LOS ANGELES – Last week’s Summer Games Festival was mostly a virtual event, filled with trailers for video games that may or may not be releasing in the next 18 months. However, with the gaming industry approaching normal for a convention preview, we’ve scored invitations to two events in early June with games to play soon.

You may have already seen the most important practical highlights of these events for me: Street Fighter 6which is wonderful, and vocal boundariesWhich is strange but promising. This article summarizes the “best of the rest,” based on hands-on testing at the Summer Game Fest Play Days event in Los Angeles and a series of telecommuting Tribeca Games Festival demos. The events have been missing some of the world’s biggest developers and publishers—arguably many of their games have been pushed into 2023. Although this list veers more to the indie side, we stand behind these game preview features thanks to their gameplay feel.

Cuphead: The last delicious course

platforms: PC, Xbox, PS4, Switch
Planned version: June 30
links: steam | Nintendo eShop | X-Box | official site

savage bullet hell Cuphead It’ll be back later this month as a $7.99 DLC bundle. If the sample head level you’ve played is any indication, this DLC is going to hit the spot for fans of the series rather than flipping a file Cuphead inverted formula.

A new playable character Mrs. Chalice is available as a “magic” that a single player can equip at any time, and comes with a few beginner-friendly perks, including an extra health point, double jump, a parry that doubles as a forward dash, and somersaults that add a few frames of invulnerability . Her new abilities weren’t necessarily necessary in the new boss battle she played – despite being pretty bad CupheadI still struggled with the three phases of combat, which included a sudden transition to rotating floating platforms (I think Super Mario WorldSecond Battle of Reznor).

It’s available in a new campaign that Executive Producer Marija Moldenhauer told Ars is comparable to the original game’s third island – which featured seven bosses and two platforming levels. Moldenhauer says the downloadable content will feature six bosses, which she insists are more sophisticated and complex than the standard game selection, but won’t say what the additional content will contain.

Moldenhauer also says that DLC includes nearly as many hand-drawn backgrounds and animation frames as the entire standard. Cuphead Campaign. This could mean that boss fights that I haven’t played yet are getting more intense or that another huge platformer challenge is coming. Either way, the $7.99 appears to be a must-have DLC option for anyone who has already invested in it. CupheadMeticulously hand-drawn 2D action.

F1 2022

platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4
Planned version: 28 June
links: epic | PSN | X-Box | official site

EA and Codemasters hosted a file F1 2022 View gameplay to show off the series’ latest feature: Virtual Reality Racing. The site’s Codemasters producers confirmed that the mental trust collected in the studio had matured enough to add a VR mode to it. F1Thanks to the contributions of those who worked on VR modes in Dirt Rally And the Driveclub VR. (Evolution Studios did the latter before it was acquired by Codemasters in 2016).

Game Maker Booth Collection by Fanatec CSL DD F1 Package With the Quest 2 VR headset. In good news, the result strikes the right balance between accuracy and performance, along with considerations for VR comfort on the go. F1– Deserving. The only exception to the relief came from the moments when the game’s particle-filled clouds filled the display of gameplay, causing my headset’s framerate to falter. This problem usually arose after a stick-slip when I’m driving all the driving aids disabled; When I based the game’s optional F1-for-dummies mode, all help, F1 2022 Felt like a great carnival ride.

Codemasters didn’t have much to show for it F1 2022 In SGF, but the drive was fun enough to get me excited to play VR mode on my PC when it launches on June 28.

animal well

platforms: PS5, PC
Planned version: early 2023
links: steam | PSN | official site

At some point, the over-saturation of indie “adventure quest” games (otherwise known as “Metroidvanias”) should take its course, right? What can anyone else do to top the highly acclaimed Likes Hollow NightAnd the Axiom VergeAnd the Cave story?

While I’m not immediately convinced animal well Beating the greats of the genre, the hour-long demo piqued my interest quite a bit. First, it has beautiful new ideas for rendering pixel art, thanks to the designer, programmer, and only artist who built the game engine from scratch – and condensed the entire package so far down to 10MB. The lighting and physics models in the game are some of the most impressive I’ve ever seen in a 16-bit aesthetic, and probably go beyond the pixel chemical reaction frenzy Noita.

Plus, this adventure contains clever ideas on how to skip the fight altogether. animal well Players are asked to focus on challenging maneuvers, solve puzzles, and discover the hidden path as they uncover puzzles that conceal their lack of dialogue. Instead of using weapons, the 8-pixel hero point should make the most of items like fireworks – which cast light effects on the 2D world while scaring potential enemies – and a useful whip that can be thrown into cracks to grab something untouchable. . world elements.

Snappy controls and other pixel art designs made my experience experimental with animal well Memorable so far, I’m looking forward to its final release (currently linked to the mysterious ‘Early 2023’ window).