different again. All of this gives you the opportunity to reflect deeply on your actions and consider alternative tactics in a manner that conventional Tetris only permits momentarily. In a way, this is like open-range Tetris—your mind is free to wander.
I had no idea that playing Tetris would give me any kind of rangy vibe. And here’s something else I did not anticipate: at this point in my life, I did not anticipate learning new Tetris lingo. Perhaps I ought to have. Even though Tetris was discovered in a flawless condition in mathematics, it has never ceased changing. Hold was included. Both mild and hard drops. Infinite spins and T spins. And right now? I think of divides now. As in, let’s say, bowling.
Take a step backward. The Zone is the most shocking new feature to Tetris Effect within the first five minutes of play. Regular play increases the Zone. After clearing lines in the traditional Tetris fashion, you soon notice that your Zone meter is becoming a little too full, so you set it off to change things up a little.
Greetings from the Zone! Leaning forward, you feel time slow to a gritty crawl. You won’t lose any lines you clear in the Zone. Not exactly. Instead, they will sort themselves down to the bottom of the well and, as long as the Zone is operational, they will dutifully stack there. After that, they’ll clear in a single, confusing blast. Octoris, Ultimatris, Dodecratist! Strange creatures that would typically belong in the more bizarre wilds of Tetris fan fiction are permitted in the Zone.
It’s fantastic, and what’s even better is that you can learn from it. Initially, the Zone exists to save you from difficulty when circumstances get too stressful and unstable. But eventually, it’s employed with surgical precision, sending your score “through the roof” when it’s used once or twice throughout a level. The truth is that, as amazing as the Zone is—so amazing in fact, I’m secretly annoyed I can’t go back and named my firstborn in its honor—I believe it to be nothing more than a lesson. It is instructing you on combinations as well.
Tetris and combos go back a long way, but Tetris Effect—made possible by the Zone—is the first game that I can really understand about combos. In a game like Tetris, where the ultimate goal is to get a Tetris-clear, the concept is horrifying. You must first clear a line with one Tetrimino block and then another line with the next in order to earn a combination. The next one, and the next one, and the next. If you want to maintain the combination, every falling block has to clear a line. And once you know that the combo exists, who wouldn’t want to keep it going? Indeed, the combinations are nothing new, but the Zone shows you how to approach them flawlessly with its quick, shifting clears.
Typical gameplay? Now, regular play seems pointless. I am plagued and troubled by combinations. Combos hum constantly, nudging me to go beyond what I should, to fill the void with hopeful openings, to dance on the verge of total catastrophe. Nothing compares to combinations as they’re expanding. The other day, I scored a seven combo, which is probably not that exciting for most people, but I still contacted a buddy about it. However, the combination has to finish when I come across a line that has two spaces in it. a division. similar to bowling. Abruptly, the combination ends, withdrawing through the wall while chuckling.
You’ll discover that Tetris Effect has a lot of other places. There are a number of Effect Modes available outside of the story that provide intriguing twists to the traditional game.
Certain games are purely therapeutic in nature; for example, you may play games where finishing the campaign unlocks a mode that is essentially simply a musical toy to play with the various skins. Moving forward! Playlists with empathetic skins exist. There are levels that charge you to learn the combo system and games that give clearing challenges with an odd headshot pleasure.
But intricate pranks are also present. In the Mystery mode, there’s a chance that the board may flip, that bombs will go off, and you could even have to deal with the arrival of blocks with various shapes. These cards are moved in and out of play while you struggle through a severe Tetris headache; most of them are nasty, but some of them are nice.
Then there are target modes, where the objective is to eliminate individual blocks one by one in a struggle that entices you to disregard the remainder of the board and, in a sense, forget about tomorrow. Another whereby over time, clots of diseased blocks appear and need to be removed in large quantities. Hitman and Resident Evil, reimagined as Tetris, followed by a mode where you construct around the spectral shadow of an elongated block that will only come into view after the countdown has expired.
They are all fantastic and, in a great move, they reprogramme you to play the game in subtle variations, causing chaos and pure anguish as you switch between them. However, they are capped off with some traditional Tetris modes: one that requires you to play through 40 Tetrimino blocks in record time, another that asks you to maximize your score in three minutes, and a fourth that wants you to do so in 150 lines. For the time being, I’ve resorted to playing and repeating this game—which seems to be therapeutic—in order to express my intense anger against everything.
Not in multiplayer mode? There isn’t any explicit multiplayer, which is unfortunate since anybody who has played Puyo Puyo Tetris would know. However, when you’re checking the internet leaderboards to see who knocked you off the top place over night, Tetris Effect doesn’t seem like a solitary endeavor. This game is the most likely to revive the heyday of competitiveness that gave rise to modes such as Pacifist Mode in Geometry Wars 2.
Now that I think about it, maybe Tetris Effect hasn’t been missed in multiplayer as it’s obviously meant to be played alone. It’s a game that wants to enter your skull but, happily, has chosen not to employ a drill. It’s an engrossing type of game; after I finish playing, I can’t figure out how to navigate chats because the colors are too vivid and people are talking too quickly. Since the game seems to be aware of this, it will remove you from even the most difficult games with a similar fail screen: your blocks fill the well now, but when they hit anything, they become weightless and silently rise out of sight. Inhale!
When you play Tetris Effect in virtual reality, this solo effect is twice as potent. To be clear, this game is enjoyable on a standard television. That appears to gain exponential potency as you vanish inside the headset’s public private theater, however. On the initial screen, the Earth? All of a sudden, you’re above it. Additionally, the skins explode around you as they start. The underwater opening features pebbles on the bottom and, in the distance, a ring of watery light that seems to be the rippled surface of some shimmering ocean. In other places, the woodlands encroach on you, you’re surrounded by brownstones, and everywhere, the lights change from one to the other. It is evocative in the sense that virtual reality alone can transport you, and it pairs really well with a game like Tetris, which has a long tradition of bringing the outside world into your peripheral vision.
The advertising screen, which is shown over a gigantic picture of Laniakea—which the Hawaiians interpret as “immeasurable heaven”—the supercluster that is home to the Milky Way and around 100,000 other nearby galaxies, is one of the objects that stands out especially big in virtual reality. Not that I’ve kept track of them all. Laniakea is the last thing you would put at the very bottom of the address on the envelope if you were insanely worried about your letters disappearing. Eliminated ambiguity
Seeing Laniakea up there on the campaign menu, with the titles of the levels strewn over its enormous arms and its filaments glistening in gold, is oddly mesmerizing. Turtle Dream, Spirit Canyon, Ritual Passion. (At one point, Tom Waits said, “All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes.” The Tetris Effect levels all have a sound similar to the DEA-operated head stores that are used to get trade-in bongs off the streets.) I mean, not many games could pull this off? Very few games could make a case for include our supercluster—a supercluster—in their user interface.
