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Carrion is a horror game with a twist: You are the monster in the dark, hunting the humans – not the other way around.
In what has been described by its creators as a “reverse horror”, you control a red amorphous tentacled blob that escapes confinement in a secret research facility and must escape.
The publisher behind Carrion is Devolver Digital, a breath of fresh air in the games industry that is, to be honest, groaning under the weight of companies like EA and Ubisoft who trot out the same formulaic games time and time again.
Devolver champions the indie [independent] developer, like Phobia Game Studios the team behind Carrion, allowing them to release their games to an audience that they might not otherwise have had access to – it’s smart business practice and Devolver’s actions have paid dividends for both gamers and it alike.
Carrion is Metroidvania in style, with the monster having to unlock doors to progress to the next location and that often involves backtracking to locations you’ve visited before and pulling levers that will unlock chambers in another area.
Sometimes the monster will have to deposit some of its biomass into watery pools so that it reduces in size, allowing it to squeeze ever so slightly through panels that are too tight for a large mass of gelatinous goo to fit through so it can fire sticky webs to hard-to-reach switches and levers.
Throughout the research facility are terrified scientists and armed soldiers that the monster can taunt with its roar – then devour, with some of them helping him grow in size. It’s not all beer and skittles, though, with later locations having tougher foes that require a bit of tactical nouse to outwit [here’s a tip: doors ripped off from their hinges are a great help in taking our unsuspecting enemies.] The monster also has echolocation that helps locate other deposits of biomass, which acts as save points.
Carrion loses a little momentum sometimes, especially in flashback sequences where the monster has visions of the scientists that originally found it, but overall, I enjoyed my time immensely – with one caveat: It frustrated me more than once that there wasn’t some form of in-game map [albeit an optional small one.]
I get that the developers were wanting you to feel like you were an evolving blob, not sure where you are, so having a map to find your next goal would break that immersion, but I found myself getting lost numerous times, unsure where to go.
I eventually had to resort to watching a YouTube play through just so I could see what I had to do to solve the section I was stuck on. It also required some serious back tracking to previous locations to find a switch that I should have flicked or a containment area I should have breached to gain the ability to become invisible and pass through security lasers\.
Bottom line is I had a great time with Carrion – the no-map frustrations aside. It’s also perfectly suited for the Switch and was a nice antidote to a busy day in the office.
For gamers always wanting to be the ‘bad monster”, Carrion is your chance to be that monster. Go forth and chomp, blobs.
As we enter another week of Level 4 lock down, price aggregation site Pricespy has been in touch, telling me that it found quite a few New Zealanders searched for new games to keep themselves entertained before we went into lock down.
When it was rumoured that The Switcher was coming to the Switch I didn’t quite believe it but here we are: It’s real and it’s wonderful.
How does CD Projekt Red & Saber Interactive get the seemingly impossible game onto a console that is dramatically underpowered when compared to its siblings? By using a dynamic resolution to ensure stable performance, that’s how. The game will drop as low as 540p in crowded and demanding places, but you know what? You don’t notice it that much in portable mode due to the small screen [at least, I didn’t notice resolution drops but then I have old many eyes]
Yet, Dead Cells is one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played in a long, long time and it has an element about it that despite you dying many times during each play through – and you will die many, many, many times – you’ll restart again, trying to go further and further each life into the rogue-lite ever-changing world that Motion Twin have created [each time you die, the dungeons are randomly generated so no two are the same, which means you can’t memorise specific paths].
But you know what? I didn’t curse. I didn’t scream. I didn’t turn off Dead Cells and go play Full Throttle. I continued on. I made my way through this newly generated dungeon. I was hooked.
I’m loving the art style, too, and the intricately animated characters: Dead Cells is a damn good game that, for me, is a stand out in a year that had a fair few bloody good games.
Think of the craziest game you’ve every played – then quaduple it: That’s Katamari Damacy Re-roll, the very definition of Japanese crazy ideas at its finest.
