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AereA is an top-down role-playing game masked in a clever palindrome. Developed by Triangle Studios and published by SOEDESCO, AereA follows the likes of the Diablo and Torchlight series but uses a hand-drawn musical theme throughout the game. You choose a class archetype, explore dungeons while exterminating enemies, level up, and then defeat the dungeon boss. Rinse and repeat.

There’s something really appealing about anime based games … when they’re done properly, of course. The iconic cartoon art style is appealing and fun without catering too much, if at all, to children. If anything this look enhances the blood, gore and violence that is often so present now in adult based games. With this being said Bandai Namco have just announced a PS4 European exclusive. The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Brittania has been set for release sometime early next year.

You know … I’m really starting to dislike the word “retro.” Classic cars are retro, old movies are also retro. Games that were released in my adolescence aren’t really retro because I remember when they were current. I know I’m just moaning because it’s making me feel far older than I should but the “R” word is being applied to Lode Runner Legacy and I’m here to tell you that a release date has been announced ready for its appearance on Steam.

Accessibility is a big deal. It has influenced principles of architecture, the design of new curriculum in schools, and even standards for web design. It has been a recognized issue in the gaming community for years, inspiring research papers, editorials, and independent organizations dedicated to informing disabled gamers about “the availability of accessible games” and providing resources for game creators to encourage the proliferation of accessible games.

Accessible features can include a wide range of elements, including readable, well-sized text for the visually impaired; adaptable methods of input for those with physical disabilities; and even accommodations for players with learning disabilities. Perhaps it can be difficult for developers to know where to begin when considering how to make their games playable by all gamers, with such a diversity of needs to be met.

That doesn’t deter the AbleGamers charity! In partnership with the University of York, leading publishers, AAA to indie developers and other video game industry organizations, AbleGamers has announced a new initiative: the AbleGamers Player Panel.

Hoping to gain insight from the players that have spent so long feeling overlooked or left out, this is an opportunity for gamers with disabilities to work directly with game developers to “leverage their personal challenges (due to their various disabilities) faced while playing games, helping enhance and shape and the future of game accessibility based on real-world, first-hand experiences.”

Panel members will test new games for accessibility issues and occasionally evaluate new devices or methodologies designed to promote inclusivity. Moreover, they will be compensated for their time and expertise, which is not necessarily typical for this kind of endeavor.

If you are an individual with a disability and a love of video games, AbleGamers invites you to apply for the AbleGamers Player Panel at http://ift.tt/2tyOeTC.

All images from AbleGamers.org

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It’s been a big week for everyone’s favourite supersonic acrobatic rocket-powered battle cars. Psyonix’s smash hit Rocket League has been branching out all over the place, it seems, courtesy of the snowball effect caused by a whopping 5-and-a-half million gamers who have decided that ordinary football (soccer) just ain’t good enough.

The spate of expansion actually began at E3 a couple of weeks ago, where Psyonix revealed that Rocket League would soon be available on Nintendo’s latest console, the remarkably popular Switch. Then earlier this week, Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, creators of Rick and Morty, stirred their fan-base into a veritable frenzy by vaguely hinting at an announcement that would be made at the end of the week.

An announcement arrived, but it was a day too soon, and had nothing to do with the elusive season 3. It was, in fact, the news that the transdimensional champions in witty one-liners and existential angst will be joining the Rocket League world as new cosmetic items to be earned in-game. New toppers – Mr Meeseeks, a Cromulon, and Mr “Safety in Acronyms” PBH – as well as a new trail, new rims, and a Morty antenna are an example of what you’ll be able to unlock simply by playing online or offline matches.

This news comes as the Rocket League second anniversary update draws near, promising new vehicles, a new arena, and new ways to customise your engine noise and goal explosion (among many, many other things). For those of you hugely disappointed by this Rick and Morty reveal, fear not: there will be another, more stupendous, announcement on Friday.

In other news, Rocket League has taken a giant leap forward on the eSports front. Developer Psyonix announced today that their soc-car game will be an official event during this year’s Summer X Games. Historically designed for extreme real-world sports, I’m interested to see if a bunch of plucky individuals attempt to play the game for real… Just kidding!

In collaboration with eSports platform Faceit, this new addition to the X games line-up is designed to drag virtual competition into the limelight a little, and is not the first time an eSport has featured on the roster: previous years have seen entries from everything from Halo to Call of Duty. The event will take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, between July 13-16th, and will be broadcast on ESPN 3. Competitors will be fighting for a slice of a $75,000 prize pool, as other athletes go head-to-head in disciplines like skateboarding, BMX, and motocross.

For more information on the Rick and Morty update, head here. This, and the rest of the anniversary update, is due to land on console and PC on July 5th, so check back then for a full break-down of new features.

