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Earth Defense Force: World Brothers (PS5): COMPLETED!

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I’m a fan of the EDF games, with their Massive Ants and Massive Wasps and Massive Robots and Massive Space Ships. I was intrigued by this, Minecraft-y looking entry into the series, but the problem with EDF games is they cost money and don’t often drop to Super Cheap, so I never got round to buying it. And I still haven’t, because it appeared on PS+!

I thought the only real difference between this and the others in the series was the graphics, but actually, there’s a bigger change. You see, you don’t control just one person, you control a squad of four, swapping between them with the d-pad. Instead of collecting billions of weapons, of which you used to be able to wield two, each of your team has just one weapon. But! Because you have four of them, you essentially have four weapons, albeit they’re a bit trickier to swap between and some of them may get “killed”.

As you play through the game, you find and rescue more “brothers” and “sisters”, each of whom is a terrible stereotype of the country they supposedly represent. You can then use these in your squad, and each type has different attributes (like speed and armour) and a special skill (like being able to fly for a bit, having a dash-dodge move, or grenades) so choosing a good combination of both characters and weapons for your team is essential. Well, actually it doesn’t make a lot of difference most of the time and I tended to stick with a couple with long range and a couple with short range weapons.

The rest of the game is, broadly, same as it ever was only in Super Bright Colour Vision and with stupid hyperactive chat instead of the usual morose “we’re all gonna die”/weirdly upbeat “we are the valiant infantry” of the grey-brown entries in the series. You still have ants and spiders, you still have Hectors and Erginus, you still have tanks and a huge cargo robot you can ride, it’s just a bit more jolly and blocky. Also, it was really smooth with no slowdown, which is unusual for EDF but probably because this was the “simpler” game, and on a PS5.

As before, I played through the game with my daughter in co-op, which actually meant we had two squads of four! It’s a lot of fun, but we found it a bit short compared to the “proper” games, and I also missed the “collect all the green weapons crates and red armour crates” which don’t exist here. Well, the red ones just heal your team now. Still, can’t complain when we enjoyed it so much anyway, and it didn’t cost us anything to play.

Fallout: New Vegas (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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How kind of Amazon to give this away for free just after I’d played Fallout 3 which was also given away for free!

Like with Fallout 3, I wanted to play this as A Bad Man, but actually, I didn’t. Well, not entirely. You see, I wasn’t really a big fan of all the factions in New Vegas, not least because none of them were truly “good”: The NCR wanted control and land, Caesar’s Legion wanted slaves and loved to murder, Mr House was such an Elon even though he should have died decades ago, and the Great Kahns were happy to cosy up with the Legion and provide drugs to even worse people. The Brotherhood of Steel, ostensibly the “good guys” in Fallout 3 (or as near as possible) didn’t see an issue with melting anyone who had any technology and acted more like the Enclave than the righteous folk they were in Washington. Even the smaller groups, like the Boomers and the Nightkin had “social issues”.

I decided early that the “least worst” of the Big Three was probably the NCR, so happily tore my way through all the Legion on my quest to find Benny and the Platinum Chip. By the time the NCR told me I had to “deal with” the Brotherhood, I couldn’t be bothered sorting out their problems so killed them all at the first opportunity then blew up their bunker.

OK, so maybe I was a little bad.

Whatever. I enjoyed playing through this again, and completed a big raft of optional missions and stuff, although I didn’t do any of the DLC. At least, I haven’t done it yet – there’s a good chance I might.

Oh, and as this wasn’t an Epic store game, I didn’t have crashes like I did with Fallout 3! Well, I had one or two, but I was getting that many each hour previously. Stupid Epic.

Paradise Killer (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I’ll admit, I went into this expecting a somewhat different sort of game. In my head, it was a bit Phoenix Wright or Murder By Numbers, but it actually turned out to be a more-interactive-than-usual visual novel with a make-your-own-ending, in first person with platforming. Neither the reviews nor the screenshots suggested the platforming was even a thing, but it is – and it’s a pretty big part of the game.

So, my interpretation of the world in which this is set (which may be incorrect) is this: In an afterlife, an island is constructed to be paradise to a select few, and a residence for a number of less important people who are there to serve the important people. However, the island is inherently flawed, and so a new, better island is created and when the time comes all the servants are killed and the important people move on to the new one. This happens over and over, with demon invasions and corruption causing each island to end and the cycle to repeat. However, this time, things are different. Island 25 is supposedly perfect, and it is the end of days of Island 24. Preparations for the move have started, but then the entire council of people who run the island are seemingly murdered. But whodunnit?

As Lady Love Dies, an investigator who herself was exiled for allowing herself to be consumed by a demon, you’ve been allowed back into Paradise to figure out not only who did the deed, but also how. As well as uncover a number of possibly related smaller crimes.

