Brace yourself for games
Plus Mario with guns, and a tentative return to the board game Pandemic.
Hello there! This week we’re checking out the tremendous tactics of Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and the 10th anniversary celebrations of Forza Horizon. It’s also an absolutely stacked week for good games on the subscription services, plus we’re dodging PTSD in Pandemic and remembering some of Mario’s wildest pre-Rabbid contrivances.
We’re hitting the part of the year now where there just isn’t enough time for all the games. I know complaining is in bad taste for someone in the much-coveted position of getting a lot of games early and for free as part of my job, but that unfortunately doesn’t come with any kind of time dilation device so I can play all of them, especially since I can’t actually do it during work hours. In the space of a week I’ve dropped Scorn to play both Mario + Rabbids and Bayonetta 3, only to also be hit with Plague Tale and God of War: Ragnorok, and I know Sonic and Pokemon are not too far away.
The way I generally cope is to prioritise two games that naturally split my time somehow; for example one game I can play in front of the kids and one I can’t, or one I can play handheld and one I need the TV for. Both happen to apply to my current games of Rabbids and God of War, the former of which I’m almost done with and the latter you can read my thoughts on in around three weeks. Happy scheduling!
The Rabbids ride again
By Tim
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is the follow-up to 2017’s wonderful Kingdom Battle, but it could hardly be called a sequel. It’s still broadly a tactics game, but it’s also a very loose and freeform RPG in ways the original wasn’t. By giving you direct control over all your squad’s movements during your turn, and layering on heaps of strategic options with very few penalties or restrictions, every battle and firefight becomes a puzzle to which you’re free to craft your own solution. Not only are there the basic tools to master — such as the team jump which lets you easily relocate or flank an enemy outside of your usual movement radius — but new Rabbid Luma hybrids called Sparks can be equipped to each hero to augment their abilities and resistances while granting special moves.
The game makes a lot of changes peripheral to the main gameplay too, like the fact that Rabbids can talk now, and the fact that you’re travelling through space to different worlds instead of trekking through the Mushroom Kingdom. This is all fine and good, but I did find it weird how the game would bend over backwards to try and explain these changes with backstory or exposition. You just needed to say a new bad guy had arrived with a bunch of Rabbid slaves for some reason, and that we we’re fighting her in space. In fact the story and supplemental characters is probably one of the weaker elements here; there’s a lot, and I found it all pretty hard to follow until I gave up and just accepted it.
Thankfully your three-quarters-of-a-dozen main crew are not so confused in their characterisation. Each one is hilarious and comes with an interesting combination of moves and capabilities, and unlike last time you can choose any three you like for each battle. I’m a beige normy so I mostly stuck with Mario, Luigi and a rotating third (the dual pistols and sniping combo of the Bros is just too good), but thanks to the generous levelling and upgrade systems all characters are good to go whenever, you don’t have to worry that neglecting Bowser or Rabbid Rosalina will leave them underpowered.
What to play
It's a big week on Game Pass, starting today with grim mediaeval fantasy adventure A Plague Tale: Requiem. I don't think I (Tim) am emotionally ready for it right now so I might save it for after the Q4 games rush. Tomorrow get ready for the spooky season with five very scary Frictional games courtesy of The Amnesia Collection, Amnesia Rebirth and Soma, plus an early access version of asynchronous multiplayer dungeon explorer Phantom Abyss. Then on Friday it's time for peerless social sim / RPG hybrid Persona 5, which is worth a look for its style alone.
It’s not a bad time on PlayStation Plus either, with the Extra tier getting a drop of stuff yesterday including GTA Vice City, Dragon Quest XI, The Medium, Inside and Assassin's Creed Odyssey. But my (Tim’s) recommendation, if you've never played it, is Hohokum. It's an incredible 2014 art game with illustrations by Richard Hogg, where you decipher fun alien worlds as a colourful snake. Meanwhile, boy am I starting to really regret paying so much money for a year of the Deluxe tier. This new batch of games comes with a few more PS4 titles (Yakuza 3–5, Limbo, Street Fighter IV) but literally no PS1/2/P games to add to the meagre existing lineup.
The new game out on Apple Arcade this week is NBA 2K23 Arcade Edition, which I’m (Alice) really looking forward to jumping into because (if it’s anything like last year’s game) it has a lot of the fun of the console game, but without any of the microtransactions. It is still quite bare bones, it’s best enjoyed with a controller, and it’s the “we have food at home” when someone in the car is asking for McDonalds equivalent of the console game. But, if you’re an Apple Arcade subscriber who likes basketball, it’s a must play.
And you should totally play Stardew Valley on mobile. It’s not on sale, it’s still $7.99, but after trying to talk myself out of buying the game on yet another device for the better part of a year, I (Alice) finally caved and bought it before my flights this week and I’m back down the rabbit hole. If I were a kind person, I’d suggest saving yourself from this new addiction while there’s still time, but I’d prefer it if you joined me down here so we can swap fishing tips. I am still very bad at fishing. (Note from Tim: if you’re one of the very few Android users subscribing to Google’s Play Pass, you can get Stardew through that.)
