Tape to Tape is a hockey roguelite that mixes slick play with fun jokes
I finally learned to love my national sport
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I finally learned to love my national sport
It’s been a harrowing few years in our real world, and I often feel like I’m just trying to keep my own little flame of hope safe from the howling winds of indifference and despair. So Darkest Dungeon 2, a party-based dark fantasy roguelite centered on the idea of doing just that, ended up being a bit too familiar and also a bit therapeutic. Having well over a hundred hours in the first game, I was also pleasantly surprised by some of the ways this carriage-bound journey into existential dread changes up the formula… and not so much by a couple of others.
Just like its predecessor, Darkest Dungeon 2 leads with vibes and attitude. Every bit of art and atmosphere is subtly (or not-so-subtly) menacing, worn down, and melancholic, with Wayne June’s unmistakeable narration laying out the compelling story of a quest for answers that went too far. The background on how the world got this way is doled out in tiny morsels of tragic exposition after the conclusion of each run, so I always had new details to look forward to whether I won or lost. It’s very clear that reality is, as they would say in the Bay Area, “hella broken,” and that it’s somehow your fault as the nameless financier of these soul-rending expeditions into the darkness. But the nature of your crimes takes a long time to reveal itself.
Show me a game about a feral, furry creature with a never ending hunger for junk food and I’m immediately interested. I played Pizza Possum on the first day of PAX and knew it would make a great indie highlight for our time here at PAX East. Liam and I have now both played the demo and you can listen to our impressions in the video below:
What really appealed to us about Pizza Possum is how chaotic it is. It’s like Untitled Goose Game but at double the speed. Playing the eponymous possum, you need you scamper around a sunny Mediterranean town scoffing as much food as you can get your grubby mitts on.
There’s an element of hide-and-seek too, as there are patrol dogs who will try and stop your food eating rampage, but you can quickly jump into a berry bush to thorw them off your scent. It’s goofy fun, and we’re completeley smitten with it.
Whether you’re a Hitman veteran or a more recent convert who just got their start in this World of Assassination, the new roguelite Freelancer mode is gonna force feed you a slice of humble pie and make you feel like a fake gamer. That’s a good thing–this mode is, in essence, the endgame for this rebooted Hitman trilogy. Short of actual new maps, Hitman Freelancer is a great way to tie this experience off because it’s extremely tough in some brand-new ways, and the overall structure is very different from what we’re used to thanks to the new framework.
Before, each mission was completely self-contained. Nothing you did in one mission would matter in the next. But in Freelancer, death has consequences: you lose everything you had in your inventory, and half of the money you’ve been earning for jobs. Not to mention you might have to start over from scratch.
But succeeding at Hitman Freelancer is not impossible, and the learning curve isn’t as steep as it may seem at first. So much of it is just about getting a handle on what’s important and what isn’t. That would take hours if you just dive in head first without guidance–a delightful experience, and the way we went about procuring our understanding of this mode, but not everybody has the time.
Your fighter’s life is always on the line in We Who Are About To Die
Synced is an upcoming free to play third-person looter shooter developed by NeXT Studios, and is Tencent’s crack at a live-service game akin to The Division. It has roguelite bits to help it stand out a touch, with the ability to command your own shiny gem pal to bash enemies. But from what I’ve played so far, its lack of clarity makes its grind for currencies and mod slots and whatever else a tired affair that probably won’t pull you away from the bazillion other games that require a lifetime investment.