Duck Souls+

Things aren’t quite what you expect them to be with Duck Souls+

If you’re judging by its title, you probably expect roguelike mechanics, clumsy control mechanics, a lot of atmosphere and punishing enemies at every turn. If you take a look at screenshots then maybe you’re thinking a cute little one screen puzzle platformer.

That last one is close to the truth, its also misleading. Yes, Duck Souls+ is cute, its brightly coloured and fun to look at, its also a one-screen puzzle platformer, but don’t let that fool you into thinking its easy as its anything but.

Unsurprisingly you play through the game as a duck, challenged with retrieving the lost duck souls or something to that effect, the plots only really referenced very early on and isn’t important to what follows. Once that little intro sequence is done with you’re plonked on a full-screen level and challenged with getting from one point to the other before being allowed to move onto the next one. As you progress more challenges are thrown in your way. You’re then given a few levels to get used to each new obstacle, first on its own and then mixed with other obstacles you’ve previously had to learn.

Thankfully Duck Souls+ realises that we’re all at differing levels of skill, with developers Green Dinosaur Games providing two difficulty levels, Normal and Hard, the main difference being the former gives you well-placed checkpoints in levels allowing the player to take a breather and figure out the next step without worrying that a mistake will see you sent right back tot he beginning of the level. However, the beautiful thing is, you can drop out and change the difficulty level at will without there being any gateway preventing you from progressing if you choose to chop and change between either of them. Add in that the levels never really outstay their welcome and you have a short sharp, entertaining little game that’s perfect for both long gaming sessions and just picking up and playing.

It’s that last point that I’d like to build on a little. I played the PSN version of the game, which is compatible with both PS4 and Vita, and whilst there’s no Cross-Save feature here, meaning you have to play through each installation individually rather than being able to switch between the two at will (a feature that the Switch version benefits from due to it being one system with two methods of playing it rather than two separate consoles). I tried it on both systems and personally found the more confined screen but smaller controls felt much more accurate than playing it on the households main TV using a Dual Shock 4, in fact, the Vita’s d-pad is absolutely perfect for this game, add in the systems sleep function and I found myself picking it up and playing it in little fits and starts rather than the more dedicated time I tend to have with the PS4.

The games price point is definitely worth a mention, at £4 on the PlayStation Store, its ridiculously cheap, the budget pricing gives the impression that its a budget game, but it genuinely feels anything but. the presentation is nice and a lot of care and thought has gone into the level design, decisions such as the interchangeable difficulty level sitting alongside this price point does make it slightly disposable, but there’s also far less pressure on the player to just “Git Gud!”

Formats: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 (version tested), Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Vita (version tested)
Release Date: September 8 2019 (Steam), April 2020 (Other Systems)
Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Developer: Green Dinosaur Games

Curious Expedition

You can’t move for retro looking Roguelikes these days. It often feels like almost every other game carries with it the mechanics of earning abilities as you progress but losing equipment and progress, having to start your playthrough essentially from scratch, but with the idea that each time you start over the game is a little easier than the last attempt. Most tie this to a Metroidvania style game, getting you to explore a large 2D environment. This is where Curious Expedition differs.

Curious Expedition isn’t a side scrolling platform action game, no, its developers Maschinen-Mensch, style it as an “expedition” game wherein the player is tasked with becoming a notable person from the 19th Century who embarks on an expedition to find hidden pyramids, return home with treasures and become the worlds most famous explorer, this is all played out with a Civilization Revolution style map that you move your crew across, clearing fog of war, finding villagers, causing volcanic eruptions and running out of Sanity as you “progress”. Games take maybe an hour to ninety minutes to get from your first expedition to your last, provided you get that far, meaning its quite fun to just switch on and not have to really focus on what you’re doing, its fairly light as far as Roguelikes go.

The presentation its quite quirky, every discovery, trade and decision is played out using diary entries that provide the game with its character, sommetimes they really portray the seriousness of any particular predicament (I had someone break a leg and I had to decide whether to leave them or try to heal it, I had to go with the former as I didn’t have the equipment to do the latter, thus making my inventory space smaller so I had to also leave some other items behind) or adding humour at times. It’s a lovely way to portray what looks like quite a static game and each entry is really well written, which gives it the feel of those Choose Your Own Adventure books that were popular in the Eighties and Nineties.

