Caz McLeary ran away to sea to escape his problems. As this working-class ex-boxer from Glasgow chats with a colleague in the canteen of the Beira D, an oil rig in the North Sea just off the coast of Scotland, the nature of those problems soon becomes clear. His wife, Suze, is talking about divorce. She’ll come around, his workmate says. Not likely, McLeary responds, “if I get the jail”. His crime? Assaulting a man who insulted her. “Remember,” his friend begins, “life is like football. It’s not over…” McLeary finishes the sentence: “…until the final whistle, aye. But you’re a Barnsley fan, so you’re pretty much fucked from the off.”
Hours later, he’s running to escape a very different kind of problem, the possibility of prison now the least of his worries. The rig, we’re told, as our demonstration skips forward a few chapters, has drilled into “something”. For a good while, you won’t know exactly what that something is, but you’ll begin to see its effects, on both the rig and the crew themselves. At the controls, QA tester Tom Grant guides McLeary to duck under a gantry, grabbing a bottle to throw and distract whatever is pursuing him. A series of loud metallic thuds follows, and Grant emerges from his hiding place. As it turns out, he’s moved a little too soon: from the cacophonous noise (nigh indescribable even if we hadn’t been asked not to reveal the precise nature of the threat), it’s clear he’s been spotted. The sound only gets louder and closer as he sprints up a set of steps, just about making it to an open hatch – narrow enough to accommodate a human but nothing larger – before dropping down.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة August 2023 من Edge UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة August 2023 من Edge UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles
Anyone familiar with the concept of kitbashing is already halfway to understanding what Tomas Sala’s open-world builder is all about.
Children Of The Sun
René Rother’s acrid revenge thriller – an action game with its limbs broken and forcibly rearranged into the shape of a spatial puzzler – is at once a bonafide original and an unlikely throwback. Cast your eyes right and you wouldn’t blink if we told you this was a forgotten Grasshopper Manufacture game from the early PS3 era (we won’t be at all surprised if this finds a spot on Suda51’s end-of-year list).
Post Script
What does Rise Of The Ronin say for PS5 exclusivity?
Rise Of The Ronin
Falling in battle simply switches control to the next person up, and then quick revive fixes everything
Post Script
The pawn and the pandemic
Dragon's Dogma 2
The road from Vernworth to Bakbattahl is scenic but arduous. Ignore the dawdling mobs of goblins, and duck beneath the chanting harpies that circle on the currents overhead, and even moving at a hurried clip it is impossible for a party of four to complete the journey by nightfall.
BLUE MANCHU
How enforced early retirement eventually led Jonathan Chey back to System Shock
THE MAKING 0F.... AMERICAN ARCADIA
How a contrast of perspectives added extra layers to a side-scrolling platform game
COMING IN TO LAND
The creator of Spelunky, plus a super-group of indie developers, have spent the best part of a decade making 50 games. Has the journey been worth it?
VOID SOLS
This abstract indie Soulslike has some bright ideas