A commercial failure by comparison with its rival the PlayStation, the Saturn nevertheless boasted stylish, genre-defining titles that are still played and beloved by retro games enthusiasts today It is one of the greatest injustices of video game history that the Sega Saturn is widely considered a failure. The console, which was launched in Japan on 22 November 1994, almost two weeks ahead of the PlayStation, is continually and pejoratively compared to its rival. We hear about how Sony produced a high-end machine laser targeted at producing fast 3D graphics, while Sega’s engineers had to add an extra graphics chip to the Saturn at the last minute. We read that Sony’s Ken Kutaragi provided creators with a much more user-friendly development system. We know that Sony undercut the price of Sega’s machine, using its might as a consumer electronics giant to take the financial hit. All of that is true, but what aren’t always mentioned are the vast success of the Japanese Saturn launch, and the extraordinary legacy that Sega’s 32-bit machine left behind. What I remember is this: Edge magazine reporting from Akihabara in Tokyo, where its Japanese correspondent had joined a queue outside the major Laox computer game centre to try and snag one of the thousand or so machines not already preordered by fans. Two-and-a-half hours later, the writer emerged with his purchase, which included a copy of Virtua Fighter, the best arcade fighting game of the year. It was a lucky buy: the shelves were emptying fast all over town. Sega shifted an unprecedented 200,000 units that day. Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch, Acquire/ Nintendo The moustachioed plumber brothers have a sun-kissed comic adventure in this breezy island-hopping RPG filled with puzzles, sand sharks and talking acorns If there was ever a series that reminds me of being on holiday, it was the Mario and Luigi role-playing games. I fondly remember squinting at the Game Boy Advance’s screen in 2003, commanding my plumbers through thrillingly dynamic battles from a sun lounger. Brothership is the first new game in the series in almost a decade, and it brings a jaunty, seafaring adventure to the mercifully better lit screen of the Nintendo Switch. In a classic Mario plot device, our heroes are whisked away from the Mushroom Kingdom via a giant portal, and groggily awaken marooned in the oceanic world of Concordia. This place is utterly gorgeous. As you leap around the first of many vibrant, cel-shaded islands, you can practically taste the sea breeze. A stunning Wind Waker HD-esque bloom lighting effect lends this bright and breezy adventure a washed-out, sun-kissed feel. Continue reading...

Everything is easier with modern technology – except fulfilling your true potential The convenience of modern life is nothing short of astounding. As I write this, my phone is wirelessly sending some of the greatest hits from the 1700s (Bach, if you must know) to my portable speaker. I could use that same device to, within moments, get a car to pick me up, have food delivered to my house, or start chatting with someone on a dating app. To human beings from even the recent past this technology would be, to quote Arthur C Clarke’s third law, indistinguishable from magic. The fact that, as a culture, we seek out and celebrate such short cuts is understandable. They take much of the tedium out of life, make it easier to have fun, and save us time and energy. That said, most people are able to intuit that convenience has a darker side. Continue reading...

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Hollow Ponds, Richard Hogg; Finji; PC, Mac Fill the walls of your nice big empty house with pictures delivered – in pieces – by your friendly local postwoman Wilmot the anthropomorphic square has a curious but not exactly undesirable existence. He resides in a spacious, empty house to which his friendly local postwoman, Sam, brings regular deliveries of tiled puzzles; a subscription that never seems to expire. Wilmot unpacks each new delivery, scattering the pieces on the bare floor. Then he can shunt, grasp and rotate each fragment to form a coherent picture – each of which has been drawn by British illustrator Richard Hogg. Matching pieces snap together pleasingly, and when the artwork is complete it can be hung on Wilmot’s big empty walls. As soon as one puzzle is finished, Sam arrives with the next, and soon enough Wilmot’s wall is as cluttered and colourful as a Saatchi gallery. There are, typically, several fragments left over when you complete a picture, so some of the challenge is in identifying these rogue pieces, setting them to one side (you are free to organise your floor space to suit your organisational requirements) to return to once you have all the necessary components. In time you’ll have several puzzles on the go at once, each one at a different level of completion, and it’s this arrhythmia that gives the game its unique feel, elevating it beyond a mere digital jigsaw simulator. Continue reading...

