Tabla de contenidos para March 2017 en Gamesmaster

“THE GAROU AREN’T TYPICAL WEREWOLVES – THEY’RE SWORN TO KEEP THE APOCALYPSE AT BAY” Starting life as a tabletop game, Werewolf: The Apocalypse comes from the savage World Of Darkness universe, a series of pen-and-paper RPGs and the home of Vampire: The Masquerade. Of course that game also got a brilliant videogame adaptation back in 2004. Werewolf is being created by developer Cyanide, creator of Styx: Master of Shadows, Blood Bowl, and the upcoming Call Of Cthulhu. It has the backing of publisher Focus Home Interactive and Paradox, which owns White Wolf, the publishers of the original tabletop game. The videogame takes place in “a gritty vision of our own time”, according to the devs. This is a world where all conspiracies are true (though probably not that one about…

What if we discovered we could harvest energy from hellspawn, meaning that ghosts, monsters, and spirits could actually provide the power needs of all humanity? Of course, some greedy company would immediately try to turn a quick profit: “So what if a few heads explode, and Janet from HR never stops screaming again?” That is the subject of this beastly management sim. 0 MINUTES Well, it’s my first day of work at Lobotomy Corp and it sounds simple enough: tend to hideous supernatural monsters called Abnormalities and harvest the energy they produce for the betterment of mankind. It’s like Monsters Inc in reverse. What could possibly go wrong? Apart from everything, obviously. Everything could go wrong. It’s as though the people who came up with this idea have never seen…

Format Switch Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo ETA 3 March Competitive milking is the unlikely star of this motion-controlled game compilation because, well, when was the last time you milked a cow in a game – or in real life, in fact? Exactly. Milk is, we are supremely unqualified to tell you, eerily close to the actual process. You grip one Joy-Con upright like a teat and jiggle it rhythmically, pressing and releasing the SL and SR buttons to squeeze out that precious white gold. Your Joy-Con vibrates with each tug, and the sound of sloshing fluid accompanies successful extractions. Whoever fills the most cups with liquid calcium by the bell ring is the winner. It’s slight, if strangely satisfying (and vice versa), and a much easier way to break the…

Format Switch Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo ETA March You and a friend control Snip and Clip, two shapes with an apparent death wish. You see, when they overlap you can press the D-pad right and make them cut chunks out of each other. This deleted area can be anything from a thin slither to a massive slab, leaving behind little more than a pair of cowboy boots. But there’s a bigger, friendlier goal here – you’ll use your new gaps to solve puzzles together. Things start off straightforward. You busy yourselves with overlapping in the right place to snip the correct bits – thankfully you can reset your body if it goes wrong by pressing the D-pad left. Then you rotate your bodies using SL and SR and both get…

“IMMEDIATELY, A RAT SWARM DESCENDS ON HIM, CHOMPING AWAY UNTIL HE’S NOTHING MORE THAN A A COLUMN OF WRITHING GUNK” Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher Focus Home Interactive Developer Asobo ETA Winter Here we are – it’s only the splash screen and already we’ve got the shudders. Hundreds of shapes undulate in the darkness, bubbling like boiling oil. Rats! Squeaking black rats with glinting eyes. A carpet of them, swarming and scurrying throughout the cold stone confines of a dark, long-abandoned room. A horse-drawn carriage rattles across the cobbles outside and the driver’s swinging lamp shines through the bleary window, a ray of light penetrating the gloom. This scatters the blighters like scissors through fabric. They’re scrambling, each rat for itself. As the carriage passes and the light diminishes, they…

“THIS IS ARCADE-STYLE SURFING AT ITS FINEST, PACKED WITH GRAVITY-DEFYING TRICKS” Format PS4, XO, PC Developer Climax Studios ETA Summer Web http://bit.ly/gmsurfworldseries The last time we saw a pixellated surfboard was California Games on the Sega Master System, but that drought is about to end. We’ve not been gifted with the joy of a surfing game for years, but with the recent revival of skateboarding titles such as Tony Hawk’s – and the less we say about thatthe better – the time is clearly right to bring back the surfing genre in all of its radicalglory . Oh no, we’ve never sounded less cool – time to go shopping at Quiksilver again. “I think people got a little burnt out on the genre…

