jackquest

Splitgate Arena Warfare

Splitgate Arena Warfare’s premise is simple and easily digestible — Halo plus Portal. And it really delivers on that idea with fluid gameplay, simple gun mechanics, and level designs that encourage the use of portals to outsmart your enemies. There’s special surfaces portals can adhere to, which makes movement on both offense and defense really interesting. If you’re trying to get at someone using a portal, you can open one up behind them and just shoot through it, pop through and take them down, or even shoot one across the map and use a high fall to launch you through the sky at your target since momentum is preserved. On defense , it’s easy to escape as long as you’re mindful of keeping your portals up at all times. The double edged sword of that is if you’re around portal-able surfaces, your enemies can also sneak up behind you. It’s fast paced, fun, and really does a great job in capturing the same feelings as Halo.

The developer’s targeting a PC release later this year.
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World of Horror

Ever read a Junji Ito comic and think “man I’d love to interact with that to be unsettled on a whole new level”? Well, want no more, World of Horror is a point-and-click adventure horror game based in a quiet Japanese town in which the old, eldritch gods are awakening. In the PAX South demo, we take control of a student investigating a friend’s claims about a tall woman carrying scissors with a big smile. You investigate the claims, explore the school and come across even more horrors. Your actions throughout the investigation determine what kind of ending you get, meaning multiple playthroughs may be required to get the ending you want. The interface is just like retro adventure games like Clock Tower and the art style is extremely stark — only having 2-4 colors of fidelity. The soundtrack is also killer, providing great ambiance to the game. If you liked Clock Tower, cosmic horror, or just being unsettled, World of Horror is for you.

World of Horror is coming to PS4, Switch, and PC later this year.
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JackQuest is a Metroidvania dungeon crawler about a young couple separated by the villainous orc Korg. As you plumb the depths of the underground caves, you’ll find upgrades for your gear that unlock new areas and help you build your arsenal before fighting your antagonist. The game feels similar to other platforms, but one of the best things is the ability to jump off walls. Not unlike Megaman X, you can jump up the side of one wall to gain height and the game take advantage of this by placing both vertical and horizontal enemies in your path, so you’ve got to be careful or moving too fast may cost you your life.

The game is coming out on Steam this month.
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Disjunction

Disjunction describes itself as a cyberpunk stealth-action RPG and that’s quite apt. Top-down cyberpunk Metal Gear Solid meets Hotline Miami is also pretty apt IMO. You play as three different characters with intertwining stories in 2048 New York City. In the demo, you’re sneaking into a building in order to steal a datapad. The tutorial level does a great job showing off your abilities and how to use them effectively. You can either stun baton or shoot enemies with a gun in order to eliminate them as a problem. Guns are loud and draw attention, but enemies can get up after some time with the stun baton. The devs say the game can be completed entirely nonlethally and some can even be completed without stunning a single enemy, which adds interesting complexity if you’re looking to squeeze more difficulty out of the game. Keep this game on your radar especially if you’re a fan of the cyberpunk genre or stealth games like MGS.

You can give the demo a whirl yourself by visiting their site at http://www.disjunction-game.com/. The game is slotted for release on Steam this year.
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