I covered the original Heave Ho back in 2019, and even then I was the steamboat captain of the good ship Le Cartel Studio. They had gifted the world Mother Russia Bleeds – an incredibly bleak and satisfying side-scrolling brawler that was not for the faint of heart (or stomach) – and whilst Heave Ho was very much a change in direction, I needn’t have worried, for their impeccable tastes meant that seemingly everything that they put their hands to turns to gold.
My incredibly devilish editor Rich ‘Show Me Your Passport First, Love’ Fotheringhay informed me that review codes were in for Heave Ho 2, and I knew instantly that my evening was a complete write-off, because I couldn’t not play it (great sentence, Britt – ed...also it’s Rich ‘9 Inches) (and I’m Not Talking About My Telly, Love) Fotheringham) until I blacked out from lack of sleep, for the Heave Ho series continues to be one of the most invigorating, infuriating, and hilarious co-op games of the last decade, and deserves to sell millions of copies.
A desktop microphone perfect for gaming and podcasting, the GX Trust Auron USB Gaming Microphone features phasing RGB illuminations, a solid lightweight stand, built-in pop screen, and a silent instant mute button. I used the Auron for a few episodes of my recent podcast recording, and was deeply impressed by what it offered in terms of high audio quality delivered in a practical way.
The cradle and design mean that unwanted ambient ‘knock’ sounds are minimised, whilst the ease of use and simplicity of setup make this a true plug-and-play beauty, with the volume a silent disc on the base that can be twisted to raise the gain, or lower it. There aren’t many frills here, and that certainly works to the Auron’s strengths.
An hour into John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando, I was curious about what exactly Carpenter had contributed to this game. After all, this PvE zombie shooter has no aesthetic or thematic similarities to his work, and despite his impeccable horror pedigree, Carpenter has never made a zombie movie. If anything, it’s stylistically much more reminiscent of James Gunn than Carpenter.
So I did some research. And…“I was not brought on as a creative force, except they wanted to use my name, so they paid me to use my name.” As it turns out, aside from providing a few pieces of music (which I suspect were lurking on his hard drive long before this project), Carpenter’s involvement, in his own words, was “Well, I played it!”
Fair enough! Might as well be David James’ Toxic Commando then, because I also played it… And I think it’s just great!
A simple and accessible physics-based game from developer Double Mizzlee and publisher Eastasiasoft, Pengilo is a single-screen puzzle title with fifty stages of circular penguin-chucking action.
A bright and colourful entry in the genre presented in 2D, Pengilo tasks the player with tossing a penguin into the air, collecting stars and keys to unlock the door in order to exit each stage.
A budget title that currently costs under a fiver, Pengilo only allows you to take control of your penguin for a follow-up directional shove after a single bounce; this means that you have to be accurate if you don’t want to fall off the screen, resulting in a retry of the stage.
A sliding puzzle game in the Sokoban style. GluMe casts you in the role of a cartoonish blob who must move around the single-screen stages collecting gems by sticking to other blobs in the correct sequence. A single miscalculation means that you won’t be able to complete the stage – which can be but a few seconds long if you know the route! – and requires a restart.
I found the whole approach of GluMe quite appealing. There’s a heavy sense of cartoonishness with the animated blobs having large eyes and gently bouncing around. The chiptune music by Liniker Nasciento is absolutely a perfect match for the breeziness of gameplay and keeps things bright and light to match the visuals.
Over the years, whenever I cover word-based puzzle games, Letter Quest often crops up as the standard-bearer for quality. It seems unusual to retrospectively cover a game released over a decade ago, but I was sure that I had sung the praises of Letter Quest in an article upon its initial release - I had certainly played it enough! - but I checked during my research for Beyond Words, and no, I hadn’t. So I’m getting to rectify that here.
In A.I.L.A, you play as a video game play-tester in a postmodern sci-fi world. You get the new VR gaming system- AILA. It is a brand-new system that uses the user’s psyche to adapt the horror and give a unique experience.
The system uses an AI to guide you through the horror scenarios, the avatar of which is a little girl whom you talk to before and after you play through each of the scenarios, asking questions and guiding you through the experience, checking how you react and how you feel.