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One of the fun things you can do with video games is to look at common trends in game design and work backward to see what the most influential games were at the time. Just look at the games that came out directly after Call of Duty, or League of Legends to see what I mean. One of the more interesting games that have had a lasting influence is P.T., a game that was nothing more than a trailer for a game that never came out. The latest game to take a nod from P.T. and the genre it sprouted, is Get Even.

You play as Cole Black, a man who wakes up in a creepy abandoned asylum with no memories, other than the fragmented recollection trying to save a girl with a bomb strapped to her chest. Speaking of strapped, Cole has a strange piece of VR technology fused to his head – used to read and replay memories. Using this device, he will travel into the depths of his own mind to discover the truth about his past.

Get Even is part walking simulator, part military stealth game. It’s best described as Layers of Fear with a few stealth sections thrown in. While the shift between two various types of gameplay does a lot to keep the game fresh, the stealth sections aren’t really more than just okay. But they aren’t bad, which is a good thing.

The issue with the action levels is that there aren’t really that many options outside of the two powers you get. These powers don’t overlap either. You get one or the other. You get the ability to add or remove things from the level or warp from place to place.

I won’t go into the details of how these powers are gained or used since that would get into spoiler territory but know the second power is more fun to use than the first. Honestly, by the end of the game, I found these levels to be more of something I had to get through, to get back to the story. Though this had a lot to do with the game giving me a cool gun that could shoot around corners, and then berating me every time I used it.

The primary focus of Get Even is its story, which I can’t give too many details on as most of the fun with the story comes from experiencing it blind. The premise is that you are a man named Black who has gone to an asylum run by a man named Red to get help in recovering some lost memories about a failed mission. There is a lot of engagement to be found as it drips out the story piece by piece. Even if you don’t like the gameplay, the story will keep you going.

Visually, the game is above average. From a technical standpoint, the game is stellar, for the most part. The only graphical issue I had was in the lip syncing of some of the characters seemed off. Which is a problem with just about every game. Other than that the game looks great. Even on my outdated graphics card. While everything looks great, the art design is nothing special. There just weren’t really any visuals that blew me away. Get Even takes place in a spooky asylum and abandoned warehouses. Two things I’ve seen a lot of in games.

While I did enjoy my time with Get Even, but there were a couple of annoyances, mostly with the UI. In the exploration part of the game, you have to solve puzzles using what is essentially a more cumbersome version of the Arkham games’ detective vision. I say more cumbersome because it is split up into three modes instead of one. The other issue is that two of the modes are not screen overlays, but require you to look at your cell phone in the corner of the screen.

I would have preferred if the cellphone took up the entire screen when using these modes for easy viewing. The other issue is that the game has a darkened circle around the edge of the screen that made it feel like my glasses were falling off for the first hour of the game. Eventually, I just got used to it.

All in all, Get Even is an engaging game. It blends a neat mix of genres that give it more to do that other games in the genre. In fact, it’s probably closer to what Silent Hill would have been than some of the others that have followed on from Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro’s infamous playable teaser.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a spot of tower defence. There’s something rather satisfying about utterly and strategically obliterating waves of enemies. What may well make this even more satisfying, however, is the ability to do it in virtual reality. This is exactly the case with Time of Virtual Reality’s Ancient Amuletor.

The last horror game I played, under duress, was Resident Evil 7. I came close to crying and wetting myself multiple times during that traumatic experience, and yet here I am again, having spent a few nights tiptoeing around another goddamn creepy house in a horror game. Not only that, our charming editors didn’t force me to play Perception – I picked it up of my own volition.

How do I keep getting myself into these situations?

Perception is the first title from The Deep End Games, an independent developer formed by industry veterans of games like the BioShock series, Rock Band, Dead Space and many more. After months of research seeking out the house from her nightmares, Cassie discovers the estate at Echo Bluff, an old, abandoned mansion in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Cassie enters the mansion to find the source of her nightmares and discovers that she isn’t alone in the house. For generations, the inhabitants of the estate have been tormented by a ghastly “Presence” and now Cassie is its new prey.

Cassie is blind, but able to “see” through the use of echolocation. By walking around the house, Cassie’s footsteps will light up a small area around the player. If Cassie taps her cane on the ground or on other objects, a much wider area is lit up. When Cassie is safe and calm, echolocated areas are shown as blue or green (signifying a doorway or hiding place). When Cassie is alarmed or threatened, anything blue will turn yellow escalating to red as the threat grows. Some items Cassie can pick up will trigger memories (which more or less function the way audio diaries do in every other game these days), and some will prompt her to use her smartphone to convert text to speech or contact a friendly community member to describe the scene. The evidence she collects paints a picture of what happened to the past inhabitants and why the house haunts her dreams in the present.

