Games of the week
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Salt and Sanctuary
Platform: PC, Mac, Xbox One, PS4, Switch
Genre: Action
Price: £34.99
Action with more than a pinch of quality
Salt and Sanctuary is crude, amateurish and brilliantly playable. It resembles the dark and dingy YouTube horror-comedy Salad Fingers, liberally swipes the ruthless combat challenge and structure of the thinking gamer's hack-'n'-slasher Dark Souls, and mashes it all together in the 2D gothic adventure style of Castlevania. Such wholesale imitation could have led to nothing more than a half-baked tribute, and some elements (environments, enemies, narrative) are certainly uninspired daubings along simple themes. But the combat is so well constructed that Salt and Sanctuary is instead a homebrew game that somehow has the skill to rival fully-fledged releases. Perhaps the inevitable low expectations are what makes it ultimately so satisfying, but Salt and Sanctuary deserves heaps of praise.
Skip to the end: A surprising, moreish and challenging 2D Dark Souls-a-like.
Score: 8/10
Warparty
Platform: PC, Mac, Xbox One, PS4, Switch
Genre: Strategy
Price: £19.99
Primitive urges
Warparty is unashamed nostalgia for the 'good ol' days' of Real Time Strategy. As an act of reverence, it's successful – the larger-than-life characters, quickfire gameplay and multiplayer options will certainly win over old-school fans. But, despite interesting frills like zombies, tameable dinosaurs and magical artefacts, Warparty is a monotone experience that emphasises the outmoded 'actions per minute' RTS approach (or, how quickly can you hammer memorised keystrokes like, well, a soulless zombie?) and taking time over a considered strategy often leads only to failure. This lack of depth and thoughtful challenge, along with the basic interface, dreary level and visual design, makes Warparty decidedly uninviting.
Skip to the end: Old-fashioned simple strategy lacking in modern appeal.
Score: 6/10
Vaporum
Platform: PC, Mac, Xbox One, PS4, Switch
Genre: Adventure
Price: £14.99
All steamed up
Steampunk includes everything from BioShock's undersea atmosphere to the machine fantasy of Mortal Engines. But so-called steampunk adventure Vaporum lacks the genre's dynamism. A throwback to first-person games from the early 1990s, your quest into the mysterious Arx Vaporum tower exists along a restricted movement grid, allowing you to shunt along one square at a time in a fashion that FPS fans will find ludicrously inaccessible, especially given the flawed controller integration. The real-time combat is similarly antiquated and routinely descends into dreary button-spamming, while other influences from bygone eras include the unimaginative pointer-driven puzzle sections. Vaporum regurgitates a much-loved game style, but poor writing and hackneyed plot suggests it doesn't really understand the thing it loves at all.
Skip to the end: An awkward, badly written resurrection of gaming tradition.
Score: 5/10
Truberbrook
Platform: PC, Mac, Xbox One, PS4, Switch
Genre: Adventure
Price: £34.99
Tilt shift mystery
Truberbrook's charming visual quirk – the world is made from hand-built miniatures digitised into the game – conjures a fiction with tangible presence. The titular location is where Hans Tannhauser arrives after winning a competition he never entered, and this small (and hackneyed) bit of mystery opens a tale full of weird characters and funny dialogue. But while the physicality of the world is convincing, the linear plot and basic 'have you picked up the right item yet' puzzles suggest this point-'n'-click quest would probably have functioned far better as a short animated film rather than a game. The craft is impressive and the idea engaging but unfortunately no amount of handmade skill can make up for a lack of gameplay appeal.
Skip to the end: A uniquely made, but flatly executed, adventure.
Score: 6/10