However, Tetris Effect makes perfect sense. A game that has stood the test of time, Tetris seems like a universal constant that has been explored to the same extent as it has ever been purposefully created. Since sophisticated life can be discovered everywhere throughout the cosmos, I predict Tetris will eventually appear. To really do it justice, I hope they create a game as wonderful as Tetris Effect.
Microsoft’s first official audio accessory for the Series X and Series S is now available: the Xbox Wireless Headset, and it’s amazing. The £90/$100 headset is maybe one of the few first-party headsets for any system that I would really suggest since it offers an incredible lot of functionality and quality for its very low price.
I find that its multipoint wifi is the most noteworthy feature. In addition to Bluetooth 4.2, the XWH headset has Microsoft’s exclusive Xbox Wireless, which enables wireless connectivity without the need for a dongle. One cool feature is that you can use the headset on both your phone and Xbox at the same time. This makes it simple to play cross-platform games and listen to music as you play, or to talk with friends on Discord. Of course, having two connection options offers even more versatility. As I sit here in the garden right now, listening to laid-back hip-hop music while pounding on a mechanical keyboard, I can use it later to play Tetris Effect and Rocket League in the living room.
After a few days of testing, the only problem I’ve found is that, while not being ideal, the headset will happily activate your Xbox Series X/S every time it’s switched on. Sadly, I haven’t found a method to stop this behavior other than leaving the house before putting on the headset. It’s also important to note that the headset’s Xbox connection doesn’t need a dongle, which is handy but means you won’t have a 2.4GHz USB adapter to connect to a PC or PS5 (more on that later).
Another feature is the controls; Microsoft turned each earcup into a huge volume dial instead of having users fiddle with tiny, difficult-to-find knobs or buttons packed into a single earcup. While the right earcup modifies the overall loudness, the left earcup lets you mix in Bluetooth and Xbox Wireless sources. Because the whole earcup functions as a control, you’ll never have trouble finding the correct dial and can adjust the volume even during the little breaks between intense Warzone matches. I enjoy that the left earcup has a notch in the middle of its rotation, and both dials have set start and stop positions instead of moving freely. This gives you the appropriate tactile feedback that indicates when you’re at maximum volume or that the two audio sources are equally balanced.
You won’t be able to block out the sound of traffic or your roommates asking you what you’re thinking about cooking for dinner, but the on-ear design does provide some passive noise cancellation. The real sound quality is much greater than I had anticipated, including a boosted low end that’s ideal for immersive single-player games and heavier music genres. With six presets, a custom EQ, and an adjustable bass boost function, the Xbox Accessories software offers the ability to fine-tune the sound reproduction. (I’m biased; for a more balanced profile under the custom EQ option, I’d suggest choosing the ‘Music’ profile or slightly reducing the bass.) This is one of the best-sounding wireless gaming headsets I’ve tried under $100, while the bass is a touch weaker than on higher-end models.
Again, the features selected here make sense. This headset might sound much better if it supported wired 3.5mm or a better Bluetooth codec like apt-X, but doing so would require more complexity or licensing costs. I would highly suggest getting an Xbox Wireless Adapter (£20/$25) if you don’t already have one if you plan to use the headset with a Windows 10 PC. The 2.4GHz connection sounds far better and has significantly less latency. You may already have one of these adapters because it can also be used to connect Xbox controllers to your PC.
These headphones come in stereo configurations, but if you’d want, you may choose between Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos, or DTS Headphone:X, which are compatible with Xbox and Windows 10 computers. Xbox bundles with Windows Sonic for free, and Dolby Atmos is available as a free trial via the Dolby Access app until September 31, 2021 (after a week-long trial, it costs £14/$15). The DTS Sound Unbound app offers a 14-day trial of the DTS Headphone:X, which should be sufficient to determine if they are worth the $20/£17 price tag.
In my testing, I found that all three of the surround sound options sounded excellent. However, the results varied significantly according on the game I played, which is bothersome since it may be difficult to tell which titles support certain formats. In general, I found that DTS Headphone:X produced significantly less taxing sound than Dolby Atmos, yet Gears 5 and Warzone yielded the most immersive experiences. Still, I think plain stereo clarity is preferable for the majority of competitive games. In addition to offering decent picture in stereo mode, the headphones are a great option for competitive multiplayer games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, and others.
That’s all well and good for using while playing games, but what about taking this outside? With green circles on each earcup and Xbox branding on one side, the Xbox Wireless Headset undoubtedly has a gaming headset appearance, but it’s also lightweight and comfy enough that you could wear it while riding the bus. Since the clamping power is a little less than what I’m accustomed to, this headset is less appropriate for vigorous usage, such as working out at the gym or jogging, since the headset may come off easily. The headset is sturdy enough for me to throw it in a backpack for a train ride, but if it folded flat or had a traveling case, I would feel much more at ease doing so. Nevertheless, it’s understandable why these functions weren’t included given the aggressive price point and gaming emphasis, and the overall comfort levels are outstanding.
In my testing, the Xbox Wireless Headphones required a recharge after around 13 hours of simultaneous usage of Bluetooth and 2.4GHz Xbox Wireless. To do this, they are charged via USB-C and have a hilariously short cord. You should absolutely monitor your battery levels and recharge overnight if necessary, since charging takes around three hours. Holding down a button on the rear of the left earcup will turn on the headset or put it in pairing mode.
The microphone is of decent quality as well; when not in use, the short, flexible boom arm curls over the earcup and disappears from view. Again, considering the additional expense and intricacy of a more sophisticated design that detaches or retracts inside the headset, a longer arm would have probably produced better voice, but I don’t mind Microsoft’s design team’s strategy in this case. You may instantly silence the microphone by pressing the button on its bottom, which also activates a tiny white indicator light that is located close to the microphone’s tip. Hopefully, this will save you from those embarrassing occasions when you realize that your jokes aren’t really getting through to the team since no one can hear them. Sadly, even with the mic arm angled up, I’m not able to detect the white light; however, your mileage may vary. Moreover, there’s an auto-mute feature that deactivates the microphone if it doesn’t recognize your voice, keeping your family chats private from the public Call of Duty lobby.
