Control is a supernatural action game set inside a metamorphosing intelligence agency building, called the Oldest House. The massive government facility is as much a highlight as Control’s telekinetic combat, with imposing angular architecture and a penchant for shapeshifting, which leads to some truly unforgettable sequences as you battle through kaleidoscopic concrete atriums and corridors.
Two Point Hospital is the spiritual successor to Theme Hospital, a hospital management game from the late nineties with a wicked sense of humour and and addictive progression loop. Both of those elements are present in Two Point Hospital, which takes the absurdist humour to new, face-palming heights and modernises the management mechanics so that it’s readable, but packed with depth.
Considering it’s the first Metro game to really let you stretch your legs outside of the damp, claustrophobic Moscow tunnels, Metro Exodus still manages to be as haunting and hectic as its apocalypse games predecessors. This is a slow and methodical story-driven shooter, packed with rich and detailed environments, and powered by an affecting human survival story.
Reinventing this classic third-person survival-horror series was never going to be easy, but as alarming as the switch to a first-person perspective is, Resident Evil 7 revives all of the things that made the series iconic: scrabbling around for ammo and healing supplies, running away from more enemies than you can fight, and an emphasis on building tension through atmosphere than cashing in on cheap jump scares.
Furi is a hard as nails boss rush game with a thumping synthwave soundtrack and an arresting neon palette. If you can best its series of bosses quickly then this is a pretty short jaunt, but expect to know the soundtrack and movesets inside and out by the time the credits roll as each and every boss you face will take all of your attention and reflexes to best.
Cooking games are pretty niche, but the Overcooked series has managed to take rigorous recipe-following and turn it into one of the most intense, hilarious, and friendship-destroying co-op games in recent years. The premise is pretty simple: each player assumes the role of a chef in a kitchen and you work together to assemble the right ingredients, cook them to perfection, and serve them. However, if coordinating dishes wasn’t hard enough, then the inventive kitchen designs in Overcooked 2, like a kitchen that’s spread across two constantly moving hot air balloons, will force mistakes from you and your pals, leading to countless culinary disasters.
Rez Infinite is a downright psychedelic experience that trailers, unfortunately, don’t do justice to. The blend of music, animations, and gameplay is a sensory delight and will keep you playing long after you meant to turn in for the night. Your goal through this audio-visual treat, is to save the world by scrubbing cyberspace for bugs – the story isn’t really the big deal here though.
What if Commandos but Edo period Japan is the elevator pitch for Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, but that’s not the whole story. Yes, you control a ragtag band of heroes using a mix of stealth and strategy to infiltrate enemy lines, but it’s the individual skill sets of Shadow Tactics’ characters that makes its missions so much fun to dissect and replay. Depending on which characters you take into a mission, you can choose to bulldoze a group of several warriors with samurai Mugen, slink past them with geisha Aiko, lure and trap enemies as Yuki, take them out from afar with marksman Takuma, or go around them as the agile ninja Hayato.
