A modern successor to the beloved River City Ransom that also happens to be a remake of Renegade, its predecessor.

Play it if you like…

Classically style brawlers, sweet hair, stubby little gang members.

• Format: 3DS
• Price: $29.99
• Release date: Out now

The secret of River City Tokyo Rumble’s allure lies in its star’s gorgeous hair. Behold Kunio’s pompadour, stare into his lustrous coif and know: whatever happens in this game will be a dollop of solid gold righteousness because it involves that dope ‘do. What begins with Kunio’s hair, though, carries out over the course of six to seven hours of deeply, deeply mesmerizing brawls. All you do in River City Tokyo Rumble is wander from neighborhood to neighborhood in Japan’s most famous metropolis, punching people with Kunio’s stubby arms and legs, wondering how he keeps his hair like that. When it’s all over, you’ll come out of your daze baffled that there isn’t anymore game. Then you’ll restart and do it all over again.

Okay, there’s a little bit more to it than that but it’s true that Tokyo Rumble is a beguiling old school game for Nintendo 3DS. For vintage NES fans that recognize the name, this isn’t actually a sequel to the classic River City Ransom but a remake of Renegade, the original arcade game that Ransom was actually a sequel to. It doesn’t play like the linear, level-by-level Renegade, though. Tokyo Rumble is structured a lot like Ransom, with Kunio and his gang of high school toughs doling out vigilante justice by visiting Tokyo neighborhoods ruled by different gangs. Each neighborhood is made up of a few interconnected screens full of landmarks, restaurants and shops. Head to the Kabukicho train station and walk left to head through a loop of streets where you can pick up books to teach Kunio new moves, new undershirts and belts to up his stats, and a bowl of ramen to heal up between fights.

That’s pretty much it. There’s a story about a shadowy force organizing the rival gangs and you meet a colorful crew of other high school fighters you can partner with (just one partner at a time, though), but even if you indulge in side missions to beat up specific thugs or find a lost dog, Tokyo Rumble boils down to the same cycle. Go to a neighborhood, beat on people with Kunio’s adorable tiny arms, level up so you have more health and attack power, repeat. What sounds like the most rote ‘80s-style action game ultimately has a delicious rhythm. River City Tokyo Rumble just feels good to move in. It doesn’t matter that the background environments look like they’re from an early PS1 game or that the action doesn’t dramatically change from beginning to end. What’s so affecting is that the simple visuals and smooth feel of the action blend together into a warming soup of action. Getting lost in Tokyo Rumble’s flow, much as you get lost in Kunio’s hair, is as relaxing as the repetition and quest for perfection in puzzle games like Tetris or Bejeweled.

There are some funny diversions. The Kunio Kun series housing this and River City Ransom also produced a few sports games like the cultishly adored Super Dodge Ball, and those athletics show up as mini-games here. Kunio’s classmates can invite him into a quick dodge ball match. Funny? Definitely, but not a meaty side game. Of course, Tokyo Rumble doesn’t need a meaty side game. It’s got the fights. It’s got Kunio’s hair. That is all it or your 3DS or a lazy afternoon gaming needs.

You Should Be Playing celebrates innovative, unexpected games that belong on your radar, with a new game every Monday at 0900 PST / 1700 GMT. Follow @gamesradar (opens in new tab) on Twitter for updates.

The post Smooth fights and fabulous hair: you should be playing River City Tokyo Rumble appeared first on Game News.

A sidescrolling shooter that’s as tough as it is short 

Play it if you like… 

Old-school arcade difficulty; persevering over unfavorable run-‘n’-gun odds 

• Format: PS4, PC
• Price: $19.99 / £19.99
• Release date: Out now

By the time I was on my 20th playthrough of the first level of Assault Suit Leynos PS4 – one of just eight levels in a game shorter than most arcade classics from the 1990s – it struck me that modern players might think this was one of the worst games of 2016. Leynos does not conform to modern ideas of gaming fairness nor modern gaming brutality. People love relatively cake walk-esque roller coasters like Uncharted. People also seem to love games like Dark Souls where you’re repeatedly bludgeoned by some kind of drooling freak just for walking into a room, only to try it again and again until you know how to avoid a bludgeoning. People appear to love cruel action like Galak-Z and Enter the Gungeon seemingly inspired by ‘90s classics, but even those communicate clearly why you suddenly fail. In Assault Suit Leynos, though, the game loads, you push your stubby little mech suit that looks litigiously like a Gundam, and the first time you meet another mech you will explode.

It will not be clear why. It will still not be clear why you keep exploding after you learn to switch between your mech’s different guns and how to dash forward and use your shield. This will mystify the people who love those types of games, but if they persevere, if they learn what Leynos is trying to tell them, they will fall deeply in love.

