A pine-scented breath of fresh air When I’m feeling overwhelmed with all the games I want to play, sometimes the...

The post Wide Ocean Big Jacket was the hilarious camping getaway I needed appeared first on Destructoid.

While we contemplate the possibilities of Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Crash Bandicoot on Game Pass, Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard isn't slowing down the subscription service. A pile of new games have just been announced for Game Pass in January, including one of the best indie games of last year. Oh, and Microsoft has just confirmed that Game Pass has reached 25 million subscribers. The indie game that I'm excited about is Death's Door, a fantastic action game from the developers of Titan Souls, which blends some Souls-influenced design tropes with a gorgeous aesthetic and Zelda-style adventuring. That'll be coming to the service this Thursday, January 20. Other surprises in today's announcement include Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. This first entry in the anime-style murder game visual novel is available on the service today. Also out today is (the previously-announced) Nobody Saves the World, a Diablo-like action-RPG from the Guacamelee devs.

Just a few to keep your good eye on I’m sure you’ve heard all about this year’s hottest upcoming releases....

The post Here are eleven 2022 indie games to look forward to appeared first on Destructoid.

Throwbacks to the glow of TV’s displaying 16-bit visuals and clicks of buttons have been a cornerstone of the indie games scene for some time now. There’s something exciting about reliving a bygone era with a lick of the modern. Whether it’s the buzz of nostalgia or an appreciation for the craft, Infernax is an […]

The post Infernax Preview – Smashing With Promises appeared first on MonsterVine.

Giving some small indie games a chance In recent years, I haven’t branched out as much as I’d like when...

The post The games I’m most excited for in 2022 are the ones I don’t know about appeared first on Destructoid.

Developed by Chinese team Magic Fish Studio.

F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch is recent proof that indie games out of China can be pretty good, and the next one out of the country doesn't look too bad either. In Nightmare is its name, releasing for PlayStation 5 and PS4 on 29th March 2022. This is a top-down horror game where you'll have to solve puzzles whilst hiding from all manner of monsters. The trailer above shows some of them off.

The game has you play as a young boy "who closes himself off from everything and falls into a deep slumber, where nightmares have come to life to haunt his every move. The narrative-driven story forces the boy to face what is truly in his heart. Will he lock himself away forever, or will he cling on to his last hope of love as he drifts into the darkness?" Seemingly without any combat, you'll need to manipulate the monsters into falling for your traps via the completion of puzzles.

