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New week, yet more videogames! Gosh, those developers are incorrigible. I would characterise this week’s new game releases as a gentle blend of cosy simulation and nostalgia, served on a bed of fantasy roguelikes. If I had to pick a most-anticipated, it’d be a toss-up between the remaster of a shooter I adored in my teens and the breezy amateur photography game that teaches you the kanji for “flower”.
Turbo Kid is a 2015 movie set in a post-apocalypse in which a comic book fan battles a local tyrant, with gory, comedic, ’80s-pastiching results. It was not a film I expected to get a metroidvania sequel, but here it is with a new demo and an April release date.
I’ve entered a stage in my life during which I have enormous nostalgia for the PlayStation era, and most of that nostalgia is focused on racing games and drum and bass. Enter Night-Runners, a racing game set between 1990 and 2009, scored by drum and bass, smeared with VHS filters, and just for good measure, set on and around the expressways of Tokyo.
There’s a Kickstarter for the project now, but also a substantial prologue demo on Steam that’s worth your time.
Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown, Ubisoft’s highly polished prototypical Metroidvania, was released last month and instantly earned its place on our list of the best of the genre. Now Ubisoft Montpellier say they’re planning free updates to add extra content and modes, with the first to arrive soon.
Unsure that touchscreen controls on a tiny phone screen is the best way to play a real-time strategy game? You’ll have an excuse to say “I told you so” or be proven wrong this summer, when veteran PC RTS series Age of Empires comes to mobile.
Over 25 years into Age of Empires’ history, it seems the storied strategy series is riding a high. Developers World’s Edge have announced their plans to follow up last year’s The Sultans Ascend DLC for Age of Empires 4 – said to be the best-selling expansion in the entire series’ history – with some new additions to the latest RTS instalment this spring.
Age of Mythology Retold, the latest remaster of the god-battling Age of Empires spin-off, will finally see a release in 2024, having been revealed back in October 2022.
Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot recently said Skull And Bones is a “quadruple-A game”, which I think is very accurate, actually. “AAAA” is the sound that escapes my lips as I embark on yet another hour-long sail to retrieve some logs, or when I’m doing my little deliveries and a brigantine starts on me. After 11 years in development, Ubisoft’s pirate game isn’t necessarily a disaster, I just think its live service model has transformed piracy from a roguish lark on the waves into a tremendously dull series of shipping tasks.
Lil Guardsman is a game that wears its heart on its sleeve. In a victory for normative determinism, this is a fantasy adventure about a small girl named Lil who somehow becomes the first (and seemingly only) line of defence at a city’s border patrol as a guardsman. At various points, both Lil and those around her frequently call attention to the fact that, yes, you are merely a 12-year-old child who is massively underqualified for this task, and that if you’re going to continue filling in for your good for nothing father who’s down the pub gambling on the latest ball game, then really, what do your superiors expect? It’s very self-aware in that sense, and occasionally verges on breaking the fourth wall. This alone will probably be a fairly good indicator of whether you’ll gel with Lil Guardsman’s sense of humour or not, but for the most part, this is a sweet and jovial narrative adventure whose characterful animation and charming voice cast help bring this oddball tale of fate and consequence to life.
It’s also not shy about where it’s taken its main source of inspiration from either. This is fantasy Papers, Please through and though, albeit one that’s more about interrogating and probing would-be citygoers for information than checking documents and spotting inconsistencies. During the day you’ll be working your post, dealing with the increasingly large, but fixed queues of fantasy species all trying to enter the city gate to go about their business. When you’re off the clock, it’s time to pick up the game’s wider plotlines, with Lil able to travel around the city to set locations where she can chat with other townsfolk, sometimes partake in the odd mini-game or two, and visit the local shop before toddling off to bed. It’s admittedly quite a straightforward interpretation of Lucas Pope’s magnum opus, with star ratings denoting clear right and wrong answers for how you deal with each day’s horde, but you know what they say about first impressions. Good ones go a long way.
I know this sort of thing has been said before around these parts, but in scanning through the endless reams of Steam Next Fest demos earlier this month and trying to work out what these games are and whether they’re worth downloading, I truly believe it’s a sentiment that’s worth repeating. When I first saw the name C.A.R.D.S RPG: The Misty Battlefield appear on the Next Fest landing page, I instantly thought, ‘Yes, here we go, now we’re talking’.
Well, my first thought was actually, ‘Gee, if only there was an easy way to know what this game’s about based on just the title alone,’ but that’s just me being facetious. Ultimately, I have a lot of respect for this kind of naming convention, and the fact it’s also being made by the Octopath Traveler developers Acquire is really just the icing on the cake.
