Fire is the silly quest of a caveman trying to find fire for his village. He was chosen for this task because it’s his fault the fire is gone. He fell asleep on fire watch duty, the fire went out and the village leadership is mad. In the first level you wind up eating a magic apple, talking to the tree it came from and taking on its quest to find some magic bugs. Find all of the bugs, and the tree will give you fire to take back to the village. READ MORE
Young children like to make art projects. You can give a kid a box of crayons and a coloring book and they’re good for an entire afternoon. Sometimes, though, you’ve made that child miserable, because they’re not articulate enough to color inside the lines yet and your box of 16 crayons doesn’t have the exact right shade of purple to color that particular character from My Little Pony.
Esteban the Bull is that child. He loves making art projects, but he needs everything to be just right. This need for perfection makes him stressed and prone to act out. You can help Esteban out, though. He’ll listen to you and turn when you tell him. You’re not saving the world; collecting buttons and googly eyes is all Esteban wants, so when you help him, you’re saving his world, and that’s enough. READ MORE
Convoy Games originally pitched Convoy as FTL: Faster Than Light crossed with Mad Max, and it wasn’t messing around. You have a difficult mission to complete. You buy upgrades for your vehicles using bolts gained from combat and side quests. Every time I lost, I felt like it was my own fault. So there’s FTL covered; it’s hard but fair, and every time I lose I want to come back for more. On the Mad Max side of things is the game’s aesthetic and core conceit. Your space ship, the Mercury, has crash landed on a dangerous planet. Luckily for you, the MCV (a giant hauler and your core vehicle) and a couple of smaller vehicles are still operational. It’s up to you to navigate the map, collect vital components and escape. READ MORE
Son of Nor is a phenomenal concept wrapped in a subpar engine and combat system. The setting is interesting, lizardmen are cool enemies, and more games could stand to let me ascend by way of wizardly sand elevator instead of plebeian jumping. READ MORE
Helldivers does not like you. Every time Arrowhead could have chosen to help you out they chose instead to hamper, and Helldivers is better for it. Buried beneath a Starship Troopers (movie, not book) veneer is a challenging and interesting twin-stick shooter. It is the job of the titular Helldivers to spread managed democracy to the bugs, the cyborgs and the illuminant. Super Earth is at war with all three races, and when they are all vanquished the war simply starts over, but if the bugs are defeated when you play for the first time then you’ll be fighting cyborgs and illuminant. READ MORE
