In Shadows Of Doubt you can fall from the roof of a corporate office building during a routine investigation, shatter all the bones in your frail detective body, wake up in a clinic fully healed, and then sprint out the door without paying your sky-high hospital bills while the clinic's auto-turret shoots at you for doing a medical dine and dash. The early access game is on our best immersive sims list for a reason, you know, and now it has an autumn release date for the final version, along with a new trailer.

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In Shadows Of Doubt you can fall from the roof of a corporate office building during a routine investigation, shatter all the bones in your frail detective body, wake up in a clinic fully healed, and then sprint out the door without paying your sky-high hospital bills while the clinic's auto-turret shoots at you for doing a medical dine and dash. The early access game is on our best immersive sims list for a reason, you know, and now it has an autumn release date for the final version, along with a new trailer.

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When I zoom the camera on Alex's momentarily untensed face while he's dozing by the pool, it's not because I'm a creep. When I pursue Ayo and Dija around the garden, keeping their feet and butts in shot as they belittle each other, it's not because I'm a busybody and a lech. And when I pan to the lighthouse piercing the sunset beyond the security spikes it's not out of any feeling of wonder, or even curiosity about possible escape routes. Please understand: I do not see these people, these objects at all, just the boneless, faceless traces they leave upon my own servitude to the lens.

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Alan Wake 2 was my "Game of the Year" winner, and this is from a gal who enjoys horror games and movies. I've made my opinion after playing its predecessor and this one, and if you have an idea of both, meaning if you played them then you will probably have a better understanding of the evolution of this franchise. Everything about Alan Wake 2 made it fantastic and I could stay here praising it for a long. However, I have some favorite aspects: its graphics are some of the best I've seen, and its reference to Twin Peaks - in particular The Return - was truly exceptional (if you get it). Just play both games and don't be let down by the bad reviews before making your own idea: I guarantee it will be worth it! You won't be sorry you did purchase it.

10/10 for Story and Graphics

The story of Alan Wake 2 is impressive, after all, this is a cinematic experience packed as a video game, so we should expect a great story/script and excellent visuals. But nothing prepared me for what I found: expect unexpected plot turns that you won't anticipate and an immersive dark, mysterious atmosphere to keep you guessing and constantly on edge. It is easily one of the apex Xbox horror games and nobody can deny it. Graphics? Simply stunning. Like entering into an immersive nightmare. Seriously, lighting effects alone should receive recognition. Alan Wake 2 is an immersive experience in a mysterious and nightmarish first-hand experience that excels in its way.

Stop Complaining: It Is the Story that Makes the Game, not the Action!

Some fans of the original game are complaining about how different its combat is this time around; but here's the deal, sweeties: this time around the story takes center stage - think of it like an interactive thriller with just enough combat to keep things interesting - which was ultimately true of its counterpart's fights as well. Plus... you remember it wrong as in the first Alan Wake, it wasn't exactly spectacular either. I'll say that from the narrative and atmospheric points of view, Alan Wake 2 is hard to match, in any case, one of the two three games that are way above the others. At the same time, I can understand why action-driven players who were looking for a "Last of Us" kind of adventure are not fulfilled. It is not that kind of game.

A Solid Narrative Performance Worthy of GOTY

Alan Wake 2 is more like Resident Evil: Village but much stronger in visuals and even if the gameplay is not taking central stage in either one of them, I feel that Alan Wake 2 comes better in comparison. I know you want to be sure before you get it, and this is good practice anytime you buy Xbox games. But the bad reviews are so much off the point. About Alan Wake 2, some reviews have expressed displeasure with it for being too "woke" or racist, however, these complaints shouldn't be taken too seriously; these trolls are simply trying to stir things up; real gamers, those who appreciate an impressive narrative experience with stunning visuals love Alan Wake 2. Simply stated.

Conclusion: A Suspenseful Story for Fans of Story-Driven Horror Games

Once again, Alan Wake 2 has proven its mettle by keeping my pulse racing! I have already experienced more thrilling moments than I can count, making me jump more often than necessary and loving every scary minute! For fans of suspenseful stories with stunning graphics Alan Wake 2 should not be missed; don't let the critics dissuade you! Just remember this is a story-driven experience so buckle up for one helluva ride; easily one of my top games played this year (trust me: this blonde bombshell has seen many games!) I highly recommend it ;).