Worst game of hide and seek ever

However, it’s not as simple as wandering around the house unhindered, picking up clues and solving mysteries. The Presence doesn’t want Cassie to live…or leave. Players must carefully balance their need to see with their fear of being caught by the Presence. If you make too much noise, the Presence will begin to rasp and groan and will eventually come for you. If the Presence is on your tail, you have to hide, run, or distract it with “sound bombs” like thrown alarm clocks to draw the enemy away from her location. Cassie can also time her louder movements with ambient sounds like a chiming grandfather clock.

Perception takes place over many eras and players will get to see the house retreat back to its origins and witness how it evolved over time. Throughout the decades and across generations, the house and its owners change significantly – architecture and décor evolve, entire wings and buildings come and go and alter your relationship with the space. Over time you’ll learn the layout of the house and begin to recognize familiar rooms across multiple generations, although some places will be completely new. Once you’ve discovered the source of evil in each generation, it’s Cassie’s job to right the wrong.

Tappa tappa tappa – here’s what it looks like when Cassie taps her cane

Almost every animation in the game is very smooth, though sometimes if the Presence is bobbing towards you it can look a little janky and goofy in its movements, which undercuts a little of the tension. Thankfully, I was too spooked when I was the one in control to really notice, however I definitely saw more of it when I was spectating. I won’t spoil the ending, but there is a spot at the very, very end of the game where I was either facing the wrong way to see it, or the Presence animation simply didn’t show up, which kind of undercut the seriousness of one of the final scenes.

There are also a few rare missing animations which I assume was purely to save time or to not overload the game. For example, pulling a board off a wall in the late game only shows the board disappearing, and Cassie’s hands aren’t present in the animation at all like they are in some others. Naturally, this didn’t impact my enjoyment of the game to any great extent. There seemed to be a small bug where subtitles (which I had turned on from the beginning of the game) would sometimes not show up during the text-to-speech segments when collecting evidence. This isn’t a big deal so long as you have your volume up loud enough and no one in the room is talking.

Wouldn’t recommend having a lie down

A good ambient score and carefully placed noises and voices is something that horror games absolutely have to achieve in order to be genuinely frightening. I was fairly gung-ho when I first sidled up to the mansion at the very beginning of the game, but once the sound of the snowstorm outside died away and the cold silence of the house settled in around me, I was petrified. For a long time, all you can hear are your footsteps, the sound of Cassie’s cane, and her voice as she chats to herself about what’s going on.

Perception hits all the right notes with its score and sound effects – every noise rings loud and clear through the silence, every ghostly voice is perfectly ethereal and far away without being too quiet, and Cassie’s lines are beautifully delivered. I also really appreciated the way that the Presence repeated the things it heard around the house, albeit in a near-robotic, buzzing kind of voice. It made the creature seem more and more empty of emotion, as though its only drive was to hurt without remorse or feeling. Additionally, hearing the raspy grumbles of the Presence when I began to shake the cane around a little too liberally really put me on edge and had me walking through the darkness for fear of inciting the house’s wrath.

While it’s not entirely related to the quality of the sound and score, it did bother me that when Cassie got in contact with the Friendly Eyes app community helper on her phone, he would speak to her at length and she wouldn’t reply at all. Cassie is exceptionally chatty when talking to friends on the phone or even just wandering around the house alone, but as soon as she has the opportunity to talk about some of the things she’s photographing but can’t actually see, she clams up.

This is especially strange in the later segments of the game where, predictably, she takes photos of more and more horrifying things. The helper begins to react with more and more concern and she still says nothing – it’s very strange. The developers also added the option to have Cassie stay quiet except for key plot points, which I think is an excellent addition if you truly want to ramp up the creepy atmosphere.

Nope.

Perception‘s story is split into four chapters, each of which covers a different era and different set of inhabitants in the estate on Echo Bluff. While some similar complaints remain – seeing the Presence and being unable to grow anything on the land – the inhabitants face wildly different problems and the house twists and changes to reflect these issues. The first chapter is the longest, and at the end of it my boyfriend commented that the main gameplay mechanics of reserved tapping and exploring the house would surely come to grate on us both. However, I’m glad to say that Perception doesn’t actually overdo it on the horror aspects of the game, even though it is legitimately creepy.

The threat of the Presence isn’t overwhelming and in fact there are long sections of the game where you can tap away to your heart’s content and not hear a single whisper from the Presence (I left my boyfriend to do this because I was a wuss and still not overly convinced that we were safe, at least at first). I think this is an extremely positive point in Perception’s favor, as overdoing the Presence would have made the game unbearable. Developers have to carefully balance scares, the limitations posed by the game mechanics (e.g. Cassie’s blindness), and whether the game can still be enjoyable when the two are combined.

I love dipping my proverbial toes into early access games whenever I can. There’s something really cool about exploring a game that’s nearly there but not quite finished. This is very much the case with a title I’ve been playing lately by Czech developer Craneballs called Planet Nomads.