Despite several formidable rivals, the Xbox Wireless Headset emerges as the finest affordable gaming headset for Xbox when everything is taken into account. Although the SteelSeries Arctis 7X headphones are more expensive at around £160/$150 and lack Bluetooth, they have a more comfortable “ski google” shape, a better microphone, somewhat better audio, and compatibility for the PlayStation 5. You will have to pay a significant premium (about £180/$200) for the Arctis 9X in order to have that functionality. At £100/$90, the LucidSound LS15X is more reasonably priced and shares the Xbox Wireless Headset’s rotating earcup design. But because of its unremarkable sound quality, unsatisfactory earcup dials, and lack of Bluetooth compatibility, the Xbox Wireless Headset is a superior option for the majority of users.
I believe that anybody who purchases this headset at its suggested retail price of £90 or $100 would be satisfied with Microsoft’s work in this area. Although it’s not flawless, it delivers on the essentials and has a more extensive feature list than more expensive options. For Microsoft’s peripheral partners, SteelSeries and Corsair, who now face much tougher competition than we’ve seen from a first-party device in the past, I’d even venture to say that this headset is a touch unfair. (This is not to argue that the Sony Pulse 3D headset, for instance, is a poor product; rather, there are undoubtedly more excellent options available at comparable pricing points.) This is a fantastic option if you’re looking for a gaming headset that works well on your Xbox and is adaptable enough to use on a Windows computer or a smartphone.
A well-designed look cannot make up for bad combat and a lack of activities. You’re initially having a great time.
much if the fighting in PixelJunk Raiders is a little clumsy, the colorful planet exploring is made much more fascinating by the ethereal synth noises. The red light of jewels shines in the distance, especially at night, and you can’t help but hope that the collapsing columns rising into the sky above have some delicious treasure hidden amid the ruins.
Furthermore, you’re a rescuer, and who wouldn’t want to be the hero who steps in to prevent a dying civilization? The wretched prisoners will be so happy to see you as the savior who has come to free the imprisoned Tantallians that they will gladly wave their arms in the air.
Finding survivors is also not too difficult. While some can be found by following the smoky trail to their temporary camps in the desert, the majority gather in the citadels scattered across the planet Tantal (called gloriously nonsensical things like Helplessly Uptight Child and Briskly Happy Advertising; and who wouldn’t want to spend a little time in Rapidly Different Answer?).
That’s what you do, then. You go from one alien environment to the next, looking for signs of smoke and high-altitude Artifacts that may indicate a nearby citadel. You’ll discover that in addition to using your hands and weapons to defeat the bad guys, you can also use the Axontium cash you collect to purchase one-time benefits from Mark the Merc. Not all Merc Perks are made equal, thus it bothers me too that you won’t know what they are until you get them. However, the mines and turrets you unlock should all assist reduce the number of adversaries. Once all survivors have been saved and the dwellers have been cleared, it’s time to portal back to the mothership and repeat the process. once again. once again.
All you do in PixelJunk Raiders is kill enormous bugs and save those that are still alive.
If the fight was satisfying and full of flesh, you may be able to come to terms with it. If discoveries were rewarded with collectibles and mysteries, you may even be able to make it work. Unfortunately, unfortunately, PixelJunk Raiders falls short in almost every aspect, and even with its beautiful visuals, I found that the more time I spent playing it, the less enjoyment I got out of it. I was looking for a level of intensity in the game that didn’t seem to come.
I’m not big on roguelikes, which are games with randomly generated environments that reset your progress when you die, but Pixeljunk Raiders isn’t as cruel as some other instances, so that’s a given. Each assignment gives you three opportunities to complete it, and if you succeed, you’ll eventually find a permaperk that even allows you to rob your own body and take back your valuables. But after the third hit, it ends abruptly, and you have to start anew if you want to respawn.
The problem is that, to put it plainly, everything is boring. Despite being somewhat beautiful, the planets are barren, lifeless spaces with not much to do. Even with your little jet pack, traversing the larger maps is an arduous task. Even the monotonous adversaries are insultingly repetitious, and the survivors you are entrusted with saving are neither skilled conversationalists nor add anything significant to the narrative. They’re not too difficult to deal with one-on-one, but as a swarm, they’re incredibly – almost brutally – effective, particularly if your weapon malfunctions.
Without a weapon, traversing Pixeljunk Raiders is very tedious, especially because our anonymous avatar has all the CQC abilities of a lifeless goldfish. When five or six opponents—or perhaps more—are rushing to your position in an attempt to knock you down, it might take five or six punches with your bare hands to take down an opponent that you can dispatch with two swordswings.
Even worse, there’s a good chance that certain planets are completely devoid of weaponry; that’s just how roguelike games work. This means that, in order to finish a level and keep the equipment and loot you’ve collected after your weapon is destroyed, encounters become tedious, meandering sequences of punch-strafe-strafe-ouch-strafe-run-aways that aren’t so much difficult as they are egregiously unfair.
Developer Q-Games uses Stadia’s rather clever State Share functionality to counterbalance this. If they possess the game, of course, gamers may take a snapshot, share it, and ask other players to join them in the game. The most magnanimous spirits could even go one farther and bestow upon you an abundance of weaponry or Imprints, which are one-time special powers similar to the Merc’s Perks but portable, all over the area to aid you.
That’s fantastic, isn’t it? Cooperation and a sense of community are inherent. The only issue is that you can’t load up one of these State Shares from inside the game; instead, you have to rely on a great spreadsheet that Reddit users have published. The game also doesn’t remind you about these State Shares other than a brief remark early on. This implies that during the early stages of the game, when your inventory is limited or when there is a sudden increase in difficulty, players will find it difficult to complete every mission. This could be because the game requires teamwork in a way that hasn’t been made apparent to you or shown in-game.
There’s more: you may splice your own DNA with that of an alien species. Your life and stamina meters may be permanently upgraded with unlocked abilities and upgrades. However, it’s just window decoration and doesn’t really enhance the already flavorless Raiders. Yes, the game requires you to explore before jumping into combat, and yes, the gameplay cycle can be oddly fascinating if you get into a rhythm and amass a respectable weapon collection. However, as of right now, it’s just insufficient to address the harsh learning curve and monotonous gameplay.
Using a wirebug to shoot a silky line upwards so I can grasp onto it and swing towards my target, I have just floated my dog into combat, his hindlegs tilting out in a magnificent arc at the touch of a button for that all-important additional speed boost. I suddenly draw a sword made from the bones of a skeletal Besarios and sever another person’s head with it. If I take down this enormous monster, I can make a hat out of his hide to finish out my Besarios attire and give myself an attack boost, allowing me to potentially repeat the action with more style and effectiveness.
Oh my goodness, I like Monster Hunter.