Read the full article on pushsquare.com

Managing to grab a PlayStation 5 is still one of the hottest tickets in town to get you a ride to next-gen gaming. Once you’ve got the monolithic black and white console set up, what should you play on it? What are the best PS5 games available to play right now that you really need to be checking out? We’ve compiled a list of these must-play PS5 games, picking a range of titles that show off the new generation’s power and graphical potential, as well as some cross-gen staples and games from less expected corners. This, however, could all change in the next few months. Sony have some huge games like Horizon Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7 coming out to start 2022, so we’ll pop back in to change the list as we go. The Best PS5 games As ever, this is just the beginning, and we’ll definitely be updating this with new games as worthy ones come out. Oh, and just so we’re clear, you’ve got Astro’s Playroom pre-installed and you absolutely need to play that game! Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Returnal Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Kena: Bridge of Spirits Deathloop Demon’s Souls Scarlet Nexus Hitman 3 The Pathless Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart If you want a showcase of what the PlayStation 5 can do, then look no further than Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. So much of Rift Apart will be familiar to fans of the series, but Insomniac are able to turn everything up to 11. The PS5 is able to throw lovely ray-tracing effects up on screen, it can power more detailed environments than ever before filled with more enemies to battle, and the PS5’s build-in SSD lets them throw you from one world to the next in what feels like the blink of an eye. Then there’s the DualSense controller with all manner of tricks being played through the controller’s adaptive triggers and haptic feedback. This is an early spectacle for PlayStation fans to savour. Returnal Returnal was a statement game from Housemarque, taking their mastery of arcade bullet hell shooters to new places. The game is a third person shooter roguelike, but that does nothing to get across how slick the gameplay feels and the exhilarating pressure of the game’s inventive boss battles. Being a roguelike means this won’t be for everyone – whenever you die, you lose all your weapons and gear and have to start over from scratch – but there’s an intriguing story that the game tells, and a mystery that can easily get you as hooked on blasting your way through the alien world before you. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Insomniac’s second entry on this list comes from their PS5 launch game Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, an interquel between the 2018 original and the upcoming Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. As you probably guessed from the title, this game stars Miles Morales, the other Spider-Man who’s just learning the ropes and getting a handle on his surprisingly different abilities and powers. It’s another great adventure set in the open world of New York City and shows off some of the PS5’s ray-tracing capabilities with different graphics modes. Not played the original Marvel’s Spider-Man? The Ultimate Edition of Miles Morales comes with Spider-Man Remastered on PS5, and there’s an in-game option to upgrade the original game as well. Kena: Bridge of Spirits Another example of what the PS5 can do, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a gorgeous looking game and comes from an independent studio making their very first game! From the gorgeous Pixer-esque visuals, to the glorious orchestral score and rock-solid gameplay, this game shows the potential for smaller studios to weave fantastic experiences. Deathloop Deathloop takes the excellent immersive sim gameplay of Arkane’s previous games and build a fun and engrossing new tale around it. You play as Colt, an assassin who’s stuck on the island of Blackreef that’s trapped in a day-long timeloop, with his only possible way to escape being to break the loop by exploring the island and taking out the eight Visionaries that want live forever within the loop. Out to stop him is Julianna (and literally everyone else on the island, but mainly her) and the relationship between the two of them makes for one of the best single player games of the past year. Or, you know… the best single player game of 2021. Demon’s Souls Were you expecting to see a remake of a cult classic PS3 game on this list? FromSoftware’s Demon’s Souls wasn’t a big seller on PS3, but it led to the birth of the Dark Souls series and everything since then. Bluepoint Games remade Demon’s Souls from the ground up for PS5, and it’s a huge upgrade that fills the world with graphical nuance and detail, not to mention a better frame rate – you have a choice between 30fps and 60fps graphics modes. Plenty of other quality-of-life changes mean this is a must for Souls fans, and another option for anyone curious to see if the genre is for them. Scarlet Nexus Scarlet Nexus manages to mix an intriguing story, a constant sense of intrigue, and a wonderful over-the-top battle system together into a game that’s a blast to play. On PS5 it comes with a crisp and clean anime visual style that makes the truly wild enemy designs really stand out as you battle for the future of mankind. This is easily one of the best JRPGs to come out in the 2021, and that’s saying something in what was a great year for anime games and JRPGs. Hitman 3 Capping off a six year journey for Agent 47 and IO Interactive, Hitman 3 remains one of the smartest, most stylish games around where luxurious, labyrinthian levels, clever kills, and slick stealth gameplay mesh together with some surprising and fun twists along the way. It wraps a bow on the World of Assassination trilogy, even letting you import all of those great levels from the first two games to create what is the definitive Hitman game. The Pathless One of the more striking indie games from the launch of the PlayStation 5, The Pathless certainly takes some influences from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but plays with those fundamentals in interesting ways to create an open world adventure that you glide through with real pace. Your bow is not just a weapon to use in the game’s epic boss battles, but a way of enhancing your movement through an open world that is accessible despite not having a world map. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade Remaking Final Fantasy VII has become a huge undertaking for Square Enix, but it’s one that’s been worth the wait as the first episode was easily one of the best PS4 games released in 2020. The next step was to bring the game to PS5, making some graphical improvements along the way and releasing the Intermission DLC as a new generation exclusive. Intermission introduces everyone’s favourite ninja extraordinaire Yuffie. She’s a lot of fun in this standalone story and we can’t wait to see how she’s woven into Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2, whenever that’s released. Did you pick up Final Fantasy VII Remake for PS4 when it was included with PlayStation Plus? Well, good news, you can now get a free upgrade to the PS5 version!