There are a few things that confused me though, I can’t say the game doesn’t try to teach you its mechanics, maybe I just didn’t grasp things well enough. As you explore the map your Sanity meter depletes, this can be replenished by eating consumable items such as chocolate or by sleeping at any villages you find, but both of these can be hard to come by. When the meter reaches 0 you’re crew begin to make mistakes (such as the aforementioned broken leg or they drop items from your inventory, making the rest of the journey even harder) and you’re encouraged to try and make your time walking as long as possible, fewer longer trips results in less Sanity being lost than more frequent but shorter trips.

I couldn’t really grasp the battle system either, its turn based and relies upon dice rolls, but beyond that I didn’t really get on with what the games tutorial was telling me to do, these battles take place against things like wild animals that are patrolling area’s you are walking through or villagers that happened to take offence at your presence (as not everyone is always pleased to see you). It was these moments that led me to getting my Game Over’s as I just didnt have the correct members in my expedition to have the correct dice in order to fight anything off.

The games biggest disapointment however is that, currently at least, its missing a multiplayer mode. From what I can tell the developer has been working on one, at least they have been for the PC version thats been out since 2016, but when playing it, there was no sense of competition or urgency to beat the other Explorers and I couldn’t escape the feeling that a turn based game, with players starting at different points on the same map, racing to find the pyramid first, finding ways to make progress harder for the other competitors, would have made this game an essential couch co-op title rather than a fun little distraction.

Formats: PC (Steam), XBox One (version tested), PS4 and Switch
Release Date: 2016 (PC), April 2 2020 (Consoles)
Publisher: Thunderful Publishing
Developer: Maschinen-Mensch
Code provided by Thundeful Publishing for review purposes.

Miracle Mia

It’s been a while since I actually reviewed a game, the last one being back in September for Sayonara Wild Hearts, so a couple of weeks ago when Shademare reached out to me on Twitter and asked if I would be interested in taking a look at their title Miracle Mia, I perused a few trailers and thought sure, why not?

Miracle Mia is best described as a story-driven 2D action game. You play the titular Mia and have to fend off a variety of foes using her magical tennis racket as you progress through a series of pastel-coloured and beautifully realised locations. What makes the game unique is the aforementioned tennis racket, enemies aren’t defeated in the traditional sense of just hitting them (though that is an option), the idea here is to repel their attacks back in the direction they came from (or towards another opponent) in what is, in my opinion, quite a clever mechanic.

On that mechanic, the key thing here is just how well it works, the game moves at a decent pace and you never really feel like the controls are lagging behind you in any way, they’re perfectly responsive which comes in handy as the difficulty ramps up.

There’s some element of platforming here, with Miracle Mia utilising jumping, dashing and teleportation techniques to traverse the terrain, there are times where you have to rely on quick reflexes and times where you’ll be battling whilst also performing some mildly complicated control pad gymnastics, though for the most part, these moments are usually filler between fairly static battles. The challenge comes from moments where you have to combine a variety of things in order to progress, such as dashing through opponents in order to stun them but making sure you don’t stay on a fragile platform for too long. It really does make for some energetic play.

Aesthetically, its very pleasing, the variety of locations are wonderfully realised and carry over a very Japanese aesthetic, though I’d have to say that the magical girl theme to pretty much all the main characters only really works from a distance, when characters faces appear closer alongside speech bubbles (in order to further the plot) it does tend to look very generic. Thankfully though these moments, whilst common, tend to happen whilst you’re playing so aren’t massively distracting, allowing you to soak in the tones and themes presented to you as you progress.

Unfortunately though, its the story and its presentation, that does begin to drag this game down, then there’s its length, now I’ll admit, I didn’t reach the end of Miracle Mia as it began to strain on my ability to stay interested, it just seemed to be quite a long experience (there’s a chapter select and I think I counted ahead to over 20 chapters), with everything that was introduced in the time I spent with the game, it didn’t really need to feel like I was going to have to spend a lot longer with it than I already had to see its end, there were enough interesting ideas on show for a short, sharp experience, after all, its better to leave the player wanting more than it is to have them wondering just how much more there’s going to be.