Although the basic plot of Capcom’s series has not changed since its launch in 2004, the series has undergone significant evolution. Following a lengthy run on Nintendo’s console, which culminated in the remarkable Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, the series did not find a proper home in the west until 2018’s multi-platform Monster Hunter World. This was Monster Hunter at its most approachable—and, with the Iceborne addition, at its most vicious—and it stopped seeming like a specialized activity for the first time. At last, Monster Hunter had become popular.
I apologize for my crude presumptions, but I thought that the series’ return to Nintendo and to simpler hardware—Monster Hunter Rise is a Switch-only game, and the PC version won’t be released until early 2022—would indicate a more limited release. I could not have made a worse mistake. This is the most extravagant and sumptuous thing Monster Hunter has ever seen, with Capcom’s in-house RE Engine shining in its series debut and a fully orchestrated soundtrack featuring full vocals (each monster has a special opening song featuring shamisen and hyoshigi in keeping with Rise’s traditional Japanese theming). It seems as if the creation of Rise was somehow financed by the profits generated by the popularity of Monster Hunter World.
With a wide range of new features that make hunting more enjoyable, action-packed, and appealing, Monster Hunter has advanced to a level comparable to that of World. Prior to going over them all, there is one fundamental shift that should be mentioned since it is seismic in nature and influences everything that is new this time around. while is customary in this game, you are essentially the whipping boy for the first few dozen hours or so while a variety of gorgeous animals smack you about. But you are OP AF in Monster Hunter Rise, and I wholeheartedly support that.
While an earlier game would still have you moving eggs from one end of the map to the other, this one features new signature beast Magnamalo, so it’s not so much that the monsters are easy to defeat as it is that Rise is willing to push you through it all with a little more vigor and pace. Hunts are also faster; if you have even a passing familiarity with the game, you can dispatch even the latter foes unlocked after the credits roll, which takes around 20 hours to complete. In little over 10 minutes, that is. Is that an issue for a series where the main draws have been hard-edged challenge and endurance? Perhaps for some, but definitely not for me. In any case, the reason these things happen so much faster is because you, the player, are so much more capable and dynamic than before.
The wirebugs that allow you to jump about may be the most notable addition, but they’re just one of many new friends that unlock Monster Hunter’s maps in ways never seen before. Maps are no longer divided into sections as they were in Monster Hunter World, but they are nonetheless open and less cramped than the thick biomes from the previous game, in part because of the addition of the brand-new Palamutes. These are canine mounts that make tracking considerably less painful since they are ready to get on at the touch of a button. The fact that these items are outrageously customizable—either by dressing them up with loot you’ve looted from your adventure or using the character creator feature—which, should you feel so inclined, is as potent a tool as any I’ve seen in a game of this kind and could easily take up your first six hours of Monster Hunter Rise playtime—helps.
You can use items and resharpen your weapon while riding your Palamute, and tracking has been greatly simplified. With the help of your new Cohoot friend, it’s now just possible to see every monster on the map—a simple fix that’s still more elegant than Monster Hunter World’s scoutflies, which have been eliminated entirely. Although it’s true that your Cohoot has very little real role in the game, it’s difficult to find too many complaints given that Monster Hunter Rise provides you an owl friend that you can customize to your liking.
In spite of everything, even the returning Palicoes that support you throughout combat, those wirebugs are what truly make the most impact. I’m only really starting to poke around at the possibilities after 50 hours with Rise, so it’s difficult to say how profound that will end up being. However, I can say that they’re behind one of the most interesting, open, and elastic traversal systems I’ve seen in a game outside of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wilds. These days, it seems like nothing is beyond limits. Although your flings are limited (you usually have two on a cooldown timer), a brief series of well-placed jumps may propel you to even the highest points in Rise. When you combine it with Rise’s flawless gyro aiming, you get an absolutely delectable movement system.
Though it’s easy to focus on drawing parallels with Breath of the Wild, in reality, Monster Hunter 4’s emphasis on verticality and mounting is just the series’ continuation of a previous direction. Here in Rise, mounting is something that has returned, but in line with the philosophy prevalent elsewhere, it has been amplified. Turf conflicts are made even more exciting when two monsters are smashed together by the same silk wire that may push you throughout the battlefield. The same silk wire can also catch victims and let you manipulate them like puppets to inflict even more harm. It is extravagant and extravagantly overdone, much like everything else in Monster Hunter Rise.
Additionally, the wire silk gives all 14 of Monster Hunter’s standard weapon types a new edge, enabling them to perform new maneuvers that deplete your wirebug supply in exchange for a stunning barrage. Of course, there’s also the obvious advantage of being able to initiate combos while in the air with little greater ease, or the way the extra mobility affects placement throughout a fight. When you add in the previously stated gyro controls, which encourage gamers like myself who have been hesitant to try new things to use ranged weaponry, you have a Monster Hunter that may seem quite different from earlier iterations.
If there is one more way that Monster Hunter Rise empowers the player, it is by promoting experimentation. This means that you can be inspired to take up a weapon type you had never used before or explore the game’s depths to find hidden treasure. With all the additions have brought, I would contend that Rise is the deepest Monster Hunter game to date, but those depths are still there to be explored. Just a little bit easier access to those depths, which is undoubtedly a good thing.
All of it is compelling enough for me to think that this may be the Monster Hunter for everyone. While World helped bring the series into the public eye, Rise has the potential to make it a sensation, or at the very least bring in some new viewers. If the difficulty, the cost, or even the action has turned you off, Rise makes every effort to clear the way and let everyone enjoy Monster Hunter’s attractions. If, like me, you’ve already fallen in love with the series? Indeed, Monster Hunter Rise may be the pinnacle of video game excellence.
I almost turned it off. Sincerely, I had had enough after ten minutes. A narrative about a girl’s divorcing parents who are miraculously reduced in size, enabling them to go on a trip together and, in the process, resolve their disagreements and reconcile? Please help me. Families go on after divorce. It should not be interpreted as anything other than a typical aspect of life. Is it expected of kids to pretend like way and think their parents could have saved their relationship? Should parents who have divorced act petty and feel guilty? Playing with that concept is risky, and I wish It Takes Two hadn’t.
In addition, the tale is conveyed in a torturous manner. After your daughter reads a book on love at school, love appears in the form of an all-consuming, fervent Latin love guru who serves as an extravagant love counselor for your parents. All they – you – have to do is figure out how to collaborate once again! Rekindle your enthusiasm! Hhhhrrr. Give me the vomit bucket, please. It’s like being sold by the Cartoon Network for a patronizing, sugarcoated class on marital relations. The game degrades every time a cut-scene occurs to provide additional context, especially when the book shows up.
