CHENNAI: The promised month of November has finally arrived. The PS5 releases, everyone is looking forward to Watch Dogs: Le gion, Assassins’ Creed Valhalla, and Spider-man: Miles Morales (and Cyberpunk 2077). Three huge titles, asking for several hundred hours of our time, and perhaps even more processing power.
As a kindred spirit who understands the investment it requires to remain voguish in videogame circles, I scoped for alternates. I wanted to be your champion, pull a wonderful game out of a hat (in this case, Steam labs), and present it to you as your cheap and easily accessible new-age game. You would be FOMO, no mo. This week, the cards showed me Helltaker.
It is a free-to-play puzzle game where you must measure your steps and walk through the punishing lands or explode. It is a cutesy game which should be playable on your phones, but it is not (only PC, available on Steam). Do you know which other game cannot be played on your phones? Watch Dogs: Legion. As an open-world game, Legion does not restrict your movements.
In fact, you can have multiple playable characters in the game. It is hard to concentrate on the funny nuances of hell in Helltaker, when you know that Legion is set in the more palatable city of London. Do you know which other game is set in the realistic landscape of a real-world city? Spider-man: Miles Morales. I keep thinking about how Spider-man zip across zip codes with ease, while Helltaker cannot jump over a single block of stone.
In Helltaker, you get to kick skeletons and talk to demons. Sadly, the distraction lasts only a few hours. That’s not nearly enough time to keep occupied through New Games November. Knowing that Assassins’ Creed Valhalla is bringing back the social stealth option from the previous games, and multiple new enemy archetypes — makes it even harder to enjoy the light puzzles of Helltaker.
This New Games November makes any possible alternate we could play pale in comparison. My failure as a champion of the kindred spirit was inevitable. The best we can do is bash monsters, let the yearn burn in the hellfire in Helltaker, till a fun streamer does a live playthrough of Legion, Valhalla and Miles Morales.
Anusha Ganapathi
@quaffle_waffle
(This economics graduate spends her leisure time preparing for the zombie apocalypse)