Formats: PC (Steam)
Release Date: 23 August 2019
Publisher: Shademare
Developer:  Shademare
Code provided by Shademare for review purposes.

Sayonara Wild Hearts

It’s not often I come across a game that I’d struggle to place within a genre, but I think Simogo’s Sayonara Wild Hearts tries to do that, and maybe comes up with its own. Is it an endless runner? yes, is it an on rails shooter? yes, is it a rhythm action game? kind of. What it is, is actually an interactive music album. I’m not entirely sure if such a thing has been done before, no doubt some prog rock outfit or experimental electronica creator has tried something, but like this? Surely not.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is a concept album about a girl who has to learn to live with a broken heart and the emotional rollercoaster that goes with that, all told in vivid shades of purple, pink and blue, using some really good music and a narration from the legendary Queen Latifah, the difference here is that you play as the protagonist as she uses a variety of vehicles (and a stag) to defeat a variety of gangs and individuals in order for the lead character to repair her heart.

Levels play out in what one would describe as being like an endless runner, or those of us who are a little older would be as “on-rails”, think Panzer Dragoon or Rez where you control where the character moves on a 2D plain, dodging on coming attacks and obstacles whilst collecting hearts, building up your score in an old fashioned score attack manner, as the music video you are now a part of plays on and the music drives the emotion of the scene. There’s no invasive HUD, the only on-screen prompts are for when you directly take on each of your opponents, usually in some kind of duel at the end of a series of tracks.

It’s a proper sensual experience thats best played with the lights out and the sound up and its genuinely emotive. I’ve played through it three times so far, though I’ll come to those in a moment, but as the game nears its end, there’s a sequence of events where the protagonist begins to get the better of each of her foes and the music builds up and I genuinely get a lump in my throat and my eyes have had tears in them all three times. It’s a beautifully emotive game thats brilliantly put together, the emotion doesn’t just come from the game play, the story, the music or the visuals, its a culmination of all of those elements and it creates something that is very, very special.

But.

Yes, but.

I can’t shake the feeling that Simogo could have made it even more special. You see, there’s a decision been made here, and I think I understand what they were trying to do. Your very first play through of the game your only choice is to play it track by track, unlocking the next one as you go, which in any other game isn’t a problem. Here though, for me, it is, and that is because as you progress and get to the end of a track, you’re thrown out of the experience to click on the next track and then begin playing that. It’s not until you’ve finished that first play through that you then get to select Album Arcade mode from the Extras menu option. In Album Arcade mode you play right from the protagonist being in her bed room, the world tipping upside down and her being thrown out of her window into the games first track to Queen Latifah’s closing comments as the Protagonist is returned to her bedroom. This is how I think Simogo really wanted the player to experience the game, it certainly feels like the more purer experience and as the game is roughly 90 minutes long it doesn’t feel too long for a one sitting play through.

But I can see why they made the decision to go with the level select option as your introduction to the concept they’ve come up with, its safer, its something gamers are used to, its how every other music based game we’ve ever had is played, or if they don’t throw you back to a level select screen your quite often given a few story driven cutscenes to watch. I’m thinking of iNiS’ Gitaroo Man and Ouenden or NanaOnSha’s ParappaTheRapper or Um Jammer Lammy, where each song to be played through is different to the last with a genuine beginning and an end. Sayonara Wild Hearts feels as though it should do things differently, and admittedly in the Album Arcade mode there’s still noticeable breaks between the tracks rather than one continuous evolution of the music.

Which makes it hard to really criticise Simogo for that decision, what they’ve created in Sayonara Wild Hearts is genuinely emotive, very unique and amazingly special and I genuinely feel like my criticsm is nitpicking, but its definitely a feeling thats hard to shake and now that I have access to Album Arcade mode, its the way I’ll continue to play through it as I’ll definitely be returning, just as I return to Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Rez from time to time, and that I’m mentioning it alongside that masterpiece shows how highly I place Sayonara Wild Hearts.

