by Sam Sant @SlamShotSam

What elements served as the inspiration behind Raiders of the Broken Planet? We drew inspiration from many different sources when designing Raiders of the Broken Planet, and many of them come from outside the videogames industry. Films like Serenity, the Seven Samurai, Mad Max or The Wild Bunch had some weight on the game’s story and background, for example - antiheroes of questionable morality rising up against injustice. Raiders of the Broken Planet’s art direction drinks from quite diverse sources, from Manga and Anime to North American comic books. Kow Yokoyama’s work on 2000AD is a huge inspiration, as well as Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin’s Tank Girl. The same can be said of Mangas like Gunnm or Akira. Influences in videogames can be found in Street Fighter in terms of character design, and Perfect Dark - the game that inspired the Antagonist Mode in Raiders of the Broken Planet. ​ From the beginning, we have aspired to achieve a very distinct and unique style, with iconic and exaggerated characters in a world that catches the player’s eye with stunning and memorable scenes. Sci-fi is a quite fertile ground for the imagination and allows you to mix concepts that wouldn’t necessarily work in any other setting.

"We are immensely proud of the games we have created for both Konami and Nintendo, but Raiders of the Broken Planet is a passion project, and those kinds of projects demand nothing less than total creative freedom..."

"[Fans] feel that their opinions are being heard, and that we take these very seriously when deciding our next moves... Raiders of the Broken Planet is now their game as much as it is ours."

by Sam Sant @SlamShotSam

Comprised of four new missions, the campaign sets the Raiders at loggerheads with the eponymous Hades Division, lead by General Krausher and his case of small penis syndrome. To tackle (teehee) the most powerful military force in the galaxy, our ragtag crew could use a hand, or a pair of hands, as they set out to convince Lieutenant Ayana Kwena to defect to their cause. By devastating the location Kwena is assigned to defend, they do exactly that, as returning to Krausher with failure in tow would be suicide. From here on in, Ayana is playable across all missions. She’s a characteristically bizarre prospect within the Raiders universe - a tribal future pirate with an accent that flits between Jamaican, Indian, German and Welsh… In terms of loadout, Ayana rocks a mortar rifle used to launch proximity-triggered mines into the environment. They persist for just a short time, but long enough to synergise particularly well with her special, whereby she hooks and drags an enemy towards her, and, with a bit of pre-planning, into their inevitable fiery death along the way. Cool as that is, anyone that struggles with Raiders’ rock-paper-scissors melee combat system will love the humble ability to drop mines at Ayana’s feet, serving as an excellent counter should someone foolishly opt to charge her down. The campaign’s second mission intelligently facilitates getting to know her loadout, with multiple defence points and a range of enemy types allowing the new recruit to be used to her fullest potential. Moving to intercept a Hades Division assault, you’ll carry an Encoder through the level in order to prevent Schneider, a brattish whiz kid, from downloading critical data. In a cruelly amusing twist, you’ll then need to double back and lug Schneider himself through the level in reverse.

New recruit Ayana is a characteristically bizarre prospect within the Raiders universe - a tribal future pirate with an accent that flits between Jamaican, Indian, German & Welsh.

by Rob ​Holt @acousticmagic

I must confess from the off, chums: this year’s show had so many playable games that even two days worth of attendance was insufficient to see them all. As a result, my sincerest apologies must go out to Far: Lone Sails, Onrush, Tenya Wanya Teens, Below and many more. Sorry! Cleansed of guilt, let us journey swiftly to the dizzy heights of the Indie Room (above-ground branch) to sample some of the show’s biggest hitters.

This year’s show had so many playable games that even two days worth of attendance was insufficient to see them all.

Disco Elysium sees thee cast as a detective with problems-a-plenty, and I can’t help but be excited about this unique isometric police RPG!

The ID@Xbox highlight was Strange Brigade, which is a send up of the British Empire and English buffoonery under the guise of third-person co-op shooting. It was great fun, especially when played in a group.

The fabulous Phogs is a bonkers ‘physics dog adventure’ so beautifully realised that we have to name it as one of our games of the show. 

by Sam Sant @SlamShotSam

A core refresh is evident as soon as you reach the new Overwatch-style main menu, which places Raiders’ inspired character designs front and centre. Added tutorial videos bring newbies up to speed in areas where the game had previously struggled - namely backstory and deeper mechanics - in addition to outlining the new changes for returning players. Perhaps most significant is the new quick play option, which helps to usher you into the thick of it at a comparative snip, thanks to the addition of featured missions to funnel players together and a slight-but-significant tweak in allowing access to all missions within an owned campaign from the off. By making a conscious effort to bring players together, a new rating system is allowed to come into play. Displayed as a percentage, this essentially serves as a dynamic difficulty scaler, dictating who you’re matched with and the level of challenge posed by the CPU. As your rating ebbs and flows with each victory and loss, you’ll settle into a catered sweet spot, but you’re encouraged not to settle there, as the quality and quantity of post-mission rewards directly correlates to your standing.

Raiders has been held back by a few core issues, but now, courtesy of a sizeable free update, each and every one has been admirably addressed.

The new progression system is a much needed motivator and a leap in the right direction when it comes to Raiders’ ensured longevity.

by Emily ​Munro ​@em_munroflake

It was met with some indignation and scorn on social media when videogame addiction was quite recently recognised as a disorder by the World Health Organization. People can’t understand how it can be a thing: ‘don’t be ridiculous’, ‘just stop playing them’ and ‘this makes a mockery of people with real addiction problems’ – those are the watered-down versions of the nicer comments on the topic. ​In fact, gaming addiction is classified as an impulsive control disorder, not involving the physical intoxication usually linked to addiction - although, as someone with a physical dependence on nicotine, I’d argue that the feelings and effects of gaming addiction aren’t too dissimilar - it falls into the same category as gambling addiction.

The Pass the Controller gang circa 2015, when Neverwinter was first released

​These were things I craved, not realising I already had them, and Neverwinter gave them to me.

by Liam ​Andrews ​@liam_andrews5 ​Developer: ​Infinite State Games ​Publisher: ​Curve Digital ​Platforms:​ Switch, PS4, PS Vita Players: ​1

Aerial warfare, you say? Go on... ​Rogue Aces is a 2D air combat game featuring rouge-lite elements, where players must battle against enemy tanks, blimps, planes and ships across a series of procedurally generated levels and missions whilst monitoring fuel supplies and aircraft damage. How’s it play: we talking arcade or simulation? Definitely the former, but while flying as low as you can and strafing enemy bases can be a laugh, Rogue Aces is a bit of a letdown overall. The game’s quirky humour quickly grows stale, the procedurally generated maps are samey, and, along with the aforementioned resource management, never really influence gameplay in any meaningful way. Campaign missions also feel bland and uninspired, ranging from kill X amount of this enemy type to, well, not much else really. ​Any redeeming features? ​Erm… Alternative campaign modes can be unlocked, though there’s no real explanation of how to do so, with the couple we tried - the survival-based Bomber Defence and time-limited, island-hopping Frontline campaign - doing a little to spice proceedings up. That said, they’re unlikely to have you hungry for seconds.

If you’re specifically looking for some mindless plane-based carnage, and nothing more, then Rogue Aces just about fits the bill.