It’s been eight long years since we’ve gotten a new Wipeout game (2012’s Wipeout 2048), six since the last F-Zero (F-Zero Climax), and eighteen since Star Wars Racer Revenge let us yell, “Now this is podracing!” unironically. And there’s no sign that will change anytime soon. Which is why I found myself being so forgiving when playing Pacer (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC), a futuristic and combative racing game that’s a rather blatant rip-off of Wipeout…and is just as fun.
With Halo: Shadows Of Reach (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), author Troy Denning continues to be the writer with the most stories set in the universe of Master Chief, The Covenant, and the other denizens of this sci-fi first-person shooter series. In the following email interview, Denning discusses how this military science fiction story connects to the games and the other Halo novels, his and others, as well as why he enjoys visiting this turbulent universe of someone else’s creation so much.
While it obviously has its fans, the racing game series Project CARS has always felt inconsequential to me. So much so that I honestly can’t remember anything about the first two installments, even though I know I played the first one and, I think, some of the second. But Project CARS 3 (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) not only managed to catch my attention, but keep it as well, even if it does have some annoying flaws.
Like in a lot of video games, the co-operative “Escape” mode in last year’s Gears 5 added some colorful characters to the sci-fi shooting series. Now players of that game, and “Escape” mode, can learn more about those characters in Gears Of War: Hivebusters (paperback, Kindle), which collects the five-issue miniseries (and which also, in the first edition, comes with a code for the “Mechanic Mac” character skin and a Hivebusters banner). In the following email interview, Weibe explains what went into writing this comic, including how his work on the game itself influenced its story.
While helicopters have been powerful enemies in countless shooters, there haven’t been too many games lately where you get to fly one into combat yourself. But while piloting a futuristic helicopter-like vehicle in the sci-fi first-person shooter Disintegration (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) isn’t always as exciting as trying to shoot down an attack copter with a pistol is in other games, both the story-driven campaign and multiplayer modes do make this entertaining despite its flaws.
While helicopters have been powerful enemies in countless shooters, there haven’t been too many games lately where you get to fly one into combat yourself. But in the sci-fi first-person shooter Disintegration (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), you get to pilot a futuristic helicopter-like vehicle into battle. And while it isn’t always as exciting as trying to shoot down an attack copter with a pistol is in other games, Disintegration still manages to be entertaining despite its many flaws.
(NOTE: With multiplayer unavailable until the game launches on June 16th, what follows is a look at this game’s single-player campaign. A more complete review is forthcoming.)
As someone who decidedly prefers mini golf to the real thing, I’ve always been drawn more to goofy or arcade-like golf video games than realistic simulations. And What The Golf? (Switch, PC, Apple Arcade) may just be the goofiest arcade-like golf game I’ve ever played. Which is also why it’s the most fun I’ve had on the links, virtual or otherwise, in years.
At a time when we shouldn’t be going to be the beach for other reasons, there’s a perverse and reverse pleasure to playing Maneater (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Switch), a new action game in which you get to be the original beach deterrent: a shark. It’s just too bad that the pleasure doesn’t last a lot longer.
Last year, Jason M. Hough’s military sci-fi novel Gears Of War: Ascendance filled in the gap between the end of the 2016 video game Gears Of War 4 and its 2019 sequel, Gears 5. Now, with Gears Of War: Bloodlines (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), Hough is not only filling in a gap within Gears 5 but — as he explains in the following email interview about it — the time before the newest installment, Gears Tactics.