#katana zero

Gif Credit: @utopianoverlord

Pacific Drive

Genre: Survival Crafting Driving Game

Themes: Weird fiction, scifi horror, paranormal

Personal Rating: 5 stars

This is my favorite game ever.

You are a delivery driver in the 90's sucked into an exclusion zone where reality is fickle, hazards are everywhere and a beautiful old car slowly takes over your mind. The road is fraught with hazards from radiation to anomalous creatures that steal your headlights, but there are no big monsters to punch.

Your tasks are to collect materials, upgrade your ride and yourself, and follow the instructions of three bickering old people to escape the exclusion zone before you lose your mind.

The car radio is filled with an amazing collection of songs that perfectly fit the vibe of the game and will introduce you to a few great artists.

The Whispers in the Woods DLC adds a whole extra story that ups the horror aspects of the game and gives you genuine monsters to flee.

The difficulty settings are some of the best I've ever dealt with, you have the general easy/medium/hard difficulties but you can also go into your settings and edit different aspects. Want fuel to last longer? There's a setting for that. What failed runs to be more forgiving? There's a setting for that. Want your car cosmetics to last forever instead of running out and needing to be replaced? Thank god you can fix that.

Gif credit: @tinysamm

Ikenfell

Genre: Turn-based RPG

Themes: Retro, queer, magic school

Personal Rating: Four stars

What if Harry Potter were written by a decent human being and queer as hell? In this game you play Maritte, a non-magical girl sneaking into a magic school to find her lost sister and uncovering magic of her own.

You will gather a party of friends with interesting personalities and backstories to help you in your journey, and face many whimsical, creative and emotionally impactul challenges.

These characters have problems. You will feel things.

Combat is turn based and relies on timing for attacks and defense, but you can turn on assist mode.

It's also queer as hell. Like, so fucking gay. Jesus.

Note, there's an after credit scene. You need to watch it or you will hate the ending.

Gif credit: @superfandomlife

Ghostrunner 1

Genre: Combat/Platforming game

Themes: Cyberpunk, Dystopian, rebellion

Personal Rating: Four stars

You are a cyborg ninja, you wake up with no memories and immediately start killing cops while a disembodied voice guides you and helps you uncover your lost memories.

The world ended years ago and the last of humanity is locked in a massive tower big enough to constitute a small city, but this society has degraded and is run by authoritarian thugs and a mad despot. You're gonna take that bitch down.

Gameplay is about timing and working out a pattern, you enter a room with enemies and have to jump around and kill each of them in one hit before you're shot yourself, if you die you go back to the beginning of the room and start again until you get it right. As well as the occasional puzzle.

Lots of really fun platforming and parkour. You are cyber ninja.

You get upgrades as you go along that improve your abilities.

Gif credit: @quinnigallagherjones

Road 96

Genre: Story based adventure game.

Themes: Rebellion, coming of age, freedom and oppression

Personal Rating: Four stars

It's the mid nineties and a very familiar totalitarian despot is about to become president. Teens are being rounded up and put in work camps so they can't vote against him, and plenty of teens are working to cross the border and escape this country before it catches fire.

You don't play one character, rather you guide a teen towards the border. When you escape, or die, the story moves on to another character you guide out.

As you go encounter various members of a small collection of interesting NPC's pivotal to future events, passing in and out of their stories as they unfold and getting the chance to guide them.

This is a game about rebellion, and freedom. It's about the importance of connection to other people. And the value of large or small resistances to the bastards looking to take your rights away.

Gif credit: @angel-spittt

Katana Zero

Genre: 2d fighting platform game

Themes: Moral ambiguity, independance, 80's action movies.

Personal Rating: 3.5 stars

You are a killer without remorse. You have the ability to reverse time upon death and use it to break into facilities, reap a trail of carnage to your target and eliminate them, all for a paycheck.

Your handler is a "therapist", your abilities come from a drug, and it's becoming clear that you have no idea what's going on, and the people in charge of you don't have your best interest at heart. You're a pawn. And you're fucked.