Valiant Hearts: the Great War
Valiant Hearts is not a happy game. And I mean that in the best possible way – looking at the trailers, it can be easy to read the slapstick animation and music as it being some kind of goofy adventure game depiction of World War I, but this notion fades quickly once you start playing. The narrative skillfully weaves personal stories into the larger backdrop and integrates historical facts with finesse – when poison gas has significance to the gameplay, you get bits and pieces of information about when it first appeared in the war. When you travel through a city, Valiant Heats talks about bomb shelters and how civilians coped with the unrest. It presents information about real events in an interesting and relevant way, but more importantly it helps set the mood in a story about a difficult time when there were no clear heroes or villains and but a lot of victims.
Gameplay- wise it has a good mixture of reflex challenges and traditional adventure game puzzles – nothing too difficult as to hinder your progress through the story. It is not a game about mechanics, but the ones that are there are unobtrusive and fit well with the themes.
Also..
The Witcher 2 – Assassins of Kings
There is a lot to explore in the Witcher – a lot of things to do, a lot of people to talk to and a lot of game systems to experiment with. A lot of background narrative to read up on and an impressive amount of political intrigue. It is going to be interesting to see how it fares in an open-world setting where all this groundwork can truly come to its own.
Shovel Knight
Shovel Knight is a game that dares to be difficult. It has an economy that is centered around managing what amount of risk you are willing to put yourself in, and it is brutal but fair in enforcing it.