“ALL YOU CAN DO IS RAISE YOUR HANDS FEEBLY IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE LIKE A SCARED LITTLE BABY” Format PS4 (reviewed), XO, PC Publisher Capcom Developer Capcom ETA Out now Players 1 The original Resident Evil perched its camera far from your character, nestling it, fly-like, on distant windowsills and in cobwebbed corners. That was 1996. Then 2005’s Resident Evil 4 mounted its more energised lens to protagonist Leon Kennedy’s shoulder, casting you as participant rather than observer. Now we’re in phase three, where the closer your perspective, the more intense the scares, and you can’t get closer than the view directly from your character’s corneas. Those corneas belong to Ethan, a newlywed who receives a distressing video message from his wife, Mia. That’s somewhat surprising as Mia’s been…

“YAKUZA 0 REPRESENTS A CONFIDENT SEGA, ONE WE’VE NOT SEEN FOR MANY YEARS” Format PS4 (reviewed), PS3 Publisher Sega Developer Sega ETA Out now Players 1 You’re shopping for a group of homeless men who work for a company of dubious repute. Each of them wants a different alcoholic beverage, and only then will they give you the information you need. It’s an early opportunity to take a proper look at the world – with a chance to knock heads and earn some cash along the way – and you soon discover that Yakuza 0, the ultimate Japanese gangster game, is also surprisingly full of heart and humour. This is the story of two morally grey playable characters, Kiryu and Majima. Sure, they’re Yakuza-types, so they’re certainly not good people,…

“IT’S TOO EASY TO GAME THE SYSTEM, THOUGH HEROES DOESN’T ALWAYS PLAY FAIR EITHER” Format Mobile Publisher Nintendo Developer Intelligent Systems ETA Out now Players 1 Nintendo attempted to make a case for premium games on mobile with Super Mario Run, much to the chagrin of its investors, but Fire Emblem Heroes is that game’s shareholder-friendly opposite. It doesn’t just embrace the controversial ‘gacha’ genre, it gives it a big, sloppy snog: random rolls, wait timers, stamina gauges, multiple currency types… The result is almost absurdly polished – a handsome, intuitive interface, adorable chibi characters, and crisp 2D art. But in streamlining that moreish strategy-RPG core, Intelligent Systems has lost something vital: the series’ heart. It would, however, be wrong to call Heroes a compromise. Rather, it’s a comprehensive retooling…

 Format PC Publisher Gambitious Digital Entertainment Developer Arachnid Games ETA Out now Players 1 “IT’S A HARSH PLACE, AND IT ONLY GETS MORE DANGEROUS AS YOU DIVE FURTHER” Although we’ve seen the post-apocalypse countless times in videogames, it’s never looked quite like this. Diluvion imagines we’re facing a Noah’s Ark-esque end-of-days scenario, but instead of shoving pairs of animals onto a boat two-by-two, we get to build a bunch of rickety steampunk submarines and strap guns to them. It’s the post-apocalyptic equivalent of buying boxing gloves instead of shoes. In Diluvion’s hand-crafted, underwater world, everyone travels around in weaponised submersibles. The remains of civilisation pepper the aquatic landscape, and a thick sheet of ice prevents anyone from reaching the surface. According to legend, a deity has stashed a powerful relic…

“THERE’S A REAL EFFORT TO MAKE COMBAT FEEL DIFFERENT FROM OTHER CHARACTER ACTION GAMES” Format PS4 Publisher Sony Developer Sony ETA Out now Players 1 One thing’s for sure: Sony makes an effort to fill its smaller games with clever ideas. Marrying blistering style and narrative substance isn’t an easy thing to do, but that doesn’t stop the big-console follow-up to the PS Vita’s most interesting title from aiming for the skies. Unfortunately it never manages to fly but, like its protagonist, it certainly demonstrates an impressive, cat-like nimbleness. After an interesting reveal of series protagonist Kat, who has ended up in who-knows-where after the events of the first game, Gravity Rush 2 quickly settles into a tried-and-tested groove: get powers back, learn new powers, overcome adversity, beat the bad…

