Directive 8020 (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £45) receives a verdict of choosing your own space-death and a star rating of 4 out of 5. What do you get if you cross the alien from the Alien movies with the thing from The Thing? The answer is Directive 8020, a game in which a malevolent monster assumes the forms of a spaceship’s crew members and spreads through them one by one. Though it should be said that any similarities are entirely intentional.
The makers of Directive 8020, Supermassive Games, have built their reputation on games that play with old horror movie tropes. They have done slashers, ghost ships, and witches. Now it is the turn of spooky sci-fi. In space, no one can hear you scream: Directive 8020 has echoes of the Alien films, as an unidentified monster aboard a space ship picks off crew members one by one.
If you have played any of those previous games, such as 2015’s Until Dawn or 2022’s The Quarry, this one will be mighty familiar. Once again, it is part digitised movie, part choose-your-own-adventure book. More or less recognisable actors – including, in this case, film and TV’s Lashana Lynch – are led through a story by the decisions you make.
Directive 8020 does feel like the slickest of these games, though. There is an assuredness to its staging and pacing that is surely born of Supermassive’s now-considerable experience in this medium. Its motion-captured performances are, technologically speaking, best in class. And it does try some new things with the form. Sneaky-crawly stealth sections have been added so that Directive 8020 is more than just one conversational choice after another.
Famous face: Lashana Lynch (No Time To Die) is one of the actors lending their talents to new sci-fi video game Directive 8020. Who can you trust? In Directive 8020, set on a space ship where a shape-shifting alien stalks crew members, the answer is nobody. The gameplay in these sections is not revolutionary – and, certainly, it has got nothing on proper stealth titles like, say, 2014’s Alien: Isolation – but it breaks up the texture nicely enough.
In fact, by the time I had finished the eight hours of Directive 8020, I was left wishing for something that Supermassive has not really done before: a direct sequel.
Wax Heads (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £11.99)
Verdict: On repeat. Star rating: 3 out of 5. You would have to be mad to run a record store. Various weirdos coming through your door each day to demand that you change their lives with a perfectly selected album. No, thanks. Or at least that is how it seems in Wax Heads, a game that casts you as the new junior employee at a cool and thriving shop in some graffitied part of town. You literally have to open the front door each morning and then sell your wares to a surprisingly demanding public. Then on to the next day. And the next.
In a way, there is not much more to say. That really is the gameplay loop of Wax Heads. The recommending of albums is its own little puzzle. You listen to what the customer wants, maybe decipher some contextual clues from how they are dressed or what they are carrying, then pick something off the shelves accordingly. The main challenge comes from the customer not always being right – and you knowing better than they do what will rock their world.
In between, there is some light chat with your colleagues. The music of life: Wax Heads is the story of an indie record shop...the people who work there, and the surprisingly demanding customers who come through the door every day. And the story, such as there is one, involves getting to the bottom of the breakup that befell your boss’s once-famous punk band. It is all told through eye-catching art that reminded me of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim comics. Which is certainly pleasant enough.
There was not a moment in Wax Heads when I was not charmed, but there were some moments when it all felt rather repetitive and stretched too thinly across its half-dozen hours. I am sure it would work better at half the length. Or, in record store lingo, if it were an EP rather than an LP.
Saros (PlayStation, £69.99)
Verdict: Return to Returnal. Star rating: 4 out of 5. Sometimes, the clue is in the name. And if you are a space colonist moving to a planet named ‘Carcosa', you have got to expect a whole lot of trouble – because Carcosa is, in our own world’s horror literature, the realm of the terrible King in Yellow. And so it proves. The first expedition to this planet has fallen radio silent. It is up to you, in Saros, to find out what happened – as well as deal with all the various other mysteries, madness and monsters around you.
Saros is the latest game from the makers of 2021’s Returnal, and it is very much a returnal to the same well. It has got the same ‘roguelite’ structure, where you struggle on as far as you can, inevitably come a cropper to some nasty beastie, then start all over again with greater knowledge of what lies ahead. It has got the same challenging combat, in which you are dodging between projectiles launched by your enemies. It has got the same sepulchral tone.
But if that makes Saros sound lazy, rest assured: it is not. There is much here that is a refinement of the Returnal formula – with some new additions, too. The die-and-try-again setup is a little more forgiving, which means that it is also less dispiriting. While your character Arjun’s forcefield-style shields add new levels of strategy to each punishing combat encounter. Oh, and then there is Carcosa itself. For all the horrors in its shadows, this is one of the most beautiful, most memorable locations in recent gaming. Just do not book a one-way flight out there if you are a space colonist.