What are the best dating sims? These games all feature carousels of cute, courtable characters ready for romance. Whether you’re moving into a sleepy seaside town searching for love or ready to find that spark with a kick-flipping dinosaur schoolmate, players have more options now than ever to date around.

While dating is at the forefront of these simulators, great examples of the genre are feature-rich, captivating settings, underlying intrigue, and unique art direction, some of which could even be considered the best PC games overall. The top dating simulators tend to twist the traditional visual novel style and fork it into a new genre, such as adventure games or dungeon crawling - and, believe it or not, one or two even take inspiration from horror games. Regardless of where you want to look for love, this list has you covered with the best dating sims to play in 2024.

If you’re looking forward to the star-studded Thursday Murder Club movie adaptation, then it’s understandable that you might want to read the book series first. If that’s the case, you should probably read them in order, right?

Richard Osman went from a face you'd recognize on British TV to beloved author when he wrote the Thursday Murder Club books. He took a group of pensioners in a retirement home and turned them into crime-solving heroes, and the book series has so far sold over 10 million copies worldwide.

Currently, there are only four books in the Thursday Murder Club book series, although a fifth as-yet-unnamed book is set to be released in 2025. If you’re wondering which order you should read the books in, I’ve got you covered. 

1. The Thursday Murder Club (2020)

The first book released by Richard Osman, written entirely in secret and released in 2020. In this book, we’re introduced to Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron as they become embroiled in their first murder mystery. 

2. The Man Who Died Twice (2021)

Released in 2021, The Man Who Died Twice brings back Elizabeth and co. as they get caught up in a plot involving stolen diamonds, the mob, and a string of murders.

3. The Bullet That Missed (2022)

With two murders taking place a decade apart, the retired gang of sleuths are on a mission to find a killer, of course. However, Elizabeth finds herself caught up in a whole side plot where she is asked to kill, or suffer being killed herself.

4. The Last Devil to Die (2023)

You know the drill by now. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron are on the hunt for a killer, except this tale involves a smuggled package, and the team can’t even catch a break over Christmas. It’s never a dull day at Cooper’s Chase.

The post Reading order for the Thursday Murder Club novel series appeared first on Destructoid.

Hyper Light Drifter developer Heart Machine unveiled its next game at the Devolver Direct showcase.

Called Possessor(s), it's a side-scrolling action game with a beautiful hand-drawn aesthetic set in a devastated mega-city. It's due out in 2025.

Players control two protagonists - Luca and Rehm - with melee combat involving juggles with an array of weapons like swords, bats, and even an electric guitar.

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The news panamax has come in and all the shipping containers are spilling off the deck in an uncontrollable catastrophe of trailers. Here's another: you may remember The Crush House, the colourful 90s reality show where you film the cast by day, trying to please the audience, and creep around by night, trying to investigate the unsettling true nature of the show. No? You don't remember? Well, it has been a long year. Never mind, The Crush House now has a release date. But I'm not telling you what it is until you come watch the new trailer.

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This piece is being written on a train as I trundle towards our very first staff meeting with Rock Paper Shotgun's new overlords. The morning is cloudy but bright and calm, the north London suburbs are a blissful checkerboard of red roofs and flourishing lawns, hope glistens faintly in the gutters and ditches beside the tube. How unlike the innards of Centum, a point-and-click horror game (Steam page here) that begins with a dreary retro desktop interface on which there are curious text files, curioser decryption tools and most curious of all, an .exe of some kind that drops you into a simulation consisting of a stone prison chamber. Hang on, I'm changing trains...

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Indika, unhelpfully for a desperately devout Orthodox nun in early 19th Century Russia, is in communion with the Devil. Or maybe she just isn't as piously pure of thought as she'd like to believe. In the slippery, shifting world of Indika (I'm talking about developer Odd Meter's wonderfully confounding platform adventure now, not the character - brace yourself for some back-and-forth there), disorientating, uneasy ambiguity reigns over all.

Which isn't to say Indika the game is afraid to commit; this is an astonishingly confident experience, so full of swagger and style, so fearless in its presentation and thematic reach, it's hard not to be immediately taken in. Indika opens very much as it means to go on, beginning not with a dreary pan across the snow-battered Russian landscape, but with a dreamy, expectation confounding interactive free-fall through an inverted world, brazenly presented in the style of a 16-bit arcade game and accompanied by a muffled, insistent cacophony of song. Then, as the miserable reality of Indika's convent snaps back into focus with a crash of metal on parquet and the first of many striking directorial decisions - here, the cutscene camera remains firmly fixed on Indika's wretched face as the world around her tilts and swirls - Odd Meter deals its next hand.