Not that long ago, quality PC gaming setups were confined to bulky desktop setups. Even early gaming laptops looked more like battle stations than sleek machines. Needless to say, the landscape has changed significantly in recent years, and now we're even seeing an influx of handheld gaming PCs. Perhaps influenced by the enormous success of the Nintendo Switch as a hybrid console, more and more companies are attempting to garner an audience for portable, palm-sized gaming PCs. While most people are probably aware of the upcoming Steam Deck, there are others that hit the market before Valve's handheld, including the impressive and surprisingly powerful Aya Neo.

Successfully crowdfunded via Indiegogo, the Aya Neo released last summer, but the studio behind it quickly began work on a redesign with better materials. The result is the Aya Neo 2021 and Aya Neo Pro, both of which released late last year. We got our hands on both models and have been testing them for about a month. With a premium build quality and tremendous performance for its size, the Aya Neo is a remarkable handheld PC. Though the Aya Neo is quite pricey--models range from $925 to north of $1,300--it can be thought of as an alternative to a mid-tier gaming laptop with the added bonus of being fully portable. It's too early to say if the Aya Neo is better than the still-unreleased Steam Deck (which is significantly less expensive), but it's an extremely solid piece of tech that is definitely worth considering if you're in the market for this sort of gaming machine.

Note: Since performance is similar across both devices, the rest of this review applies to both models except when otherwise stated.

What's in the shell?

The amount of power crammed inside of the Aya Neo's relatively sleek shell is pretty astounding. The Aya Neo Pro is fitted with an AMD Ryzen 7 4800U processor (Ryzen 5 4500U in the base model) and integrated AMD Radeon Graphics. These are mid-tier mobile processors with low power consumption. The processor and integrated graphics are complemented by 16GB of DDR4X RAM--more than enough for modern PC games--and a 1TB NVMe SSD (the base model also comes in 512GB). The Aya Neo has a gorgeous 7-inch LCD IPS screen that displays at 1200 x 800 resolution with 215 pixels per inch.

Aya Neo Pro

Overall, the specs of the Aya Neo are similar to the Steam Deck, with the Aya Neo offering a better CPU (on paper) and the Steam Deck boasting a better GPU. As a direct comparison, the 512GB Aya Neo costs $275 more than the highest tier Steam Deck with the same amount of storage space.

That said, the Aya Neo can be used as more than just a gaming machine. While the Steam Deck will use a proprietary Linux-based OS, the Aya Neo is a Windows PC. That means you can connect it to a monitor, sync up or connect a keyboard and mouse, and use it as a machine for everyday productivity, too. Yes, most people who are buying a handheld gaming PC are using it primarily for gaming, but you can also use the Aya Neo for your other computing needs as well. It is true that you'll be able to run other operating systems, including Windows, on the Steam Deck, but it's too early to say how the Steam Deck will behave when not using its default OS.

A Switch-like design

The first time I saw the Aya Neo, I instantly thought of the Nintendo Switch. No, it doesn't have detachable controllers, but it retains the general shape that was popularized by the Switch. The Aya Neo uses nearly identical low-profile thumbsticks and has the same offset layout, with the left thumbstick above the D-pad and the right stick below the face buttons. Thankfully, it has a conventional directional pad that feels great to use for old-school side-scrollers. Meanwhile, the face buttons (A/B/X/Y) are laid out like the Xbox controller, which makes a ton of sense considering the Aya Neo can essentially function as a portable Game Pass machine that is capable of offline play for supported games. The triggers have a nice ergonomic design which makes them feel like a natural resting spot for your index fingers. The shoulder buttons are a tad thicker than the ones on the Switch Joy-Cons.

As a PC, the Aya Neo also has a number of other menu and settings buttons. Four buttons are located on each side. The buttons on the left side are game-focused, including Start, Select, and a nifty button that pulls up the Xbox Game Bar. The buttons on the right are PC task-focused: Windows Home, Escape, Task Manager, and an on-screen keyboard prompt.