Formats: PlayStation 4 (Version Tested), Switch and Apple Devices
Release Date: 19th September 2019
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Developer:  Simogo

Decay of Logos

Due to the success of FROM Software’s Soulsborne games (Demons Souls, Dark Souls trilogy, Bloodborne and Sekiro) we’ve spent the past decade watching developers try and knock the Japanese studio off their perch and very few have been succesful, but its hard to ignore that “Soulslike” has become a genre of its own, much like “Metroidvania” games have seen a massive number of games released by would be indie darlings in recent years too.

Decay of Logos is Amplify Creations entry into the Soulslike genre, it borrows from elsewhere but at its heart its a Soulslike, but Amplify haven’t simply phoned in a hardcore fantasy action RPG, they’ve definetly got some ambition and they’ve put it all there for the player to see in Decay of Logos

So, for those unfamiliar with the genre, in a Soulslike the player is encouraged to explore the games world but also forced to be cautious and pick their battles, learn each enemies attack patterns and weaknesses. Each fight is supposed to be a challenge and getting over confident is the first step to failure.

Decay of Logos see’s the player play as a young girl who’s village is destroyed, during her lowest moment an elk comes to her aid and from there the two set out together to find answers and revenge. The lead character isn’t a warrior and it shows in the combat, both you and the girl (as she’s not given a name) learn to fight and defend yourself as you progress through the game, though aside from a handful of magical abilities, you aren’t taught new techniques as you gain experience.

The way in which Amplify have tried to do something different is in how the player is punished, every time you are hit, every time you die and have to respawn at either an alter or campsite, your stats take a hit, you’re strength, stamina etc are all affected by any damage that you take, this is on top of you losing health each time you take a hit. Health can be replenished at either of the two types of save points, but its only at campsites that you can properly heal and return your stats to their previous state. This is done by sleeping, rather than merely resting, but even this comes with its own risk. You’ll either get a good nights sleep and wake up fully healed, or your sleep will be disturbed by enemies ambushing you in the dark of night, defeating them will give you a chance to go back to sleep and, again, replenish your stats and health, being defeated will result in you waking up the next morning with your stats only partially replenished. It doesn’t just affect how hard you’re hitting, but also how easily you take hits, how quick you can recover from any hits and how quickly your stamina bar refils.

These aren’t the only things you need to manage, first off you can only carry a set number of potions, so have to leave some with the elk, the game is all about trying to plan for each outcome and weighing up the risks and this is evident in your equipment. As you slay enemies they drop armour for you to equip, but as you take hits, they deteorate so you’re constantly on the scrounge hoping an enemy will drop the correct piece of equipment to replace something thats seen better days, but also trying to weight up stats and elemental properties for each given location

As I said, there’s alot going on, on the game makes no excuses about not holding your hand, theres tips on loading screens, but as they only come when you start the game up, sleep or die, you’re hoping not to see them too often. There’s no obvious sign posting for where to go either, and early on I missed an entire section that I ultimately went back to as it involved freeing an NPC who provides you with a bit of help later on once you reach the hub zone.

Like I’ve mentioned, its ambitious, especially for what I understand is a very small team. In fact its probably over ambitious in places, the lack of loading is actually probably its biggest issue, which is a weird thing to criticise a game for. However, the framerate really begins to struggle the longer you leave it between sleeping at campsites, and considering that they’re spaced quite far apart (though you can use each one as often as you’d like), until you begin to open up shortcuts around the environment, frames begin to get dropped in really difficult circumstances. I once had the game freeze for a couple of seconds, and it was through sheer luck that I’d dashed backwards at the exact moment before the game froze that I was able to avoid an enemy attack.

I’ve also had problems where my first press of R1 hasn’t initiated my character swinging her weapon, leaving me exposed, I thought I was imagining it to begin with but I noticed it happening every so often, and at random, as I played through the game. The team are already talking about upcoming patches to the game, and as I publish this the first console patch should have gone live, so if anything, on top of it being a little ambitious, Decay of Logos has probably been released a little early on PC, XBox One and PS4, its Switch release was delayed at the last moment.

