​by James Michael Parry ​@james_parry Developer: ClockStone Publisher: Thunderful Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, PC, Mac, Linux Players: 1

LEGO Bricktales changes all that by wrapping a story around a series of building challenges, where you’re given specific bricks to throw together to solve a problem, like making a bridge to get you character from one side of a river to another, and then your completed structure appears in the world – exactly as you designed it – in the world. The story itself is simple, in a twee sort of way, and the team at ClockStone manage to pull it off by keeping their tongue firmly planted in cheek with the written dialogue, which certainly raised a smile or two. Your character, blessed with magnificent afro hair, visits their grandfather to find the amusement park he runs has fallen into disrepair, and you’ll need to jump into a series of themed worlds and complete challenges to fix it. Beginning in a Jungle, but branching out to City, Medievil and Desert among others, there’s plenty of variety in the relatively straightforward locations, separated out into each large, isometrically presented brick world. ​​It's a cool look, but quickly becomes a bit fiddly, since you can’t move the camera around to get a better view, as you climb ladders and wander around cliff edges. In the challenges too, the camera can add to the challenge, since it can be hard to keep everything in view at the same time, with your selection of pieces laid out on the ground besides the build area. Getting below your in-progress model can be particularly tricky.

...it still feels like there's something missing here. Perhaps an over-the-top protagonist like Chase McCain was in LEGO City Undercover...

by James Michael Parry ​@james_parry Developer: Remedy Entertainment, D3T Publisher: Epic Games Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S Players: 1

Thanks to a publishing deal with Microsoft, Alan Wake released exclusively on Xbox 360 in 2010, before coming to PC a couple of years later. The launch of this remaster presents PlayStation fans with their first opportunity to explore Bright Falls as the troubled, titular writer - fortunately, it holds up well. Coming to the game having already enjoyed those later Remedy titles, things do feel a little rough and ready. The character control isn’t very smooth, particularly when you need Alan to jump across gaps or perform any sort of fine movements. Fortunately, the central gameplay is fairly straightforward – point your torch (“flashlight”) at a dark, shadowy being until the darkness burns away and they’re ready to receive a few gunshots. The introductory section does well in teaching the mechanics, though, as somewhat of a survival horror experience, the difficulty can be fairly punishing even on easy mode. This tutorial sequence also serves as a primer to the surrealistic setting on which Wake’s psyche has an impact. Bright Falls is an escape for Mr. Wake, it turns out, as the famous author has been trying to write another best-seller for two years without success. Wake’s wife, Alice, whose fear of the dark is telegraphed as an important plot point very early on, tries to get him in the writing mood by bringing a typewriter along. This leads to an argument, and things start to get very dark from there. While progressing through the story, you’ll find hints in the form of manuscript pages which foreshadow events that either just happened or are still to come. This makes gathering what are essentially collectables more meaningful, since they can give you a tactical advantage when you get into a situation with prior knowledge.

Whether or not the game is for you depends on how exciting untangling a supernatural mystery sounds.

by James Michael Parry ​@james_parry Developer: Coatsink and Bit Loom Games Publisher: Coatsink Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox X|S, PS4, PS5, PC, Switch Players: 1-2

The game at first glance seems simplistic, but behind it's bright colours and basic control scheme lies a delightful, engaging experience for all ages. Beyond colour, the aesthetic has a cartoonish, almost cel-shaded style. Its early, food-orientated levels channel greats like Overcooked and Mario Odyssey’s Luncheon Kingdom, before transitioning to a more subdued presentation for the nighttime stages. Exploring with the PHOGS themselves is fairly linear. While you’ll need to keep an eye out to find all of the collectable bones in each level, tackling each challenge required to move on to the next area is straightforward. Visual tells seamlessly teach you how to complete the various tasks, plus there’s some fun environmental storytelling, making the experience particularly accessible to younger or first-time players. There’s an emphasis on savoring the experience here too; there are no time limits, no scores and no real penalty for falling off the edge of a level, which keeps stress and frustration to a minimum. There’s a unique approach to the control scheme as well, as you’re asked whether you want to use one or two controllers to play. In the case of the former, buttons are separated in such a way that you can play quite happily after some initial adjustment. Though PHOGS! isn’t too demanding overall, there’s still an element of challenge to achieving 100% completion on each level. That said, you aren’t overwhelmed by a huge number of collectables - instead, finding them will require observation and persistence to track down. Testing the physics is also intuitive, with only the odd moment where you’re thrown around unexpectedly. ​Your reward for scouring the levels is the ability to spend your bones on a modest variety of hats. Unfortunately, even unlocking everything leaves plenty of bones leftover, and the hats themselves often look better in the customisation room than they do in the flesh. With customisation at the forefront in titles like Fall Guys and the Worms series, this inclusion feels a little under-developed, but nonetheless welcome in the absence of microtransactions.

