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Tom Orry, Editorial Director – Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, PS4, Yooka-Laylee, PC
Playtonic’s Yooka-Laylee, the indie-studio’s spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, might not be releasing until next year but Kickstarter backers of a certain tier and above now have their hands on the Toy Box. This is a demo of sorts, although the environment is constructed of simple blocks and there are no NPCs apart from a tutorial bot.
So, it doesn’t give much away in terms of how the final game will look (there aren’t even any graphics settings to tweak), but as a testbed for the controls, things are shaping up well. Main character Yooka can jump, double jump, hover (thanks to Laylee) and perform a bigger jump (by holding LT) as you’d expect, and can also roll around to climb steep and slippery slopes – this latter mechanic proving to be tricky when the game’s camera didn’t play ball.
Camera issues also arose while trying to maneuver up a series of seesaw platforms. Managing the camera’s position in a 3D platformer has always been an issue, but hopefully the dev team can make some improvements for next year’s game.
I’m also still playing Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. It looks amazing, although the frame rate takes a massive dive quite frequently and is only tolerable because of the game’s slow pace. I’m still not sold on the game as an entertaining experience, though. While it’s definitely intriguing, the pace is glacial. I’m also so used to games being set in busy, urban, environments, that the twee little village here gives the game the feeling of a BBC drama created for the elderly.
Abzu is a very pretty game. I’m not going to say anything else as I want you to read my review on Tuesday.
Dave Scammell, News Editor – Mad Max, PS4
Like Tom, I too have been diving into Abzu this week. And while I can’t say anything about my time with it yet, I should probably remind you that it’s out on Tuesday, and it looks gorgeous. If you catch my drift.
But before I find myself in hot water, let’s change subject to Mad Max, a game I’ve returned to after a few months away, and which I am also very much enjoying. Can I say that? I’m pretty shore I can say that. Anyway, yes, Mad Max is an open world game by numbers, but like Mordor before it, it’s a very good one. It has some amazing vistas, its combat is fun and, while its repetitive nature may put off some, it’s the kind of game I can lose hours to at a time, ticking off the various sub-objectives and snatching the collectibles.
For my money, it’s probably one of the more overlooked games of 2015, and one that I’d definitely suggest picking up on the cheap to help keep the summer drought at bay.
