Empires Apart is an old-school Real Time Strategy game set in medieval times. It aims to recapture the excitement and wonder of collecting resources, building an army and raising to victory. With focus on competitive online play, Empires Apart brings the classic real time strategy gameplay to the modern age.
The Great Whale Road is a medieval RPG with turn-based tactics, longships and axes.
Travel the early medieval seas with your crew of chosen men and women. You will build up your crew by recruiting champions and characters from different cultures and kingdoms along the North Sea including Anglo-Saxons, Picts, Franks and Danes.
Outreach is a first person, narrative-driven adventure game. You are a lone Cosmonaut sent to investigate a Soviet military station, which has mysteriously cut all communication with Ground Control. As you explore, you piece together an account of what transpired aboard Outreach Station.
The Storm Guard is a turn-based tactical game in a fantasy setting. Wildings, undead and even greater horrors from the north have crossed the borders and are now invading the realm of men causing death and destruction. You assume the role of the Lord Commander and have to manage this conflict.
A side-scrolling armored fighter/mech game in the spirit of an SNES game called Metal Warriors. Your home planet is bombed to bits and you now survive as a mercenary-for-hire flying missions for pay. You start each mission in one mech but you can jump out and grab another as you find them. Between missions there's a hub area where you pick your loadout and negotiate to figure out what missions you'll do next.
Title: Cobalt Developer: Oxeye Game Studio Platforms: PC, Mac, Xbox One, Xbox 360 Releasing October 2015 ---
Play as a cute cyborg with a passion for 2d multiplayer battles involving extreme slow-mo and combat rolls
Even if you only have passing knowledge of video games, then the name Mojang probably brings a very specific game to mind. And while Minecraft is undoubtedly the company's magnus opus, it's not their own only game. There was the unfortunately cancelled Scrolls, as well as their foray into publishing with Oxeye's Cobalt. Thankfully the latter is slated for release next month, because it's shaping up to be a skillful and fun 2D action game.
Cobalt is a 2D shooter with an emphasis on acrobatic gunplay and deft evasion. The most useful manevuer in your moveset is the combat roll, which not only lets you chain together moves like punch-jumps and slides but also deflect bullets. Combined with the vast array of weapons and gear, combat in Cobalt proves to be hectic, fast-paced, and have a high skill ceiling, with a surprising amount of hidden depth to its seemingly limited moveset.
But while Cobalt has a large multiplayer focus, with co-op survival modes as well as competitive modes such as deathmatch and capture the plug, I was surprised to learn it has an equally extensive single player component. Aside from an expansive Adventure mode that takes your titular robot Cobalt on a journey from abandoned facilities to snow-capped mountain bases. the game has myriad challenge maps, divided between combat, speed, and puzzle scenarios.
I've been playing the challenge maps present in the current alpha, and Cobalt has really impressed me with its very satisfying gameplay and tactical depth. Your loadout is extremely customizable, including an large selection of guns, melee weapons, throwables, skills, upgrades, and equipment. To name some of the gear in the game: a cloaking stealth suit, time-slowing grenades, rocket boots, a scoped rail gun, a riot shield, a passive reflecting shield, hack grenades that let you control enemies, flash-bangs, silencers, and much more.
Take the plan-and-pounce pacing and hectic eruption of chaos seen in games like Hotline Miami or The Swindle and the acrobatic gunplay of a John Woo film, and that would be Cobalt's gameplay in a nutshell. A typical action beat sees you sliding down an embankment, punching a rocket back at a turret, turning mid-slide to shoot a sniper behind you, rolling to deflect bullets, and shooting while rolling to take out enemies above you. Or, given the extensive armory, maybe you'll distract enemies with a decoy, blind them with a flash-bang, then hack a powerful Predator foe to wipe out the stunned robots.
Enemies are quite varied as well, ranging from organic beasts and spear-wielding natives to robotic combat squads. Some might carry shields, forcing you to attack from behind or above, or wield devastating sniper rifles, among other challenging permutations. The deep moveset, extensive array of weapons and gear, and diverse foes gives the gameplay, especially the challenge maps, that one-more-go appeal where you want clear areas in the smoothest slickest way possible.
