Distance
[Refract Studios]
Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4
Once a bit of an up-and-comer, over the past 15 years the futuristic racing genre hasn’t managed to go quite as far as all the polished chrome and nifty tailfins might have led us to believe. The Extreme-G series never really left orbit, F-Zero has been AWOL for about a decade, and Sony went and shut down Psygnosis in 2012, stopping Wipeout dead in its tracks. Perhaps the shift is due to the hugely popular Burnout series having managed to offer enough improbably spectacular thrills in a more grounded, real-world setting. Or maybe, as with most of our cultural ills, we can just blame Top Gear. Yes, that sounds right.
In any case, now sticking it to Jeremy Clarkson is the nitro-futurist vision of Distance, a highly entertaining revival of the genre that has at least as many of its own ideas as it nabs from its forgotten forebears. One major departure is the removal of opponents. As the name implies, it really is just you and your driving ability against the track (roadblocks, lasers and giant sawblades notwithstanding). Level layouts and racing lines are tight enough that extra vehicles would just make the whole thing feel overstuffed, and there’s more than enough to keep you busy besides.
As well as avoiding obstacles and manoeuvring around corners, Distance puts an emphasis on limited aerial mobility. Certain sections have you tackle large gaps by deploying a set of gliding wings, while others see the road you’re driving on end abruptly, requiring you to jump off the track and re-orient yourself to take advantage of another nearby surface (a wall or ceiling, say) in order to continue on. Of course, the real fun begins when the spinning blades, aborted roadworks and disjointed surfaces all blend together in rapid sequence, leaving you barely hanging on as you desperately try to preserve momentum.
A seeming disadvantage of the game, though, is sheer lack of tracks: there are only a couple of dozen official levels, some extremely short, with the gaps filled in by user-made creations. Normally, such reliance on community input can feel stingy, but Distance‘s extremely robust and varied mechanics actually offer a perfect forum for players to come together and discover their own joy. Hopefully utopianism really is back in style.
Words: Leo Devlin
Overwatch
[Blizzard Entertainment]
PC/PS4/Xbox One
I didn’t think that in 2016 I’d be obsessing over a newly released class-based shooter, but Blizzard just had to go ahead and make Overwatch. The gameplay is made up of competitive objective-based matches between two teams of six. Borrowing from Valve’s Team Fortress series, attackers must push a payload or secure a capture point, while defenders must prevent this from happening. Players choose from 21 heroes that are divided into loose categories of attackers (high damage, low health heroes), defenders (pesky preventative characters), tanks (soaking up damage and distracting enemies) and support characters (healing and assisting teammates). The game does a good job of assisting with team composition by highlighting when a team lacks a certain kind of hero.
The cast of heroes each have fun unique abilities and ultimates that variously affect their damage output or movement functionality. Each character has a slight learning curve, but they’re designed so that it is easy to hop in and try one out without much stress. Amid the current climate of competitive online games where complex MOBAs and high-skill shooters reign supreme, Overwatch’s simplicity is a breath of fresh air. It strikes a near perfect balance between accessibility and depth. Skilful aiming will help on some occasions, but more often than not, it’s quick witted and creative play that will earn the player their win.
Matches don’t feel like massive time commitments. A player can hop on for 10 minutes, play a quick match, and leave feeling satisfied whether they’ve won or lost. While Overwatch can be quite competitive, the hectic and unfalteringly fun uptime doesn’t leave a lot of time for a downed player to mourn their failure.
Words: Aidan Wall
Like a Boss
Jeff Probst
For over 30 seasons now, Jeff Probst has been the narrator, emcee, audience surrogate and occasional villain on the reality game show Survivor. Offering contestants as much disdain as encouragement, he possesses a force of personality on which the program has come to rely heavily. Success on Survivor is ostensibly tied to withstanding the elements, but players often find that navigating Jeff’s pointed inquiries at Tribal Council can be just as treacherous.
Words: Leo Devlin
