Ryan GilliamĬhicory: A Colorful Tale is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. And if that creation also brings joy to those around you? Hey, that’s great too. It’s about making something - painting something, in this case - that you are proud of, that makes you happy. 2 slot on Polygon’s 2021 Game of the Year list is the story it tells about the destructive powers of self-doubt - the way it cruelly infects even the greatest artists out there.Ĭhicory is a game that’s not about coloring in the lines or even making something beautiful. The gameplay of Chicory is cute and relatively simple, even as you unlock new powers. Everything is your canvas, and you can color it all to both solve puzzles and customize the setting to your liking. As you travel around the black-and-white open world, you use your new paint powers to bring color back to the environments. Chicory: A Colorful TaleĬhicory: A Colorful Tale tells the story of a small dog who accidentally inherits a magical paintbrush. Mike MahardyĪssassin’s Creed Origins is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. It understands that pastoral beauty and tragic storytelling, successfully interwoven, are worth more than any number of distractions its successors can throw at me. But it’s the rare open-world game that trusts my attention span. It’s not completely averse to daily challenges and cosmetic DLC packs. Its map unfurls over deserts, mountains, oases, and sun-swept cities slowly being buried in sand, all while its two central figures (Bayek and Aya) navigate one of video games’ most compelling romances. Whereas the two most recent entries embrace the insecure ethos of “content” that has so defined the last decade of open-world games, Origins is content to leave vast swaths of its world empty and to let things burn slowly, in ways both narrative and explorative. It also displays a confidence that the more recent Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla can only partially match. It’s a phenomenal concoction of historical tourism, sci-fi storytelling, and open-ended combat. Assassin’s Creed OriginsĪssassin’s Creed Origins has always been good - but it was only in hindsight, three years after its release, that I began to consider it great. Mike MahardyĪ Plague Tale: Requiem is available on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X via Game Pass. Pacing is crucial in third-person adventures, and Requiem’s expert flow of puzzles, stealth sequences, horrifying set-pieces, and brutal combat scenarios is pacing at its best. The respite comes to an end, of course, propelling the duo on a journey across the French countryside, through rat-infested tunnels, and across the rooftops of plague-ridden slums. Set shortly after A Plague Tale: Innocence, Requiem finds protagonist Amicia and her younger brother Hugo during a brief reprieve from the Macula, the sinister plague that gives Hugo vicious powers, but is also eating him from the inside. And despite the pedigree of the above examples, I have encountered few “escort” stories as stunning as that of A Plague Tale: Requiem. Whether it be a man escorting his proxy daughter through an apocalyptic America, a father guiding his son through the trials of mythical Armageddon, or a government agent sent to retrieve the president’s daughter from a remote Spanish village, this is a medium obsessed with those who have been deemed guardians. Video games have an endless fascination with protectors. Ben KucheraĪmong Us is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The thought of all those hidden gems, just waiting to be given a second chance, is comforting in a time when so many people are finding it hard to continue to be creative, or have hope at all.Īmong Us helped show us that relief may come from unexpected places, and the game has been keeping players occupied, and laughing, ever since it took off in the summer of 2020. In this case, it was found and rescued from relative obscurity, and there’s even a free-to-play iOS and Android version that can connect with PC players if you want to get a crew together. There’s something amazing about the idea that there are so many games out there, so many titles across so many platforms, that the near-perfect game for every situation seems to already exist. How the imposter tries to get away with it, and talk their way out of it when emergency meetings are called, is half the fun. It’s basically a goofy take on The Thing, but weaponized as a social game with multiple levels of strategy. You can play with up to 10 players, running around each level trying to finish tasks while an imposter (or several) tries to kill everyone else without being found out. Among Us was originally released in 2018, but it took the events of 2020 to make it a phenomenon.
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