MUST PLAY Phil’s favourite PC games.
A personal list of the best games you can play right now
Forza Horizon 4 www.forzamotorsport.net
Some car games don’t have a button dedicated to rewinding time. They make you drive around Laguna Seca and, when you crash on that downhill corkscrew bit, force you to just live with it. Screw that. I don’t want to deal with the consequences of my mistakes. Give me a rewind button. Give me ForzaHorizon4.
The Norwood Suite www.bit.ly/norwoodsuite
I loved this quirky adventure about a surreal musical hotel. At least, I loved the 30 minutes that I played before being distracted—probably by ice cream and, soon afterwards, feeling sleepy from too much ice cream. I’ve put this here to guilt trip myself into playing more of it before this issue goes on sale.
Katamari Damacy Reroll www.bandainamcoent.com
You, a small thing, roll your ball over crayons and propane tanks and schoolboys and dried kelp and dairy cows and marmalade and fiddler crabs and cabbage. The ball gets bigger. The bouncy music suggests that its victims are ultimately accepting of their fate. They are part of the ball now. They can finally rest.
Earth Defense Force 4.1 www.d3p.co.jp
Be honest with yourself: You probably need to replace your mattress. You won’t, but you know you should. It’s a nagging irritation in the back of your mind that means you really don’t have the patience for calculating tactical squad buffs right now. Here is a game where you just shoot some ants instead.
Sea of Th ieves www.seaofthieves.com
Our ship is laden with loot. As we head back to port to sell our plunder, we notice another ship. Warily, we dock. It sails towards us. “Hello,” a voice calls out. It sails closer still. Not willing to take the risk, we open fire. As the boat sinks, the voice calls out again. “I’m new. I don’t know what’s happening.” Er, whoops.
Fire Pro Wrestling World www.spike-chunsoft.com
In 2016, professional wrestlerslash- Assassin’sCreed tribute act Will Ospreay tweeted of one of his signature moves, “You just need to accept that you live in this world. A world where a move is called a ‘Cheeky Nandos Kick’.” I think about that tweet a lot for some reason. This is a videogame about wrestling.
Red Alert 2 www.ea.com
Some people think developers should keep politics out of games, but this RTS series opens with a time-traveling Einstein assassinating Hitler with a handshake. This, the sequel, features Ray Wise as the US president saying, “I don’t give a wooden nickel about your legacy,” to the Soviet premier. Politics!
Sonic Spinball www.sega.co.uk
I still haven’t found time to check out Yoku’sIslandExpress, a pinball platformer that seems to have delighted friends, colleagues, and casual Twitter follows. But the thing about this page is I can put any game on it and nobody has the power to stop me. So here: a recommendation for SonicSpinball. Deal with it.