Stellar Blade (PlayStation 5, £69.99)
Verdict: Virtually too slick
Need a crash course on video gaming within the 2020s? Then play Stellar Blade. It is a mishmash of among the greatest video games of the previous decade or so.
There’s the die-and-try-again brutality of Darkish Souls. The powered-up fight of Closing Fantasy VII: Remake. The overgrown post-apocalypse of The Final of Us. And the plaintive sci-fi tone of Nier: Automata – oh, and that very same recreation’s sword-wielding future-babes, too.
Though ‘mishmash’ may be a bit unfair. Stellar Blade is among the slickest video games I’ve ever performed. In all the things from its marble-smooth fight to its exhilarating cutscenes, it exhibits off what might be achieved these days, given sufficient money and time. It would not a lot steal issues from elsewhere as give them a makeover and wrap them up in a reasonably bow.
Stellar Blade is among the slickest video games I’ve ever performed. In all the things from its marble-smooth fight to its exhilarating cutscenes, it exhibits off what might be achieved these days, given sufficient money and time
A brilliant-soldier known as Eve – who’s making an attempt to reclaim Earth from horrible monsters – is the sport’s principal character
There’s a number of razzle-dazzle, and numerous enjoyable available, too. Although there’s all the time one thing about Stellar Blade that feels a bit of too polished – prefer it’s an advert for video games in 2024
Or do I imply a corset? There isn’t any evading the truth that Stellar Blade’s principal character – a super-soldier known as Eve who’s making an attempt to reclaim Earth from horrible monsters – is handled as one thing of a doll. You possibly can change the size of her hair within the choices menu, although her legs all the time stay improbably lengthy, and there is a wide range of skimpy costumes through which to decorate her. It isn’t how I would save the planet.
Nonetheless, there’s a lot round Eve to additionally catch the attention. Stellar Blade is a stunning-looking recreation, one of many few on this technology to actually train the PlayStation 5’s capabilities.
However, in a approach, that is additionally the issue. There’s a number of razzle-dazzle, and numerous enjoyable available, too. Although there’s all the time one thing about Stellar Blade that feels a bit of too polished – prefer it’s an advert for video games in 2024.
Lunar Lander Past (PlayStation, Xbox, Swap, PC, £24.99)
Verdict: A retrorocket
Let’s return. Method again. To 1979, in reality, when Atari launched a recreation known as Lunar Lander. The idea had initially been impressed by the moon landings: you, the participant, managed an unwieldy spacecraft, utilizing thrusters to propel and stabilise it, within the hope of creating a protected descent onto some extraterrestrial floor.
Now let’s go forwards. Method forwards. To 2024, in reality, when people have colonised Mars, all of us zoom round in flying automobiles – and Lunar Lander has been rebooted by Atari as Lunar Lander Past.
Past is, as you’d anticipate, way more refined than its forbear. A complete narrative has been superimposed onto the expertise – of galactic anomalies and courageous crewmen – and it is advised by suave animated sequences.
Past is, as you’d anticipate, way more refined than its forbear. A complete narrative has been superimposed onto the expertise – of galactic anomalies and courageous crewmen – and it is advised by suave animated sequences
Inside the ranges, there are new talents, challenges and threats, together with the likelihood that your bashed-about pilot may go mad and begin seeing pink elephants and different pleasing distortions
Inside the ranges, there are new talents, challenges and threats, together with the likelihood that your bashed-about pilot may go mad and begin seeing pink elephants and different pleasing distortions. In the event that they do, you possibly can put them into psychiatric care and deploy one other pilot as a substitute, with their very own strengths and weaknesses.
Nonetheless, beneath all of Past’s improvements, in a quite charming approach, is similar ol’ basic gameplay. You must management an unwieldy spacecraft after which safely land it. Time and again. It is fairly easy, actually.
Besides, for as cack-handed a gamer as me, it is also fairly troublesome. These moments after I completely understood the flight of my craft felt great, however they have been few and much between. Higher gamers can have extra purpose to maintain on going, striving for mastery and better scores.
To them I say: good luck. Your planet wants you.