 Format XO (reviewed), PC Pub Adult Swim Games Dev Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team ETA Out now Players 1 “THE DIALOGUE OFFERS LITTLE CHARACTER GROWTH, JUST TIRED GAGS ABOUT GAME LOGIC” Picking a name like Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team looks, at first glance, like a way for the Spain-based developer of this game to show they place a premium on length. Either that or Capcom’s dictionaries have finally become self-aware… As it turns out though, this puzzle shoot-’em-up is all about the brevity – and that’s far from its only issue. Part Wreck-It Ralph, part Imaginationland, the planet of Gamearth plays host to all manner of 8-bit icons, 16-bit superstars, and 5th-gen faves. Opposing them, and the titular heroes of Rise & Shine, are the grizzled brutes…

Format PC Publisher Elden Pixels Developer Elden Pixels ETA Out now Players 1 For players of Shovel Knight, this NES-styled indie platformer will feel instantly familiar. But that was an exceptional game – Elden Pixels has given its adventure a lot to live up to. Melee attacks are your bread and butter here, and magic is used for traversal spells (and later as a projectile weapon). Alma’s Awakening channels the Metroidvania genre, each of the dungeons gifting you a new magical item that helps you tackle the boss and gain access to the next one, and you can even find upgrades for those skills. As well as the obvious throwback visuals, there’s a retro element to the difficulty, which harks back to a time when games were hellish tough. If…

“MIYAMOTO LEAD A TEAM OF JUST 15 PEOPLE ON ONE OF THE MOST AMBITIOUS GAMES OF ALL TIME” Developer Nintendo Publisher Nintendo Released 1997 Format N64 Get it Virtual Console Stop and look at a plumber, really look. Just ignore their discomfort. You’ll uncover all sorts of surprising facts. Scrutinise their hands, for instance, and you’ll find the telltale callouses of the skilled craftsman. Examine their overalls and you’ll find a pocket for every tool of the trade. Peer directly into their ear canal and you might just spot an arrangement of three small bones that transmit sound to the inner ear… But unless you look super close, you may fail to notice that these spanner-slinging pipe jockeys actually occupy…

Awesome Boss! The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Format GameCube, N64 Developer Nintendo Released 1998 The ghostly guardian of the Forest Temple attacks our hero from the boss room’s sinister paintings. Land arrows on this phantom menace and he’ll sling spells at you from on high, so just swing the Master Sword and return those magical bolts to sender. Classic Moment! Shenmue Format Dreamcast Developer Sega Released 2000 By the end of Sega’s idiosyncratic open-world saga, you’ll have faced fearsome opponents, mastered forklift racing, and stuffed your pockets with gashapon figurines. But none of that holds a candle to the thrill of the 70-Man Battle, in which hero-teen Ryo Hazuki beats 70 tetchy bikers unconscious. The Dreamcast’s VMU will even keep track of how many you’ve battered. Remake Request!…

THE MOST DEDICATED TEAM IN THE BUSINESS This month, the team’s been charged with clearing out all the years of accumulated tat ahead of an office refurb. Anyone want this broken joystick? The Fable Legends novelisation? A one-can USB fridge? No? Ben Griffin The griminess of Resident Evil 7 is so realistic that Ben was struck down by a nasty illness immediately after playing it. Now we’re concerned he may actually have become zombified. Not that shuffling around and groaning are out of character for him. Favourite ever Nintendo character? Blathers Rob Crossland Even Xbox-loving art editor Rob has been getting into the Nintendo spirit for this issue – one morning we caught him staring lovingly at pictures of Animal Crossing villagers. We don’t have the heart to break it…

