A lot of video games come out every single week. Even if you limit yourself to only big, retail releases (ignoring smaller independent games, which would be a mistake) the market is very crowded, and it can be hard to know what to spend your money on.
As is unofficial tradition, the release of this year’s Madden NFL game signaled the “all clear” for new releases to start hitting us at a steady pace between now and Christmas, but if you want to call this the start of the holiday shopping season for games, we’re off to a pretty strong one.
Here are some quick thoughts on some recent video game releases that you might want to pay attention to.
Control
While the action is great (as might be expected from the creators of Max Payne), the real draw to Remedy Games’ latest title, Control, is its story. The game takes place in the fictional Federal Bureau of Control, which feels like a fascinating blend of The X-Files, Twin Peaks and The Twilight Zone. Paranormal stuff is happening around every corner, but the employees in this building (well, the ones who aren’t possessed by a mysterious force called The Hiss) barely bat an eye.
As a Dallas-related bonus, the game’s protagonist is played by Plano-based actress Courtney Hope, who soap opera fans may recognize from The Bold and the Beautiful, but who video game fans will know from Remedy’s last game, Quantum Break. Hope does a great job here not only interacting with other characters in Control’s weird world, but also in delivering some intriguing inner monologue that will keep you guessing at what’s actually going on in this story.
Personally, I think Control is the best game Remedy has ever made, although I very much appreciate the abundance of references to my previous favorite Remedy game, Alan Wake.
Available on PC, Xbox One and PS4.
Creature in the Well
Imagine a post-apocalyptic fantasy world in which a giant machine exists, surrounded by desert in all directions. Every room of this machine is, essentially, a pinball table (complete with bumpers and targets to hit), and imagine that instead of flippers, the balls are hit by a rusty robot with a sword. For good measure, throw in a seemingly giant, intimidating creature that taunts you from the depths below, speaking cryptically about your failures.
That’s the general vibe of Creature in the Well, a pretty fascinating and unique game from Dallas-based Flight School Studios. It’s like a dungeon-crawling pinball adventure — with a talking frog. And if any of this sounds even remotely interesting to you, it’s a mere $15 (or included with Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, if you’re a subscriber).
Available on PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
Gears 5
The fifth mainline Gears of War game has officially dropped the “of War” from its title, which is a really interesting move given the context of the game’s story. Gears 5 has a surprising amount to say about war, its affects on people (especially the society trying to thrive on its outskirts) and how we deal with it. In fact, I would say that this is the most interesting that any Gears story has ever been.
That said, don’t get the wrong idea: It’s still very much an explosive, adrenaline-pumping action game in which you will put bullets into a lot of monsters. It’s just got a lot of quieter, self-reflective moments as well, which I appreciate.
On the multiplayer front, Gears 5 isn’t especially revolutionary, but that’s not exactly a bad thing. The developers have brought the series’ popular Horde mode back to its former glory (free of some, though admittedly not all of its microtransaction-heavy shackles from Gears 4), now with the addition of character-specific ultimate abilities that operate on long cooldowns. There is also a new mode, Escape, though early impressions of it have not been glowing.
If you’re an Xbox Game Pass member, there’s little reason not to try it, as it’s included with your subscription.
Available on Xbox One and PC.
Astral Chain
If anything, Platinum’s latest action game tries to do too much. It’s part story-heavy anime cop drama, part high-octane sci-fi action game, part detective adventure, part monster customization tool… There’s just a lot packed in here, and you’ll be juggling a lot of buttons on your Nintendo Switch controller to try to manage it all.
That said, the onboarding process is great, and each system is introduced to you slowly enough that you have enough time to learn it (but not so slowly that you get bored). When you’ve got all the pieces in place, it all chains together beautifully into something that’s a blast to play.
It also looks great, sporting an eye-catching art style that animates wonderfully.
Available on the Nintendo Switch.
Telling Lies
You’re placed in front of a computer, on which there is little more than a search box. In that search box, you’ve already searched for the word “love,” which pulled up five different videos. As you click on each video, you soon realize that you are looking at only half of a conversation — a conversation that its participants do not realize is being recorded.
This is, more or less, the entirety of Telling Lies, the latest game from creator Sam Barlow. It sports an impressive cast of notable actors you’ll recognize from things like Prometheus, Halt and Catch Fire and X-Men: Apocalypse. The entire game centers around hours of full-motion video in which these actors are talking to each other — but, in most cases, without you seeing both sides of the conversation at once.
You are given little direction, few clues as to what to do and no indication at all of what story is at play here. Once you find a thread or two and start pulling, though, you’ll be sucked into this archive of videos for hours until you figure out what’s really going on and who is just telling lies.
Available on PC, Mac and iOS.
