Is Hypnospace Outlaw of any interest to people who didn’t live through the era? I’m not sure. But the real joy is in exploring this weird time capsule, where soda is advertised with terrible dad-rock jingles, where every website features at least one spinning GIF and one flashing piece of text, where hit counters are still an integral part of the decor, and where neighborhood spats play out for the entire world to see. You’re supposed to patrol for copyright infringement, harassment, and other cyber crimes. Ostensibly you’re a moderator for HypnOS, an AOL clone people use while asleep. Hypnospace Outlaw ($20 on Steam) is like a small slice of Internet-that-was nostalgia. It’s hard for me to remember that internet, the way it worked before social media came along and centralized everything. I grew up with the early Internet, with AOL and GeoCities and Netscape and Napster.
My favorites are the bears, which will climb pretty much any tree you give them, perching a hundred feet in the air and staring curiously at your guests.Įnd of the day, Planet Zoo’s the game I’m most looking forward to returning to-and with a steady supply of Steam Workshop items from enterprising modders? I’ve got plenty of reason. I never cared much for the “ride the rides” feature in Planet Coaster, but Planet Zoo’s animals are a joy to build for, exploring the spaces you’ve crafted for them and taking advantage of cliffs, lakes, and so forth. Frontier’s Zoo Tycoon successor uses the same creation tools as 2016’s Planet Coaster, and I’ve spent dozens and dozens of hours building everything from enormous reptile houses to fake cave dens and sprawling savannahs, placing every tree and rock just so.Īnd it’s worth it because of the animals. If “fun” were the only metric that mattered in Game of the Year discussions, Planet Zoo ($45 on Steam) would take home the prize.
Here, in the titular Federal Bureau of Control, all those best impulses finally came together in a game that plays as well as it’s written and vice versa, a gripping adventure that blurs the lines between mundane and menacing in ways that would make Rod Serling proud.Īlso-and this didn’t factor into our decision at all-but it looks incredible with one of Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards, the first truly amazing ray-tracing showcase. All of them were flawed, but diamonds in the rough.
Control is the culmination of two decades of idiosyncrasies, groundwork laid by Max Payne and Alan Wake and Quantum Break. Remedy, and its talent for creating a kick-ass shooter-a talent the studio hasn’t fully indulged since Max Payne 2.īut mostly Remedy, and its willingness to keep experimenting. Remedy, and its eccentric use of live action video, its knack for picking the right licensed song for the right moment. Remedy, and its love for pulp science fiction and the paranormal, for Twilight Zone and Twin Peaks and New Weird. Only Remedy could have made Control ($60 on Epic Games Store).
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