The All Shooter is the most robust release of the year. The All Shooter is the monument to all of it’s predecessors, the cumulative achievement of every failed and successful design attempt alike to come before it. It is the first step forward to a bright gaming future, one in which The All Shooter is the final word.

The All Shooter has grappling hooks, it’s an open world game- but it has instanced segments and linear corridors. It’s an RPG, but it’s also a strategy game, it’s an immersive simulation describing every finite function of digital mass down to the faux-atomic level, it has fully developed ecosystems that react dynamically to the All Player’s presence, but exclusively for their enjoyment. It is the most difficult game, easy to play but hard to master. It is multiplayer, but it is also single-player, it is anything you want it to be. It has glory kills and executions, it has soft friendly mascots that reassure the anxiety of anyone who plays it. It has expansive levels handcrafted by the best minds the industry has to offer with lovingly detailed renderings of exotic and familiar locales, some of them are stealth missions, some of them are fetch quests, all of them are exactly what you want.

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Set within the confines of a small cottage on the coast of Britain, The Outcast Lovers is a somber follow-up to the tragic events of The Night Fisherman. After sheltering the boy who has found his way into their custody, the couple now face a crisis of conscience as they debate what to do next. Should they turn him over to the authorities, or do they take him in as their own son despite their commitment to never have children of their own?

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It is almost certain at this point that New Blood Interactive’s creative output is going to quickly dwarf our capacity for keeping up, expanding inevitably until the entire universe is wholly subsumed by New Blood Interactive games and domain names. The newest entry in this growing existential threat to our reality is Hakita’s brilliant ‘Devil May Quake’ action romp, ULTRAKILL, a wonderful FPS that feels like a distinct throwback to the less-than-tasteful BULLETSTORM with its elaborate combo mechanics and incentive to stylishly gore enemies in the most imaginative ways possible.

Where ULTRAKILL truly succeeds is in the way it incentivizes the high octane violence on display. Rushing through the bloody showers of monstrous destruction is the only way you regain health- there’s no medkits or edible wheels of cheese here, only your determination to keep it as close & personal as possible with your foes and foe accessories. Waging cosmic warfare has never been so satisfying as it is in ULTRAKILL, and the straightforward gunplay gives way to a staggering depth of technique and modular fire modes to increase its depths outside of its literal blood opera acrobatics. Oh, did I mention, there’s wall jumping, sliding, dashes, ground pounds and double-jumps, giving the player an incredible degree of movement expression that will leave enemies’ heads spinning for days, were they to ever live that long, then again their heads will just as likely spin without them.

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