The Aya Neo has a plethora of buttons that act as shortcuts

The Aya Neo also has three USB-C ports, which can be used for charging, connecting USB peripherals with the help of the included adapters, and accessing external storage devices. Stereo speakers that pack a surprising punch are located on the bottom of the handheld, but the 3.5mm headphone jack is on top next to the volume buttons. I'm in the camp that all headphone jacks should be on the bottom of handhelds, but it's not really a problem here since the Aya Neo can connect to headphones via Bluetooth or 2.4Ghz adapters.

If you're used to holding the Nintendo Switch, the Aya Neo--and other PC handhelds--will feel quite heavy at first. At roughly 650 grams (1.4 pounds), the Aya Neo is approximately 50% heavier than the recently released Nintendo Switch OLED. It's also thicker, as you would expect, due to the need of proper ventilation through the backside and top fans. That said, at 10.4 x 4.17 x 0.79 inches, the Aya Neo is certainly compact when you consider the components inside. After dozens of hours of testing, I've never felt like the Aya Neo was straining or uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time.

Although it's thicker than the Switch, the Aya Neo has a surprisingly compact design.

Not only does it look great and feel good to play, the Aya Neo has an incredibly impressive build quality. Of course I can't speak for the longevity of the internal components, but the buttons, sticks, D-pad, and shell have a premium feel to them. The hard plastic shell in particular is top-notch when it comes to design. I've never held a handheld gaming device that felt as sturdy and smooth as the Aya Neo. It may sound silly, but whereas most handhelds--including the Nintendo Switch--feel like toys (they are toys), the Aya Neo feels like a piece of high-end tech that's meant for the office. The Aya Neo is available in white, black, or a retro-themed color scheme.

Performance

A truckload of tech and a fancy-looking design don't matter if the performance doesn't meet expectations, though. Thankfully, the Aya Neo was capable of handling a wide variety of games that I threw at it. It actually surprised me in some instances. With some tinkering in the settings, the Aya Neo ran Microsoft's two biggest holiday exclusives, Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5. In Forza's case, I was able to average around 60fps with mostly medium settings. Meanwhile, Halo Infinite ran closer to 30fps, but it was still very playable.

Just like any PC, performance varied on a game-by-game basis, but many of the ones I tried were capable of running at 40-50fps or higher, including Doom Eternal, Psychonauts 2, Grand Theft Auto V, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, The Forgotten City, and Call of Duty: Warzone. Older AAA games like Rage 2, The Witcher 3, Prey, and the Tomb Raider trilogy, among others, all ran great, too. A lot of these games defaulted to "high" settings, though getting the best combination of visual fidelity and frame rate required some adjustments to the settings. I wound up locking in at around 30-40fps to get the best visual performance possible for a lot of games.

Other games, such as the aforementioned Halo Infinite, ran at settings that I was personally fine with but might bother some enthusiast PC gamers. Hardware-intensive titles such as Control and Red Dead Redemption 2 were only capable of roughly 30fps with low settings. If you're used to gaming on powerful rigs or modern consoles, the performance drop will be quite noticeable.

Aya Neo Pro running The Gunk with high settings.

Gallery

Despite the Aya Neo's impressive performance for many games, I don't really view it as a replacement for a PC rig, high-end gaming laptop, or modern console. While it gets the job done for a lot of AAA games, as future blockbuster releases continue to get more graphically intensive, what's under the hood here won't keep up. That's not a knock on the Aya Neo, though, as I imagine the same will be true for the Steam Deck and other handheld gaming PCs. That said, you can also use the Aya Neo as a cloud streaming device with services like Xbox Cloud Gaming, Stadia, and GeForce Now. Xbox Cloud Gaming worked wonderfully on the Aya Neo.

Considering that the vast majority of indie games release on PC in addition to various consoles, the Aya Neo could be used as an indie and Game Pass machine. The options here are nearly endless, and with PC games often costing less and on sale more often, you can get a lot of bang for your buck. Not to mention the free games that the Epic Games Store gives out every week, Amazon Prime monthly free games, and the massive PC Game Pass library. Essentially, even if you aren't an avid PC gamer, you can create a relatively huge library of games without spending a lot of money.