Indika the character, as becomes immediately apparent when the game relinquishes control moments in and her idle animation takes over, is an extraordinary creation. Not only is she brought to life through a wonderfully nuanced vocal performance by Isabella Inchbald (the game's English translation is consistently strong and its voice cast superb), her complex, conflicting inner life is evident just from the way she moves. She's a twitching, restless ball of nervous energy; awkwardly shifting her weight from one foot to the other, eyes darting back and forth, occasionally chewing on her fingernails or wringing her hands.

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Memory is one of the mind's greatest mysteries. There's no consensus on how it works or what memories even are. I once read about how a memory could simply be a recollection of the last time you thought about that memory. It struck me as being a very sorrowful idea, and one that combines neatly with a personal belief: true death is when the last person who remembers you dies. Sure, someone can read your name on a gravestone, but it's that living memory which is truly you, and it's oddly terrifying to think it could be a fabrication. Even as I write this, though, I'm sure you can find a scientific paper which disagrees with the theory. It's like we all have a puzzle box trapped inside our heads but, since our minds are unique, every solution is different.

One thing is true though: unlike a computer, we can't simply switch out our brain when it's running out of space. Instead, it feels like our memories are crammed together, fighting for attention, until the weakest start to dissolve. Slivers might remain - a name without a face, a walk on the beach with a shadowy companion, a house lacking an address - but over time even those might begin to fade. Even if you try to hoard all those precious memories, there's a chance every recall in unknowingly erasing something important. It's this dance of memory loss and recall that the game No Case Should Remain Unsolved uses to craft its story.

A text-based detective game, No Case Should Remain Unsolved follows the retired Senior Inspector Jean Gyeong, who finds herself reexamining the disappearance of a girl named Seowan. Rather than investigating new evidence, though, Gyeong can only relive her memories of interviewing three suspects, Seowan's parents and the man who confessed to the kidnapping. Though the gameplay does heavily focus on reading the dialogue, there is a point-and-click element as you organise it by speaker and timeline. While time has broken these conversations down into mere fragments, within the pieces lie words which unlock lost sections of the interviews themselves. These recovered memories can have an odd tone though; some lack context, referring to events seemingly unconnected to the case, and others sound like they're being spoken by another person entirely. Slowly, it becomes clear the story of Seowan's disappearance reaches far beyond the initial three suspects.

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With Assassin's Creed Shadows having just been announced, now seems like a good time to catch up on prior entries to the long running Ubisoft open world series. The only problem, though, is that almost everyone has a different opinion on which Assassin's Creed game is best. Some laud Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag for its pirate focus and naval combat while others recommend the grand adventure of Assassin's Creed Origins or the memorable characters of Assassin's Creed 3, Assassin's Creed 2, and their spin offs. Rather than try to narrow down which of these games to pick up, you can just grab a collection of all of them right now thanks to a Steam bundle that massively discounts the series.

Indika is a good game about a good nun, and I’ll talk about why in a sec, but first - a complaint. ‘Low’, ‘Medium’, or ‘Ultra’ graphics settings? Really, Indika? Where is 'High'? Where’s it gone, eh? This isn’t cute when Papa John's do it, and it’s not cute now. You’re lucky you’re an extremely interesting game, Indika. Let’s talk about that instead.

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Hello and welcome back to What To Play! We've returned from a little hiatus, which you definitely noticed and have been very sad about, of course. It's finally edging towards spring here in the UK, but don't let that tempt you into going outside, there's video games to be a-playin'!

As ever, this is where we'll round up the best games from the month gone by, and the things we're most excited to play from the month ahead - plus, any other suggestions for what might complement it. Here's What To Play This May 2024.

Availability: Out now on PC, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

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I gave that Pools game a go recently - you know, the first-person traipse through some liminal spaces that happen to be pool themed. At one point it was trending on Steam and since then it's garnered loads of positive reviews, with people saying it's unsettling and drips with atmosphere. Reader, I do think it's quite atmospheric, but I do not think it's all that unsettling. If anything, I find it a bit dull, in a way that's semi-frustrating. Am I missing the liminal space-liker bit of the brain a lot of people have? Am I an anomaly here?

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You might assume that Indika will be dour, given that it's a story-driven game about a nun in a grey, cold, alternative Russia. Then you watch its trailers and find surrealist imagery, genre-hopping, and a bleak sense of humour are part of its arsenal, and suddenly it seems, to me, irresistible.