They’ve also mentioned they’re planning addressing the first zone leading upto the hub area. As feedback has been that its maybe a little too punishing and unfamiliar to the player, I’d have to agree. I’ve already mentioned missing out a section, but I was also trying to do stuff that I clearly wasn’t ready to do. There’s an area that takes you underground and when I climbed one ladder I was met with a knight wielding a lance, I tried and I tried to defeat him, but my equipped weapon was merely tickling him rather than hurting him whilst being caught once by one of his attacks had my character out cold. Turns out this guy is optional at this stage of the game and I came across more of his like later on in the game who were much easier to dispatch due to a combination of better equipment and my stats being much better, not to mention I had a sword that had a fire element to it that would provide additional damage whilst I was backing off to wait for a new opening.

There’s alot to like though and if the patches address some of the above then Decay of Logos is well on the way to being a pretty good game, that its been released in what feels like an unfinished state is more an issue with the industry than it is with the ability of its creators. The combat is fun, as are the puzzle solving elements and traversing the environment. The latter has some truly breathtaking moments, especially in relation to its scale. The heights you reach, plus the rather clumsy feeling controls when trying to get the girl to jump, really make you feel dizzy. The elk is also a really positive element. Some may not like the way in which it controls, but to me it felt more like you were riding a wild animal that you were trying to earn the trust of than in other games where your horse or whatever is basically a slower car that steers as such. Here you have to apply small guiding inputs to get the creature to go where you want, though I mostly stuck to being on foot, but continuing to feed it as I soon discovered it can sometimes help you out in battles (though generally it prefers to stay out of conflict).

I can see alot of people bouncing off of this, mostly due to its technical issues, but as a small studio’s first game it’s definitely gained my attention, there’s enough interesting idea’s here that, personally, I find it easy to ignore its shortcomings, especially as Amplify seem to be making the right noises on working on them.

Formats: PlayStation 4 (Version Tested), PC, XBox One, Switch
Release Date: 27th August 2019 (PS4), 30th August (PC and XBox One) and September (Switch)
Publisher: Rising Star Games/Thunderful Games
Developer: Amplify Creations

Review code supplied by Thunderful Games

Descenders

I think we’ve established by now that I like racing games, so my initial thoughts when I saw tweets regarding RageSquid’s Descenders was “oo that looks like a great racing game”, so once it hit Game Pass on XBox One I gave it a download and have spent the last week playing it and I was wrong, its not a “great racing game”.

I was however to use the term “great” because Descenders is really, really good, but its not a racing game. It’s also not a Tony Hawks style game, which is another assumption it is easy to make when you look at screenshots or watch videos. It actually has both elements, there is a race to the bottom of the hill and you can do tricks, but overall, at least in single player where I’ve spent all of my time, there’s no right way to play Descenders. There’s no position markers, so its not about beating your “opponents” (who, depending on if you’re connected to the internet or not) are all humans, thing is, “opponents” is the wrong term, they all occupy the same space as you, but you’re not pitched against them and people drop in and out of your instance on a consistent basis. Likewise, your Rep score isn’t compared to these players whilst your in a particular event (which are all procedurally generated based upon stats set when you choose an event).

Which makes Descenders difficult to describe to others, but I keep returning to it. Why? Well, aside from it being really good fun, its cathartic too. There’s something to be said about just throwing a Mountain Bike down the side of a hill, popping off tricks whilst the excellent EDM soundtrack plays, its incredibly cathartic and thanks to the fact its only a ragdoll physics based representation of human who’s bones are at stake I don’t have to worry about being rushed to the hospital or being left to die (which is one of a few reasons I’m unlikely to really get into mountain biking as a real world hobby even if I could do with some excercise thats less damaging to my knees than jogging would be).

