METRICO
Released on Aug. 5
Developed by Digital Dreams
For PlayStation Vita
Rated E (Everyone); mild fantasy violence
Every puzzle game walks a fine line between posing a challenge and frustrating players. Metrico, a puzzle game for Sony’s Vita mobile console that’s occasionally a victim of its own novelty, toes this line more delicately than many of its peers.
This
is a platform game in the Super Mario Bros. tradition, with a fresh
twist on established patterns of running and jumping over things.
Playing it gives you the sense that the game’s small indie developer was
implored to use every conceivable feature of the Vita hardware. You
have to tilt the console at odd angles to solve puzzles, tap the front
and back touchscreens to jump and to shoot projectiles in quick
succession, and even turn the device’s camera toward different light
sources to move platforms late in the game.
It’s
not easy to appreciate Metrico, however, because the strangeness of
some controls can make otherwise entertaining puzzles unbearably
difficult. New ideas may not always sit well at first, but that doesn’t
mean that they’re not worth pursuing. Metrico conducts so many wonderful
experiments that the final game feels like a treat, even if some
puzzles fall flat along the way.
HOHOKUM
Released on Aug. 12
Developed by Honeyslug
For PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita
Rated E (Everyone); fantasy violence and crude humor
Hohokum
is one of the strangest video games to come out in a long while. At its
core, it’s about touching a world and puzzling out how its elements
interact.
You
control a kitelike character that can bump or glide into or through
inanimate objects and living things, changing colors and making pinging
sounds as it does. Everything in the game is shot through with so much
charm — from the super-flat art style to the catchy, reactive electronic
music — that you’ll find it hard to stop playing.
You’ll
sometimes need to ferry Hohokum’s weirdly cute people-creatures on the
kite being’s long, undulating back. As they float past symbols, you’ll
eventually figure out the item that will need to go inside a particular
nook or cranny. Hohokum
explains very little, nudging you along to see what transpires. There’s
a mysterious brand of cause-and-effect at play — doing Action A to
Thing B makes Result C — but its exact nature is intentionally muddy
until the epiphanies happen. The opacity results in a blooming sense of
discovery and wonder that recalls heartwarming, childlike play.
KIM KARDASHIAN
Hollywood
Released on June 26
Developed by Glu Games
For iOS and Android
Rated 12+ (Players 12 and older) for infrequent/mild profanity, crude humor and mature themes
A satire on celebrity culture, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood
invites its players to do everything they can in the name of becoming
an A-list celebrity. This pursuit includes parties, photo shoots and the
latest fashions — all of which sound like fun, except that players’
actions essentially equate to tapping blue bars until they fill up. And
this free-to-play game limits how much you can do in a single session
without spending real money.
Despite
this design, the game is fascinating. It inspires musings on celebrity
life and on Ms. Kardashian herself. And it’s easy to get sucked into the
drama that comes with the absurd people you meet in your attempt to
gain millions of fans. Even Kardashian haters might find themselves
sharing screen shots on social media, or at least chuckling at how the
game isn’t afraid to poke fun at itself.
ROAD NOT TAKEN
Released on Aug. 5
Developed by Spry Fox
For PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Mac; Vita forthcoming
Rated E (Everyone); no description provided
Road
Not Taken is a successful brew of the fairy tale adventure and the
deep, deep puzzle game. The combination is as pleasing as it is
punishing.
Contextually, Road Not Taken
is about a person who lives in a village, makes friends and then heads
out into the wilderness year after year to reunite lost children with
their mothers. It is a dire, one-move-per-turn game played on a grid,
designed for you to step carefully and not fail twice, lest you have to
start over.
The
game puts your hero on one square on a six-by-eight grid and allows you
to do just a few things: move up, down, left, right; pick up almost
anything; and hurl the item you picked up as far as it will go in a
straight line or carry it at the cost of one digit of life energy for
every step you take until you put it down. You’ll carry logs and goats
and trees and different-colored spirits. You’ll hurl people to save
them.
Crucially,
you’ll come across some 200 things in Road Not Taken’s world, and
you’ll learn that many of them can be made into other things. There are
hidden recipes waiting to be discovered. The game is devilishly tough
because little is explained.
Road Not Taken is a strange throwback to the mysteriousness of titles like the first Zelda, yet also a game that can demand concentration while inviting the mobile reflexes of a skilled Bejeweled player.
