STACK #197 Mar 2021

GAMING FEATURE

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WHAT’S COMING IN APRIL?

GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- Gamers have never been short of top fighting franchises, and Guilty Gear rates up there with the best of them. Kicking (and punching) off on the original PlayStation back in 1998, the series combines great graphics and music with deep – but rewarding – gameplay. This new entry promises stunning anime-quality visuals, as well as established characters and some new to the scene, along with an extended story mode that’s sure to please fans both old and new.

NEW POKÉMON SNAP It’s 21 years since we got to go snap happy with our Nintendo 64 consoles, and Pokémon Snap is celebrating its 21st with a whole new Switch update. The object of the game is to go exploring all manner of lush islands in the Lental region, hunting Pokémon in their native habitats – then taking pics of them for your personal Pokémon Photodex! Then there’s the mystery of the Illumina phenomenon to solve – just why are certain Pokémon glowing?

MULTIPLAYER?

MULTIPLAYER?

FIGHTING

9/4/21

SIMULATION

30/4/21

OUTRIDERS If your trigger finger is itching for a bout of sci-fi RPG shooting, then you’ll be hanging out for this one. A co-op experience from People Can Fly, whose pedigree includes work on Bulletstorm and Fortnite , as one of up to three players you embark upon a journey across a hostile planet, following a signal that you hope will help save mankind. Cooperation is the key, but then so is the intense gunplay and the increasingly weird, wild and wonderful weaponry.

RETURNAL With a canon boasting classic shooters the likes of Resogun and Alienation , Finnish developers Housemarque are always worth watching. Their latest will see players stepping into the space boots of Selene, who’s crash-landed on a barren, shape-shifting – read roguelike-styled – planet and is left in a fight for survival. Die, and it’s Edge of Tomorrow time – yep, you have to start all over again, but on your side are different item drops that you can use in every time loop that you face.

MULTIPLAYER?

MULTIPLAYER?

SHOOTER

1/4/21

SHOOTER

30/4/21

1 What was the first game that you played? Sonic the Hedgehog on the SEGA Mega Drive. I must have been about six years old, and I can remember the first time I completed the final boss and freed all the animals that Robotnik had captured. My first ‘achievement’! 2 What was the last game that you finished? Erm, I guess you could say Destiny 2: Beyond Light , but I’m not sure you can ever finish Destiny – I’ve been trying for seven years! Other than that, it was probably The Last of Us Part II , because I’m not quite at the end of Ghost of Tsushima yet. 3 What’s your favourite game of all time? What a question! Gears of War , maybe. It’s the reason I bought an Xbox 360 and an Xbox One, so there’s a lasting appeal, too. I also thought that the opening missions of Gears 5 were some of the most intense in the series. 4 What do you think is the most underrated game of all time? Crackdown – no doubt about it. The first one was a gem, with a unique visual style, iconic narrator, impressive open world, an impactful levelling system and orbs. 5 What’s the game that you most wish you’d worked on? I’d have liked to have worked on a Kane & Lynch game. I really liked the underdog personality of the two of them and, as you might be able to guess from the other answers, I quite enjoy a third-person action game.

Communications manager at Hitman III developer IO Interactive TRAVIS BARBOUR

MARCH 2021

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