New Smash Bros, and not just a port! Liam Mountain, Facebook New Metroid FPS in the vein of the Prime series – huge 50-80hr campaign, multiplayer, and a massive world to scan/explore. #dream Adamski, @amazingdweezo It’s got to be Animal Crossing. Take your Switch on the go for some fishing on the bus, then come home to chat to your villagers in widescreen on the telly. Bliss. Robin Valentine, Acting Editor A Pokémon MMO! It would be a must-buy. Leigh Way, @LA_Way Diddy Kong Racing! Other honourable mentions w ould include Harvest Moon, Pilotwings, Ghosts ’n Goblins, and Star Fox Adventures. Clint Tokley, Facebook…

“DIRT RALLY WAS THE DARK SOULS OF RACERS – A LITTLE MISTAKE SAW YOU TUMBLING INTO THE VOID” Until Dirt Rally, Codemasters’ series (which began life as Colin McRae Rally) had always straddled the line between arcade and sim. The cars had heft and were at the mercy of convincing physics, but they didn’t demand an encyclopedic knowledge of trail-braking and oversteer. Dirt Rally, however, was the Dark Souls of racers – one small mistake saw you tumble into the void. You tried . Now Codemasters has announced Dirt 4, which will return the series to its more accessible roots, although the influence of its evil twin will be apparent as soon as you step on the accelerator. In fact, the handling is almost identical to that…

“I GOT INTO FOR HONOR PLAYING AN UGLY PROTOTYPE, BUT I WAS AMAZED BY ITS FLUIDITY” Tens of thousands of gamers are, at this very moment, brutally, yet methodically, cleaving one another down in a vicious fictional realm where vikings, samurai, and knights collide. Ubisoft’s For Honor has an endearingly absurd premise, but on a technical level it’s also one of the most interesting and unusual multiplayer-focused videogames of recent years. Keen to understand the thinking behind its unique approach, and learn more about the techniques that made it happen, we go behind the scenes with Ubisoft and speak with the game’s wonderfully multi-named designer, Bio Jade Adam Granger, about its inspirations, inception, and future. Q Now that initial development has finished on For Honor, what’s your role on the…

Don’t call it a console. Don’t call it a handheld. Definitelydon’t call it a handsole, because that sounds like a rubbish amateur sport. Call Nintendo Switch a, er, very good thingy, one that strikes the sweet spot between handheld and console by letting you take full-fat living-room games on the go. Start a Zelda boss battle on the couch, detach your Switch from its dock, and continue on a train, in a park, or during one of the many sweet rooftop parties you get invited to. But what about Switch’s battery life? The feel of its controller? The best way to milk a cow? We’re here to answer your many burning questions. Your £279.99 on 3 March will get you the console itself (that 6.2in touchscreen);…

Format Switch Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo ETA Spring Long-distance boxing. They said it went against the laws of man and nature. They said it would never work. Well punch those doubters in the face from across the room because this one-on-one arena brawler has pulled off the impossible, bestowing upon you the dark and terrible power of elasticised arms. You hold the Joy-Con sideways with the thin edges facing you and lean it left or right to move. Dash using L and jump with R. Striking is a matter of throwing your mitts out in front of you, and you can grab by punching with both arms at once. Each of the characters has a unique style. Mechanica’s bulk results in slower movement but a longer health bar, while the…

Format Switch Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo ETA Summer The Wii U’s surprise hit is getting an unsurprising Switch sequel, in this competitive third-person shooter about taking control of territories by drenching them in colourful bilge. Each team is comprised of four Inklings who, appropriately, switchbetween humanoid and squid forms to swim through paint patches laid by bucket, gun, and brush. New and updated weapons let you paint the town red (and blue, and yellow) faster than before. Splat Dualies are very much suited to attacking, rather than covering the ground, spraying inky double helpings to keep opponents at bay. The E-Litre 3K Scope lets you save up a charge shot, and the Curling Bomb slides across the ground and bounces off walls before exploding. As you cover scenery, your gauge…

Format Switch, PS4 Publisher Sega Developer Sonic Team ETA Spring Drake and Josh. Knife and fork. Gravity and idiots. There have been many great pairings throughout history, but this remaster of the 2014 Japan-only mashup might well stack up to be the best. On one side of the screen: Puyo Puyo (which you might know under its original UK release name, Puyo Pop). On the other: Tetris. Whoever scores the most points in their game wins. Up to four players can join in, and several game modes vary the action. Fusion drops Tetriminos into your Puyo field and vice versa to allow for mixed chains; Swap switches the gametypes after a set length of time; Solo Arcade contains matches and endurance against the CPU; and Sprint tasks you with clearing…