I mentioned before that the game was instanced, it has a similar kind of structure to RICO that I reviewed a couple of months back in that theres branching paths for each of the games four locations. Each branch leads to a new event that is randomly generated and the map gives you an idea of what kind of terrain to expect using gauges that show you the routes steepness, how twisty it is and whether it is trick intensive or not. You’re given a pool of attempts to get as far through all four environments as you can and you can increase that pool by completing the (also randomly generated) bonus objective for each event. As you progress and also gain more rep (earned via doing tricks) you’ll also build a Team, these are essentially stat buffs that allow you to land from greater heights, loose less life points when you’re bailing, make you spin faster when doing tricks and a whole host of others than you can pick from to tailor the game to your own abilities. Each environment finishes up in a “Boss Jump”, an almost Evel Knievel style jump (i.e. over a viaduct with a steam train going over it) that you need to land in order to move onto the next environment.

What makes all this work though is just how great the game is to control, the weight and momentum of your bike as you hurtle downhill and the speed with which the game can shift along is exhilarating and its rare that the frame rate begins to struggle. It all feels incredibly simple to begin with, RT gets your guy peddaling, LT is your break, left stick steers whilst the right stick allows you to pump and bunny hob the bike in a similar manner to EA’s old SKATE games. Personally I feel that having to hold the left bumper button and then use the right stick to perform tricks is a bit cumbersome but you soon get used to it, although I’ll admit that I was less focused on doing tricks and more on riding as fast as I could down the hills.

Circuits are lined by tape with checkpoints as you go, but you’re never forced to stick to the route, the checkpoints are merely there to give you a new starting point if you crash, and in fact some events do away with a route completely and merely ask you to head in the direction of the finish line as told to you by a compass at the top of the screen, and its this level of freedom that gives the game its almost meditative feel.

Its not perfect though, the load times can sometimes feel a little too long and theres an argument to be made regarding to its repetition, but on that last point, in a medium where far too many games can feel overblown and bulked out Descenders offers a nice counter in that its unlikely you’ll ride the same series of corners more than once and just setting out to “get to the next environment” offers a great 20 minute play thats perfect for just unwinding. I’ll happily admit that I was worried during my first play of Descenders that me getting the wrong impression of the game from its trailers would damage how I felt about the game, but further time with it as shown it to be a hidden gem of a game that I’ve grown to want to recommend to everyone that states there aren’t enough console exclusives on the XBox One, that its (at the time of writing) available on Games Pass means that everyone subscribed to that service, in my opinion, owes it to themselves to give it their time.

Formats:  PC, XBox One (Version tested)
Release Date: 9 February 2018 (PC), 15 May 2018 (XBox One)
Publisher: No More Robots
Developer: RageSquid

Dangerous Driving

I recently discussed my love of racing games when I did a #ThrowBackThursday for OutRun 2006 and I’ve done some race reports for my attempts at racing online in GTSport. Now I have a brand new racing game to discuss, Three Field Entertainments Dangerous Driving which released earlier this week on PlayStation 4, PC and XBox One.

Dangerous Driving is one of those games thats not shy about its influences, its a pure arcade racer where racing lines and braking points are further down the list than just being outrageously fun. For those that know nothing about it, Dangerous Driving is the latest racing game by Burnout creator Alex Ward, and the pedigree shows. This is Burnout in all but name, albeit it pre-Paradise. Which isn’t a bad thing, not that Burnout Paradise was bad, it was anything but. But like Burnout was prior to Paradise, Dangerous Driving is an incredibly focused piece of adrenaline fueled gaming.

You’ll notice from the very start there’s little in the way of menu’s and options, theres a number of different events ranging from standard races, through takedown events to, my personal favourite, Heatwave mode wherein you chain boosts by using up the full boost bar up without letting go of the controller button. Whilst there’s also a number of different racing class, from Sedans,  SUV’s, Coupe’s and ultimately “Formula DD” or F1 to you and I.

The reason for this stripped back approach is that Three Fields are a tiny team of seven and they’ve put this together in a similar small space of time. Even so, ignoring the lack of polish on the front end, not to mention that theres a distinct lack of in-game music, you can see where all their efforts have gone as the gameplay is pure “in the zone” gaming, and when you are managing to dodge traffic and the persistent wrecks (every Takedown you perform leaves your opponents carcass on the road waiting to take you out on the following lap) you’ll be right on the edge of your seat, not daring to blink as chaos ensues around you.

