084
REVIEW
INFO FORMATPUB SOMETIMES YOU PS4 ETA OUT NOW DEV NOSKOV SERGEY7TH SECTOR
A spark of geniusE
ver since Playdead’s Limbo first crept
onto the scene in 2010, many a 2D
platformer has sought to capture a
similarly bleak ambience and oppressive
tone. Yes, games in which you guide a lowly
figure through a bitterly harsh world have
become their own subgenre, with 7th Sector
being the latest to arrive on PS4. And
while it might depend quite a bit on some
of the formula’s familiar staples, its unique
approach to puzzle-solving makes this a dark
descent worth taking.
7th Sector begins, rather unexpectedly,
with you controlling a simple spark. Following
an eerily unsettling pan out from a distorted
television, you guide the sentient electrical
current from wire to wire, using r to
boost and q to jump between cables.^1
From here you come across all manner
of logical and technical puzzles, with most
answers reliant on your observation of the
background goings-on.
What could have been a relentless
gauntlet of brain exercises is made more
engrossing by the dank environments. You
never know what awaits you after solving
the latest puzzle. This is the perfect example
of a game parsing out information about its
world one detail at a time. It really motivates
you to keep pushing forward.
Puzzles range from using your jolt to
bump a radio-controlled car into objects to
solving the simple maths sums featured on
a terminal. These eventually crescendo into
mechanics and obstacles that are much
more narrative-driven, as you discover more
about your ultimate purpose.^2
Short, revelatory, and deeply
atmospheric, 7th Sector is a
smart puzzle-platformer with a
mysterious edge. Aaron PotterFOOTNOTES 1 You eventually jump into bigger machinery like
sentries and ships. 2 7th Sector features four endings, which are
dependant on certain actions you take on the brief journey.INFO FORMATPUB INTRAGAMES PS4 ETA OUT NOW DEV DIGITAL TALESBOOKBOUND
BRIGADE
A pretty novel conceptT
here are millions of books in the
world, and that means millions of
characters. Bookbound Brigade sees
you take control of some of literature’s most
famous personalities, including King Arthur,
Dracula, and Queen Victoria. Your task is to
journey through various interlinked literary
landscapes in order to retrieve the precious,
purloined Book Of Books^1 and, ultimately,
restore balance to the Literary World.
Mechanically, Bookbound Brigade is a
metroidvania with lots of puzzle-platforming
and combat. Each member of your brigade
has a unique ability,^2 and you have to
utilise the whole team’s talents in order to
progress. You control all the characters
simultaneously as one block, though you
can vary their formation so they can reach
high points, go through tunnels, and so
on. Your brigade also fights as one, with
every member slashing at enemies when
you hit attack. Delightfully, having such big
egos in close proximity results in a lot of
quirky humour, with dialogue playing on the
characters’ famous tropes to great effect.
As your rag-tag band explores the Literary
World, they collect Memory Pages, either
from other literary and historical NPCs or
from treasure chests. These reawaken
memories in your brigade, and the more
you collect, the better your brigade gets at
fighting as they remember past battles and
former glories. Unfortunately, completing
what amounts to a series of Memory Page
fetch quests can become tiresome.
Overall, though, Bookbound
Brigade is an enjoyable, colourful
and quirky game. A good read,
but maybe not quite a page-
turner. Rebecca StowFOOTNOTES 1 Charmingly, the Book Of Books is known by the
characters as BOB for short. 2 For example, Dracula can swoosh
his cape to give you a double jump ability.INFO FORMATPUB SEGA PS4 DEVETA TWO POINT STUDIOSOUT NOWTWO POINT
HOSPITAL
The Doctor will see you nowT
he 20th anniversary of the Sims
has brought back the itch that this
hospital management game advises we
scratch. Our sister publications have been
enjoying this spiritual successor to Theme
Hospital on their respective platforms for
a while but this port is for the specialists,
presenting the base game plus all DLC in one
easy treatment plan.
As an enterprising hospital manager,
you are presented with a hollow shell of a
hospital. It’s up to you to hire staff, build
facilities, and maybe help some patients.
Each soon-to-be-fine-establishment
presents challenges that stand between
you and that elusive three-star reputation.^1
You quickly find yourself in that classic
management sim gameplay loop, and the
revised user interface for PS4 presents
little to snap you out of your happy place.
That allows humour to take centre stage.
Illnesses bear no resemblance to real
maladies, instead gunning for the pun to
groan-worthy effect (Misery Guts? Denim
Genes?). Running with that tone, potential
hires present traits that could either prove
a benefit or a brain ache to your institution.
Unfortunately, despite details like ‘dances
like tomorrow is a real possibility,’ ‘Believes
they saw, and had lunch with, a yeti,’ ‘Sleep
gallops,’ and ‘sniffs own farts... and likes it’,^2
they’ll get lost in the crowd. That is to say,
between your staff and the by-the-numbers
building options, there’s little opportunity
for the emergent story moments the genre
is known for. Mind you, when
there’s an epidemic of Mock
Stars swaggering through your
halls, it’s not such a bad crowd
to get lost in. Jess KinghornFOOTNOTES 1 If it’s proving all a bit much, you can always go back
to a previously cracked Krankenhaus for a change of pace. 2 As far
as we can tell, we only made up one of those.