I’ve mentioned that this game is in early access, but this is something that I want to stress from the start; the reason for this is that I’m seeing the beginnings of what could potentially be something really wonderful, but in early access fashion they’re really not there quite yet. Planet Nomads has a distinctive No Man’s Sky feel to it. You crash land on a randomly generated world and have to go out and depending on the mode that you’re playing either survive or just be creative, build stuff and have fun. Notice that I used the word feel: this isn’t a clone or a copy, it’s just got a presence that feels kind of familiar if you’ve played the other game.

So lets start with the positives. It’s got plenty, the biggest one being just how damn gorgeous this game looks. I mean seriously, we aren’t talking samey landscapes and creatures that look like they’ve been Frankensteined together by a blind lunatic. You actually feel like you’re on an alien world and this is a massively good thing. This might possibly be because your surroundings aren’t alien to the point of being utterly weird. You still get a sense of familiarity without feeling too at home.

Another important note is that these worlds are massive and, as it should, the terrain changes as you travel and explore. This means you’re constantly going to be seeing something new and that makes you want to go out and actually look. The issue that comes with procedural generation is that although things are random, some basic rules are still in place. This can sometimes give a copy/paste feel even though what you’re seeing is different every time.

Thirdly, I noticed that day and night and changes in weather not only feel very distinctive (and look awesome), but genuinely effect you. You wouldn’t want to be stuck in the cold in a storm in real life and the same applies here. Find shelter or freeze. The game makes sense. Obviously starving isn’t good either, but this is something you’ll be more likely to consider immediately before taking your surroundings into account.

All good so far right? Now here’s the rub and the reason why I’m really glad Planet Nomads isn’t being called complete yet; there are certain things in a game that for me are absolutely crucial and at the top of this list is the need for a comfortable control system. This doesn’t just come down to button mapping, that can usually be changed to suit your taste as a player, it’s also about feel. If the controls feel clunky it doesn’t matter how easy the buttons are to remember. This is one of my biggest gripes about this game and the reason why I haven’t explored its beauty anywhere near as much as I would have liked to.

Movement in Planet Nomads feels really slow and turning creates a bizarre blurring effect that while only momentary (seconds really), it is enough to make you feel a bit queasy. I’m not sure whether this was intentional or whether it’s something they’re looking to fix later, but it’s massively off putting. I want to explore. I really want to see all the game has but when going anywhere feels weird and labored, I find it difficult to put more than 20 minutes in at a time before I start feeling like it’s all a bit too much hard work. This is something that you shouldn’t really be feeling in what should be a really enjoyable experience.

Another annoyance is the crafting system. Initially this isn’t really very well explained at all. Your tutorial in a game that already doesn’t have an introduction really amounts to basic movement and laying your first blocks for a shelter. From this point you can pull up the controls for different things using the F keys, but otherwise you’re pretty much on your own. Let’s remember that crafting is the soul of this game and is something I love. I think harnessing creativity is great and being able to do things your way is an even bigger plus. It’s the practice that doesn’t follow the theory. In creative mode you have loads of time to learn but in survival mode, you need to act efficiently and it’s really difficult to do when you’re working things out as you go.

For me – if I’m placing floor tiles, walls, items, etc. – it should feel fluid. Everything should snap together and really line themselves up where possible. On my second attempt at playing the game in creative mode, I thought I’d build my base then go and explore. The building menu offers you a catalogue of all the stuff you have to play with. You aren’t worrying about resources, it’s more build as you see fit. It took me literally ten minutes of twitch accuracy to place about four blocks. The slow character movement didn’t help but I found myself moving the mouse in the tiniest fractions to try and get anything to sit together. Again, this all just felt like far too much hard work when I really wanted to be able to build everything from bases to vehicles.

In survival mode you need to find resources to make things. This I love but when making important items feels awkward the resource gathering side becomes more rushed. Your life is on the line so you want to get the ingredients quickly to give you longer to build. It’s really frustrating. I can see the heart of a brilliant game beating away merrily beneath the surface. I totally see the love the devs are putting into this title. Planet Nomads has the raw materials, but they having been molded and polished into the building blocks of a great game.

I think there is a huge amount of fine tuning that needs to be done here before it becomes truly enjoyable for a wide audience. I’m an incredibly patient gamer, and across several attempts I think I’ve probably managed only scant hours of game time. Now let’s remember that this is my experience so please don’t be put off. This is a game worth watching and I know with some work it could be exceptional, but in my opinion that could take a little while yet.

This preview is based on an early access copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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Elite Dangerous launched on the Xbox One way back in October of 2015 and I was really hoping that developers Frontier Developments would see it in their hearts to bring their seminal hit over to the PS4. Today my dream came true.

The game will launch on PS4 with every game expansion to date as well as the full Elite Dangerous: Horizons season pass and custom PS4 features, including: