#REDSTAR ♪ ♫

game information; Developer:Kylotonn Publisher:BigBen Interactive Release: DateMarch 19, 2020 Platforms:Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch The Isle of Man TT is perhaps the most outrageously dangerous motorsport event in the world. Held on nearly 38 miles of perilously-skinny public road draped over the Isle of Man, this enduring motorcycle time-trial barely goes a year without killing a competitor - claiming over 150 souls since its inception in 1907. Not to be flippant about the loss of life but, above anything else, KT Racing's TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 2 aptly illustrates why this event is just so potentially deadly. Diabolically tricky and boasting a wicked sense of speed, this impressive albeit slightly uneven sequel feels fast and dangerous in a way racing games rarely muster. The star of the show remains the complete 37.73 mile Snaefell Mountain Course itself, with its tree-lined corridors, ancient city streets, and beachside blasts. Navigating the narrow roads of the course at truly sphincter-shrivelling speeds is an immense and unforgiving challenge, and the amount of crashes I've had while on maximum attack has made it abundantly clear why the real TT is infamous for its sadly-extensive list of casualties. In fact, there are times when Ride on the Edge 2 seems to share more in common with something like WipeOut than a contemporary motorsports sim, such is the startling velocity, amplified by the cramped roads. The top-notch sound is an integral part of the sensation of speed, particularly the way wind noise thuds through the speakers as your bike whips past trackside objects. I’ve never been to the Isle of Man but, based on footage, KT Racing’s version of the course is an admirably authentic facsimile of the real thing. I haven't spotted any especially major visual differences between the version of the course here and the version that debuted in the original 2018 game but, even if there were any, they'd be fairly hard to absorb at speeds regularly tickling 200 miles per hour. There’s some pop-in now and then, but not enough of it to really detract from the experience. Ride or Die Like the first game there’s a smattering of other, fictional tracks available too - scattered across the UK and Ireland. They’re adequate but a bit plain compared to the far more densely-detailed Snaefell course. A modest free roam mode is also included, though it's basically the fictional courses stitched together. The open roads are peppered with typical open-world racing challenges and are adequate for a quick blat, but Ride on the Edge 2’s handling model is much better suited to full throttle racing as opposed to general exploration. The handling is definitely an improvement over the original, which felt a little more slippery overall. The heavier bikes in particular now cling to the road far more realistically and, while still quite nimble, their bulk is communicated well via their far longer braking distances. Smaller bikes have obviously benefited from the handling tweaks too but I don’t find them as fun to ride as they’re considerably twitchier. There are several layers of assists to lean on should the punishing pro handling prove an insurmountable challenge but know that, even on the simplest settings, Ride on the Edge 2 requires rapid reflexes and an extremely deft touch. A dose of gravel rash is the only reward for cack-handed cornering, and a lapse in concentration at 200 miles per hour will send you spearing into a stone wall like a sidewinder missile. The chase view leaves something to be desired, unfortunately, sometimes making it appear like the bike is swinging beneath the rider's head like a pendulum. The bigger problem is that the low-speed handling is still a bit shonky, making acute hairpins and extremely narrow low-speed sections of track unnecessarily troublesome (Snaefell's Governor's Bridge hairpin and the subsequent skinny section, right at the end of a lap, is a particularly notorious offender). Tiny bumps also have a regular tendency to high side riders in the blink of an eye. Such accidents are probably partly realistic at these immense speeds, but the kind of track knowledge required to remember all the individual pieces of otherwise undetectable tarmac that will probably buck riders from their bikes in this game is out of my reach. As you’d expect, Ride on the Edge 2 features a dynamic racing line - which does place braking warnings on some dangerous jumps - but it’s a bit frustrating to be thrown off when the racing line is otherwise giving you the all-clear. Death Wobble Career mode has been fleshed out since the original but it’s mostly vanilla. There does seem to be a bit more structure to the path to the TT, which has several ways in which you can earn a place. The learning curve is steep, however, and conquering the AI can be a real arm wrestle - particularly when there are commonly one or two frontrunners seemingly capable of supernatural speed at times. Upgrades need to be applied to your bikes, and you’ll definitely need to secure them to be competitive. There's also a perk system that can give you a slight edge, which functions like the mod cards in Forza Motorsport 7. These perks feel a bit weird in Ride on the Edge 2, however, as arbitrary buffs to your ballast or brakes and such seem pretty at odds with the game's pursuit of realism elsewhere. On the one hand it’s kind of handy being able to play a perk that slows the AI down a fraction for an event but, on the other, it also feels a bit like cheating. Verdict A blisteringly quick and dangerous-feeling racing game, TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 2 is a plain package and doesn't quite nail the balance between its serious tone and arcade-style flourishes, but it packs some top-notch two -wheeled racing. If you have the reflexes, that is. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: OS: Windows 7 Processor: Intel Core 2 i5-2300 or AMD Phenom II X6 1100 Memory: 4 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 630 2GB, or AMD Radeon HD 5870 2GB DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 18 GB available space

GAME INFORMATION: Developer:N / A Publisher:N / A Release Date: February 28, 2019 Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC Ape Out is Hotline Miami on an intense diet of bananas and Buddy Rich records; a top-down simian splatterfest set to a superb soundtrack of jazzy drums and crashing cymbals, bundled into an extremely elegant and cool package. Blending elements of old-timey film and vinyl with a sharp, bold 2D aesthetic and bucketloads of blood, Ape Out is striking to look at and properly addictive to play. The premise is simple: The apes are in, and they need to be out. That’s where we come in, steering these simians to an exciting escape through four short but regularly tough chapters, plus a fun epilogue with a slight twist. The location might be a shady research lab or a labyrinthine container ship and its nearby port, but the objective is constant: sprint to the exit, smash anything you can, and slaughter everyone in the way. The controls are simple, too, a perfect match for Ape Out's striking, minimalist art style. Outside of movement, there are just two actions in Ape Out - shove and grab. Shoving enemies will send them sailing until they drop to their deaths, smash into pulp against a wall, or slam into another person, liquefying both in a bloody explosion. Shove is also how the apes blow through plate glass and pound their way through some doors. The grab, meanwhile, is useful for procuring human shields, making use of their panicked trigger fingers to blast their comrades and to direct where exactly to throw your victims for maximum devastation. The occasional steel door will also need to be wrenched from its hinges. These two moves were all I needed to feel like a big hairy piledriver of primate rage, flinging hapless humans around as though they’re weightless. So yes, Ape Out is uncomplicated. But that doesn’t mean it’s a pushover. Chimpin’ Ain’t Easy At its default difficulty, Ape Out is a steady challenge that I knocked out across a couple of afternoons. There were a couple of late levels that caused me some strife and bogged me down with what felt like a disproportionate amount of do-overs but, overall, I found it a fair and fun contest. Except for explosions, apes can survive two hits before dying to a third, so you can generally afford a mistake or two. Also, enemies don’t fire the millisecond you become visible to them; the apes have a small window to charge or dart back into cover. It’s very satisfying peeling back the banana peel-like layers of what’s possible in Ape Out, despite the fact it only requires two buttons. Ape Out's levels are largely procedurally generated, save for some key bottlenecks that remain the same regardless of the rest of the level changing around it. Layouts are generally just a grab-bag of same-same rooms, hallways, and wide-open spaces cobbled together in slightly different ways, but there's enough variation that it's an effective way to make every area feel dangerous, regardless of how many times it's been played. There’s no one quick or safe route through a level. There are, however, a few fun scripted blitzes through hallways and corridors of enemy-filled elevators that everybody will encounter, and I would've liked to experience more of these memorable moments I could pin on a piece of specific, deliberate piece of level design. One thing I particularly admire about Ape Out is how tactics and takedown methods only reveal themselves via trial-and-error, or by accidentally stumbling into them on the first go. Factors like how many times the different sorts of enemies will fire their weapons after being grabbed, or which ones will run if you chase them and which ones will stand their ground can be cleverly exploited and countered once you know their habits. These tricks revealed themselves to me over time in a satisfying way: I discovered almost instantly I could turn enemies into a red stain by slamming open a container door if they were standing near, but I'd played for hours before I realized I could throw back bombs. It’s very satisfying peeling back the banana peel-like layers of what’s possible in Ape Out, despite the fact it only requires two buttons. Aped Crusader Arcade Mode ramps up the difficulty considerably, adding a strict time limit to each level and sending you right back to the beginning of the whole chapter if and when your ape is killed. There’s also a harder setting for the standard game which speeds up enemies and adds a lot more of them. It’s noticeably trickier and I had to play it at a slower pace than the standard difficulty, taking more care not to charge into areas I could be swamped in. I like Ape Out at its regular difficulty more, though, because I think the pace is better. Everything going on in the background is a freestyle drum solo timed with your actions and the atmosphere it creates is brilliant. I also like the way Ape Out’s huge walls stretch all the way out of screen, looming high over the vibrant orange apes and bright-red blood splatters, adding depth along the Z-axis and obscuring the level ahead. It adds a layer of pressure you don’t necessarily get in other top-down games like Hotline Miami or The Hong Kong Massacre, where you can see into upcoming rooms and spaces and prepare to deal with enemies who can’t see you yet. I like everything about the presentation, to be honest, from the cue marks that flicker in the right-hand upper corner at the halfway point in each chapter, like I have some kind of personal projectionist changing film reels in the background for me, to the way the level names burst onto the screen in time with the music. And the music? God, it’s good. Each of the chapters has its own drumming style and tempo, which ramps up dynamically as the pace of your rampage increases, and the death of every enemy is punctuated with a cymbal smash or some kind of atonal squeak subbing in as a desperate scream before they explode. Everything going on in the background is a freestyle drum solo timed with your actions and the atmosphere it creates is brilliant. Verdict Ape Out is an intoxicating fusion of percussion and destruction that oozes style from every angle. Its procedurally built levels tend to blend into one another a bit but its bloody rampages are filled with nuance. Beneath the simple controls is depth that’s kept me returning for days after successfully completing the epilogue. Gorgeous and compulsive, if this ’50s-inspired, jazz-fueled jaunt is the future of gorilla warfare, the team behind ape out can make a monkey out of me anytime. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: OS: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 x64 Processor: Intel Core2 Duo E4500 (2 * 2200) or equivalent Memory: 2 GB RAM Graphics: GeForce 9600 GT (512 MB) DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 2 GB available space Additional Notes: Controller

Game informations: Developer:Double Fine Productions Publisher:Bandai Namco Games Release: DateAugust 20, 2019 PlatformsPC, :PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One now what the first thing I thought of when I saw RAD was? Toe Jam & Earl. The gameplay of this roguelike action-adventure, which is set in a twice-nuked future whose pop-culture sensibilities are permanently fossilized in the 1980s, shares a lot in common with that old Sega Genesis favorite. Combine that vibe with developer Double Fine’s signature playful sense of humor and near-endless variety from randomized mutation power-ups, and you get a surprisingly engaging just-one-more-run kind of game. It’s bad enough when the nuclear apocalypse hits, but society eventually rebuilds and, in time, civilization moves forward. Cue the second nuclear holocaust - and you have to wonder why humanity can’t catch a break. By the time RAD begins, most of the planet is too dangerous to live in. And of course, even in the safe town you do have, the power goes out. So it’s up to the post-apocalyptic teenagers to venture out into the Fallow and try to get it back on and ensure the continued survival of the human race - no matter how much they have to mutate It’s weirdly dark and goofy, but it’s enough of a plot to hang onto as you clear the wasteland by swatting the irradiated monstrosities with your trusty bat and whatever mutations you pick up along the way. RAD is almost entirely procedurally generated, which means sometimes your exploration and combat yields great and super-weird mutation power-ups. You might gain the ability to launch your own head as a projectile explosive, or a sentient neck-mounted blob that hurls its own attacks at your foes. Other times you might get an annoying ability like the egg-laying one where you have to hatch fresh helpers every time you pass through a doorway, or something else that just doesn’t gel with your playstyle. Or maybe you’ll be on a map layout that requires a ton of traipsing around. But those weak runs make the great ones feel even better. It’s fun to discover old-school secret walls and floors around the dungeons, too. Of course, you’ll become more powerful as you go, too, with up to three active mutation abilities at your disposal at a time. But RAD is tougher than it looks - and it’s the good kind of tough. Health is tricky to come by, even with shops allowing you to cash in your collected currency (in the form of fittingly -’80s cassette tapes, with five-and-a-quarter floppy disks serving as keys to locked chests). As a result, death is always a very serious threat. But it’s not a complete wipe when you die, because you can bank cash for future playthroughs and unlock different, stat-enhancing bats to use at the start of a new run to give you progressively more of a leg up as you go. While the neon-tinged color pallette and synth-tastic '80s soundtrack serve RAD well in the personality department, the sluggish framerate on a plain ol' Xbox One S and the long loading times at startup and whenever you go to and from town or a new level drag things down a bit. Verdict RAD is a lot deeper than it looks at first glance, and a lot more challenging too. Both are good things, and the procedurally generated layouts and mutations guarantee that variety will always be served. Sometimes you’ll play for minutes and other times for hours - I’m about eight hours deep so far - but the more time you spend with RAD, the more likely you are to click “New Run” when you finally die. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 10 (64-bit) Processor: Intel Core i5-2400, 3.10 GHz / AMD FX-8350, 4.00 GHz Memory: 4 GB RAM Graphics: Nvidia GTX 780, 3 GB / AMD RX 470, 4 GB DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 6 GB available space Sound Card: DirectX compatible soundcard or onboard chipset

