Every week, it seems there are more and more games and more and more ways to play them. So, every week, we pick out five games worth your time and attention. This week, we’re starting with the second act of a developer whose first game everybody had an opinion about.
Pick Of The Week: Tacoma, Wednesday ($20, Xbox One, PC, Mac, and Linux)
The Fullbright Company first came to attention with Gone Home, an experiment in storytelling and design that arguably launched the “walking simulator” genre and a lot of angry forum posts about how if it doesn’t involve shooting things, it’s not a game. In this follow-up, you’re trapped on an abandoned lunar station. To escape, you’ll need to figure out what happened to the crew by following their holographic projections and piecing together the story. Despite all the griping about Gone Home, at its core it was a fun (if speedy) adventure game, and Tacoma’s ability to fast-forward and rewind to watch the projections is intriguing.
The Long Dark, Tuesday ($35, PS4 and Xbox One)
There’s no good place to be when society collapses, but Hinterland’s new first-person survival game picks out pretty much the absolute worst place to be: In the Canadian wilderness, as a bush pilot who’s just crashed his plane. As you might guess, your goal is to find resources, not get eaten by wolves (no, seriously, there are wolves), and survive until either somebody finds you or you start a new civilization. At the rate things are going, though, the latter might be more likely than the former.
Shadow Tactics: Blades Of The Shogun, Tuesday ($50, PS4 and Xbox One)
This tactical stealth game puts you in charge of a squad of ninjas in Edo-period Japan . Your goal: To sneak around, kill your targets, and get out without arousing suspicion. Mixing real-time strategy gaming and stealth, you need to carefully coordinate to pick off guards and get the job done. This has already done well on PC, and stealth and RTS fans looking for a change of pace should pick it up.
Patapon Remastered, Tuesday ($15, PS4)
Yes, it’s back! The rhythm game that forced everybody who owned a PSP to use headphones on pain of death has returned in a remastered version (that oddly doesn’t have a trailer worth posting, so you’ll find the original above). You lead an army of adorable shadow creatures who chant and have them, um, destroy their enemies? Man, that’s kind of grim. Fun though!
Mr. Shifty, Friday ($15, Xbox One)
Finally, this top-down beat-’em-up arrives on Xbox One after popping up on PC and Nintendo Switch. The basic idea is that you’re able to teleport short distances, allowing you to pop through wall, dodge bullets and explosions, and generally do all those fun super-heroic things you love from from the movies as you leap around the screen beating ass.