The story is as bizzare as the game play, with the prince having to rotate and guide the katamari around earthly locations, slowly growing bigger and bigger until the King of All Cosmos deems it big enough to become a star.
I’ve always been a long time fan of the God of War series but this year’s edition took it to the next level. I like to say it was “All killer, no filler” as it didn’t overstay its welcome with unnecessary fluff. Here’s what I said in my review: “Ultimately, Santa Monica Studio has brought us a tale featuring a boy and a man trying to get to know each other in some pretty trying circumstances but, my word, what an adventure it is. Simply put, God of War is one of the best games I’ve played this generation. Pure and simple.”
It had a slow start but, man, once RDR2’s narrative about diamond in the rough cowboy Arthur Morgan got its hooks into me, I couldn’t stop playing – I actually thought about it while I wasn’t playing it and may, or may not, have shed a tear during a particularly emotional moment. Without a doubt, RDR2 is Rockstar’s magnum opus when it comes to characters that you’ll connect with and care about. “Hindsight is a wonderful thing,”so the commonly uttered phrase goes, and in my case, it is entirely appropriate for Rockstar’s Red Redemption 2, a game I initially criticised on social media but now, with hindsight, and several hours of game play under my belt, I’ve changed my opinion.”
While New Colossus wasn’t as memorable as Wolfenstein: The New Order, it’s another fine adventure for BJ Blaskowitz, a character that has evolved with each gaming generation. The fact that it was on the Switch, too, is mind-boggling. My words: “Wolfenstein: The New Colossus is going to have its detractors but I tip my hat to Panic Button: The developer has knocked it out of the park with this portable version and I’m glad I waited until now to play it, to be honest. It’s just an added bonus that I can also now play Wolfenstein The New Colossus on the toilet, if I’m that way inclined, of course.”
I first fell in love with the Yakuza games on the PlayStation 2 and have loved the craziness of the series ever since. Sure, the Yakuza games are filled with Japanese nuttiness and the like, but the combat is engaging and the narrative never fails to deliver in spades. “Yakuza 6 is said to be the last game of the series featuring Kazuma Kiryu, which will be a shame, but what is also a shame is that the Yakuza series isn’t as popular as it should be in the West: It’s a series that deserves more attention from gamers thanks to its deep narrative and strong character development. I can’t recommend the series highly enough.”
The hand-drawn art style just captures the emotional journey of an old man’s journey after he receives a letter from a family member. It’s a game of exploration in a land of pastel shades and weird angles. Here’s what I said: “Old Man’s Journey is a delightful game that manages to evoke an emotional story without the spoken work just by using hand-drawn art and the emotions they conjure up.”
It’s no secret that I have massive love for Tim Schafer’s point-and-click adventure game set around the Mexican festivities of the Day of the Dead and focused on deathly travel agent Manny Calavera, so it’s no surprise that the remastered version is on this list. I can’t get enough of this game. indicated by the fact that I own it on several platforms. 
A game set in a post-apocalyptic world that isn’t all brown and irradiated, MYZ: Road to Eden feels a lot like the Xcom series and is best played stealthily, but it took me a while to get into that mindset, meaning I often went in all guns blazing, forgetting to take out units that could alert other units. You can imagine what happened. For this one, slow and steady wins the race.
A crazy, off the wall game – from the days of the PS2 – where you have to recreate the stars in the sky [that your king father destroyed] by rolling a katamai ball around, sticking all manner of objects to it: small animals, pins, domino tiles, cards, plants. The bigger the katamari, the happier your father is. It’s as weird and crazy as you can imagine.
If I had one criticism with Old Man’s Journey, it would be the inclusion of “handcrafted, pressure-free puzzles (the developer’s words)”. An example of these puzzles is sometimes having to move on a flock of sheep that are blocking your path: It just felt a little unnecessary.
GamejunkieNZ [2.0] 