But there’s also a lot to like about this game. It’s one of the greatest co-ops I’ve had in a long time mechanically. It seems like I was complaining about the lack of local cooperative games just a week ago, and now here’s a game you can only play with a friend (which grants you a free online ‘Friend’s Pass’). This indicates that the cooperative mode is essential to the game and that the whole experience is built around it, not simply a gimmick.
Consider a first level, for example. This level has a do-it-yourself theme, with you exploring a massive toolbox-themed landscape. You are given a set of unique toys for this journey, just as you are for every adventure in the game. May, the mother, swings on nails embedded in walls and whacks objects with the claw hammer’s head slung over her back. The father, Cody, has the power to drive nails into walls and then retrieve them, much like Thor with a hammer. Cue platforms that need to be nailed up when May discovers a method to smash them higher, and puzzles with wood that Cody can drive nails into so she can swing on them. The level is a never-ending version on this subject, with the screen splitting and sharing as it ebbs and flows around the challenges at hand. You are forced to communicate and work together with the person you are playing with since the level overlaps and interlocks.
Every level has the same concept but is centered on a distinct theme, and each time you play, you get to play with a fresh set of toys. And obtaining them is thrilling. They’re enjoyable! In one level, Cody receives a sap gun that glows onto surfaces and foes, giving May a type of rocket launcher and amplifying May’s explosions. Boom, boom, boom! They provide a great deal of satisfaction. On a another plane, Cody receives a grow-and-shrink belt a la Ant-Man, while May receives gravity boots. She’s also seen pinging Cody around a pinball machine at one point. You can play about with time on a different level (I’m really not trying to ruin them). They’re all rather creative.
They are not the only toys, however. There are a ton of other objects to play with in each level, including items to slide down, bounce off, shoot oneself out of, and even pilot and ride. This is not a game where you want to stay still. It enjoys moving, and moving in this way is enjoyable. You may wall-jump and wall-hang as usual, swing about on ropes, rail-slide, and bum-slide in addition to sprinting, double-jumping, and dashing in midair. And you’ll have to do everything at all times.
There are even larger toys available for play. The competitive two-player games that are hidden away across the stages are my personal favorites. These are games where you play against the person you’re playing with; they’re like little boosts of multiplayer that you don’t really need. Whack-a-mole, archery, snail racing, tobogganing, swing-jumping, and more are available. I dare you to restrict oneself to just one visit—there are many!
This game never stops coming up with new methods to amuse you—sometimes to the fault of it, but most of the time it’s a wonder to watch. The main game is a three-dimensional platformer, but the stages may abruptly transform into other games. I’ve played side-on platform games, endless runners, and hack-and-slashers with two character classes that are reminiscent of Diablo. It never stops. Its creativity for a set-piece is also lacking. I’ve been to space, had rides on spirit whales inside of trees, and gone on wooden-rail coaster rides through an enormous castle that I must have constructed for my daughter. This journey has “wowed” me more times than I can recall; it’s a crazy rollercoaster that’s only tenuously connected to reality.
The Xbox Series S, the console I played it on in 1080p, is where all of this truly shines. For the most part, it’s silky smooth, with the action moving quickly. The frame-rate only slightly drops in larger settings with particle effects, such as blizzards and smoke. Overall however, it’s brisk and responsive, and it’s animated, colorful, and really charismatic.
However, it lingers too long. It took me far longer than I had anticipated—roughly twelve hours, or five nights instead of the anticipated two or three. It may sound strange to criticize that, but it seems like the game ended much earlier. Although the other settings are lovely and the toys are entertaining to play, it seems like a second part was added only to make the movie longer. Was that really necessary? Because I was getting less and less satisfaction out of every new level.
And then the narrative comes back, and the love book shows up, and I start to get tired and wonder why I’m still playing. Alright, the narrative has some warmth to it, and I don’t like the notion of a romance being reignited. By the end, the argumentative duo even grows on you. However, please proceed with caution if you or your co-op partner find that divorce is a delicate subject in any manner.
However, if you can ignore the plot and see It Takes Two as a poorly designed preamble to an adventure, there are plenty of enjoyable aspects of the film. This is a unique form of cooperative gaming, sometimes even surpassing Nintendo’s in terms of intensity, inventiveness, and entertainment. It can be a lot of fun as a toy and will provide some memorable cooperative moments.
I’m creating the earliest living forms in Genesis Noir by reaching my virtual hands into the primordial water and using pieces that resemble kid’s construction blocks. It’s essentially Lego for creationists. I have to construct molecules in such a manner that they can mate with other molecules in the soup and reach other molecules out there. I have incited abiogenesis, the beginning of life. I had never heard of abiogenesis and would have only ever understood it as an abstract concept before playing Genesis Noir. In another scene, my character, a trench coat-wearing, slouchy watch salesman, is supporting Golden Boy, a celestial being performing on the saxophone.
The brilliance about Genesis Noir is that, despite the fact that these things don’t seem like they should go together, they do. It’s a black-and-white silent picture that depicts the creation of the world in addition to showcasing big-haired ladies, enticing jazz performances in smoky bars, and, of course, crime. It would be a disservice to call Genesis Noir a game, but since people get upset with me when I don’t tell them precisely what to anticipate, let’s just call it a point-and-click adventure. You point and click at objects in this game, but the main goal is to see how many various things you can do with only your mouse point, click, and move it in different directions. Planets rotate because of you. You launch interstellar debris. You compose very lovely music.
I can best characterize Genesis Noir as more of a toy than a game—a statement that is expressly supported by Feral Cat Den, the game’s creators. It never gives you instructions, and the only writing you’ll come across are brief descriptions of objects and evocative openings to each of the many chapters that make up your voyage. It’s entirely up to you to figure out how to go on, and the fact that this is even feasible without any assistance strikes me as a significant game design accomplishment.
In reality, Genesis Noir is only attempting to explain a far more expansive idea—the birth of our universe—through both its gameplay and narrative. The largest idea that exists, if you will. Everything begins when Golden Boy, a saxophone, chooses to shoot Miss Mass, a jazz vocalist. All of creation will be sparked by this action, which is a way of describing the explosion of energy at one place, but Miss Mass will be killed in the process. This is where you, Time, step in. Following a passionate meeting with Mass, you make the decision to explore every imaginable dimension in search of material to feed a black hole and halt the Big Bang. However, this implies that you will see all that has been and will be. Is creation, which is so beautiful, complex, and fascinating, truly worth pausing for just one woman? Is it really possible to break the cycle of creation and destruction? You’re not sure, but you’re going to give it your best shot and pursue the thieving Golden Boy throughout the whole universe.