Leynos isn’t just mimicking an era of design. It’s actually a remake of a Sega Genesis game from 1990 that even by the standards of the time was particularly brutal and demanding. Rather than the sort of crowd pleaser action game where you’d simply run from left to right blowing up whatever aliens or robots showed up, Leynos tried to marry that run-and-gun style with more tactical considerations that were part and parcel of ‘80s mecha anime. The game still looks like a Contra, but it can’t be played like one; hence all the blowing up. The only way to succeed in Leynos is to take it slow at first, learning precisely how to move and just what the limited weapons you have at the start can do.

That first level is enormously intimidating. All you have is a shield, a puny machine gun that can blow up enemy mechs pretty well but requires frequent reloading that leaves you vulnerable. There’s a slow shotgun and a sort of grenade launcher that fires an array of small electricity bombs in an arc into the air. Figuring out how to use just these three tools to actually stay alive as enemy mechs trundle endlessly towards you and blowing up a massive spaceship in the sky above you before it reaches your home base in just 60 seconds legitimately seems impossible at first. You’re as fragile as a paper airplane and your weapons are crap: what to do? 

Try, try again. The repetition forces you to rethink video game nimbleness, where you always need to be planning a few seconds ahead for where your robot suit will be and where it can fire. It took me almost 45 minutes to beat that first level for the first time, and the reward was no weapons, a little bit of armor, and a greater understanding of what the game expected of me. The eight levels that follow are all significantly different than that first level. Leynos never asks you to do the same thing twice, though it does expect you to play many, many times. Some levels take place in space and you have to protect your fleet while flying around. Others have you invading a power plant, trying to survive as your reach the core but also saving enough precious ammunition – there are no refills – for your heavy weapons to actually destroy it. Each success unlocks new gear which can entirely change the pace of levels when you tackle them again on a harder difficulty.

From the outside it can seem needlessly laborious and repetitive, but there’s a rare pleasure in trying these stages over and over again. Modern action games have different considerations than Assault Suit Leynos, but not necessarily better ones. The pace of this game is enhanced by the great soundtrack and gorgeous HD sprite work. (Leynos has to be seen in motion to appreciate the jointed, brightly colored art. In still screenshots it looks like a crap Flash game from 2007, but in motion it looks like a cross between a comic book and a puppet show coming to vivid, weirdly jointed life.) Anyone who longs for an action game that offers an unusually strong sense of accomplishment or has a penchant for 30 year old mech art or just wants something different than the roguelike style that dominates 2D action today should check it out.

You Should Be Playing celebrates innovative, unexpected games that belong on your radar, with a new game every Monday at 0900 PST / 1700 GMT. Follow @gamesradar on Twitter for updates.

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A hand-drawn trek through Norse mythology as beautiful as it is punishing

Play it if you like…

Atmospheric games that don’t hold your hand; Shadow of the Colossus

• Format: PC / PS4 / Xbox One / Wii U
• Price: $14.99 / £10.99
• Release date: Out now

On a list of my favorite things only video games can do, that bit where the camera slowly zooms out to show you just how tiny you are compared to your surroundings is near the top. Games like Shadow of the Colossus go out of their way to make you feel insignificant next to ancient architectural structures or hulking beasts. But rather than feeling defeated, watching that camera pull out until my character is a mere dot on the television screen only serves to increase my resolve when I find these seemingly insurmountable challenges, and intensifies that feeling of victory once I accomplish my goal. It’s a feeling that Jotun: Valhalla Edition revels in for the entirety of its campaign, and I absolutely love it.

Comparisons to Shadow of the Colossus abound, and it’s a good starting point to explain Jotun, but it’s a very different beast from that PlayStation 2 classic. Like Shadow of the Colossus, Jotun is about exploring a meticulously crafted world where combat is rarely seen outside of a handful of larger-than-life boss fights. But rather than telling a tale of deception and selfishness, Jotun spins a yarn of redemption, a Nordic celebration of valor, combat, and overcoming incredible odds to impress the gods.

Jotun follows Thora, a Viking warrior who died an unworthy death and finds herself in a state of limbo, unable to move on to Valhalla to aid Odin in battle during the inevitable coming of Ragnarok. Due to special circumstances which you’ll learn as you play, the gods have given her one final chance to prove her worth. Moving through the astral plane of Ginnungagap, Thora will have to scour several different zones to collect runes in order to access and slay the five titular Jotun – elemental giants who don’t take too kindly to interlopers. 

All of this is told with a grace and confidence that escapes most games that attempt it. Conveyed entirely through hand-drawn art and subtitled Norwegian dialog, Jotun looks like a lost Don Bluth film, conveying its world and its gameplay through context rather than beating you over the head with tutorials and tool-tips. The animation is absolutely sumptuous, and the camera’s not afraid to pull back as far as it can go to really let you soak in the enormous scale of everything on display.