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PC, PS5, Xbox; Deck Nine/Square Enix There’s much to enjoy in this sequel to the trailblazing female-led narrative game, but inconsistent characterisation lets it down In 2015, when I first played as Maxine Caulfield in the original Life Is Strange, it was only the second time I had ever played a game starring a teenaged girl. (The first time was The Last of Us: Left Behind, which came out the year before.) It was an awkward game in a few ways, particularly its cringeworthy (mis)use of teen slang, but the intense, life-changing and sometimes conflicted relationship between Max and her (more than) friend Chloe rung true. It carried the whole game, actually, more than Max’s time-rewinding powers or the murder mystery that powered the plot. I believed in Max and Chloe. The end of that game forces you into a horrible choice between, as Max would put it, two shitty futures, proving that even time travellers must live with the consequences of their actions. The reverberations of that choice run through this sequel, nine years later. Grownup Max is now artist in residence at a prestigious arts college, placing her somewhere between the students, with their parties and dramatic breakups and secret societies, and the teachers in the faculty, whose pettiness and preoccupations with their own agendas rarely paint them in a flattering light. She abandoned her home town and stopped using her time-rewinding powers after the events of the first Life Is Strange. Now she is tentatively trying to form new relationships in this fresh place. And, as she discovers when one of her new friends is murdered, she has a new power, too. She can slip between timelines, investigating the murder both in the timeline where it happened, and in an alternative reality where it didn’t. Continue reading...

A fascinating fortnightly show explores the darker side of the scare industry. Plus: five of the creepiest podcasts • Don’t get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Happy season of pumpkin-based food waste! Or, if you prefer, Halloween. Like all humans since the dawn of time, the extra hours of darkness that autumn brings will no doubt have many ask: “Where are the creepy podcasts at?” You’re in luck. We’ve got a run-down of the finest spooky listens, from horror podcasts to paranormal shows crowdsourcing blood-curdling experiences for a seasonal special. There’s a look at a new series that plunges into a suburban Halloween experience, which went from fun haunted house to such a traumatic experience we had to write a whole feature on it. Plus, they’re joined by an advice show hosted by two terrifyingly evil types: Harry Clark and Paul Gordon from The Traitors. Be warned: follow their tips at your peril. Alexi Duggins Deputy TV editor Continue reading...

Sony is shutting down Firewalk, the studio behind its live-service flop, Concord. It’s the biggest, most expensive casualty of an increasingly crowded hero shooter market – and it won’t be the last • Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here It’s official: after Sony pulled its struggling hero shooter Concord from sale shortly after it launched, the studio that made it will now be closing. Firewalk Studios was bought by Sony less than two years ago, as part of a strategy to improve PlayStation’s live-service portfolio. The closure of Firewalk cements Concord’s place as one of the biggest and most consequential flops in gaming history: the cost to Sony will have been in the hundreds of millions, with estimates of Concord’s development cost ranging from $200m to $400m in total. Sony also closed Neon Koi, a developer with offices in Helsinki and Berlin, which focused on “mobile action games with epic stories” but had yet to release a game. Continue reading...

Halloween is coming, and our minds are turning to scary games. But which titles are genuine fright fests? Our writers decided to find out in the most ill-advised way possible Shepton Mallet prison in Somerset is the world’s oldest correctional facility. It is also reportedly one of the most haunted. Between its opening in 1625 and its closure in 2013, it saw hundreds of inmates, from Victorian street urchins to wayward American GIs to the Kray twins. Now a tourist attraction, it occasionally opens to paying guests who want to spend a night behind bars. Some are paranormal investigators, some are brave tourists, and others are video game journalists with a silly idea: how scary would it be to play five recent horror games all night, locked in a haunted prison? Carrying just a torch, an electromagnetic field (EMF) detector, and a laptop, we wandered the prison finding spine-chilling locations in which to play these immersive supernatural masterpieces. Here is what happened … Continue reading...