084
REVIEW
INFO FORMATPUB CARBON STUDIO PS VR ETA OUT NOW DEV CARBON STUDIO
THE WIZARDS:
ENHANCED EDITION
He who spellt it dealt itH
arry Potter? Pah! Wands are for
amateurs. In this game, you pluck fire,
ice, and ethereal material out of thin
air with your bare hands. Well, with your
gloved hands. In virtual reality. Using a pair
of PS Move controllers. But you get the idea.
Simple and (usually) effective gestures
see you conjuring, say, an ice bow or a
magical shield into existence. There are
several spells, and you’ll unlock them all
pretty quickly. Casting these spells is – to
begin with, at least – intoxicating in its ease
and primal wish fulfilment. Seeing a fireball
appear in your virtual hand with a casual
wave of your arm is cool, although the
daintiness with which you need to throw it
in order to maintain any sort of accuracy is
unintentionally hilarious.
The campaign is only a few hours long, but
the novelty sadly runs out long, long before
the end. That’s because there’s no magic
in the gameplay. Um, apart from the, er,
actual magic. Levels are, basically, a series
of locked-room fights^1 against slow and
dumb enemies, sewn together with bouts
of walking. If you’re lucky, things might be
spiced up with a basic puzzle or confusing
area to navigate.
You can upgrade spells with earned points,
and there are Fate cards – essentially
mutators that make things easier or harder
by affecting elements such as enemy health^2- to find and apply, increasing or decreasing
your score on the leaderboards. There are
even three custom maps for the briefly
distracting survival mode, Arena.
None of it is enough to keep you
coming back for long, though;
it’s stuck in the stone mage
(sorry). Luke Kemp
FOOTNOTES 1 Most fights are outside, but shut up. 2 Monsters
are pretty weak. Ordinarily, enemies lumber towards you with all
the menace of your dad saying he’s coming to get your nose.INFO FORMATPUB UBISOFT PS4 ETA DEV REDLYNXOUT NOW
TRIALS RISING
Setting a new world recordS
implicity is the name of the game.
Or at least it would be, if it weren’t
actually Trials Rising. It’s all about
balance. You ride your zippy little motocross
bike from one end of the track to the other,
making sure it stays on two wheels over all
the bumps and jumps you encounter. Yes,
Trials Rising will throw increasing numbers
of obstacles in your way, but the essential
objectives never really change: don’t fall off;
reach the end as fast as you can.
Despite the fact that we all work with the
laws of physics every day without thinking
about it, they’re far from simple. The way
physics works in Trials Rising is intuitive, but
still has the same depth of physics as real
life.^1 To master the courses, or even just
clear some of the harder ones, you have
to be able to make your bike move like an
extension of yourself, to know how to keep
your momentum going to kiss inclines just
right, bump casually against statues, or
push back on your suspension and lean
forward to give yourself an extra bit of push
to clear a tricky gap.
Every track in Trials Rising is built in a
real-world location accessed from a world
map. Gain enough experience to level up,
and you can take on a final League challenge
before unlocking more, progressively harder,
tracks. You unlock extra experience and
gear by completing additional challenges set
by sponsors for each track, of which there
are many.^2 Tracks are filled with variation
and unique gimmicks, but all retain that
core challenging premise. Sprinkle in ghost
challenges, a superb co-op
tandem bike mode, excellent
tutorials, and minigames, and
this is the best Trials package
to date. Oscar Taylor-KentFOOTNOTES 1 Real-life physics don’t hang like Trials Rising can on
intense tracks, though instances are rare and may be patched.
2 Customisation options are also unlocked through lootboxes.INFO FORMATPUB HENCHMAN & GOON PS4 ETA OUT NOW DEV HENCHMAN & GOON
PODE
A rock-solid puzzler for twoD
eveloper Henchman & Goon bills
this explore-’em-up as ‘a game for
everyone’ in much the same vein as
Unravel Two. Like that game, it takes two
characters to solve puzzles here. Offering
drop-in-and-out co-op, when you’re on your
tod you can switch between characters
Bulder and Glo by pressing w, or if you’ve a
pal on hand they can take one of them over.
Unlike Unravel’s twin Yarnies, Pode’s
protagonists possess complementary
differences.^1 Bulder starts out rocking more
abilities to solve puzzles, making them the
ideal character for the more experienced of
your pair. While Glo’s initial passenger seat
role gives a potentially less experienced
player time to get to grips, they soon gain
the ability to teleport. This adds a new
dimension to puzzles, elaborating on
pre-established mechanics in a pleasing
way, and also introducing the need for a little
more teamwork at just the right time. The
pair’s instant bond and either one’s refusal
to progress to the next area without the
other by their side is very sweet.
But what we enjoyed the most was
reawakening Pode’s slumbering world. When
you hold down i, both Bulder and Glo emit
an area of effect that the world around
them reacts to, whether that’s holding down
switches or causing a bulb to bloom. Some
beautifully open areas beg you to wander
around, holding down both i and p when
playing solo to simultaneously activate both
characters’ abilities, in a zen-like exercise.
Coupled with a sedate soundtrack composed
by Austin Wintory,^2 a sonic
sensation that enters your ear
like waves lapping at a shore,
it’s a relaxing experience from
beginning to end. Jess KinghornFOOTNOTES 1 Bulder can store smaller rocks (and Glo) in their
body. Glo can cause plant life to bloom. 2 Wintory also composed the
laid-back soundscapes of Flow and Journey.