Xbox – KissTheGames

PowerWash Simulator

From the outside, this game was a laugh when it came out last year. Are people seriously playing a power washing simulator? It’s popularity was in no small part due to it dropping on Xbox GamePass. The head scratcher wasn’t necessarily that people were playing it, but that they were saying it was great.

PowerWash Simulator is indeed just that, a cleaning simulator. Why not? Every simulator feels as though it has covered the rudimentary going ons of life. Simulators are popular and few stand out at the top like Farming Simulator and Train Simulator World. You approach every map with the goal to clean. Things are dirty like they’ve been sitting at the bottom of a lake. Starting with the simple power washer you can approach the dirt however you like from one side to the other or start in the middle. You can choose between different power wash models that offer stronger power, and attachments that allow for you to get into those hard to reach high spots.

One of the high points of the game is how beautiful looking it is. When you wash an area you don’t always know what exactly the colours are beneath the dirt, It wasn’t until the Playground level that I went from liking the game to loving it. In this level you when you wash the foam ground you get to see the colours come forth as if the playground was brand new again. Like an archaeologist discovering the past I was taping into my nostalgia and remembering playing on playgrounds similar to those. One of the down points is also in the game’s beauty because if you miss any specks of dirt it’s hard to complete some sections when it all looks clean to you.

This game has the most on point “ding” in gaming. Every time you complete one piece in a map to one hundred percent you are met with a “ding” chime similarly to the sound when you get a playstation trophy. Each time it gives you a slight endorphin rush for the next one, so you may think you are ready to call it quits for the session and instead find yourself finishing the map instead. Some of the bigger levels do feel daunting as they could take hours to finish, but I would suggest to split those up into smaller sessions because you do feel a bit of fatigue on the levels that span hours.

The Tomb Raider DLC is great. You get to go over Lara Croft’s Manor, her obstacle course, the Manor’s Maze, and finally the Manor’s Treasure Room. As you clean these maps you get messages from Lara’s butler Winston and Lara herself, making it feel a bit more engaging with the world. I did notice after every five minutes or so on these maps there would be a brief pause before the game continues playing again. Perhaps something that will be ironed out in the next update, or simply an isolated incident only I’m encountering. The quality of the Tomb Raider DLC is much better than I expected and seeing what’s to come with the Final Fantasy 7 DLC has me excited. I would love to see more of these post Final Fantasy 7, and I’m more than willing to purchase them because I don’t know how they could be just giving this content away for free.

This is a game I’ve spent the last couple of weeks engaging with as a relaxing game between other games. There is something to PowerWash Simulator that is hard to identify as fun, and maybe it’s not fun as much as it is a form of relaxation. What is the difference to something like this as there is to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle? PowerWash Simulator is a game to unwind with after a stressful day. I love that this game exists and will continue to be enamoured with it as they continue to support the game with further DLC. Give PowerWash Simulator a shot. Play it with some music, a podcast, or perhaps an audiobook. This is the universal simulator for everybody and with simple controls it’s made for everybody.

Robert Ring

Available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Ten Dates

The spiritual sequel to Five Dates is bigger, and better.

Five Dates saw you take the role of a guy and choose from five video dates with women during the Covid lockdown. It was small in scope with a lot of charm and emotion. Ten Dates leaves the Covid lockdown setting behind for the fast and fun world of speed dating.

In Ten Dates you choose to play as Ryan or Misha. Both characters are friends with Misha being the one that cons Ryan into jumping onto the speed dating circuit. Both characters will each have four dates, with a fifth potential date should you wish for your character to have a same sex date. After doing the rounds, you choose two dates for a second date (if you were successful enough), and then one of those two for a final date.

Choices are selected with no real gameplay. When you see the relationships in the menu you can see how many different options there were with each date. It’s an easily replayable game to see the many alternatives. When replaying you can go through the scenes very quickly by skipping the scenes you have seen to get to the new stuff. The game is quick enough for you to pass the controller to someone else to try their luck. My partner played through as Misha so I had another perspective to the choices I wouldn’t have personally made.

It was clear from the trailer there was potential for same sex dating. The way they input that potential was creative for the male as his fifth speed date had to leave so the male host fills the spot. It’s not a date, just casual conversation at first and then it becomes clear that the opening is there if you want to pursue that host. There is only one same sex date, which would be considered a downside for those after that. Having this choice alongside being able to date as a woman is a huge increase in the scope from Five Dates.