Things aren’t perfect though. It’ll take a while to get used to the camera position and the sun glare, apparently the team had a discussion over what construes as “dangerous driving” and driving fast whilst blinded by the sun was one of the things that came up which they’ve seen fit to include here. And for what its worth, their goal of making the driving dangerous by including it has been achieved, whether or not it was a good idea is open to debate, after a while its easy to ignore most of the time but sometimes wrecking feels a little unfair due to being blinded. Likewise the chase camera is low to the ground and close to your rear bumper, it does pull back a bit when you’re boosting but its still closer than most games, again, this is a design choice based upon giving the player that sensation of speed. The front bumper cam is even lower. Cars can feel a little unpredictable at times, in particular the SUV’s. Now I’m not a rage gamer, I’ll generally turn a game off through frustration before I’m swearing at it, but Dangerous Driving has driven me close a number of times, especially when in the SUV’s and unfortunately you can progress to a different class without completing the prior one first. Which, whilst being standard progression for this sort of game historically, I can see it frustrating some. Lastly the steering sensitivity is a little high, you can turn it down in the options but at the time of writing the game doesn’t save these changes so you have to change it every time you start the game up.

These are only minor niggles though, and some are definetly done on purpose to provide a challenge for the player and set Dangerous Driving aside from the faux-arcade racers like Forza Horizon. What we have here is an excellent addition to the genre, it may or may not be the case that I’ve given it an easier time due to a lack of anything similar on current hardware, its pedigree and the developers cashing in on nostalgia, but provided this leads to Three Fields bringing us more Dangerous Driving in the future, I’m really happy to recommend that anyone looking for some balls out fun gives this a go.

 

Formats: PlayStation 4 (Version Tested), PC, XBox One
Release Date: 9th April 2019
Publisher: Three Fields Entertainment
Developer: Three Fields Entertainment

RICO

Buddy Cop movies are great right? All that comedy and action thrown into one roller coaster of a movie! Who doesn’t love Lethal Weapon (well, apart from 3 and 4), 21 Jump Street, Rush Hour and The Other Guys? And now you can play a part in that too thanks to RICO. Because here is a game that takes half of what we love about those movies, the action, and encourages you and a buddy to take on the “Wunza” roles as you bust down doors and burst open some perps heads. Sounds great, right?

Well, it is. It works like this, there are three game modes, Quick, Case Mode and Daily which all sort of intertwine with each other. Case mode is where you will be spending most of your time, here RICO takes on a Rogue-like quality, you’re assigned missions from a mission tree that are progressively harder, you always start in the games Killhouse with only a handgun in your arsenal, as you progress you can purchase better guns, attachments, grenades or heal. However, once you die its game over and you’re back to the Killhouse to start a new case with only your starting handgun available. I’ll admit it took me a while to figure out that you do get to keep your equipment, but not for this mode, it’s all there, waiting to be selected in Quick mode. Which leaves you with the headache of “do I buy that gun again or do I spend money on health”. What does carry over however is the Traits that you unlock by earning experience and leveling up, these cover abilities like quicker reloads or damage multipliers and are assigned to your chosen character where you can pick up to three unlocked Traits depending on your play style. The latter mode is Daily, here the developers upload a handful of different scenario’s, one for each difficulty, with set equipment where the aim is to post a fast completion time to the online leaderboards. Once each scenario is completed your given credits to unlock skins for your guns.

Now like I said, the concept of the game is that you and a mate play this cooperatively, bursting into rooms and shooting the bad guys, There are other mission completion elements too, sometimes you’ll be tasked with collecting evidence, which is just discovering a randomised number of green brief cases, or diffusing bombs. These tasks can be assigned to you from the outset or appear as you work your way through a level and are much of a muchness. The fun ones are when the game asks you to complete a set amount of sliding kills, or clearing a number of rooms whilst still in slow motion, and here is where the co-op play really excels as you are often in a position where you can approach certain rooms from two different entry points, allowing you or your partner to provide a distraction whilst the other applies the skill. However here there’s also the risk that your partner could get in the way which was a situation my eldest daughter and I found ourselves in a few times when we were playing couch co-op.

