The Watchlist: Slain!

Title: Slain!
Developer: Wolf Brew Games
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PS4, PS Vita
Releasing May 2015, consoles planned for September and December
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Prepare to be Slain! Our homage to the gory hack and slash games of the 80's and 90's. We promise stunning visuals with gore galore.

There's something so satisfying about playing a brutally difficult game. Be it Volgarr The Viking or Super Meat Boy, succeeding where you failed myriad times before, mastering a game's seemingly insurmountable challenge, is always rewarding. Slain! harkens back to the days of brutal games like Shadow of The Beast and Ghosts 'n Goblins, a lone hero against grotesque odds, across Gothic landscapes of blood and death.

At a glance, Slain stands out due to its lavishly detailed pixel art. Clouds drift above and fog rolls across the swamps and underbrush. Torch lights flicker and sway in the breeze. The otherworldly abodes of werewolves and spirits and undead beasts drip with blood, walls choked with vines. Gruesome creatures, from skeletons and witches to more dangerous horrors, are displayed in grisly detail, all decayed flesh and tattered clothes.

But Slain! promises more than just wonderfully-realized Gothic environments. As the reawakened hero Bathoryn, you must traverse these lands and free seven towers from the grip of their monstrous overlords. From the crimson halls of Blood Tower to the lupine effigies of the Wolfwoods, Bathoryn strikes down creatures with his sword and mana abilities, while also dealing with each tower's puzzles and deadly traps. Master your skills, know your enemies, or die.

Slain! is estimated to release on PC, Mac, and Linux in May, with console releases rolling out in the months to follow. You can learn more about Slain! on its official site and TIGSource devlog, as well as support the game on Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight.

PC Spotlight #83: Luftrausers

Title: Luftrausers
Developer: Vlambeer
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, PS3, PS Vita
Price: $9.99
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Luftrausers is not a dogfighting game. You may control a plane and you may be shooting down enemy fighters (and boats and blimps), but what Luftrausers really is frenzied aerial bullet hell chaos. But, in true Vlambeer fashion, what makes the game so good besides the action and stylized graphics, are the controls.

In Luftrausers, there is no such thing as downtime. You assemble your plane in the Hangar and then launch into unfriendly skies. It only takes a few seconds for the screen to become pure mayhem as battleships and fighters fill the sepia-hued air with bullets and aces swoop in behind you, and that's before the hulking projectile-spewing blimps appear. But even in the midst of the most hectic gauntlet, you are always in the control and that's the brilliance of Luftrausers.

It's one thing to weave between some bullets and return fire. It's another to swoop into a dive, deftly plummet through a hail storm of bullets, take out a battleship, and pull up so close that the water's surface is flared up by your thrusters. Or to maneuver your enemies into a tight cluster, cut your thrusters, and shoot the planes pursuing you while your momentum carries you in the other direction. Your plane is insanely maneuverable, able to turn on a dime, reach top speed in a moment. Realism isn't a factor here; it's pure arcade handling and it makes every close call, every elegant evasive maneuver feel so satisfying. Equally impressive is how diverse your plane combinations control and feel. Each part is useful in some fashion and each combination is wholly unique, with its own shape, name, and music. Equip the hover engine and cannonball and you can easily maintain a level altitude while raining explosive fury onto your enemies. With the water-proof engine, collision-proof body, and laser, you become a devastating master of air and sea, diving beneath the surface to evade bullets and flying through enemies like an unstoppable bullet. Completing missions unlocks new parts and other rewards, such as different color schemes and the hard-as-nails absolutely unforgiving SMFT mode. Normal mode at its most chaotic is child's play compared to what awaits in SMFT.

Luftrausers isn't the most complex game, but it's certainly one of the most addictive and satisfying I've played in a while. I'd say it's easily on par with One Finger Death Punch, in terms of delivering a simple experience that's laser focused on delivering stylish  finely-tuned gameplay. It's the kind of game where I'm instantly restarting upon defeat, to improve my skills, to complete missions and unlock new parts. You can purchase Luftrausers on Steam, Humble, and PSN.

Console Spotlight: A-Men 2

Title: A-Men 2
Developer: Bloober Team
Platforms: PS3, PS Vita
Price: $9.99
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A-Men 2 is described as a game that's "easy to play but still hard to master" and I couldn't agree more. It's a precision puzzle platformer; however I don't mean precision in the sense of pixel-perfect jumps and trap avoidance, but rather precise timing and strategic use of your characters' abilities.

A-Men 2 is first and foremost a puzzle game. You have a number of different characters at your disposal, each with their own abilities ranging from disguising yourself as the enemy and placing route-altering signs, equipping a rifle that can shoot enemies, building ladders and fixing machinery, to using a grapple hook. While there is platforming involving, switching between characters at the opportune moments, using their abilities at the proper times to assist other characters or kill enemies constitute the core of the game. However that proper timing is where I found the game also frustrates. It's satisfying to finally succeed and reach the waiting evacuation chopper, but to get to that point requires an exorbitant amount of trial and error. There's no flexibility in your attempts; there's one correct way to trigger the various switches and machines ans use your characters, at the right places, at the right times, and until you get that sequence down, you'll only be making frustratingly small intervals of progress at a time. It doesn't help that you can only save at certain checkpoints in each level and dying before them requires you to restart from the beginning.

If going solo isn't your style, you can also tackle A-Men 2 cooperatively with three other players. A-Men 2 may have charming visuals, a humorous self-aware narrative with characters who know they're NPCs in a game, and the mechanics themselves are fun, but the focus on trial and error leads to frustration more often than not. You can purchase A-Men 2 on the Playstation Store.