One of my main concerns with Aya Neo before I tried it was heat and fan noise. Surprisingly, it runs quietly, even when it's obvious the fans are working overtime to cool down the system. The top of the console and center of the back panel do tend to get a tad hot (not to the point it hurts) when the fans are really running, but the Aya Neo's premium shell does keep the spots where your hands naturally rest at a normal temperature.

Tiny PC woes

The practicality of the Aya Neo--and other handheld PCs--as a portable device is certainly debatable. The Aya Neo Pro is advertised to offer five to six hours of battery life. That's a pretty decent figure as far as modern handheld gaming devices go, but while playing graphically intensive games I found that number to be cut in half. So if you do plan on taking the Aya Neo on the go, you'll want to grab a suitable portable battery pack.

There's also the Windows desktop problem. Windows for desktops wasn't designed with handheld gaming machines in mind, and it really shows when navigating the operating system on a 7-inch touchscreen. Using the Aya Neo as a mobile Windows PC isn't ideal without additional peripherals. While the touchscreen is responsive, messing around with tiny task bars and file options isn't all that intuitive and can be a pain.

The manufacturer designed a proprietary program called Aya Space that collects your games and apps in a user-friendly style that makes it much easier to use the Aya Neo when swapping between games. Steam's Big Picture mode is also great on the Aya Neo, so I wound up launching that every time when booting the handheld to give it a console UI feel.

Which model is right for you?

As mentioned, there are currently two different models of the Aya Neo available now: the 2021 and the Pro. The 2021 is available in 512GB or 1TB editions, while the Pro is available in only 1TB. I tested both versions for this review, and I found that the difference was negligible for gaming. The Pro is a tad faster when it comes to loading and navigation, but in-game performance was about the same. So you'd have to decide if the additional speed is worth the price bump. The 2021 model is probably the best value at this time considering that the most powerful version of the Aya Neo isn't actually out yet.

The company just announced a fresh lineup dubbed Next. The Aya Neo Next has an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U processor, a Radeon Vega 8 GPU, and comes with up to 32GB of RAM. Multiple versions of the Next (standard, Advance, and Pro) will be available to order via crowdfunding starting in February. Prices will range between $1,265 and close to $1,500 for the top-tier model at launch.

Aya Neo Pro

So, if you're interested in any model of the Aya Neo, I th ink the smart move is to either purchase the Aya Neo 2021 for the value or wait for one of the Next models if you're looking for the best performance. After all, the Next's base model is very close in price to the Pro.

Also, if you're looking to up the Switch-like factor, you can grab an official Aya Neo dock to connect the handheld to your monitor or TV. We didn't have the chance to test the dock for review, but you can simply use a USB-C to HDMI cable to play your games on a monitor or TV. I mostly used a monitor (with peripherals) when navigating the operating system, but I found performance to be solid for gaming on both my 1080p 60Hz monitor and 4K OLED TV.

Specifications

	Aya Neo 2021	Aya Neo Pro	Aya Neo Next
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 4500U	AMD Ryzen 7 4800U	AMD Ryzen 7 5800U
GPU	Radeon Vega 6	Radeon Vega 6	Radeon Vega 8
RAM	16GB	16GB	Up to 32GB
Storage	512GB or 1TB	1TB	1TB or 2TB
Resolution	1280 x 800	1280 x 800	1280 x 800
Display	7-inch IPS touchscreen	7-inch IPS touchscreen	7-inch IPS touchscreen
Battery life	3-6 hours	3-6 hours	N/A
Ports	USB-C x3	USB-C x3	USB-C x3
Dimensions	10.4 x 4.17 x 0.79 inches	10.4 x 4.17 x 0.79 inches	N/A
Weight	648 grams	648 grams	N/A
Price	Starting at $925	Staring at $1,215	Starting at $1,265

The bottom line

The Aya Neo is a well-designed handheld PC that offers solid performance and versatility thanks to its use of Windows. With a premium build quality, a gorgeous 7-inch IPS display, and great sticks/buttons, the Aya Neo is an excellent option for those who are interested in taking the plunge into handheld PC gaming. The ability to use it as a traditional PC with peripherals attached is a major bonus here. It's definitely on the pricier side, especially when you compare it to the Steam Deck, but there's no denying that it achieves what it set out to do.