Whilst all of this sounds great, and when it all works, RICO is genuinely great fun to play in co-op, it definitely doesn’t really work as a single player game as there’s very little meat on the bone here. There’s also a few minor niggles too, for a start it’s really weird playing a first-person shooter that doesn’t have any rumble feature, it makes you feel disconnected from the onscreen action and is a genuine shame when you get your hands on one of the games shotguns as they’re really satisfying to use within the games claustrophobic environments, adding a kick from the pad would have accentuated that further and made them great fun to play with. The sensitivity is also a little off, it feels too twitchy on its default setting, and whilst you can alter this, it initially put me off the game a little to begin with. However one thing that did spoil RICO more than I would normally like to admit was that due to its procedurally generated levels furniture can sometimes get in the way, I got stuck on more than a few chairs and on more than one occasion when tasked with finding piles of money or collecting evidence I was blocked from reaching the item I was searching for by an office desk or changing blind that had been placed in my way.

These are minor gripes though because like I’ve already said, when played the way RICO wants you to play it: sliding through doors, breaking them down and unleashing lead into the heads of bad guys, RICO is gloriously good fun.

Formats: PlayStation 4 (Version Tested), PC, Switch, XBox One
Release Date: 12th March 2019 on PS4, 13th March 2019 on XBox One and 14th March 2019 on PC and Switch
Publisher: Rising Star Games
Developer: Ground Shatter
Key provided via Keymailer

Drowning

Drowning is a game that is about a school boy (its never expressed that the narrator is a boy, but the games creator has stated in its synopsis), moving from Year 7 to Year 8 and ultimately Year 12 (so the game starts with the narrator being 11 years old) who is suffering from depression and how he deals with having depression during his school years.

It’s a strong subject, and the manner in which the tale is told suggests its a deeply personal matter to Polygonal Wolf. As you slowly walk through the games different locations, following a strict path, text appears suggesting a conversation between the narrator and their own mind. It’s all sensitively done and at times genuinely moving and cathartic, and aside from the occasional grammatical and spelling error (for which I’m not one  to judge!) its down to Polygonal Wolf’s talent to get, what I presume, are his own thoughts and feelings down in a manner that the player can relate to.

 

The tale is told as you walk through some beautiful settings, all created in a low polygon and pastel effect with the tone changing, alongside the music, as the narrator gets older and their depression becoming deeper. What starts off as an almost innocent walk through some woods, full of bright sunshine and bold colours, later develops into dark, cold atmospheres that it would be easy to say are cliche but perfectly fit with the words that appear on screen.

However, whilst Drowning is great at getting all of these feelings down, when the narrators mental health begins to find its own voice, and begins to challenge what it is being told, be it positively or otherwise, the dialog can feel a little clumsy and forced, as though the writer knew what they wanted to aim towards and just headed straight for it, much like the linear path that the player is forced to walk along. It never really feels like you are part of the conversation, nor that there is any room for discussion to go beyond a certain path, which ties into the way the game handles its multiple endings.

The initial ending is easy to unlock, its literally following the path laid out in front of you until the game reaches its conclusion and the credits roll. But there are three other endings to walk through, all of which involve convoluted exploration that, due to the linear nature of the path (there’s nothing to suggest you can leave the intended path at any point unless your literally pushing against the walls on either side at all times) I can’t see how anyone would figure out how to unlock them. I personally only experienced them after following a guide to see if they offered anything different.

That being said, an initial run through for one ending only takes about half an hour, personally speaking as someone who has received treatment and is still undergoing treatment for depression, Drowning is a title that I’d urge anyone to play through in order to either maybe understand their own inner monologue and realise that, actually, this happens to an awful lot of us, or if you care for someone you know to be struggling, it could help give you a better insight into why they act the way they do.

Formats: PlayStation 4 (Version Tested), PC, Switch, Vita, Linux, Mac
Release Date: 31st January 2019
Publisher: Sometimes You
Developer: Polygonal Wolf
Key provided by Sometimes You via Keymailer