I would say there is room for more of these dating simulators from Wales Interactive. They can spread their reach further to a more diverse selection of dates, or could invest in an entire game just for the LGBT community. There is something here that may find a huge audience outside of gaming and on Netflix in the future.

Overall, Ten Dates is almost better in every way to its predecessor Five Dates. The dates themselves are downgrades in terms of personality. Each personality feels very stereotypical as soon as you see them you can tell who they are. In Five Dates with a smaller dating pool there were many deeper qualities to the women and they were not typical of most stereotypes. I enjoyed Ten Dates, and for now I will be interested in Wales Interactive on a game by game basis if I find the narrative interesting.

Robert Ring

Available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Check out my Five Dates review here.

Fashion Police Squad

In all the years I’ve played Wolfenstein 3D, and Doom I never considered that this would be a game. Sure those games were reskinned by modders, and one was sold as Super 3D Noah’s Ark, which was officially licensed by id Software too. Fashion Police Squad in some ways is a successor to games like id Software’s original first person shooters. It’s a blast that feels like it’s from the past.

Fashion Police Squad is a retro first person shooter comedy. You play as Sergeant Des and you target crimes against fashion. Your targets range from grey dull suits, to socks with sandals, and even baggy jeans. To deal with these targets you use your arsenal of weapons dependent on the crime like shooting colour at dull suits, to shooting gnomes at socks with sandals, and using a whip on baggy jeans. Weapons will only work against the right crime, so you will be switching on the fly. A lot of the comedy is in the form of corny dad jokes. It’s humorous at the end of a firefight when each enemy has turned fashionable and there are words above them like “SEXY”. There are thirteen missions and each will take around fifteen to twenty minutes.

The first level is hilarious as you jump into a fresh feeling retro game with a comedy gimmick. This goes away quickly for the next few missions as the level design feels bland and repetitive. The early missions look the same, and you are just learning new enemy types. These missions act like a lengthy tutorial. Once you get halfway through the game every level is well designed and looks dramatically different from the rest, the story grabs you and you feel compelled to do the next mission. The second half of the game is so much fun it’s as if they had gone back to the first level and padded the beginning to extend the playtime. The bosses are innovative and spoof other popular games. The whip is the saving grace for this game feeling different and exciting. You use the whip as a grapple hook and traverse sections like that. This could be the difficulty spike that makes it harder for some players, but there are difficulty settings you can change to lower it.

There is nothing groundbreaking about Fashion Police Squad. I liked it. The best thing about the game is how much it feels like an old school first person shooter. If you like the retro pixel art aesthetic from the game and FPS’s you should like this game. The main annoyance of the game comes to certain sections where you are forced to swap your weapons constantly to defeat waves of enemies. By the end of the game I would be interested to see the developers make a sequel that plays with the following generation of game technology. Prices are all over the place with games these days on the PlayStation Network, however this one gets it’s price point right.

Available now on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Robert Ring

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake

When THQ was brought back from the dead as THQ Nordic they started by remastering classic titles in their catalogues. SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom was among those titles. Most of these titles resembled the original content to a fault, and felt of their generation with modern graphics. Since then THQ Nordic has faithfully remastered most of these games and now they are onto making brand new sequels. What is yet to be determined is the quality of the new games, so far we got a middling Saint’s Row, a lack lustre Destroy All Humans multiplayer game. So how does SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake fair?

SpongeBob SquarePants is back with another grand adventure. This time after buying wish-granting mermaid’s tears SpongeBob grants the town wishes. Of course SpongeBob’s do good attitude goes wrong and Bikini Bottom is sent into peril as a cosmic shake pulls the place apart, sending them throughout different universes. To repair Bikini Bottom and bring back together the universe SpongeBob must jump into each of these cosmic breaks and set things right. There are seven worlds to explore throughout these cosmic breaks from the popular Jellyfish Fields (with a Wild West theme), to Rock Bottom (with a Halloween theme).

The Cosmic Shake starts off as a slog. Those first couple of hours including the first world you visit are mediocre at best. SpongeBob can only jump in the first section of the game, and is only given a simple attack in the first world. This piecemeal approach works great from the second world, but the beginning needed more thrills. Once you get the Karate Kick in the second world the gameplay becomes a joy, and with every world after your move-sets just get even better. The story is fun and brings the platforming altogether more than most platformers do.

