STACK #198 Apr 2021

GAMING FEATURE

visit stack.com.au

WHAT’S COMING IN MAY?

RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE It’s finally time for the eighth major entry in the Resident Evil series where, as always, danger lurks around every corner... Eep! Promising us incredible graphics, challenging new adversaries and another horror- heavy fight for survival, plus the return of some fan-favourite features from past adventures, this is the tense continuation of the story of Ethan Winters that kicked off in RE7 . 7/5/21 SURVIVAL HORROR MULTIPLAYER?

DEATHLOOP Groundhog Day meets Edge of Tomorrow in what’s basically an FPS murder puzzle featuring an assassin trapped in a time loop. Players will step into the shoes of this assassin, and must get to the point where they eradicate eight ‘Visionaries’ (read: baddies) within one day, or loop. This will eventually happen as you amass intel – and weaponry – on each successive loop that you survive. 21/5/21 SHOOTER MULTIPLAYER?

MIITOPIA Nintendo are delving into their back catalogue again to deliver us a revamp of 3DS turn-based RPG Miitopia , with a whole lot of added fun. The big draw is that you can be the star of the game via your personal Mii character, and cast anybody else’s Mii – friends, family, frenemies, famous types – in various other roles, as you set out to bring down the villainous, face-stealing Dark Lord (BOO! HISS!) 21/5/21 RPG MULTIPLAYER?

BIOMUTANT It’s been coming a long time, but the small team behind this big open world adventure have been busy honing their ever-evolving martial arts creation to deliver maximum fun. With a plague ruining the land and the Tree-of-Life bleeding death from its roots, the Tribes stand divided, in need of someone strong enough to unite them or bring them all down… That would be you! 25/5/21 ACTION RPG MULTIPLAYER?

1 What was the first game that you played? It was probably a dedicated home Pong set that my brother brought over to my parents’ house. I remember I was curious and thought it’d be quite nice to have one myself, but I couldn’t afford one so didn’t think much about it after he’d gone. I wasn’t truly bitten by the video game bug until I first encountered Space Invaders . 2 What’s your favourite game of all time? I should say Robotron , although I’m by no means super-skilled at it. It’s just such a perfect, brutal, elegant design. It’ll kick your head in again and again, but you’ll always come back for another go. It was technically amazing for its time, with lovely shattering explosions and more enemies onscreen than anything that had been seen at that time by far. Vid Kidz Jarvis/DeMar at their best. 3 What do you think is the most underrated game of all time? I’d say the sequel to Robotron, Blaster . Not that it was a better game – it was decent, but not as good as Roby . It’s more the fact that it was *originally* made for 8-bit Atari hardware (the 5200), but Williams didn’t want to release a home version before an arcade version, so the Vid Kidz did a port of the game to arcade. Meanwhile, the 5200 kinda bombed, and rather than release it on the 5200 it was simply never released. It surfaced a few years ago, and for an Atari 8-bit game it’s pretty damn amazing, making a pretty decent fist of a fast-paced 3D game on that hardware, with an interesting graphical style. I think back in the day I’d have just about peed my pants at the idea of an original game for the Atari from the creators of Defender, Stargate and Robotron , my absolute heroes of game design and the single biggest inspiration to me in developing my own games. 4 Which of the games that you’ve created is your favourite? I’m always going to say Hover Bovver , because it was a collaborative design between me and my dad, and made at a time when everything was going really well and the games biz was just a fun and creative place to be, before it turned into a huge industry full of companies out to make Serious Money. 5 What are you working on currently? I’m currently working on a multiuser VR light synth.

Creative force of Llamasoft since 1981 JEFF MINTER

68 APRIL 2021

jbhifi.com.au