All the Brian Coxses in the world haven’t been able to do what Genesis Noir has: it taught me something about a topic that, to be honest, has always seemed fascinating but has a tendency to fly by the ear and out the other. I don’t care if you throw a simplistic explanation of the Big Bang at me; evidently, I will accept it if you paint it in terms of an abrupt, unavoidable betrayal by a jealous musical talent. Additionally helpful are the very stunning graphics and a strangely endearing player persona. The watch vendor is so adorable! Every time he peered down at the life diorama he was inspiring, I chuckled, and at times he reminded me more of a slapstick comic hero than a tough trench-coated cosmic investigator. The art style alone may not seem like much in still photos, but when combined with stunning whites, smoothly animated scenes, and sporadic yellow accents, it creates an overall rather unforgettable effect. Simply said, no other game currently exists that looks like Genesis Noir. I really like the parts when the game uses a towering font to introduce each chapter; if you appreciate similar font use in games like Control or Kentucky Route Zero, you’ll love this one as well.
You’ll either fall completely in love with it or completely bounce off of it because of how everything actually comes together to create something that is more akin to an art installation than a game. Genesis Noir resembles one of those scientific museum displays where you can insert your hand or crank a handle. I can see it operating flawlessly in virtual reality. Although it offers a lot of activities, the novelty of its tactile approach may wear off for some, so it’s not one for die-hard gamers. In general, you don’t do much. It’s a gentle, entertaining game. This wasn’t a problem in my opinion because, among other things, Genesis Noir is incredibly creative and doesn’t drag on for too long. I was always looking forward to the next location, the next memory of a time when space was still and unmoving, and the next musical number, which is used sparingly but brilliantly. I was grateful that I was never able to predict what I would see or do next—which is also a tremendous accomplishment.
Another crucial component of Genesis Noir is music. Of course, jazz and film noir go together like life, laugh, and love, but it’s wonderful to see how many different ways music is used in this film. The mellow tones of the bass, piano, and saxophone are sometimes, but not often, merely background music that sets the mood. More often, it’s used to Mickey Mouse, which shows exactly what’s occurring on screen. After that, there are times when music indicates your progress toward solving a problem. And, best of all, music turns into a toy itself when you may create your own tunes by clicking on notes that correspond to your clicks. In that sense, it serves as an excellent means of providing feedback on your activities.
In fact, feedback is one of the main reasons Genesis Noir is enjoyable to play—every decision you make has a noticeable visual and auditory impact. Time goes by, trees grow, damaged things mend, and you bring all of these things to pass. Genesis Noir captures the sense of the cosmos as a massive cosmic accident, without ever seeming like an almighty God. You don’t kill for once; instead, you build in very palpable ways.
The greatest praise I can offer for this game is that it’s really unlike anything I’ve ever played, and it’s very committed to its concept and creative vision. I heartily suggest Genesis Noir if you’re searching for something unique, a delicate kind of experimenting in a stunning packaging.
This uneven journey gives a big improvement to Abe’s Exoddus. Lockers: two touches to conceal, one tap to take treasure. Clank. And do hide within them, especially with a group of nearly-rescued Mudokons in tow. Hide because it’s helpful for advancing through these 2D challenges that combine platforming and stealth (along with, naturally, an exciting lack of offensive alternatives). And run for it because real human humor breaks out. Is it a tragedy, instead? There was a flurry of twitching limbs and terrified expressions as everyone searched for a place to hide, which ended with a collective smash of metal doors. sardines. Is there anybody missing? If so, bad news for them.
Oddworld has always been a series focused on the little things, even if its main games follow Abe’s journey from slave to resistance hero, which is as broad a trajectory as they come. Really clever. For example, a pivotal and very devastating story element in one game is concealed within an old pair of boots, while so much of the drama of a cut-scene is conveyed with a mere blink of those large, watery eyes. Soulstorm is a remake or reinvention of Abe’s Exodus that has many sweet tiny details to savor. There is the mad dash for lockers to hide in. I’m obsessed with this animation about a fire extinguisher that has been modified. Those large, moist eyes are back. Aw, Abe!
However, minor details might also account for my delayed adjustment to Soulstorm. This is a very challenging game, at least for me, and the many checkpoints imply that I’m not the only one. This translates to a lot of dying, learning, and repeating. Sadly, it also means that I have had plenty of opportunity to identify instances in the game’s uneven opening missions where little details didn’t function exactly as they should have.
To be clear, I did not experience the two major flaws that the game had when it was first released, but they have reportedly been addressed. Nevertheless, there were enough little things strewn across my first several hours of play to give the game an unwanted, very un-Oddworldly, scrappiness. Sometimes I would resurrect into a mini-death cycle after reaching a checkpoint. I had previously accomplished the platforming task, but now I had to do it again while being doused by unintentional shell fire, which would have sent me back to an earlier checkpoint and erased five minutes of progress. Every now and then, enemy statuses would not completely reset, which would cause guards to sometimes refuse to return to a patrol route after they had calmed down. Small and infrequent things, yet…
It’s unfortunate since after finishing that, I was often enthralled by the creativity, intensity, and unattractive elegance of Oddworld games. These games, at their finest, really accomplish feats that no other game can.
This game, of course, accomplishes a lot of things that one other game did. Soulstorm builds upon Abe’s Exoddus framework; it’s more of a reinvention than a simple remake, much as New ‘n’ Tasty was. Now, Abe may raid lockers and bins in search of supplies for crafting. Most of the time simple things like various bomb types, but it offers you something to solve and connects to the themes of survival and being on the bottom of a wasteful society. In addition, some of the offerings are very delightful—a special mention goes to Bouncing Binding Candy, which happily evokes memories of Stranger’s Wrath. Furthermore, the formerly switch-screen, side-scrolling levels have been pretzeled into gorgeous, flowing 2D routes that now curve around a spindly mountain, roar through rusting Manhattans of shipping containers, or twist down into the earth where massive machines chug away at rock, where wheels turn and creatures scurry from the light sources. This is a very lovely game, especially the way it blends the urban with the untamed west.
The scenery and the crafts both provide a fresh excitement to a game that, in terms of mechanics, often stays rather dated. Some of my favorite moments in Soulstorm are straight out of the late 1990s, looking over a vista of patrolling enemies and different gantries and working out how I’m going to clear them out and reach the switch I need without too many traditional video game combat options. Not to get too zen, but even though you can scroll freely about the landscape, you can still feel where the old screens would have been for the most part. A wonderful realization of all the alternative options arises along with a profound sense of helplessness.
