PAPERS, PLEASE ****
Lucas Pope, PC
Indie developer Lucas Pope’s dystopian border control puzzle thriller is a lot more fun than it sounds. You play a border force officer responsible for checking who’s allowed into your Eastern Bloc style nation. Essentially, you have to choose who to allow in and who to refuse entry to, stamping their passports in a delightfully cathartic way. The game has a rather steep learning curve that can feel a bit much at times, but it’s ultimately an innovative exploration of morality. LOB
NEX MACHINA ****
Housemarque, PS4 and PC
Housemarque have made some solid twin-stick shooters in recent memory such as Dead Nation and Alienation. With Nex Machina however, they have excelled themselves. Fast-paced, brimming with neon colour and accompanied with a pumping techno soundtrack, NM is as unforgiving as it is addictive. In single player or co-op, you blast your way through hordes of enemies, rescuing humans as you move through this stylised digital world. A twist on old classics such as Robotron and Smash TV but with a modern mind-set, Nex Machina is a future classic. And very, VERY hard. BR