“LIKE THE CREEPIEST PICK ’N’ MIX EVER, YOU CAN CHOOSE WHO TO KILL AND WHICH QUESTS TO DO” Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher Focus Home Interactive Developer Dontnod ETA Winter Rain patters on London’s grey cobblestone streets on a dark night in 1918, while World War I rages across the ocean. You’re a doctor who’s just returned from the frontline. Perhaps the bustling city would look nicer in the daytime, but you wouldn’t know – because you’re a vampire, and London is your hunting ground. Melodramatic though that setup may sound, this action RPG from the creators of Life Is Strange is sombre in tone, to say the least. As Dr Jonathan Reid you can either heal London’s citizens to try to mitigate the effects of the Spanish flu pandemic,…

Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher Focus Home Interactive Developer Cyanide ETA Winter Dread pawing at your brain like inky tendrils. Dreams of the void swallowing you whole. Thinking only of the endless abyss; the unseen spaces nestled between the layers of the observable universe. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn – in his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming. No, we’re not talking about 2017 in general – this is our way of saying there’s a Call Of Cthulhu game coming from Cyanide, developer of stealth game Styx. Based on the tabletop RPG by Chaosium – itself inspired by the HP Lovecraft novel, minus all the racism – Call Of Cthulhu is an investigation-horror game with stealth and RPG elements. You’ll head to the sinister-sounding Darkwater Island as detective…

Format PS4 Dev Uber Entertainment ETA Winter Web http://bit.ly/gmdinofrontier Once upon a time in the West… there was a dinosaur problem. If you’ve been waiting your entire life for a VR mashup of cowboys and Jurassic Park, prepare to pick up Sony’s headset. Later this year we’ll be taking on the role of Big Mayor to keep a Wild West frontier settlement thriving and try to stop the dinosaurs from eating the tourists. Wait, we mean cowboys . From Wayward Sky devs Uber Entertainment, this VR tabletop-scale sim puts you literally hands-on with a frontier town. Stetson-wearing settlers can be picked up with your Move-controlled hands and dropped into jobs such as chopping down trees or hunting. Build a saloon with resources and you’ll also grow your…

Resi 7 is playable in PS VR, and contains a variety of failsafes to prevent nausea. You use the gamepad’s left stick to move and your head to pick a direction – no Move controllers needed. The right stick can be used to move in 30-degree increments, and you press Up to snap your body to the direction you’re facing. The screen darkens at the edges during rapid movement – jumping from a ledge, quick-turning – and fades in and out of non-playable bits to avoid jarring you. But the failsafes failed: we felt sick after ten minutes. Movement is like pointing a wind-up car and letting it go. Combat becomes extra stressful, and visuals are noticeably jaggier. The only improvement is gunplay – your head is more precise for…

“FOR EVERY INSPIRATION FROM FROM SOFTWARE, THERE’S ANOTHER ALL OF ITS OWN” Format PS4 Publisher Sony Developer Team Ninja ETA Out now Players 1-2 Ninja Gaiden was ruddy great. It’s been a long time since that series’ dominance of the twitch action genre, and the departure of famed action game auteur Tomonobu Itagaki from Team Ninja HQ. Since then the studio has parped out a lacklustre third entry to the traditionally nails-hard dice-’em-up. It then up-chucked the criminally bad Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z, in cahoots with Mega-man series director turned human alarm bell Keiji Inafune. Itagaki, meanwhile, did a game-shaped poo on the Wii U called Devil’s Third, so not even he could recapture what made those games great. So now we come to Nioh, the studio’s latest stab at…