That being said, Oddworld has never been nearly as brutal as I recall it being, and this seems especially true with Soulstorm. Abe may still utilize his talents to possess enemies and use their weapons to clear areas, or he can simply pop them on the spot with a happy shower of offal, providing hostile technology isn’t blocking his abilities. (Theoretically, the guilty pleasures are outweighed by the feeling of entrenched unfairness.) Abe may launch inexpensive alcohol bottles at walls, ceilings, and onlookers in the early phases of the situation if there are open flames. Physics sets in, followed by screams. After the game launches, you can create homemade horrors using materials that aren’t much more lethal than, say, bubble gum and pop cans. Oh no! Dangerous pleasures, but are they becoming too commonplace? As the levels rise, is this new Oddworld becoming a little too powerful?
Perhaps not. In any case, I still like to play as non-lethally as possible, and the majority of the game supports this as well. Some of the more rewarding parts include you hopping between steam vents and those lockers to maneuver past patrols, sniper beams, and laser grids without being detected at all. Enemies can be stunned with boulders and then tied up, and now pickpocketed, more craft for the crafting gods. It works. The basic idea behind this universe is that Mudokons are invisible to those who oppress them. This concept is weaponized and perverted here.
In fact, the game pushes its perplexing platform to its very limit. And maybe even a little bit more. Sections dedicated to stealth or puzzles often function flawlessly; one set-piece that takes place in almost complete darkness is especially exciting. However, there are moments when the game feels a bit too busy. One such instance is an early set-piece in which aerial bombardment occurs. The game’s visible clockwork, or the things you can see on the screen and make meaningful predictions about, is combined with a chaotic element that seems to be there only to keep you moving. It may come off as cheap at best, and at worst as that horrible Uncharted situation where you’re an actor in a direct-to-video action movie and you have to keep trying to remember the right cues over and over again because you can’t find the script.
The Mudokons, who you try to rescue in each level and bring to freedom, are the Oddworld difference, albeit even in the worst of this is unusual. Here’s where the game really shines – where it still seems fresh – moving Mudokons between lockers and safe areas, creating safe paths for them to traverse, and perhaps needing their assistance to solve certain problems. Even if it weren’t connected to a system of happy and unhappy endings and ultimate level unlocks, you would still want to be involved. In fact, it’s almost a pity that it is. The sheer need for justice ought to be sufficient. (Incidentally, one of the worst endings is really as awful as it gets.)
More than anything else, the reason these games exist at all and why anybody would take the time and trouble to revive a game from the 1990s and bring it blinking into 2021 is to save the Mudokons from their terrible fate. The enduring point of Oddworld is that its most horrific elements are not in the slightest bit fictional, and that it uses fantasy to draw our attention back to the bizarre horrors of our own world. Examples of these horrors include slaves traveling in cattle cars, people abandoned to die by the side of the road, toxic big business rolling up and smoking the environment, and the various opiates of the masses and their uses and abuses. Oddworld used to appear to demand more from its games and its players, and it still does. I believe that this justifies allowing it some wiggle room on the rough edges and mistakes.
Balan Wonderworld is a throwback to the 1990s that is surreal, mysterious, and sometimes poorly done—perhaps too era accurate for others. Perhaps it’s just a matter of exercising caution while making wishes. From the same individuals that helped define that same era, Balan Wonderworld is a peculiar time capsule—a 3D platformer filled of the energy, color, and downright craziness of a cherished and bygone age that is sometimes wished for. Balan Wonderworld would be almost perfectly formed if the developers of Sonic Adventure had taken a go at creating a Mario Odyssey. Imagine that late 90s enthusiasm turning into a maximalist adventure that presents the player with a hundred distinct concepts. You’ll also have a decent notion of how terrifying, intriguing, annoying, and sometimes fantastic this can be if you have an honest memory of how Sonic Adventure played.
Balan Wonderworld is the big comeback of Yuji Naka, a developer who is very fashionable. I had the good fortune to meet him once and was struck by how well-matched his pocket square, tie, and socks were—a detail that would go unnoticed if they weren’t all shockingly bright orange. Here, the programmer behind Sonic the Hedgehog reunites with Naoto Ohshima, the guy behind Sega’s mascot design, whose resume includes Nights into Dreams, Burning Rangers, and, maybe most fittingly this time around, Blinx: The Time Sweeper. For the first time since Sonic Adventure in 1998, the two are playing together, and Balan Wonderworld delivers on its promise of a certain kind of game.
This platformer has the impression of having been taken from a completely other era, with obvious 90s Sonic Team influences starting from the very beginning. Similar to Nights into Dreams, you are one of two kids who are taken by an eerily lifelike figure into a fanciful theatrical realm; however, this time around, the mood is much closer to that of a nightmare: Balan is a terrifying and strange creature, with a menacing smile. Similar to Nights into Dreams, there is an undercurrent of sorrow underlying the weirdness, with each of the 12 worlds centered on a different character’s inner struggle and supported by the melancholic music by Ryo Yamazaki.
This is why, like other games of its sort, Balan Wonderworld is almost completely inexplicable—not that it ever makes an effort to explain itself. Sure, there are rich, wordless computer-generated-sceneries from Visual Works and some sense of a storyline, but overall, it defies simple explanation. How else to explain the animals frozen in a lifeless dance, like furries in a trance that mysteriously appear and go, or the fifty-foot-tall individuals that gaze at you glassily and without emotion? Similar to Nights into Dreams, it’s giddily, wonderfully odd.
Similar to Nights into Dreams, it is also a very awkward game to play. However, while Naka and Ohshima’s 1996 Saturn adventure finally overcame these issues because of its love of constant motion, Balan Wonderworld finds it difficult to overcome them, partly because of its grand ambitions. A great concept from Mario Odyssey is at the core of this specific 3D platformer: there are over 80 costumes to find across the 12 planets, and each one gives you a new power that could lead to new regions to explore in earlier stages. A good concept, to be sure, but one that gets a little stuck in execution.
The execution in Balan Wonderworld is as peculiar as everything else. By picking up icons, one may activate abilities. However, icons need keys to be opened, which are usually lying nearby. Every planet has its own unique collection of outfits, but you may only carry three at a time. As you level up, new skills replace older ones in your loadout.
Oh, and you can switch up your loadout at any specific checkpoint and access any piece of clothing you’ve acquired so far. This is a basic function that you’ll have to find out for yourself, however Balan Wonderworld won’t ever tell you about it. In the same way that you’ll have to work out for yourself precisely what’s happening on in the hub world, where you tend flower patches in Balan Wonderworld’s mirror image of a Chao Garden to draw in small fluffy Tims (please send me a postcard with your answers if you manage to figure it out; I’m still entirely confused).