You explore the island, solve a few puzzles, scan stuff with your PDA-type device, and interrogate those people who are still around. A strange collection of people with equally strange names, like Doctor Doom Jazz, the island medic who has had every woman (and probably man), including you. Or Sam Daybreak, a red skeleton who was an assassin when he was human but is now a bartender who brews his own whiskey, sometimes from illegal ingredients. You can build up relationships with these characters, and eventually they may open up to you with more information to help your investigation.

After you’ve conversed and explored as much as you feel you need to in order to put together a portfolio of evidence and a timeline of events, you can speak to Judge to start the trial. It seems to you do this whenever you wish, but if you’ve not collected enough of a case, you won’t be able to convince Judge that your Truth is the Truth, and so the murderer(s!) will go free. The reason I say “your” Truth is because it’s possible to weave a narrative to fit pretty much anyone in the frame without contradiction, and this is where the game massively departs from the likes of Phoenix Wright – you’re not guided towards the truth in court, you have to guide the court to your truth. There’s no last minute revelations here which turn the case upside down – once you’re in court, you should have the case solved. It’s very clever how all these possibilities work, if a little vague how you know if you’re doing the right thing. Ultimately, it’s your decision: If you have the evidence to back it up, at least.

The platforming, then. Although the ability to roam (mostly) freely around the island in first person is good, some items are only reachable with some tricky jumping, and the game engine clearly isn’t Mario 64 or Mirror’s Edge. The platforming is hazy and inaccurate, and often I found myself reaching places through clumsiness and glitching rather than skill and timing. It’s not that you die or anything, but falling a long way means a tedious re-tread. It’s unclear how high you jump related to walls and fences. It’s imprecise how you walk on narrow ledges. It just doesn’t quite work, and if you’re hoarding blood crystals (a seemingly finite source of currency) you’re not going to spend them on fast travelling so there’s a lot of awkward jumpery.

Aside from that, though, it’s an amazing game. There’s such deep characterisation and lore, that you really do want to exhaust every avenue of both questioning and island exploration even if the reward is just a few throwaway lines or the history of a long extinct failed island precursor and has no relevance to the Crime to End All Crimes. Or, it might. Paradise Killer is extraordinarily well-written, not least because it’s not a 2D story. There are layers, overlapping and underlining, and it all seems to make sense even if you miss bits or decide to assume one person’s testimony is a lie. In fact, I’d say it isn’t written at all – it’s crafted.

Wiz ‘n’ Liz (MD): COMPLETED!

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After a write-up in Retro Gamer magazine, I was reminded how much fun this was all those years ago, so since I already had my RetroFlag GPi out for Mega-lo-Mania purposes, it seemed rude not to have a quick go.

Which turned out to be a couple of days of play and ended up with me completing it. As you do.

Somewhere, I have a hand-written, self-worked-out list of every single fruit combination for all the magic spells you can do, but I don’t know where that is so resorted to The Internet for some interesting ones. Most important were the ones that either gave you extra lives, or gave you stars with which to buy extra lives. Because extra lives are Important.

The aim of the game is to collect wabbits. But you have a timer and this seems to get shorter, and unless you’re lucky and collect a million “time extend” pickups dropped occasionally by captured wabbits, invariably you’re going to run out, and die. Especially in later levels where the number of required wabbits increase, and they start dropping the odd time penalty pickup too. Hence the need for extra lives. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to rack up loads of them with the right fruit and stars. Phew, eh?

Toem (PS5): COMPLETED!

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This looked like a lovely wee game when I saw it appear on the Switch eShop, so because I’m morally against paying full price for anything these days I put it on my wish list in the hope of a sale. And then, it appeared on PS+, saving me even more money!

It’s a unique looking, black and white 2D characters in a 3D world game with a hand-drawn style, which is why it originally stood out to me. For the most part, it’s an adventure-y puzzle game, wrapped around the premise of taking photos of stuff. The aim is to complete enough photo challenges in one area to unlock travel to the next one, eventually reaching the Toem and taking a photo of it. I won’t explain what a Toem is (or even how to pronounce it), but the reason for the black and white graphics become clear when you get there.

None of the photo requests are particularly challenging, and some require you to return to visited areas with new clothes and/or abilities you unlocked later (like being able to see ghosts or break blocks of ice), but it isn’t really a Metroidvania as most are optional.

Each area has a great collection of characters to meet and interact with, from the old guy who has lost a sock (and somehow you find two for him), to the ghost of a horse’s head who wants a photo of what they looked like when they were still alive, to the group of thugs who won’t let you join their gang until you’ve found all their graffiti. There’s also some shady organisation watching you for Reasons, and a number of shy monsters to look out for and somehow get snaps of.

It’s very silly, and probably counts as one of those “cosy” genre games with no timers, deaths, failures, peril or danger, but is really quite lovely.