Everything you add to your city has a weight, and not being careful with where you place things can result in disaster. Developer The Wandering Band stays away from having to manage relationships with rival nations, enforcing a strict but fair tax regime and building up your defenses – this is a more laid back and easier to grasp take.īalance is the name of the game here, quite literally. What makes Airborne Kingdom a good fit for consoles is that it mostly stays away from the usual frantic micro management you see in PC-based city builder – something that often results in a myriad of menus and submenus you have to keep track of.
We’re happy to see it though, because the game looks absolutely gorgeous and puts a new spin on the genre with its floating city concept. Originally launched on PCs, Airborne Kingdom gets the console treatment as well, and as a city builder that certainly wasn’t something we would have bet money on. If you enjoy those, you’ll love playing Carrion – from gameplay to presentation it’s a love letter to films like The Thing. Everything is quite gory though, so you do need to have a certain level of appreciation for the horror films that Carrion channels. In a setting like that, it’s good to be able to instill dread rather than experience it, and that’s best achieved when you don’t treat it like an action game.Īn ever-changing set of abilities makes sure the gameplay remains fresh as well, and almost gives you the sense that this game is divided into chapters despite its interconnected/open game world. Doing so is the best possible fit with the game’s horror premise, which comes across well thanks to a brooding sense of atmosphere, gorgeously detailed and animated pixel art visuals and a haunting soundtrack.
While combat is an option, Carrion also feels like it has stealth and puzzle elements to it, and it’s most satisfying when you embrace them. Progression is handled through Metroidvania-like mechanics that let you explore more and more of the game world as you grow stronger and gain new abilities but a well designed game world makes sure you don’t spend hours backtracking and traversing the same paths again and again. Once the domain of cult sci-fi movies, it’s a premise that – in 2021 – feels oddly topical in a way. You start out as a small alien organism that escapes its lab environment and is looking to get out and spread his own personal brand of plague while growing in size and power. It was also received very well, so we were happy to see it finally get the porting treatment and heading towards the PlayStation 4. Ports of games that previously launched on other systems are a good example of this, and with Carrion, Airborne Kingdom and Skul The Hero Slayer we’re checking out three of them here.Ĭarrion, published by Devolver and developed by Phobia Game Studio, launched in the summer of 2020 and we loved the premise – one where you could play as an aggressive alien organism that grows into a bigger and bigger ball of flesh and tentacles as you overwhelm your enemies.
Amidst all of the big holiday season releases that dominate the sales charts every October, November and December, there are also gems that get released but don’t get as much attention.
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