Dates For Your Diary: Games Coming Out In May 2018

 
There are a lot of games coming out in May as 2018 continues to be a great year for games. I’ve listed some of my highlights below along with some details and gameplay for each of them. Is there a game you are looking forward to that’s not on my list? Sound off in the comments below and also let me know if you are looking forward to any of these.

Hyper Sentinel

Developer:  Four5Six Pixel & Huey Games
Publisher:  Huey Games
Release Date:  11 May 2018
Platforms:  PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch & PC
Price:  £11.99
 
Hyper Sentinel is a 2D retro styled pixelated shoot em up from Huey Games & Four5Six Pixel.  The game was funded via a successful kickstarter campaign and offers blisteringly fast arcade shoot em up action at 60fps with a range of awesome power ups across a range of different modes.  Here is the full list of features taken from the game’s official description.
 

• Blast into battle against giant space destroyers in Arcade Mode, tackle endless waves of enemies in Survival Mode and face off against epic level guardians in Boss Run mode.
• Awesome power-ups and devastating weapon upgrades including the Astro Mace and Plasma Rifle.
• The ultimate high-score chasing arcade game, with online leaderboards and 3 difficulty modes.
• Become a decorated Hyper Sentinel pilot with 60 challenging medals to complete.
• 12 electrifying levels featuring epic, multi-stage boss encounters.
• Multiple graphics options, including the nostalgia inducing Spectrum, C64 and CRT filters.
• A hyper-charged love letter to arcade classics.

 
The game is also being made with innovative interactivity features for streamers streaming the game on Mixer, Microsoft’s game streaming platform on Xbox One and PC, where viewers can watch the game and interact with it by either aiding the player or making things more difficult for them.  I watched a recent demonstration of these features in action on the Tips N Tricks gaming show on Mixer.  Viewers are able to add enemies and power-ups to the game to help or hinder the player as they are watching.  Viewers join a queue and have a small amount of time where it’s their turn to interact with the game.
 

State Of Decay 2

Developer:  Undead Labs
Publisher:  Microsoft Studios
Release Date:  22 May 2018
Platforms:  Xbox One & Windows 10 PC
Price:  £24.99
 
State Of Decay 2 is the long awaited sequel to Microsoft’s and Undead Labs’ hit survival horror zombie game, State Of Decay.  While the original was made on a modest budget with the limitations of being a Xbox Live Arcade game, State Of Decay 2 is much bigger in scope as Microsoft pushes it to becoming a very important title in their first party line up.  The graphics look to have very much improved over the original but not only that the game looks to have far more and deeper survival horror mechanics thanks to a far larger pool of memory available to the team over at Undead Labs.
 
The core third person shooting and driving look great and can stand toe to toe with other AAA titles in the genre.  The base building of the original game has been built on adding even deeper mechanics and features for players to tinker with and make the home base and outposts they want to survive in their zombie apocalypse.  Character specialisations and progression looks far deeper too and perma death returns meaning if a playable character dies they are gone for good along with any progression made with that character making you care more about keeping them alive.  Undead Labs have shown off when characters die they turn into zombies but it is unclear at the time of writing whether you can go kill them to reclaim the gear they were carrying, although you could get your stuff back in the orginal so I’d assume this is the case.
 
The sequel also introduces drop in, drop out 2-4 player co-op to the series where at any point during gameplay you can fire off a flare to allow others to join your game and they have said you can choose whether to make matchmaking public or with your friends only.  This is a much requested feature asked for by fans of the original and the game looks a lot of fun whether solo or with others.  There are 3 large open world maps to explore, each having it’s own set of characters to play as/take care of.  From the looks of previews they look to be about the same size as the original games map so you’re essentially getting 3 x the game world to explore.  There are also human enemies this time around although not many details have been shared so far, I expect the game’s marketing to ramp up over the next few weeks until launch where we will learn about all of the game’s features in in-depth trailers and articles.  Until then here is the latest gameplay from Undead Labs’ stream the other day to enjoy.
 

Detroit: Become Human

Developer:  Quantic Dream
Publisher:  Sony Interactive Entertainment
Release Date:  25 May 2018
Platforms:  PS4
Price:  £49.99
 
Detroit: Become Human is the latest game by Quantic Dream, developers of Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls,  and is coming exclusively to the PS4.  The game features a futuristic setting where androids live amongst humans and do many different human jobs such as one trailer showed a android police officer trying to talk a criminal into releasing a hostage on a rooftop.  Quantic Dreams’ games are narrative driven cinematic stories where the focus is more on story telling than fully controllable characters and play like a modern take on the point and click adventure genre, although there are some action sequences the majority of the games are spent making dialogue choices and performing actions will have different consequences and the story changes due to those choices.
 
Detroit looks no different with another trailer showing a woman looking after a young girl possible working as a nanny I would assume and the father is abusive towards the girl and depending on your actions could result in you and the girl successfully escaping or in the girl being killed.  These choices then have further impact on how the story unfolds and which one of several possible endings you end up with giving the game both replayability and adds weight to your decision making.  There is a free demo available for download on PS4’s PSN Store right now if you want to try the game yourself or you can watch someone else playing it on IGN below.
 

Dark Souls Remastered

Developer:  From Software
Publisher:  Bandai Namco Entertainment
Release Date:  25 May 2018
Platforms:  PS4, Xbox One & PC (Nintendo Switch to release in Summer 2018)
Price:  £34.99
 
Dark Souls Remastered is the remastered version of the hit action role playing game Dark Souls which released last generation on PS3, Xbox 360 & PC.  The game has better graphics, lighting and shadows than the original version although gameplay remains largely untouched.  However this version comes with the Artorias Of The Abyss expansion and the most notable improvement is in the game’s frame rates which has been boosted to 60 fps thanks to the increased hardware of current gen systems where standard PS4 & Xbox One will have 1080p 60fps visuals and PS4 Pro and Xbox One X will be up to 4K.
 
The original game was famous for having a very inconsistent frame rate where the maximum was 30fps but in a lot of areas saw dips to 20fps and sometimes lower most notably in the game’s Blight Town area.  Whilst Blight Town has not been shown publicly yet many news sites and YouTubers have had access to the first couple of areas and according to tech experts like Digital Foundry the game has a solid 60fps with only losing a few frames very occasionally in those first few areas so hopefully that level of performance carries through the rest of the game.
 
Fans of the series will be most looking forward to this remaster as it is in many people’s eyes on of the very best games of the last generation and one of the best action role playing games ever made.  Here is the aforementioned video from Digital Foundry to show you some of the enhanced features you can look forward to in the remaster.
 

Martin McCurdie

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