Game Informations : Genre: Shoot 'em up Motor: Unity Mode: Solo Developers: DeadToast Entertainment, 22nd Century Toys LLC Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows Original release date: June 20, 2019 My Friend Pedro is an arcadey score-attack game that’s all about maintaining a multiplier by killing enemies quickly, avoiding getting shot, and finding creative ways to take down each bad guy to maximize your score. It’s an age-old concept (especially not getting shot), but where My Friend Pedro sets itself apart is in its sheer commitment to making you feel badass as hell while doing it. Bullet time is the core that My Friend Pedro is built on, while while the mechanic itself is obviously nothing new, its implementation here is one of the best it’s ever been. It serves not only as a vital means of slowing down the action, but also as a way to enhance the absolutely wild stunts that your character can perform. Few things in video games can come close to matching how cool it feels when you swing from a rope, crash through a window in slow motion, blast two enemies to smithereens with a shotgun while in mid-air, and then stick the landing on a skateboard. The few things that do come close are probably also things that you can do in this game. My Friend Pedro is made up of a ton of awesome moments like these, and throughout its short but sweet four or five-hour run time developer DeadToast does a great job of introducing new mechanics that prevent the action from ever becoming stale. Whether it be the aforementioned skateboard, a weapon that opens up excitingly deadly capabilities, new stage hazards, enemies, or its own twist on a motorcycle stage. My Friend Pedro has some sort of new idea for just about every level. That being said, the first half is certainly the stronger of the two. The stunts flow together much more cleanly with very little downtime between enemy encounters; Enemies are less bullet spongey, allowing you to focus more on the spectacle of the action as opposed to just surviving it; and overall, the levels are just structured in a way that allows you to have more fun with the environment. My favorite level in the whole campaign is an early one with a section that has you shooting your way through a kitchen, with knives flying everywhere that can be kicked into enemies, a frying pan hanging from the wall that can be used to ricochet bullets - and then, in the room right after that, there's another area where you can throw a frying pan into the air to take out all the enemies above then kick the pan through a window in the next area and take out the baddies without even stepping through the door. The later sewer and internet levels just don’t come close to matching that degree of flow from one area to the next. That’s not to say that the back half is bad, and there are certainly high points. One such highlight is a train level that has you jumping from car to car, leaving a trail of blood and body parts in your wake. But the most creative and exciting levels are definitely frontloaded. Beyond the bullet time and the stunts, My Friend Pedro simply feels great to play. The animations do sometimes look a little wonky, especially during wall jumps, melee attacks, and when your character has to unexpectedly land on an object. But it’s a small price to pay for how dynamically your character flips through the air, seamlessly moving from a dive to a rope swing and back to a dive, all while conveying a real sense of weight and momentum. While the arsenal of weapons is fairly limited and conventional, there’s a great balance between each gun that helps ensure that no weapon ever becomes obsolete. Shotguns, for example, are obviously great up close and can blow enemies to pieces (and you can use those pieces as weapons to kick at other enemies), but they lack the range and flexibility of the dual uzis and pistols which can split their aim to attack multiple targets at once. Story is obviously not a focus of My Friend Pedro, which is great because it’s pretty awful at telling one. You play as a nameless and voiceless protagonist who wakes up in the basement of a butcher shop where you’re greeted by your friend, Pedro: a talking banana who tells you to do bad things. The few jokes that attempt to bring life to an otherwise-dead script fall completely flat, like one about a place called The Internet literally being a series of tubes, or how hardcore gamers all moved to the sewers because ... there are always sewer levels in violent games, and ... they wanted to move someplace familiar. Fortunately, the story doesn’t get in the way of the action. The few cutscenes that do exist are short and painless, and any added dialogue takes place while you’re able to play, making it unobtrusive. It is also a short adventure, but the length wouldn’t be as much of an issue if there were any sort of incentive to replay on its harder difficulties, such as striving to get those S ranks. There are leaderboards, and sure, bragging rights are great, but it would have been nice to have a few more tangible rewards like unlockable costumes, weapons, or anything to keep me chasing those high scores. Verdict Like the John Woo movies that it successfully emulates, My Friend Pedro is all about the action - and that action is excellent. The slow-motion gunplay, fantastical stunts, and score-attack-driven mechanics all work together to create one hell of an adrenaline-filled ride, even if it doesn't give you much reason to come back to it once that ride is over . System Requirements : OS: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 x64. Processor: Intel Core i3-530 (2 * 2930) or equivalent. Memory: 4 GB RAM. Graphics: GeForce GT 440 (1024 MB)