Forza Horizon 10th anniversary celebrations pretty good so far
By Alice
Do you remember the first time you booted up your favourite game or series? I don’t, not really. Moments like that usually only become momentous in hindsight. But, after playing it dozens of times, that intro for the original Forza Horizon game evokes feelings of comfort and excitement. Language by Porter Robinson is hardly the most pleasant song, yet because of what it meant was coming next, it has an oddly soothing quality.
So, it’s wonderful to see Playground games transform the FH5 intro into an impressively faithful recreation of the original Horizon intro, complete with song and shots of the Dodge Viper in parts of Mexico that look close enough to Colorado (the most random setting for a game).
This Horizon Festival season is all about fan service and self-indulgence, which is horrible, unpleasant and plain embarrassing when it’s a franchise I don’t like, but utterly heaven when it’s one I do.
This week is all about the original Horizon. Next week will be Horizon 2, which will have more challenging associations for me (I got caught up in the bug that deleted save files when I was 3 cars away from fully 100%ing the game). The week after that, Mexico will have an Australian transformation for Horizon 3, before going to the “UK” for Horizon 4.
What I love most about this walk down memory lane is that it’s introduced a new Mixtape station, featuring selected music from the series, so there’s something new to listen to.
It's a shame, really, that the subscription nature of FH5 (through Game Pass) means that you have to have enough free time to play each week to really make the most of it, rather than making it DLC you can revisit on a whim if you lead a busy life and have to go on a last-minute work trip to Hawaii (random example). But check it out if you can, because there are so many Easter eggs and treats for new and old fans alike.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
How soon is too soon to play a board game named Pandemic? We tried to play the digital version a few times during lockdown, but it just seemed a bit on the nose.
However, the time finally came to get out the physical game last week, and I’m glad I waited until I was in the right headspace, because it’s delightful and fun, even if you do have a little bit of PTSD leak out around the sides while you play.
It’s a co-operative game for up to four players, you and your friends against a disease that’s overtaking the world at a familiar pace. It starts with three outbreaks, and then slowly (and then quickly) spreads while you try to contain it. Your choice of role matters because it makes a huge difference to how much disease you can cure and at what pace.
To win, you just need to find cures for the four diseases. For the game to win, the ref number gets too high, there are too many outbreaks, or you run out of cards.
I was not kidding about the mild PTSD that starts to prickle, especially for Melburnians. But there is a power to being able to control these diseases, even if only in a board game where you just need five cards of the same colour and a handy research station, rather than needing all world leaders to stand firm on a global lockdown and mask wearing for a month…
You can play it single player, though I haven’t tried this yet. So far I’ve only played it with 2 players, but I think it would be a totally different, and more challenging, game with more people trying to impose their will on the world. I’ll report back in a few weeks time when I test it out with more players and let you know how it goes.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
For a lot of people it’s still a bit weird to see Mario wielding pistols and taking cover in Mario + Rabbids, but in truth the guy has been thrown into some profoundly sketchy situations since day one. In fact I found it too overwhelming to come up with a list of “times Mario resorted to strange violence”, so instead I’m focusing on four of the weirdest Mario concepts from the Super Nintendo era alone, not counting the uniformly bad and bizarre edutainment releases.
Yoshi’s Safari: If you thought Kingdom Battle was the first time Nintendo’s mascot went all John Wick, you should check out this first-person lightgun blaster, where Mario shows up riding Yoshi and wielding a rifle. You’re running around levels that look like a mix between Mario Kart and Doom, mercilessly gunning down beloved Mario enemies.
Mario & Wario: Made by Game Freak, of Pokemon fame, releasing only in Japan and requiring the Super Nintendo mouse, this is an odd one indeed. It’s a Lemmings-like where Wario puts buckets or barrels over Mario’s head, and you then have to guide him through a level to find Luigi. It’s as fun as it sounds.
Hotel Mario: Not a SNES game, but from the era, this one was made by Philips for its forgettable PC console the CD-i. The premise is that you’re looking for Princess Toadstool in a bunch of hotels, but the actual gameplay involves figuring out how to get to each door on the screen so you can close them. It makes no sense and it sucks.
Wrecking Crew ‘98: This one is actually good, though once again is exclusive to Japan. Wrecking Crew was already weird; Mario tries to demolish a building while avoiding aliens and a crazed foreman who’s determined to murder him. The 1998 remake changes it so that Mario is out for a walk and notices that Bowser’s new hideout is depriving flowers of sun, so sets out to knock it down. In practice it’s a puzzle game, but with a solid grasp of satisfying design that was completely missed by Philips.