---

Steven Petite tested the Aya Neo and Aya Neo Pro for upwards of 100 hours over the course of a month. Sample units were provided for the purpose of this review.

Inscryption and Unpacking lead the nominations at this year's Independent Games Festival.

Established in 1998 - that's 24 years ago and yes, thanks, that does make me feel very, very old - the Independent Games Festival was established to "encourage innovation in game development and to recognise the best independent game developers", kind of like a Sundance for indie games.

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Nobody Saves The World will be released on January 18th, Drinkbox Studios has confirmed. The Guacamelee! and Severed developer announced the date, and confirmed that Nobody Saves The World will be available Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC via Steam and Windows 10. Nobody Saves The World will also be on Game Pass from day one on consoles, PC, and Cloud gaming. Drinkbox Studios also confirmed that the game’s soundtrack, composed by Jim Guthrie, will be available to purchase on Steam and be available on music streaming services once Nobody Saves The World launches. Players will take on the role of the character called Nobody who stumbles upon a magic wand. That is convenient since the world is in danger, and magic will be the key to saving it. As Nobody learns how to wield the wand they learn different forms, such as an archer, a mouse, or a horse, to tackle the various quests that the game will have. Nobody Saves The World’s features include: QUESTING, NOT GRINDING: Player progression and new abilities are obtained exclusively by completing quests, not by defeating monsters. Quests range from “Complete a Dungeon”, to “Poison Baddies”, to “Cheer up a fellow rabbit-lover.” QUESTS UNLOCK NEW FORMS: Level up and unlock new Forms by completing quests. Each new Form has specific strengths and weaknesses and new abilities to experiment with. COMBINE ABILITIES: Customize your Forms by equipping abilities from other Forms: Mix and Match abilities in fun and unexpected ways! EVOLVING DUNGEONS: As you become stronger, procedurally generated dungeons will increase in difficulty and complexity to keep you on your toes! When Nobody Saves The World was announced Lead Designer Ian Campbell said, “Nobody Saves the World is full of everything we love about Action-RPGs, and none of the stuff we hate. Gobs of forms and abilities, dozens of dungeons, hundreds of quests, tons of character customization – and no grinding! It’s packed with the Drinkbox charm you know and love… OH and also, you can play as a Horse!” Source: Press Release

Stewart Gilray, the CEO and founder of Just Add Water and an industry veteran from the 1980s has passed away aged 51. Having started as a freelancer in 1988 and worked as a programmer at Psygnosis, Bullfrog, EA, Argonaut and more, he moved into production roles at 21st Century Entertainment, Grolier Interactive, Revolution and Runecraft. Stewart founded Yorkshire-based Just Add Water in 2006, a company that has worked on a wide variety of games in partnership with a range of developers in its 15 years, including Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty, Volume: Coda, Sniper Elite VR and Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality. There was even a PS minis collaboration with TheSixthAxis co-founder Alex Carroll! As someone with such a long history within the industry, his legacy is obviously felt in far more ways than just the games that he worked on and released, and there are many tributes to him being shared on Twitter. Our condolences and thoughts go out to Stewart Gilray’s wife Bec, their children, his friends and colleagues. The news of Stewart’s passing came from his long-term friend Shahid Kamal Ahmad – possibly best known to PlayStation fans for his time at Sony bringing great indie games to PS Vita and PS4 in the early 2010s. Heartbroken and utterly devastated to have lost my beloved friend @stewartgilray. pic.twitter.com/vbDBUWk78R — Shahid Kamal Ahmad (@shahidkamal) January 6, 2022 Shahid had been tweeting regular updates on Stewart’s condition as he was hospitalised with Covid-19 and following complications. It’s a reminder that, while the latest variant is speculated to be milder, we do need to continue to be cautious in everyday life, get vaccinated and try to stay safe.