PHOGS! is easy to pick up and play and the gradual introduction of different challenges and mechanics is steady, drawing you in and having you eager to lap up just one more level.

by Sam Sant @SlamShotSam Developer: Altered Matter Publisher: Altered Matter Platforms: Xbox ​One, PS4, Switch, PC ​(Steam) Players: 1

The voiceless, translucent humanoid you control is born - ethereally so - into a visually immaculate, minimalist world where truly 3D stages are suspended against colourful backdrops of nothingness. As you come to appreciate the elegant visuals, inspired by 20-21st century art, the sultry tone of a disembodied female voice beckons you. Seeking its source is the only way to discover your purpose. Since there aren’t any hints or HUD element to speak of, getting there is a learning experience, and that’s no bad thing - you’ll more firmly grasp Etherborn’s genius mechanics when you parse them for yourself. Through experimentation and some early deaths, players learn that the effects of gravity apply perpendicular to the surface they’re currently standing on, demolishing the concept of any ‘correct’ global orientation. With this new perspective in mind, you learn to read environments differently in both obvious and subtle ways, like watching for smooth corner transitions to allow for switching gravity’s axis by walking across shear surfaces, or recognising that you’ll need to snake all the way around a level to reach a location right in front of you. Uniquely, stages must be approached as structures which you manipulate yourself over, under and around. Etherborn isn’t a game where puzzles are a brief aside that mostly serve to control pacing, rather it is in itself one large-scale problem to solve. With so many modern games simply handing out answers, it can be frustrating when an outlier refuses to stroke your ego, but Altered Matter nip that potential problem in the bud by having every asset project serenity and almost hypnotise the player into a meditative state of calm. The relaxed mindset it encourages - further helped along by the fact that there are no distracting collectibles or secondary objectives to consider - allows you to ignore any inhibitions and try the sorts of unconventional solutions years of gaming have likely conditioned you to assume won't work - only, in this instance, they more often than not do.

Etherborn isn’t a game where puzzles are a brief aside that mostly serve to control pacing, rather it is in itself one large-scale problem to solve.

by Sam Sant @SlamShotSam Developer: Asobo Studio Publisher: Focus Home Interactive Platforms: Xbox ​One, PS4, PC (Steam) Players: 1

Controlling young Amicia, you’ll take Hugo by the hand and guide him through medieval France during the Hundred Years’ War, a time where the cultish Inquisition rose to prominence as much of the civilian population succumbed to deadly plague. It’s a grim setting which pervasively oozes death, disease and famine as you navigate mostly linear levels contained by invisible walls. Whilst there are more elegant ways to guide the player, that’s not entirely a bad thing, since narrative-driven solo experiences are a breed currently facing their own plague of sorts. With its defined structure and gameplay pillars, which are consistently switched out, iterated on and reintroduced to keep a largely excellent pacing, A Plague Tale feels like one of those games from the “good ol’ days” we all like to reminisce about. Asobo Studio and Focus Home Interactive tell a complete and uncompromised story here, which gradually builds and builds towards an almighty crescendo. Imagine Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons meets Resident Evil 4 for a sense of the tone, which might sound like an odd combination, but trust us – it works. A Plague Tale is one of the few more recent titles which has compelled us to keep playing through sheer intrigue as to what happens next, more akin to a good book or TV show than most games. In spite of all the eventual craziness, empathetic relationships between family and friends are at the narrative’s very core. This helps to nip any resentment which might stem from the fact that, in many ways, A Plague Tale can be distilled down to an escort mission in the bud. It doesn’t feel like one, though, as Hugo and the additional young companions you encounter are all incredibly likeable characters, thanks to their unique practical gameplay contributions and the considered writing and delivery behind them. It’s effective stuff, as evidenced by the fact we can forgive the cumbersome issues resulting from their presence. We’ve had character models duplicate, folks walk into walls and fall so far behind or run off so far ahead that their dialogue was inaudible, but most often it’s a simple case of clumsily stumbling over one another (figuratively speaking) in confined spaces.