“IT’S AN EXPERIENCE THAT’S SAFE AND REWARDING, AND AT THE SAME TIME ALSO DEEPLY CONSERVATIVE” Format PS4 (reviewed), PC Publisher Bandai Namco Developer Bandai Namco ETA Out now Players 1-4 Heroes in JRPGs usually rank pretty highly on the list of things we’d like to fire into the sun (just behind spam email, noisy eaters, and Piers Morgan), but in a turnabout for the ages, Tales Of Berseria’s lead, Velvet, is actually more likeable than loathsome. Maybe it says more about us than the game that a cold, unflinchingly savage hero resonates more strongly than the usual plucky, overenthusiastic sap, but Velvet’s dismissive condescension towards her chipper ensemble mimics what we’ve been thinking about Tales characters for years. She sets the tone for what is an unconventional – and often…

Format PS4 (reviewed), PS Vita Pub Koei Tecmo Dev Omega Force ETA Out now Players 1 Recently we’ve been blessed with many turn-based strategy games. Some bombard you with orders, options, and opportunities to name your new horse after your nan. Others feel as empty as a stadium during a Sunday league football match. Finding the right balance of fun and fulfilment can be tricky, but we get a good equilibrium in Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers. The gameplay is both fundamental and deep: you get to build teams of officers to take part in a range of battles across various locations, completing special objectives as you go. My old China Against the backdrop of the final days of China’s Han Dynasty, you bump into many familiar heroes and villains, such as…

Format PC (reviewed), Mobile Pub Morgondag Dev Morgondag ETA Out now Players 1 The job of a hacker clone is tough. It involves tackling infected brains to protect enslaved victims of the mysterious Wardens, all during the outbreak of a robotic virus. Well, that’s what the blurb says, but all we see is a button-based puzzle game with a particularly heavy focus on timing. That odd backstory serves little purpose, and it doesn’t help give us any real understanding of why we’re proceeding from one stage to the next, solving puzzles throughout each of the game’s six worlds. Luckily though, the puzzles themselves do have something to offer, and they’re fairly varied, even if most involve buttons in some form or another. You might have to press buttons in a…

1 Super Mario Bros NES – 1987 This may not have been Mario’s debut outing (that honour goes to arcade classic Donkey Kong), or even the first game to bear his name (that’ll be the single-screen Mario Bros), but it was the game that cast the template not only for subsequent Mario games but for console platformers more generally. And, like so many of Mario’s adventures, it remains eminently playable to this day. 2 Super Mario World SNES – 1992 Designed as a colourful showcase for the power of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, this experience is rivalled only by Super Mario 64 for the title of the greatest launch game of all time. World is also noteworthy for introducing Yoshi to the franchise, bringing life to a character that…

“THE MOD LETS YOU FIELD TEN SOLDIERS IN BATTLE RATHER THAN THE ORIGINAL SIX” The long, tough strategy game XCOM 2 just got longer and tougher. Pavonis Interactive has been working with Firaxis to create The Long War 2, a free mod that overhauls almost every aspect of the game with new classes, a tier of crackling coil guns, dozens of extra soldier skills, and a redesigned world map. Of course, that makes it even more brutal to play, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. The mod lets you field ten soldiers in battle rather than the original six. Not only does this turn your troop transport ship into an overcrowded party bus, it also enables a pleasing new level of chaos on the battlefield. Earth’s incumbent alien…

Format Switch Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo ETA December Anyone who’s ever played a Mario game will know that sometimes, before a big leap forward, it pays to take a few steps back. The size of the levels in Super Mario Odyssey proves that the epic journey suggested by its title isn’t just hollow grandstanding. And while the scale and scope of these worlds seem several strides beyond any of Mario’s recent outings, Odyssey is firmly rooted in the sandbox adventures of his past. Think of Odyssey as a continuation of the ideas established in the likes of Super Mario 64 and Sunshine. While Super Mario Galaxy, 3D Land, and 3D World were Nintendo’s way of bringing new players into the fold, according to Shigeru Miyamoto, their comparative accessibility didn’t sit…