Cobalt is expected to release in October. You can purchase the game and download the free alpha demo from the developer's website.
Explore, gather resources, re-construct your station, enhance your armor and fight in a procedural open world
Underwater survival game Far Sky dropped the player into a dark unforgiving ocean. In the developer's next title, Sky Break, the danger doesn't come below, but from above, as you survive on a world ravaged by deadly weather and other hazards.
The world of Sky Break is an unforgiving, inhabitable place; lightning storms and meteor showers ravage the surface, and a toxic atmosphere requires you to watch your oxygen during each excursion across its procedurally generated biomes.
Your main goal is to reconstruct your space station in orbit around the planet. A spaceship hangar, a greenhouse, and other modules allow you to reach new areas, from shrouded canyons to dense forests and alien mountains. However, the weather isn't the only danger awaiting in Sky Break. Roaming combat drones are just as fatal as the raging storms; you battle these mechanical foes with third-person melee combat and abilities, collecting resources and crafting gear to unlock new skills.
Sky Break is currently in development, slated for a late 2015 release. You can learn more about the game here.
A first-person space exploration game where you uncover the mysteries of a solar system stuck in an endless time loop
Outer Wilds was one of the first games I wrote about, way back in August 2013. Even then, Outer Wilds was a wonderful experience, capturing the mystery of space exploration like few other games. Now the game is the first campaign of the new crowdfunding platform FIG and is being expanded into a prettier, grander experience.
The premise of Outer Wilds is simple: you're an alien traveler, exploring the solar system, following the signs and artifacts of an ancient civilization. From deep canyons to black holes, storm-swept ocean spheres and lava-encrusted moons, the cosmos is a unknown place full of weird planets and secrets. However..after twenty minutes, the Sun goes supernova and your galaxy is wiped from existence.
And then time resets. Outer Wilds is an experience spread across multiple playthroughs, as you explore new places and maybe even find the way to save the universe, using the knowledge gathered across multiple time loops.
I've been playing the recent IGF build and Outer Wilds is as engrossing as ever. A museum on your home planet teaches you about the galaxy; a child's drone lets you practice flight and landings. Suiting up, activating your thrusters, and leaving the atmosphere as the planet shrinks to a ball of swirling clouds against the backdrop of darkness and the fiery Sun never gets old. Witnessing an eclipse on the dark side of a moon, sending out your probe to scan an unknown world, passing through a black hole into the unknown....nothing captures interstellar exploration like Outer Wilds
This new and improved Outer Wilds will be expanded with a new art style, new locations, new mysteries, lore, and artifacts to discover. You can learn more about Outer Wilds and support it on FIG here. A new alpha build is available to check out as well.
Title: Cyberzone Developer: InterMassive Studio Super FAST shooter with time control system. Crowd of enemies, difficult and long multi-levels, connected by a single storyline. Control the time, use the environment as a weapon and KILL. ALL. F18KING. ENEMIES.
Title: The Final Station Developer: Do My Best Games Travel by train through the dying world, watch after your passengers, keep your train operational (refuel and setup devices) to continue your journey to the next station. Make your way through the swarms of zombies at the infected stations. Explore mysterious and abandoned stations looking for supplies and survivors. Visit living stations for trade and the new quests.
Title: I Can't Escape: Darkness Developer: Fancy Fish Games I Can't Escape: Darkness is a quicksand trap for the senses - the more you listen and look for clues, the deeper you fall into a damp, living dungeon. Plunge into the depths and scrape together whatever tools you can find, then try to escape one of the most diabolical puzzles of all time!
Title: Starbreak Developer: Crunchy Games A web-based Roguelike MMO action-platformer with MetroidVania-esque gameplay
Title: Stasis Developer: The Brotherhood Platforms: PC, Mac Price: $24.99 --- The last twelve months have been a wonderful time for sci-fi horror fans. Alien: Isolation last October; Solarix, Duskers, and Quadrant this year; SOMA later this month. And of course, now Stasis. The sci-fi horror adventure game has been in development for five years, highly anticipated due to its isometric art and gory gritty style.