A complete and uncompromised story, which gradually builds and builds towards an almighty crescendo.

Much like the soundscape, A Plague Tale’s visuals are diverse and affecting.

by Rob Holt @acousticmagic Developer: Inkle Publisher: Inkle Platforms: PC, PS4 ​Players: 1

Heaven’s Vault casts you in the role of Aliya, an archaeologist with an intriguing past, a love for destroying robots, and a taste for discovery. From the very first moments of the game there’s intrigue aplenty: Aliya’s one-time saviour and now-time mentor tasks you with finding her lost associate, a fellow by the name of Renba. It’s from this simple quest that the game opens up, branches out, and, ultimately, thoroughly entertains. Now that you know the basic premise, how does the game actually play? Well, you’ll find yourself flitting between third-person adventuring and point-and-clicking, conversing with multiple dialogue options, language deciphering, and... sky sailing on your noble steed. We’ll break them all down individually, of course, but what we can say for sure is this that each element comprising Heaven’s Vault is so well executed, you’ll be hard pressed to pick a favourite. Point-and-click adventure sections form the backbone of the game, and depending on personal preference (or time constraints) you can indulge in as much, or as little, detective work as you like. We were so taken by the gameworld and story that we spent as much time as possible in each area, gathering every morsel of information available, to not only aid our discovery of what happened to Renba, but to understand as much as we could about the ancient language and characters at the center of the game. ​These sequences are also where you’ll start to see the true beauty of the world which developer Inkle has created. One moment you might find yourself on the Zelda-infused farming moon of Maersi, a location flourishing with lush green grass, endless trickling water, pigs and not-so-friendly citizens. The next you’ll be on a barren, rocky moon, being blown away by sandstorms. Ten minutes later, the bustling, definitely-influenced-by-Marrakech alleys and markets of Elboreth. Then there’s the Garden Palace, a level so thoroughly, stunningly beautiful you can’t help but sit back and just admire it.

Heaven’s Vault never fails to leave you in awe, in a way only a few games really do.

by Sam Sant @SlamShotSam Developer: The Game Atelier Publisher: FDG Entertainment ​Platforms: Switch, Xbox One, PS4, PC ​Players: 1

The story is simple: after your drunken uncle turns Monster World’s colourful cast of characters into anthropomorphic creatures, including blue-haired protagonist Jin, it falls to the player to venture out and restore equilibrium. There’s little more to it than that, which is fine, and, coupled with the text-based delivery, it evokes an intendedly retro feel. That brand of pitch-perfect nostalgia extends into most aspects of the game - the hand-drawn, 2D art style that’s layered for 3D effect; the rockin’, homage-paying soundtrack; the simple, tried-and-true core platforming tenants - resulting in a reimagining that feels like a faithfully slicker, sharper version of its forefathers. Cursed Kingdom by no means relies on that to get by though, constantly evolving as new areas and gameplay elements are introduced on the regular. Being the titular Monster Boy, Jin can (eventually) transform into a range of animals, each boasting their own fitting suite of abilities and loving, bespoke animations. From a porcine punch-packing pig, capable of sniffing out secrets and casting spells, to a frog with a knack for aquatics and a grappling hook-like tongue, to a venom-spewing, wall-crawling, small-space-navigating snake, and beyond, each animal form greatly impacts how the game plays. Whether a specific character is required to solve a platforming section or puzzle, or they’re just better suited to a certain combat encounter, you’ll very often be switching them out and it’s here, when you come to combine their powers in increasingly inventive ways, that Monster Boy flourishes. What’s more, those select animal forms that are capable of equipping armour and weaponry present even further opportunity to mix things up, courtesy of an interchangeable and upgradeable arsenal collected or purchased throughout the course of Jin’s lengthy adventure. Decking yourself out in the best gear available helps you rise to meet a challenging, but fair, difficulty curve at the hands of persistent baddies, hectic boss battles, precision platforming, and the odd head-scratching conundrum.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a strikingly gorgeous, achingly nostalgic adventure that gets better and better the more you play.