The most obvious draw here is Jotun’s boss fights, and combat is methodical, deliberate, requiring patience and a steady hand to persevere through it. But Jotun is more than just a difficult boss rush (even though one unlocks once you finish the story for the first time). The lead up to those explosive and impressive battles is perilous, contemplative, and full of surprises as you explore the beautiful and deadly lands that make up Norse mythology. One area might require you to surf down a maze of Yggdrasil’s roots while dodging falling rocks; another might require that you skate across an unbelievably massive ice lake while outrunning a giant snake who keeps breaking through the surface in an attempt to make you its latest snack. What begins as a slow, uneventful jaunt punctuated by larger conflict slowly reveals itself as an entire world filled with unique challenges to overcome.

Jotun wants you to feel mighty, even when the challenges you face are quite literally 100 times your size, but it also wants you to reflect on its world, study its history, and appreciate its mythology. It’s the kind of game that knows exactly what it wants to do, and executes it with beauty and precision. You may just be a humble Viking warrior attempting to impress the gods, but you’re just as worthy as any of them – you just have to earn it.

You Should Be Playing celebrates innovative, unexpected games that belong on your radar, with a new game every Monday at 0900 PST / 1700 GMT. Follow @gamesradar (opens in new tab) on Twitter for updates.

The post Brutal combat and hand-drawn glory – You should be playing Jotun: Valhalla Edition appeared first on Game News.

Cartoon chefs must work together to survive in the fast-paced – and dangerous! – world of on-demand dining.

Play it if you like…

Party games you play with (and don’t mind yelling at) your friends like Mario Party

• Format: PC / PS4 / Xbox One
• Price: $16.99 / £12.99
• Release date: Out now

Everyone who’s worked in the food industry knows it’s stressful. You’ve got to remember everyone’s order and get it to them on time, preparing and assembling each ingredient as fast as you can, then passing it off to others and trusting them to do their part. And then, of course, you’ve got those darn pirate ships, penguins, trucks racing down the highway, and anthropomorphic cats to worry about.

Sorry, some of those last few items might’ve been from a video game.

Overcooked from Ghost Town Games takes the pressure to perform, that frantic back-and-forth pace inherent in real-world cooking, and adds some cartoonish spice. The concept can be broken down into four steps: check your customer’s order, prepare the ingredients, assemble the pieces together, and place it on a conveyer belt to send it on its way. A timer counts down on each item you’re to prepare, and space on the counters is limited, so you’ll need to coordinate with your fellow chefs to meet the flood of incoming orders on time. There simply isn’t enough time or kitchen real estate for you to be playing lone fry cook.

Things start easy, with players passing ingredients between themselves to effectively multi-task in the kitchen – you decide that you’ll fry up a filet of fish while another player is heating soup, for example. Soon however, you’ll be placed onto a pirate ship, where the waves rock the boat back and forth, causing entire walls to slide across the deck. Or you’ll be tossing items between two trucks speeding down the highway. Or leaping Frogger-style across ice floes in the Antarctic.

Thankfully, every mechanic is easily learned. Your character moves with a jaunty little bounce, the controls smooth and satisfying. Cutting, cooking, picking up plates, and everything else you’ll need to do in the kitchen is mapped to one button. Recipes change between levels, adding more and more ingredients, but assembling more complicated dishes need not be done in a particular sequence. This means you can create a burger by placing tomatoes, buns, cheese, patty, and lettuce on a plate, in that order or any order. In short, the fun and challenge is not in creating the perfect meal, but in managing the culinary chaos.

While there is a single-player mode, co-op is where Overcooked is truly al dente. Effective communication is key if you want to win the best prizes (like new chefs to play as) and claim the highest scores, but shouting “gimme the lettuce, gimme the lettuce, dear god give me the BLEEPING lettuce the trucks are coming apart!” is way more fun. And when you finally surmount the challenge laid before you, you’ll be so overcome with joy and a sense of accomplishment you’ll want to give your partner the greatest high-five the world has ever known. And you can, because it’s couch co-op.

That physicality, that sense of presence that can only come from playing with a friend sitting on the seat next to you, is Overcooked’s secret ingredient. Oh sure, there’s the cutesy visuals, the catchy music, the frantic pace and puzzles to solve. But what Overcooked really brings to the table is you.

You Should Be Playing celebrates innovative, unexpected games that belong on your radar, with a new game every Monday at 0900 PST / 1700 GMT. Follow @gamesradar (opens in new tab) on Twitter for updates.

The post Culinary chaos in a co-op kitchen: You should be playing Overcooked appeared first on Game News.