The most spectacular and expensive games
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (PS5)
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is the sequel to Insomniac Games’ big-budget game Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018), which showcased much of the industry’s newest technology. The second part is entirely exclusive to PlayStation 5, while the original project is also available on PC.
In Insomniac Games’ new action movie, the player will take control of not one Spider-Man, but two Spider-Men at the same time: Peter Parker and Miles Morales. True, not all at once, but gradually as the plot develops.
Even the original Marvel’s Spider-Man remains a very cool game, and in the second part the developers went even further: New York became more detailed, character animation became richer, and cityscapes became even more fascinating.
The new product was also praised for its staged cutscenes. They’ve become so cinematic that some journalists are calling Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 the main blockbuster of the year.
Metacritic score: 90 out of 100.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (NS)
The sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breathe of The Wild – the main game for Nintendo Switch and, according to many journalists, the main game in history. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom is a game that forces many Russians to download a Nintendo Switch emulator to their computer and go through all the difficulties of installing and configuring it.
Nintendo’s new product is so big and complex that it is very difficult to describe it briefly. Nuances aside, Tears of The Kingdom is the epitome of adventure in video game format. In it we take control of the brave knight Link in the fantasy world of Hyrule, exploring the world to find a way to stop Princess Zelda and the evil incarnation Ganondorf.
It is worth noting that the game has a unique crafting system that allows players to craft all kinds of mechanisms with improvised means. Of course, these mechanics are not as advanced as those in Minecraft, but they still allow enthusiasts to create humanoid robots, large planes and tanks literally out of dirt and sticks.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom takes place on sky islands, on Earth, and in giant dungeons that will take players hundreds of hours to explore.
Metacritic score: 96 out of 100.
Baldur’s Gate 3 (PC, PS5, XSX, XSS)
Baldur’s Gate 3 continues the cult classic series of role-playing games set in the fantasy universe of Dungeons & Dragons.
D&D is a board game that is extremely popular primarily in the United States; It is famous for the almost complete freedom of movement of its players. The rules are literally multi-volume books, and a single campaign can last decades.
The developers of Baldur’s Gate 3 from the Belgian studio Larian Studios managed to do the seemingly impossible: they transferred the analog board game with a variety of actions into a video game format. That’s why you can interact with almost every visible object and talk to every creature in Baldur’s Gate 3. For example, when playing as a wizard, you can ask a passerby to have sex while transforming into a bear. Moreover, every interaction and every dialogue with an object will necessarily have consequences: some will be small-scale, others large-scale.
There is no point in retelling the plot of the game – each player will have his own story. The only thing that unites them is the premise: the main character must remove a space parasite that is slowly growing from the brain and begins to affect consciousness. And yes, although Baldur’s Gate 3 is a classic fantasy, there is room for aliens in the game world.
Metacritic score: 96 out of 100.
Diablo IV (PC, PS4, PS5, XO, XSX, XSS)
Diablo IV is a new game from Blizzard, which has been hiding its reputation as the creator of the best video games for many years. But even if Diablo IV’s release didn’t stop itself, it certainly slowed its decline in the eyes of a huge army of fans.
That’s because in Diablo IV, the developers didn’t reinvent the wheel: They took Diablo II (2000) and turned it into a modern version with the number IV in the title and the corresponding plot. Diablo IV and Diablo II are very brutal, top-down action games set in a dark fantasy setting with an intriguing mystical plot. The gameplay feature of the game is the ability to magnificently deal with hordes of hellish evil spirits, using the incredible physical and magical abilities of demigods and demi-demons.
The new product received special praise from journalists and players for the support given by the developers. Every few months, Blizzard releases small additions to the game that expand Diablo VI’s world and story.
Metacritic score: 86-91 out of 100.
Creative and unpretentious games
Cocoon (PC, PS4, PS5, XO, XSX, XSS, NS)
Cocoon is the first game from Geometric Interactive, an indie studio founded by Jeppe Carlsen, a member of the Playdead team known for dark platformers Limbo and Inside. He was the lead game designer on both projects.
Cocoon has become the biggest discovery of the year on the indie scene. As in Playdead’s games, there is no such plot: the player takes control of a certain insect, which must explore locations, solve simple puzzles and move forward.
The peculiarity of the game is its multi-level structure: there are “levels within levels” that unfold like nesting dolls. Moreover, in each, the character gains different abilities, and actions in one world affect events in the other. All this is incredibly intertwined and fascinating, but at the same time it is done so skillfully that it does not confuse the player.
Metacritic score: 88-90 out of 100.
Justant (PC, PS5, XSX, XSS)
Jusant is a game from the small French studio Don’t Nod, known for Life is Strange, a touching interactive film series about teenage love. Despite its wealth of experience in developing interactive movies, the studio took a big step forward with its new product and created a rock climbing simulator. An extremely rare species. In the past, only Grow Home (2015) stood out.
Don’t Nod took a risk: They made a game where you just had to crawl up, and they did it great. Learning to play Jusant is pretty easy, and once you’ve mastered the basic controls and basic game mechanics, the excitement is immediate: make a mistake and you’ll be knocked down and lose your progress.
At the same time, the game is very beautiful and, despite the hand-drawn style, constantly pleases with picturesque landscapes. The climbing process itself is handled very skillfully and creatively: crawling up Jusant is as exciting as walking in the cult courier simulator Death Stranding.
Metacritic score: 83-85 out of 100.
Sea of Stars (PC, PS4, PS5, XO, XSX, XSS, NS)
Sea of Stars is a classic role-playing game with pixel graphics from the team of Sabotage Studio, best known for the adventure The Messenger. Both games take place in the same fictional universe.
The new product is distinguished by a captivating visual style, fascinating characters, as well as a gentle, funny and sometimes dramatic story. The gameplay will be familiar to anyone who has played classic Japanese role-playing games: you control a group of little kids running around the map, periodically teleporting to the arena with enemies, gaining experience and improving your attributes.
New to Sea of Stars is the combat system. Battles take place in the well-established turn-based mode, but to pull off the most successful attacks the player must not only select and activate spells, but also keep to the timing. Otherwise, Sea of Stars is a rather cozy project that gives the pleasant feeling of a beautiful fairy tale.
Metacritic score: 87-91.
Research (PC, PS4, PS5, XO, XSX, XSS, NS)
The first game of the Little Black Salt Games. Although the developers of the project are little known, they managed to find a star streamer named Team17, who became famous in the 90s thanks to the Worms series. In recent years, Team17 has been searching for nuggets like Black Salt Games and bringing their extraordinary games to the market.
Dredge is an arcade fishing simulator that focuses on story and exploration. Fishing is an industrial activity, not a sport. The player boards a boat in the archipelago and catches various sea creatures from the water with fishing rods and nets. Almost every action is accompanied by mini games. For example, to pull a fish out of water you need to press the same button at the same time; This is a task of attention and reaction.
Minigames have become an important gameplay feature of Dredge. Thanks to them, completing repetitive tasks is always interesting, because each time they are accompanied by unique activities. It adds variety to the gameplay and gives you the ability to upgrade your fishing boat and gear.
Dredge’s setting is also interesting: “Lovecraftian”, meaning dark and spooky. The plot is interesting because the hero has to reveal many secrets of the inhabitants of the fishing town into which he accidentally fell. There’s room for monsters, mysticism and, oddly enough, humor.
Metacritic score: 80-85 out of 100.
What are you thinking?
Source: Gazeta
Jackson Ruhl is a tech and sci-fi expert, who writes for “Social Bites”. He brings his readers the latest news and developments from the world of technology and science fiction.