Last week, Aoife and I flew out to PAX East (which is run by Eurogamer’s parent company ReedPOP) to sample some lobster and play some video games, although not necessarily in that order (they were interspersed). Since this is Eurogamer and not Eurocrustacean, here are the five best games we played at PAX East and not the five best times we ate lobster in Boston.
Rad is a new project from Double Fine that’s all about being a teenager with a baseball bat in the post-post apocalypse. With humanity having suffered not one but two cataclysmic events, you might think it’s going to be a fairly drab affair, but it’s actually one of the most hopeful versions of humanity living on the brink I think I’ve ever seen. Whereas we’re used to seeing humans warring against each other in a grim, rusting hellscape, Rad takes place in a world where humanity has rather sensibly united in order to fend off the greater threat of, well, everything else. Admittedly the world you venture into kind of drab at first glance, but that’s only because you haven’t explored it yet – wherever you walk in Rad, plants bloom in your wake like you’re some kind of chlorophyllic messiah. As well as helping you keep track of where you’ve already been, it paints the world in cheerful tones and really makes you feel like you’re doing some good.
This is especially handy as the price of adventuring in Rad is extremely high. As your plucky teenager sets out on a fresh run – Rad has a procedurally generated world with a persistent town in which all the people live – they are exposed to a great deal of radiation. When the rad meter is filled, in fact, the player character gains a new random mutation – retractable spikes might grow from your torso, for example, or your head might be replaced with that of a massive, stretchy cobra.
All these elements, from the inspired mutations and the bat swinging gameplay to the hopeful, colourful world, make for a really fun and frenetic experience. Definitely one to watch.
Phogs is a cooperative game in which you and a friend control a pair of conjoined ‘physics dogs’, or Phogs. It’s a bit like House House’s Push Me Pull You, only cute and not the stuff of nightmares. As you make your way across a plush, dreamlike world, you encounter a series of short puzzles, often requiring you to stretch across a gap or drag an object to another part of the level. Talking these puzzles through with your teammate – you can play using half of the same controller each for added authenticity, by the way – is a process punctuated by little eureka moments and genuinely delightful instances of discovery. Having one dog grip on to a glowing orb, for instance, will cause the other to shoot a beam of light directly from its mouth, presenting an adorable and entirely unexpected solution to one of the game’s puzzles.