Dead Island is out in the UK tomorrow. It was released in America a few days ago in what can only be described as a major balls-up whereby the developers unfinished test build was released for anyone who ordered it on Steam. Oops. Hopefully, the day one patch which came along shortly after has fixed all of those shenanigans and we’ll be able to play the game the way it was meant to be played. I was mostly curious to find out if it contained even a hint of the emotional heartbreak shown in that infamous trailer, but after the slew of hugely varied reviews, it certainly seems unlikely. The game does allow you to chop off zombie’s individual arms though.
Seriously, this game features some horrifically brutal and gory melee combat. If you’re playing with a gamepad, you can switch on ‘analog-combat’ which lets you swing your boat oar/crowbar/sword with ultimate precision. If you target a zombie’s arm, you can disable it by breaking it at the elbow, after which it will dangle there uselessly. Break the other arm, and the zombie will stagger towards you and use the only weapon it has left: its head. It’s hilarious, and sick, and oh-so-satisfying.
With such mixed reviews, I’m undecided whether to get this or not, but I’m very tempted. I thought I’d had my fill of zombie games, but the more gameplay I see of this, the more my interest gets reignited. Open world zombie survival on a tropical island setting might just be too hard to resist.
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
I want to talk about Cloudpunk, a game where you get to be a flying-car delivery driver in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Its world is an incredible achievement of environmental design, and while the gameplay itself may be basic, the city of Nivalis is a thing of beauty to behold. Nivalis is built out of hundreds of hand-modelled cuboid buildings; there’s nothing procedural about it. Apparently it took 3 years for the devs to design the city, and it really shows.
I do love me some quality pixel art, and it doesn’t get much better than this. Cast n Chill is a cozy side-scrolling fishing game by small indie dev team Wombat Brawler, with absolutely gorgeous visuals. It’s simple to play, and you you can dip in and out of it at your leisure, making it a fine addition to our collection of coffee break games.
Format: PC
Year: 2001 – present day
If Return to Castle Wolfenstein was my first date with PC gaming, Battlefield 1942 was when she invited me to meet her parents, and the relationship went to the next level. My god, did I really just write that analogy?
Format: PS1 & PC
Release date: 1997
I’m not sure what to tell you about FF7. Simply put, it’s one of my all-time favourite games, and the hordes of fans it has makes me feel like a bit of a cliché to even include it in this feature. But I have to. It changed my life, I think. Before this, I had not played a game with such a deep and engaging story, an epic tale about a host of very likable characters, all unique and fleshed out with interesting back stories. It’s just wonderful.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a depressing game. It’s epic and majestic, but undoubtedly bleak. Luckily, it also has some hilarious moments timed with comedic perfection, which somehow never feel out of place. It’s a credit to the writers, and the performances of the voice actors. These are my favourite funny moments of Expedition 33.
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