PCs, handhelds, mobile, console, indies, triple A, free-to-play — the gaming scene gets more diverse and difficult to follow by the day, but thankfully I’m here every week to guide you through what’s happening with games.
As always, I’ll rattle off five games I think you might want to check out this week. Keep in mind, these articles aren’t meant to be comprehensive lists of everything coming out that week so much as a nice rounded tasting menu. So, here are the games you need to know about this week…
This Week’s New Hardware
HTC Vive (April 5)
Last week saw the official release of the Oculus Rift, and now we have another new VR headset, the HTC Vive, on our hands. The makers of the Vive claim their headset won’t have any locked-down exclusives, but there will be a number of VR experiences you won’t be able to find anywhere else at launch. If you want to know more about the Vive, check out our handy dandy, in-depth guide to all the upcoming VR headsets. Now, onto this week’s five games.
This Week’s Bullet Hell Dungeon Hack
Enter the Gungeon (PC, Mac, Linux & PS4, April 5)
Enter the Gungeon combines the gameplay of retro dungeon hack RPGs with bullet hell shooters into one unlikely package. Delve deep into dank, maze-like dungeons, while dodging a mind boggling array of projectiles and firing back with your own badass weaponry. This combination may just be crazy enough to work. Here’s the game’s Steam page.
This Week’s VR Adventure Game
The Gallery: Episode 1 – Call of the Starseed (Vive, April 5)
One of the more polished-looking Vive launch titles, The Gallery: Call of the Starseed takes you into a beautiful, mysterious world, inspired by dark ’80s adventure movies. The game also really pushes the Vive’s unique capabilities, with a variety of “room-scale” puzzles that will actually have you moving around your living room looking for clues. Definitely an interesting early VR experiment. Here’s the game’s Steam page.
This Week’s VR Puzzle Game
Marble Mountain (PC, Mac, Linux & Vive, April 5)
Marble Mountain is a classic “roll the marble through the maze” game in the same vein as Super Monkey Ball and Marble Madness, except now it’s in VR! A marble-rolling game may not sound like the best use of VR, but it helps you get a better sense of the 3D maps, and impressions of Marble Mountain have been surprisingly strong. Here’s the game’s Steam page.
This Week’s VR Shooter
Hover Junkers (Vive, April 5)
Hover Junkers is probably the most ambitious of the Vive launch titles. The game is a first-person multiplayer shooter, in which you can also craft elaborate flying machines to take on your opponents with. The ship-building process really looks to take advantage of the HTC Vive’s unique control room-scale capabilities. Here’s the game’s Steam page.
Pick of the Week
Quantum Break (PC & Xbox One, Apr. 5)
From the makers of Alan Wake and the original Max Payne, Quantum Break is part action-shooter, part live action television series starring Shawn Ashmore (X-Men, The Following), Dominic Monaghan (The Lord of the Rings) and Aidan Gillen (The Wire, Game of Thrones). In our own review, we found the game to be a bit unfocused, but ultimately worth a shot, while other reviewers have also been mostly kind. Melding games and TV may not every catch on in a big way, but Quantum Break seems to do a solid job with the concept.
Between Quantum Break and the Vive stuff, this is, if nothing else, an innovative week. Any games you’re itching to get your hands on that I failed to mention? Hit the comments and let the world know.