Format Switch, Wii U Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo ETA 3 March Our last hands-on with Link ended with us staring out from atop The Great Plateau, like a hungry kid pressing his nose against a bakery window, so it’s fitting that our next taste of Hyrule begins with the elf boy getting to leap off this training area and glide down to the huge open-world below. Hyrule is so vast that it’s best to wrangle a horse early on, though they don’t come without a fight. Link ducks down and creeps through the flowing grass to prevent spooking his chosen stallion, closing the distance quietly before hopping on its back and clinging on until it’s broken in. Horse temperaments vary, and they get star ratings for strength, speed, and stamina.…

Format Switch, PS4, XO, PC Publisher Grey Box Games, Six Foot Developer Tequila Works ETA May Your new home, after becoming stranded by a raging storm, is a mysterious island full of gleaming white stone ruins. Since there’s a distressing lack of wi-fi and coffee machines, you must escape – by scaling rugged terrain, swimming above vibrant coral reefs, solving fiendish puzzles, and interacting with local wild creatures who are, it must be said, rather helpful. For example, there’s the moment you have to avoid a terrible boar. In order to unlock some gates, you need to collect a beacon of blue light, and in order to do that you must distract a family of furry oinkers with a juicy orange snagged from a nearby bush. Dialogue and combat-free, Rime…

“WEAPONS FEEL LIKE WORKMAN’S TOOLS STRAIGHT OFF THE FACTORY FLOOR – NO +5 BROADSWORDS HERE” Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher Focus Home Interactive Developer Deck13 ETA May The word ‘industrial’ has been warped over the years by people who’ve never been within 20 yards of a smokestack. “Mate, have you checked out that new industrial gastropub?” or, “Yeah, that band’s got a really industrial sound”. But in this dystopian action-RPG, “industrial” literally means fighting through building sites and hitting people with drills. This is a world swallowed by its own progress. Over-reliance on machines has made large swathes of society obsolete. Why employ humans with contractual lunch breaks when you can use a stomach-less robot? It’s a dark, horrifying vision of the hellish future of all of our places…

“WHEN I FIRST STARTED WORKING ON SURVIVAL HORROR GAMES IN THE LATE ’90S, WE WERE IN A GOLDEN AGE” Traversing the decaying, twilit corridors of the Baker residence, we’re lost. We’re yet to find a map for this section of the swampy compound, we’re short on bullets, and we can’t work out what combiney-item thing we’re supposed to do with that clock. We’re confused, frustrated even, but also thrillingly helpless and terrified. It feels almost profound that a game can make us feel this way. Resident Evil, the series that inspired the term ‘survival horror’ yet had long since strayed from its rotten roots, has been reborn, and this year’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard has become the clearest testament to the resurrection of the genre in recent years. But the…

“AN ULTRA-FAST, RANDOMLY GENERATED LOVE LETTER TO DOOM” Format PC Developer Pixel Titans ETA Spring Web http://bit.ly/gmstrafe When we’re playing a roguelike and want to work out where we’ve already been on the map, we just keep an eye out for all the subtle telltale signs. Discarded items lying around, perhaps, or even empty chests. Well, Strafe has chests, too. It also has arms and legs. And bloody entrails… Welcome to a world where you can use gore like Dulux, covering the walls with bits of your enemies. With what the devs are calling Uber-Gore Tech V2.0 – they’ve definitely patented that – your foes will splatter in seas of viscera that’ll helpfully let you know where you’ve already got your murder on. Funded on Kickstarter, this ’90s-style roguelike shooter…

One of Lucas’s rooms is filled with childhood trophies for engineering, which helps to justify the house’s traps and moving parts. Puzzles sometimes have solutions strewn across areas. That encourages thorough exploration and it doesn’t feel like a fetch quest. Videotapes are a great storytelling device, letting you switch setting and perspective. There’s probably one around here somewhere… Open every single drawer and cupboard. Inside there may be a photograph, craftable, ammo, health – or nothing, but it always pays to check.…