It's out now.

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Trailered last night, Centum is "an unreliable narrative-driven adventure where everything may be a lie", according to the Steam page. Does the suggestion that everything may be a lie also apply to the suggestion itself? Is this an unreliable Steam page? Perhaps the game is secretly a cheerful Playmobile platformer with plentiful ledge-assist, rather than a horrible point-and-clicker that starts you off in a dark cell with a bunch of obviously cursed artefacts, and gets steadily worse.

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Twitter user pl_evil has helpfully translated a recent letter to shareholders from Bloober Team, showing that their new game "Project C" will be revealed later this year. This will be the studio's next original game, after they wrapped up Layers Of Fear last year with, confusingly, Layers Of Fear (the natural progression for a series: Layers Of Fear, Layers Of Fear 2, and then Layers Of Fear again, although it was going to be called Layers Of Fears at one point).

Bloober Team are currently doing a lot of IP work for other people, with the Silent Hill 2 remake due out later this year, and a game codenamed "Project R" in concert with Skybound Entertainment. Skybound are The Walking Dead company, so I wouldn't give you long odds for a bet on what Project R is about. Neither would I be surprised if Project C is unveiled this summer by a man named Geoff with shiny shiny trainers. I'm interested to see what it is, and honestly I'm hoping it's a brand new standalone thing, rather than a forced sequel to Observer or 2021's The Medium (where I got the header).

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At the end of last year I played the demo for An English Haunting and got very excited. I like horror that has a generally spooky, creeping dread vibe rather than being wall-to-wall cheap jumpscares and gore, and that sort of stuff is thin on the ground. But it'll be less so from May the 15th, cos that's when this ghosty point and click puzzle adventure is out! Hooray! The demo is still on Steam if you want a taste before then. In the meantime, the release date announcement comes with a new trailer to enjoy.

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I'm currently trying to find a new flat in London. This is not much fun, though it's a great opportunity to meet and bond with other would-be tenants over a shared, grinding resentment of landlords who will literally stuff a bed in a toilet and call it a "studio apartment". It's also left me powerfully invested in the premise of Blue Prince, a first-person puzzler which looks like a graphic novel and starts with your character inheriting a huge, weird, isolated mansion, Mt. Holly, from an eccentric great-uncle.

Lucky you! There's a catch, though: according to your great-uncle's will, you only get to keep the place if you can find its 46th room. The catch hanging off that catch is that going by its flatplan, the mansion only has 45 rooms. And the catch hanging off that catch is that the mansion changes shape between visits. Every time you open one of its many doors, you must choose from three cards to decide which room is on the other side. To find the elusive 46th room, you must "draft" rooms in certain combinations to unfold the mystery of the place and wiggle your way to its heart.

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The problem with deciding to play every single Nancy Drew mystery puzzle game for a column is that, because they have been coming out since the 90s, Her Interactive have built up enough steam that I may never catch up to the front of the plucky citizen detective train. They have today announced a release date of May 7th for Nancy Drew: Mystery Of The Seven Keys, along with the official trailer.

This time Our Nance is heading to Prague, for a sort of old-world-meets-new story about hacking, medieval myths, and a stolen necklace. Nancy is hired to find said heirloom, and interview a bunch of suspects, one of whom is creepy puppet guy up there (there are no screens of Nancy because she never actually steps out from behind the camera in these games; she may as well be a cryptid). I realise this may not be of interest to regular readers of this site, but while I may not have seven keys, I do have one to the back end of this website, so nobody can stop me.

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I have a rule: no more than one post about a horror game per day. The mind can only withstand so much, after all. But POOLS isn't really a horror game. It's just a walking simulator in which you explore a bunch of underground swimming pools. True, their size and layout defy explanation - what is this, a swimming pool for Slender Men? - but look, there are cute covered slides you can ride down in first-person. You know, like the ones you used to enjoy as a kid. Always that element of anxiety though about getting stuck halfway down, am I right?

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It starts, much as when writing articles for videogame websites, with a blank page. More accurately, a white space of indefinite extent. In the middle of the white space there is a curious little yellow machine, a kind of motorised plunger akin to an oil derrick. In the story of Sixty Four, you're late to some kind of social engagement, somewhere beyond that beaming expanse of whiteness. But there is time, even as texts from a friend appear down the lefthand margin, to mess around with the strange yellow machine.

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