It’s a mysterious kind of intricacy that contrasts with Balan Wonderworld’s generally straightforward strategy. This is a one-button game in line with the simplistic style of early Sonic Team titles, but the many costumes available allow you to push one button into all kinds of crazy things. Perhaps it will lock onto a target and have you drill diagonally across the screen in one of the outfits that appears to be a playful nod to Aero the Acro-Bat; perhaps it will require you to teleport through thin walls to reach hidden treats, or it might have you blowing up a sheep’s wool to float through airstreams.
One of the main pleasures of Balan Wonderworld is finding new clothes, and this enjoyment lasts throughout the game’s fifteen or so hours, which is a quite long time for a platformer, especially considering how much retracing is necessary to find the hidden statues that will unlock subsequent levels. The intricacy of utilizing Balan Wonderworld’s costumes makes it clumsy to go backwards, but on the plus side, the game’s potential only becomes apparent with time, and whether on purpose or not, its willful obscurity creates a pleasant sense of mystery.
That’s how outdated it is, just as it is in a lot of other ways. The levels are awkwardly arranged, with deadly drops and almost landing crags for some unauthorized exploring. Balan Wonderworld is an unwieldy bundle with awkward platforming, simplified one-hit combat, and three-hit monster encounters that all seem to be trying to break apart at the seams when you throw those 80 distinct skills into it.
And nonetheless, I’m amazed to say that I really like Balan Wonderworld despite all of that. Perhaps it just arrived at the perfect moment, when I was in need of a bright comfort item, a nostalgic strip as bizarre and insignificant as viewing a YouTube collection of TV commercials from the 1990s. Perhaps it’s because I had low expectations to begin with—Sonic Adventure has always been the game that made me appreciate Sega’s mascot and Sonic Team completely, and I can’t say that I’ve ever loved the series too much since.
Perhaps it’s just because this was the way games used to be, and going back to the good old days of the 1990s might be comfortable at times. when games were often unresponsive, confusing, uncomfortable, and very annoying. All of those elements describe Balan Wonderworld, an almost too accurate replica of a kind of mediocre 90s platformer that never quite made it to the top, yet being quite intriguing nevertheless.
The game Trials of Fire has a strong sensual appeal. It appeals to the urge to create the ideal role-playing group, to see them shine in the finest gear, to see them wield the greatest abilities, and to watch them collaborate in exquisite harmony. There aren’t many RPGs that I like more than Trials of Fire, and I’m sure you do too.
But Trials of Fire packs everything into a just hour or two, saving you from having to play for tens of hours. All of the classic elements of an RPG adventure are still there, but they’ve been condensed into a much shorter amount of time. These elements include choosing a team, exploring a map, fighting, leveling up, looting, obstacles, and monsters. Just the right length to listen to again and again. And you will—it’s a very difficult game to stop playing!
However, it takes time to comprehend. Because it’s three games in one, that’s why. Essentially, it’s a Roguelike card game where you create a deck and have one collective life to see how far you can go. During a combat, cards power everything you do. As you level up, you may improve and replace out the basic few that you start with. However, cards are also tied to equipment, and the more attached cards are to the better the equipment. As a result, your arsenal grows as you equip more, but just like in any deck-building game, having more cards does not necessarily mean you will draw the ones you want to employ.
Then there are turn-based, grid-based combat in which both the foes and your characters are tokens. The crucial aspect of this is that in order for these tokens to be in range for spells, melee assaults, or other maneuvers you may have planned, they must travel across the grid (by using movement cards). They are particular. Movement is crucial because if you are surrounded by foes, combination hits that whittle you down might spell your death.
Every round, three cards are drawn by each hero, and you spend your combined willpower to utilize them. Opponents follow suit. You may also recycle (get rid of) a card for added defense and/or willpower. Consequently, in addition to mobility, factors like as willpower, card draw, defense, and obviously assaults become important considerations, and a variety of cards and abilities may be used in conjunction with them.
Exploration makes up the third section of the game. This actually happens between the pages of a book, with fights that, when triggered, visually jump up and out of the page. When you launch the game, the whole experience is shown as a book that you open, with the implication being—I believe—that a fresh tale awaits you every time you play. Additionally, each task you complete has a fresh tale to tell; it’s not really engaging, but it gives the game a pleasant flavor.
You lead your group across a map as you explore, pausing at goals marked with question marks and chasing a golden main-quest arrow. These focal points may be fights, stores, or certain types of conundrums. And a lot of who they are relies on how you deal with them. A pack of ratlings is pressuring a few people to surrender their belongings. Would you want to step in? That will entail combat. Would you rather deal with the ratlings and ignore the humans? That implies a store. Or are you content to put it all behind you and move on?
Crucially, these question-mark sites are also places to rest, since exploration wears you out and fatigue affects you during combat if you let it to. Regularly using a food resource to rest is necessary before you may upgrade. However, if you get hungry, you won’t be able to sleep, which is when things really start to go wrong.
Your resolve is a crucial metric that decreases as you move away from your primary goal. Its purpose is to exert pressure on your tangential research. You risk losing all willpower and succumbing to hopelessness if you go too far and, like I have done, find yourself trapped behind a mountain range. And when you do, the game is finished.
Trials of Fire is a complex game with many moving parts that come together to form a whole, and even after 30 hours, I still feel like I don’t really understand how things operate or what I’m doing. I think that this is where the challenge in a game like this lies: mastering a strategy across many plays, not just a few.
It might also be unexpectedly challenging. It may be rather deceiving at times, almost like a trap for conceited players, as you might enter a fight late in a campaign feeling almost unstoppable, only to be brought down by a group of innocuous-looking opponents you greatly misjudged. They don’t even seem to accomplish anything particularly noteworthy, yet nonetheless, by cooperating, they encircle you and take you down in a systematic and effective manner. And by you, I mean myself; I’ve experienced this a lot, and it’s devastating. When the tide changes and I realize I’m lost, it feels like a stone of fear is falling from my gut. And I’ve attempted to quickly exit the game to fool it into believing the fight never started, but it didn’t! It recalls.
But I’ve also been successful. I believe that achieving high scores is ultimately the goal: joining the team that will help you reach new heights. Whether you win or lose, you’ll still be able to access new cards for usage in the future, and this isn’t the last time you’ll see your champions. To see how many bosses you can defeat in a row, you may choose teams that you’ve formed to participate in boss rushes and other challenges. I hope more role-playing games adopted this style.
Trials of Fire has some filler, but the attraction is clear-cut and powerful. The fact that it’s essentially the same thing with a similar plot every time doesn’t bother me since I’m not really paying attention to it anyway. I’m focusing on the combos, the mechanics, and making this one a team to remember.