Apart from the brilliant story and characters, this is a brawler where each character has a distinct battling style. Every fighting type has a skill tree that you unlock by spending money (literally investing cash in yourself) which develops the whole setup even further. Our favourite skillset is Majima’s breakdancing style, which is ridiculous fun – if slightly overpowered. While it’s not the deepest combat system ever made, it’s got a nice weight to it. Even the quick skirmishes you often get into when random thugs approach you on the street feel rewarding, because you’re ranked for your performance after each of them, and you’ll get more money if you can end things with a finisher, don’t get hit, or are generally just quick at putting your enemies on their…

“DIFFICULT TO FULLY RECOMMEND BUT EASY TO RESPECT, THIS GAME NEEDED LONGER IN THE OVEN” Format PC Publisher Pixel Trickery Developer Pixel Trickery ETA Out now Players 1 Genuinely unique and interesting games are rare, which means anything special can really come to the fore and blow us away. In A House Of Many Doors, you explore an unforgiving dimension known as ‘The House’ in a train with mechanical legs. It’s a clear spiritual brother to the steampunk ocean wanderer Sunless Sea – which is unsurprising considering the latter’s developer, Failbetter Games, covered a portion of this game’s funding – but just because the two are related doesn’t mean they both got all the good genes. This is a marriage of choose-your-own-adventure RPG and visual novel. You create your own…

Yoki The first enemy you come across that proves an actual challenge, these red-faced nasties typically emerge at first from fog patches as mini bosses before becoming standard enemies. They’re big, but they have a very predictable moveset. Wait until they try a three-combo strike then dodge left or right of their downward swing. Boom – killing time. Kappa Free Amrita! These nippy blighters dart around trying to escape, so make sure you’ve cleared an area of its enemies so you can jog about after them without gathering aggro. They’re based on mythological creatures known for stealing children swimming in rivers. Not to be confused with Kapp’n, the singing turtle chap from Animal Crossing. One-Eyed Oni Doesn’t like you when you call him a cyclops. Or when you don’t. Or…

“ANY MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT MEMORANDA’S DIFFICULTY ARE ERADICATED WITHIN TEN MINUTES” Format PC Publisher Digital Dragon Developer Bit Byterz ETA Out now Players 1 Renowned Japanese author Haruki Murakami has inspired a generation of filmmakers, musicians, and novelists fascinated by his unique brand of storytelling. His surreal short stories are also the inspiration behind videogames – well, this videogame at least. The 2D point-and-click adventure follows a small-town woman called Mizuki who suffers from memory loss and a lack of sleep (we know that feeling). Mizuki’s journey unfolds as you delve into the game’s narrative, her quest taking her to bizarre locations populated by outlandish human-animal hybrids. New clues to what the heck’s going on are uncovered each time you complete a puzzle. Those puzzles are everywhere, which is unfortunate as…

CAPTAIN JOHN PRICE Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC, PS3, Wii, 360 – 2007) If the voice of veteran Eastenders tough nut Billy Murray doesn’t convince you of Price’s ’ardness, look no further than his philtrum. That abrasive walrus is too rough for smooching – no wonder he’s gruff. DUDLEY Street Fighter III (Dreamcast, Arcade – 1997) Punching people into unconsciousness must be awfully tiring, so you could probably excuse some slipshod ’stache waxing from this besuited brawler. But there’s nary a misaligned follicle to be found on Dudley’s debonair mush. Intoxicating. OLD SNAKE Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots (PS3 – 2008) As well as premature ageing, the FOXDIE virus causes Snake to grow luscious grey whiskers, giving him the look of a superbuff supply teacher.…

“MY USUAL CREATION PROCESS GOES: ‘SAW IT. LIKED IT. NEED TO CROSS-STITCH IT’” Does cross-stitch remind you of hours at school, painstakingly crafting a single flower that you quickly covered in blood from needle wounds? You’re not alone. But it’s time to throw away your preconceptions about this form of embroidery – cross-stitch is cool . No-one knows that better than Jess Swaim, from California. Also known as Craftinggeek on Instagram (where you’ll find more of her designs) Swaim spends hours creating perfect Nintendo, Destiny, and other pop culture designs. “My mom and aunt cross-stitched when I was growing up, so it was natural for me to want to start,” Swaim explains when we ask how she first got into the craft. “When I began cross-stitching I…