DeVuego ES_COR

It would be a stretch to call Ikai groundbreaking, but outside of the peak season for these games (October) it’s nice to see a solid new entry from a smaller team. For a game that’ll keep horror fans occupied for one or two nights, you could do a lot worse than Ikai – especially if you enjoy its Japanese brand of dread and fear.

We’ve seen other “PlayStation Talents” games suffer from a lack of polish, but Valley of the Dead: Malnazidos doesn’t feel like it’s anywhere close to being release-worthy. It’s a shame in more ways than one, because not only is this not a fun new narrative-driven zombie action game, it also diminishes the image of the talents program, which in theory is an awesome idea.

Audiovisually, Twogether has that indie feel to it of looking like a somewhat generic 3D game set inside a rather sterile lab environment, but the development team did manage to pack quite a bit of visual nuance into their game, which you see from things like reflections and subtle lighting effects. The audio is rather minimalist in nature, but for the price it’s a really solid puzzler that we’d love to see more of. Bring on chapter 2!

What certainly helps Treasures of the Aegean is its presentation. It may not feature the kind of fancy 3D visuals that a timeloop game like Deathloop has, but the beautiful comic book style presentation took us back to games like Viewtiful Joe and Comix Zone. This style can be seen in-game, but also extends to how you interact with others and in story scene, which is a very appealing design choice by the team at Undercovers. Definitely one of the surprise hits of the season.

The Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom is a fun yet formulaic take on the Netflix show that should appeal to fans with its accessible gameplay. If local co-op is an option then that’s a definite plus as well, and the game supports four player action. That’s where the game really shines, so look into this one if you’re interested in playing together with the kids or if they regularly play with friends.

The story is told through in-game dialogue and suffers from either so-so writing and/or poor translations when experienced in English. Once you complete the campaign you can dive back in through an arcade/challenge mode as well, but ultimately Windfolk isn’t going to be much more than a diversion. Its core gameplay is too basic, but for a budget price you’re getting some impressive visuals and ditto music in an ambitious indie title that features solid flying mechanics.

The gameplay itself, besides the novel use of origami to shift between states, felt most generic though, and (combined with the short campaign length) makes A Tale of Paper seem like a potentially great concept that’s ultimately wrapped in too shallow a game. Those who enjoyed some of the games I mentioned here will most likely enjoy this take on the genre by Open House Games, but the experience isn’t as memorable as any of those games that came before.

If you enjoyed the first Crisis VRigade, this is a logical next step that you’ll certainly enjoy as well. If the difficulty level in the first game was off-putting to you then this probably won’t convince you otherwise though, since the experience – despite the extra polish – is similar.

Even with that layer of polish that’s missing from the game, this is still a great new take on the VR kart racer and easily the closest we’ve come to a proper Mario Kart experience on Playstation VR.