There is effectively twenty years between The Cosmic Shake and Battle for Bikini Bottom, however there is not twenty years of refinement in the gameplay. The Cosmic Shake is a much more enjoyable experience than Battle for Bikini Bottom partly due to the refinements. Battle for Bikini Bottom was a PlayStation 2 game and is as you would imagine a PlayStation 2 game to be. You are never lost in The Cosmic Shake as the main path is always clearly shown, whereas Battle for Bikini Bottom would have me back and forth looking for my objective. The combat feels great and flows well in The Cosmic Shake, yet the hitboxes felt unfair in Battle for Bikini Bottom. The results are all positive and as a AA feeling platform it sits well amongst it’s comparable competitors and above Battle for Bikini Bottom.

Overall, The Cosmic Shake has a nice constant progression that fails in the beginning and triumphs in the end. Each world feels well designed with replay value to find all the collectables. As far as games that are made with children in mind this one is near the top. A lot of care is given to creating an authentic SpongeBob SquarePants story that fans will appreciate. If we get more of these every couple of years I’ll be there enjoying my platforming fill.

Robert Ring

Available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Windows.

Check out my review of SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated here.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated

SpongeBob SquarePants is pretty great. It’s like a modern-day Ren and Stimpy that looks more kid friendly. There are so many jokes that will go over a child’s head, which is what you want so you can watch it too. In my opinion it’s the show closest to the popularity of Looney Tunes back in its day. Children love it and adults enjoy it too. There have been three feature films with a fourth in development. SpongeBob is reaching it’s twenty-fifth anniversary next year and shows no signs of slowing down. This year will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom. What better way than to play this game and celebrate the release of the spiritual successor SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake.

Licensed games these days are really terrible as there is not enough time to simultaneously release them alongside the media, especially when it comes to movies where developers need those production assets. The PlayStation 2 had much smaller development cycles due to the simplistic nature of the graphics and level designs so they were able to make quality products in time. Battle for Bikini Bottom didn’t align with any tie-in to the show, however it did come out within five years of the show’s launch and it would have been a few years in before the show’s success warranted a game. The following year saw the The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie game release with the same developers. These quick turn around times were astounding for a game that when remastered still feels fresh amongst modern games twenty years later.

Battle for Bikini Bottom sees Plankton once again trying to steal the recipe for the Krabby Patty. This time he builds a machine that creates robots, armies of robots to do his bidding and take the recipe. These robots before long go against Plankton and wreck havoc to Bikini Bottom. SpongeBob, Patrick and Sandy must defend Bikini Bottom by ridding the robots that have managed to spread throughout every location. Explore fan favourite areas from Jellyfish Fields, Rock Bottom, to even the Flying Dutchman’s Graveyard, and many more. You will battle mini-bosses like King Jellyfish and the Flying Dutchman. Big bosses include Robo-Sandy, Robo-Patrick, SpongeBob SteelPants, with Robo-Squidward exclusive to this Rehydrated edition.

As someone who never played the original game, I find this game to be fun and nostalgic for classic SpongeBob episodes. The game is segmented into levels and each level is fairly big, like the Ratchet and Clank games from the PlayStation 2 era. To access levels you will need to collect Golden Spatulas, you don’t need every one in each level to move onto the next, but you will want to collect as many as you can as you progress. The original voice actors are used and really sell the immersion of feeling like you are playing an episode of the show.

The surprising thing about this game is how difficult the second half of it is. There is a dreamworld level that’s difficulty is exponential to the rest of the game. It seems designed to be more of a challenge level than anything else, even still the second half of the game will see you dying a lot. This did take away from the fun I was having when I was replaying the same areas over and over again. The combat is not great, where I feel I’m not connecting to the enemies as well as I should.

Overall, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom is a fun trip down memory lane to PlayStation 2 platforming and exploring classic SpongeBob locations. It’s not as child friendly as you would think as the difficulty spikes take away from the enjoyment. That said I still think this is a good game, and has a lot of room for improvement that could be rectified with the sequel SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake out this week.

Robert Ring

Available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Monster Hunter Rise

Monster Hunter World was my Fortnight where I was in there every night slaying monsters, with the just one more match mentality. I sunk so many hours into the game, and still barely saw all that the game had to offer. Then Monster Hunter World: Iceborne came out which was much like a sequel offering almost as much content as the base game. I think most people would have been happy to have Monster Hunter World continue with big expansions, instead we will probably get a proper Monster Hunter World sequel in the next couple of years. Monster Hunter Rise was a weird release being exclusive to the Nintendo Switch and like a spinoff. It was likely already in the works when the success of Monster Hunter World became a hit, and now we finally have Monster Hunter Rise on all platforms.

Storytelling is the same as previous entries where you have a base camp and must protect it from monsters, with fetch quests in-between. Each mainline quest has you tackling a new monster with an intro video of the monster David Attenborough style. Story is thin, which is ok as you’re here for the gameplay. Monster Hunter has an addictive gameplay loop, even with somewhat clunky combat, it always feels rewarding. You will replay similar quests slaying the same handful of monsters with slight variations. The key to the addiction is the grind for the gear that feels rewarding when you get a new armour set, or weapon. Every battle is never really the same as different variables affect each battle. When two large monsters come across each other and battle things hit a new height. It’s like you’re witnessing a Kaiju battle and you’re in-between it. Monster Hunter Rise is as long as you want it to be. There is a soft ending for the game where you defeat the cover boss at the end of around fifteen hours of gameplay, and get your fill. Or like most who play Monster Hunter it’s where the game really begins, and you start to take on the high ranking quests that net you better rewards. To put it in perspective I finished the soft ending with the credits rolling and obtained only 2% of the PlayStation trophies.

There are so many little things that have been refined in Monster Hunter Rise. You now have a mount that you can ride at any time, with the ability to attack and pick things up. This mount makes the gameplay more fluid as you chase after monsters once they leave to recoup, unlike previous entries where you are chasing after them by foot and draining the stamina bar. The load times are nearly nonexistent when heading out to a mission, where Monster Hunter World would take minutes to load. This game can be played incredibly well solo, with the addition of your mount you now have two NPCs fighting against a monster taking away some of the agro that the monster would have sent all your way. The smaller maps have you spending less time chasing the monster, and if you faint much less time getting back to the monster.

Most of the negatives of Monster Hunter Rise come from originally being a Nintendo Switch title. Frankly, it’s a surprise how this game ran on the Nintendo Switch to begin with, nor how it would be enjoyable with the analog sticks. The scope of each map is much smaller than Monster Hunter World, which is ultimately fine and makes it easier to catch monsters as they have less terrain to trek. The biggest detractor of the game is how Nintendo’s online system has worked itself into the game. You need to provide a twelve letter id code to join friends in online, whereas multiplayer was a breeze in Monster Hunter World. Every time you do an action that will be seen online you are prompted with seemingly Nintendo’s code of conduct. No bullying, profanity, things that are expected with any game. It’s a surprise how integrated these were in the PlayStation version.

There is competition on the horizon next month for Monster Hunter with Wild Hearts. Considering Wild Hearts is an EA game it will likely have a ton of micro transactions and battle passes, so I’m not sure it could ever replace Monster Hunter. Later on in the year the Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak expansion will be available for purchase as well. This will likely be when the exclusivity ends with Nintendo. Knowing that Sunbreak came out on the 30th of June 2022, I would guess it will be available to purchase from 30th of June later this year.

Overall, Monster Hunter Rise is just as fun as Monster Hunter World and a great entry point for beginners. In a year of big releases this will be an ideal game to enjoy in the downtime of those releases.

Robert Ring

Available now on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Check out our review of Monster Hunter World HERE

A Space for the Unbound

This is an experience that will stay with you.

A Space for the Unbound is an adventure game with an incredible narrative. This game is heart warming and heart wrenching. The story delves deep into a fantastical world with creatures that feel like they come from the mind of Guillermo del Toro. Like a Guillermo del Toro story this game takes you through the wringer of grief, and the lengths one will go to in avoiding the feelings associated with it. From gripping twists and turns you become enthralled with the characters, the townspeople and the small town.

The heart of this story surrounds Atma, and Raya, two high school sweethearts as they question their futures when asked to write them down for school. Instead of taking it seriously they chose to make a bucket list of simple things to do first. Before they can really get into the bucket list, they are met with supernatural powers. Atma finds he can “space dive” into peoples minds, much like Inception, where Atma can fix the mentality of a character by helping their inner thoughts find their peace of mind. Raya’s power is much more powerful and can alter the state of reality. They both see the consequences of their powers, although Raya finds herself easily abusing her powers. It becomes a race against time as they must use their powers to stop the supernatural power that is threatening the world. To save the world they will need to help the townspeople, and in turn themselves.

The narrative will stay with you and still there is so much to love about this game. The townspeople all enrich the story, and meeting them through the different time periods you experience lets you see each charter’s growth. The pixel art in this game shines, there is so much character and personality given in such a simple art style. I love the music, it’s another example of this game going the extra mile. All of these things serve to make this game an instant classic, one that won’t be dated even if you are playing it thirty years from now.

In the first couple of chapters the game felt like an easy going adventure game, no real challenge or head scratchers. Well, that changed during the second half of the game where there are a couple of puzzles that require some thinking. The same goes with the combat. The combat is rhythm based inputs that are simple at first, but ramp up substantially. This was notably hard when trying to complete a bucket list item. For the most part I respect the increase in difficulty, it felt like the game was always able to keep you on your toes, and it never felt tiring. This game would have been amazing even without the combat, and collectables.. now I feel like it would be great to see in more adventure titles. Unlike most adventure games this is not a bite sized game it is rather lengthy, somewhere around ten to twenty hours to completion.

Every year there is a film I typically champion for the year that people should see, one that I adore and want more people to experience. A Space for the Unbound is that game I will be talking about for the rest of the year for audiences that appreciate a game like this. This game would make for an incredible twelve episode Anime or similar show. Overall, this is a game that should not be missed.

Robert Ring

Available now on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Coffee Talk

This is a game that talks to me in the title alone.. Coffee!

Coffee Talk is a visual novel with a coffee making gimmick. I always love when visual novels can include something that lets you interact with the story. Coffee Talk needs that because you are just reading a story otherwise without any branching stories that you can choose. The story is set in a world with orcs, elves, werewolfs, vampires, and extra terrestrials, in modern times. You are the coffee shop owner with opening hours that go all through the night. So of course you are going to get some interesting customers in. The stories range from interspecies relationships, to father-daughter quarrels, to writer’s block, and even an existential crisis. The game is segmented into nights, making the story bite sized like episodes of Cheers with coffee. As the story progresses each character comes into contact with the rest making for some fun interactions, and heartwarming conclusions.

The coffee making is simple, more often then not I was frustrated at the lack of tutorial in making the coffee. After many wrong orders given, I realised that the order you put the ingredients in creates different coffees. By the end I was down with the system. Each night will last for about ten to fifteen minutes, and there are fourteen nights so you can finish the game in around three hours. The art style is retro inspired like the graphics you saw in the old PC adventure games. The music is delightful as you can change it on the fly to create the type of atmosphere you want.

The sequel Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly is due out this year. It looks like at least some of the characters from Coffee Talk return, so it will be neat to spend more time in this relaxing atmosphere. Sadly the creator of Coffee Talk, Mohammad Fahmi died last year, at 32. From all accounts he was gifted and to make a game like this so young it looked like he had a ton of future potential. Hopefully the studio can honour his memory by keeping the heartfelt narrative at the sequel’s core. I would love to see this format be used with the cast of Seinfeld. Wouldn’t that be grand fun?

Coffee Talk is a great game to play after a long day or if you’re looking for a chill afternoon. Do you have a favourite type of coffee?

Robert Ring

Available now on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Kakarot

It’s hard for people to expect new things from a series that has been remade countless times before. What they did this time was give us a definitive remake that tailors almost identically to the anime. The difference with Kakarot is that it has a real soft spot for the original Dragon Ball series and you get to meet countless characters from that series and see what they’re up to in Dragon Ball Z. Being a fan of the original series I loved seeing the likes of Nam, Emperor Pilaf, Android Eight and Launch just kicking about in the world.

In my fifty-five hours with Kakarot, I was able to complete the game to completion, which included the PlayStation Platinum trophy. To put this into perspective that’s almost exactly half the amount of time it would take to watch every episode of Dragon Ball Z. The game covers the four main sagas of the series from the Saiyans, to Freezer, to Cell, and finally to Buu. Notably absent is the Garlic Jr. Saga, but was that really a loss? With a season pass in the works, it will be interesting to find out what additional content gets added, my guess is that they will cover the movies.

The gameplay of Kakarot is similar to the fighting style and movement in Dragon Ball Xenoverse. The world is a segmented open world full of Z Orbs to collect, side missions and battles throughout. These can be completed between the main missions, although some side missions will lock you out of them if you progress too far in the story making them irrelevant. While the game’s title is called Kakarot, you will play through the story as Gohan, Vegeta, Piccolo, and Trunks as well. Depending on where the story goes will determine who you play for the most part until the post-game. There are multiple RPG elements that involve you levelling up your main character, while you can also level up bonus stats by using Soul Emblems.

The post-game doesn’t have a lot to offer for someone like myself that completed every side quest as they appeared, minus one that I was locked out of. It does let you summon the dragon when you collect the dragon balls to bring back old enemies. There is a Villainous questline that has you tackle very strong enemies that upon finishing lets you tackle a secret boss.