​by James Michael ​Parry ​@james_parry Developer: Aardman Digital, DigixArt Publisher: Bandai Namco Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, PC Players​: 1

Gaming’s nuanced insight into war has often been limited to whether the explosions in the latest Battlefield or Call of Duty are more explodey, so to come into a game where the fighting itself is very much in the background is beyond refreshing. 11-11 is a game that changes your pre-programmed gamer mindset, because it isn’t a game in which you ‘win’. Instead, story is absolutely critical, with publisher Bandai Namco and co-developers Aardman Digital and DigixArt bringing in the writing talents of Iain Sharkey and Stephen Long - famed for their mind-bending, but always thoughtful work on Derren Brown’s specials - to create characters we actually care about. Kurt (brought to life by Homeland, The Lives of Others and Bridge of Spies actor Sebastian Koch) is a German zeppelin engineer drawn into the war when his son, Max, goes missing. Meanwhile, Harry (voiced by Elijah Wood) is a Canadian photographer who’s only trying to impress his would-be girlfriend Julia when he signs up to be one of the Allies’ official photographers. Your time is split equally between the two perspectives, letting you get to know more about each character mostly through framed voice overs. While influencing narrative outcomes isn’t a major focus of the game - in fact, events largely happen around you without input - you do make a mark on the story through the pictures you choose to take (which cannily turn up in cutscenes later on) as Harry and what you decide to put in letters home penned by Kurt.

The execution is exceptional and the end product is, quite unironically, a very memorable experience.

by Sam Sant @SlamShotSam Developer: 3rd Eye Studios Publisher: 3rd Eye Studios ​Platforms: PS VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive  ​Players: 1 - 8

Made with what the team call a “narrative-first” design philosophy, players are offered no express context when they’re first unleashed on the titular space station. Boasting a familiar retro 70s aesthetic, the richly detailed hull interiors soon reveal Horus to be derelict and its crew members dead. There are no cutscenes or dialogue here, and a very sparing use of in-game text, leaving the environments to evoke a thick and unnerving atmosphere. Further to that, limited access to in-game maps and a complete lack of objective markers ensures you’ll need to scour areas and pick up on subtle path finding tells that’ve been integrated throughout. Clever touches communicate with the player via universally understandable game design “language”, narrowing sprawling areas to relatively linear paths in such a way that keeps them intellectually gratifying to navigate. Driven by an enticingly understated ambient soundtrack - from HIM frontman Ville Valo, no less - Downward Spiral continues to stroke players’ intellect with mysterious cutaways to interpret and decipher. Within the realms of reality, while a range of light puzzles never pose significant roadblocks, you’ll be taxed by a creeping paranoia resultant of the station’s mechanical groans and seeming technological independence that make it seem as though the inanimate is out to get you. Provided you’ve chosen to play with combat encounters enabled, it may well be, as what are presumed to be malfunctioning drones attack and leave you with no choice but to weaponize a suite of repair tools. It’s very Dead Space indeed, though where Isaac Clarke carries a real heft, the unnamed protagonist of Downward Spiral is quite literally weightless.

Downward Spiral: Horus Station effectively channels sci-fi cinema, whilst also crafting a mechanically engaging interactive thriller.