Having finished Stasis a few days ago, I think it's safe to say the game absolutely succeeds, delivering the kind of industrial atmosphere and gruesome visuals that would make Ridley Scott and David Cronenberg proud. To put it simply: this is one disturbing and violent horror game. Stasis earns its M rating, in terms of both narrative and content. You are John Maracheck, who awakes from stasis on the mysterious vessel The Groomlake. Your family is missing, and the pools of blood and body parts are a clear indication that something very bad has happened on the ship. Drifting in deep space around Neptune, far from earth, no help is coming.
As you search the massive Groomlake for your family, you'll discover the truth behind the research and experiments conducted there, through the PDA logs of scientists and crew members. Those short vignettes flesh out the world, provide insight into the horrific secrets of the Groomlake, and give the setting a real sense of place. It's not just a drifting haunted house; people lived and worked here.
Due to the focus on the narrative, the less known about the plot, the better, but I'll say it's mature, engrossing, and realistic. You're just a normal man, looking for his family, on a research vessel-turned-living nightmare.
Being an adventure game, Stasis is all about puzzles. For the most part, the puzzles and goals were pretty logical, adhering to the rules and tone of the setting. Let's just you have more uses for viscera here than you do in other adventure games. You might need to figure out how to falsify a secret alert to open a locked door, how to bypass a bio-metric scanner, or clear toxic gas from a room. One of the engaging aspects about Stasis' puzzles is that many of the clues and hints are found in the game's logs, facts and statements that you could use to solve puzzles or learn how to fix a problem.
However, the game also had several more obtuse puzzles, with confusing combination and uses of items that left me stumped for a while.
You might be wondering how an isometric adventure game can be scary. There's no combat in the game (although you might need to use the environment to neutralize some dangers). But make no mistake, Stasis is a scary game, focusing on constant unease, fantastic sound design, and some incredibly disturbing visuals and situations. The grimy and blood-soaked industrial corridors of the Groomlake feel claustrophobic and eerie; the echoing screams and other ambient noises only add to the atmosphere.
You aren't safe either; there are many gruesome ways to die on the Groomlake, from being melted to more...exotic deaths. The stakes are high, and the things John has to do to survive and find his loved ones are easily on par with gaming's most uneasy and disturbing moments. If you thought Heavy Rain's Lizard Trial or Dead Space 2's eye surgery were nauseating, Stasis finds a way to top those moments. This is horror on an intimate level, rather than shadows and monster closets and jump spaces (although there are some of those too).
But Stasis isn't perfect. The ending of the game felt rushed and abrupt, and the narrative conclusion unsatisfying and cliched. And, as mentioned before, the occasional obtuse and confusing puzzles can bring the pacing to a frustrating halt.
Despite those gripes, Stasis was one of the most engaging game I've played this year. It's a tightly focused game, about a solid 8 or 9 hours of puzzles and exploration. The unnerving soundscape, the disturbing and mature atmosphere, the wonderfully detailed isometric art style all coalesce into a sci-fi horror game absolutely worth experiencing
I had last wrote about Subnautica in June, stating how its alien ocean environment fostered an atmosphere of wonder and discovery. Since then, the game has only gotten bigger and even expanded to a new platform,
Subnautica came to Mac over the summer, and with that new platform also came a plethora of new content. The underworld world has grown to include two new biomes: the Underwater Islands and Sparse Reef. The former consists of massive chunks of rock and soil supported on the backs of buoyant growths; be careful navigating the waterfall of sands as sharks and other predators lurk around these islands. The latter is an emptier place of rolling dunes and new flora to discover.
Your tech arsenal has expanded as well. Along with the Repulsion Cannon, you can now build larger more complex habitats. Bases can include structures such as a Seamouth dry dock, an observatory to enjoy the underwater vistas safely, new storage compartments, and bulkhead doors.
An upcoming update will allow players to customize the Seamouth submersible with different colors and upgrades like sensor torpedoes.
You can purchase Subnautica and follows its development here.