Every other Dragon Ball Z game has let you relive the epic fights throughout the series in quick succession, but Kakarot allows you to relive the emotion you get gearing up for those epic moments. That difference had me playing this game non-stop. I enjoyed my time with Kakarot and I’m a little sad it’s over. Now there are two season passes that contain a total of five story expansions, with three available now. They have also added Dragon Ball Card Warriors to the game for free, which is the popular trading card game. Online services will conclude this year for the card game, but it has been announced that the game will be coming to all platforms as a standalone release later this year.

For fans of Dragon Ball Z, this is a must-play, and the next gen updates have made this game feel even more fluid and fast in performance mode.

Robert Ring

Available Now on PS5, PS4, XboxOne X/S, XboxOne, Nintendo Switch, and PC

A Splash of 2023 Titles to Look Forward to

2022 was a year of casual gaming for me. I didn’t play many of the big titles of 2022. I just didn’t have the bandwidth between fatherhood, work, and the economic stresses we’re all feeling. With the minimum amount of games I did play however, it’s hard to think that any game could beat Return to Monkey Island for 2022.

This year we will be receiving not one, but two new Yakuza games. First off is Like a Dragon: Ishin! Set in 1860s Japan at the end of the Samurai era. This title is a remake although the original was never released worldwide so it will be a fresh title to many of us. The original was well received. Looking at how well they remade Yakuza and Yakuza 2, it’s sure to be a success. Like a Dragon: Ishin! is slated for release on February 21st for Playstation, Xbox, and PC. The second Yakuza game is Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, and will be released later on in the year. It is said to be a smaller experience than the lengthy Yakuza games we are used to so I would imagine around the length of Yakuza 6. The game takes place after the events of Yakuza 6 and you will once again be able to control Kazuma Kiryu. The story takes place between Yakuza 6 and upcoming 2024’s Yakuza 8. No set in stone date for this title yet, though you can look forward to it on Playstation, Xbox, and PC.

When the Resident Evil series remade Resident Evil 2 to critical acclaim, I was excited for the eventual Resident Evil 4 remake. It felt like it was going to be a long way off.. and now we can count the days. My excitement for this title is met with a bit of hesitation, not for the quality, instead for my nerves. I didn’t finish Resident Evil 2, or Resident Evil 7 because it filled me with fear. Resident Evil 8 was the sweet spot for me. Regardless, Resident Evil 4 is one of my favourite games of all time so I will push through the tension and tears for this stunning looking game. It’ll be interesting to see if it will replace the existing Resident Evil 4 for those of us that adore it. You can look forward to Resident Evil 4 (2023) on the 24th of March for Playstation, Xbox, and PC.

Remember when Telltale Games shutdown. The management of that company seemed to have brought on the downfall of the studio. The amazing stories the team were working on were stuck on a problematic engine that would be filled with bugs. The games needed to be stable at least, not streamlined with promises of further games in the pipeline. It sounds like it ended up a mess. Luckily a group of creatives from that defunct studio pulled together to create Dramatic Labs and with it their first game, Star Trek: Resurgence. I love the Star Trek IP so I hope the game is great and the storytelling is exceptional. This could be the make or break for this new studio, so I have faith in them with this project. We shall find out come April on Playstation, Xbox, and PC.

Judas might be the most anticipated game of them all for next year. From the mind of Ken Levine we have a new.. well it’s a Bioshock game isn’t it? No, it does look like one. We may have the offical Bioshock sequel announced sometime this year and have it similarly competing, as we saw with Callisto Protocol and Dead Space remake. I am hyped for this. Narrative is what I’m coming to a Ken Levine game for, and it looks to bringing fantastic gameplay too. I’m surprised how much of a glimpse we saw. I thought we would almost get a splash screen with just the title, so it is likely going to come out sometime this year. We can look forward to seeing this game come to Playstation, Xbox, and PC.

There has been a relentless amount of Pinocchio adaptations recently. Guillermo del Toro’s recent Netflix adaptation is flawless and the first in many years to substantially change the source material.. that is until I saw Lies of P. The title alone is perfect, it’s subtle and then once understood makes complete sense. The atmosphere alone in this game is striking, with environments I’m eager to explore. There’s a lot of mystery I’m excited to uncover and it may be the first souls-like I finish if it succeeds to live up to the hype. Lies of P will be coming to Playstation, Xbox, and PC sometime this year.

Those are just some of the titles I’m excited to play this year along with many more.

Are any of these games on your most anticipated list?

Robert Ring