Icarus for PC is a session-based survival game and – a heads up for Greek mythology fans who might otherwise be disappointed – it involves a fictional planet called Icarus: it is not about the boy who didn’t listen to his dad, Daedalus (Dadalus?) and flew too close to the sun with rather terminal consequences! About the Game The storyline is simply told: an attempt was made, a short time before the story begins, to terraform Icarus, but something went horribly wrong because the planet …
Icarus for PC is a session-based survival game and – a heads up for Greek mythology fans who might otherwise be disappointed – it involves a fictional planet called Icarus: it is not about the boy who didn’t listen to his dad, Daedalus (Dadalus?) and flew too close to the sun with rather terminal consequences!
The storyline is simply told: an attempt was made, a short time before the story begins, to terraform Icarus, but something went horribly wrong because the planet was full of ‘exotics’ – unknown substances that wreaked havoc with the terraforming process. The player’s task is to investigate the exotics for your bosses at UDA, transport them safely to Earth and, of course, sell them for a massive profit if at all possible.
You live on a space station that is orbiting the planet and are dropped down to the land once you have accepted a mission contract. Every mission has a timer, and you must return to home base before this timer runs out. Once time is up, your escape pod returns to the space station, and your character will remain on the surface, along with any power-ups and loot – permanently! (See The Nitty Gritty below for more about this.)
As with most survival games, you are given the bare minimum with which you can survive. You must use your rudimentary tools to survive, build better tools and keep yourself always improving. You have to gather all sorts of resources as well as looking for the exotic substances: oxygen, food, water, and material to construct shelters to protect you from the hostile environment. Night and day are equally hard to survive, although in different ways.
Amongst other things, you will face major weather events, such as lightning setting your camp on fire, storms pushing you off course, and the very dark nights are hard to navigate, even with a handy torch to light your way. Needless to say, the missions become more and more complex and harder to achieve as you progress.
You are supplied with nothing but an exposure suit (to prevent immediate death, which would be fun for no one!) and you must immediately set about deciding a good balance between survival and achieving your mission. The more you power up, the better abilities and crafting blueprints you can access, giving you superior tools, weapons and materials. Just remember: that countdown timer is always on!
If you make it back to the escape pod, you will keep your power-ups and blueprints, but will still start your next mission with very little in your inventory, so the endless fight for mere survival begins again too.
You work for the UDA United Development Agency, who were the people who initiated the original terra-forming project before you came onto the scene, and they do want you to return safely – but they also really want those exotics too!
You can play solo, or co-op in groups of up to eight, with both types of play comprising the above-described timed missions. A very important note is that there is permadeath in Icarus. There is also no easy out from a tricky mission that is running out of time. In other words, if you abandon a mission halfway through, the countdown timer will continue to run down and your character will be lost to you forever!
Co-op play is kinder as your teammates can revive you which allows you to keep your loot and XP (and not be permadead!) but solo players must be careful and cautious at all times. If your character does happen to die during a mission, you have to start afresh, with a new completely untrained character who must be taught and build everything from scratch. This possibility leads to some serious heart-pounding fear in the last tick-tocks of the timer!
A pro tip: whenever you are on a mission, make a point of laying down bedrolls every now and then. When you die and respawn, you will come back to your latest bedroll, and if you are very close – or very quick! – you can snatch up your dropped loot before someone else gets there. While some elements of the game are fixed: caves, lakes and so on, much of the rest of the game is procedurally generated, so you will see a new world each time you visit.
Take care of your health and stamina bars, which run down when you don’t eat, when you take damage, or when you exert yourself by, for example, mining. Seek shelter from storms too as this can also weaken you. The wildlife, transplanted from Earth, is often unhappy about it, and will attack you. And don’t spend too much time building elaborate fortifications: it will vanish like yesterday’s sea castle with the tide, in between missions!
NB: If you have played the game before and left in a fury because you didn’t know about the permadeath, it might be worth your while coming back and peeping into your character list. The developers realised that the details had been lacking, following a storm of complaints, and they resurrected a bunch of characters from the void of permadeath. The resurrected are a mixture of characters left with a running mission timer, or who died on mission.
The game was very buggy at first, but now is vastly improved, so check back in if you’re one of those who lost characters (they might be waiting for you) or if the glitching drove you away – you should have a much more pleasant experience this time around. However, don’t be tempted to leave your character in limbo: the developers say they will not be bringing any more characters back from the dead!
Icarus didn’t want to be terraformed, animals didn’t want to be transplanted to a strange place, and the exotic substances just aren’t meant for bare-skin human contact. Just about everything will kill you on Icarus including:
If in any doubt about anything: assume it will kill you or try to! It’s not paranoia if it’s true!
Icarus for PC is available for purchase on Instant Gaming for a fraction of its retail price. You will receive an official key and be able to play the game in seconds. Play smart. Pay less.
Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart
Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart for PlayStation is a third-person shooter platform game, and it is the sixteenth in the very long Ratchet and Clank series. You play as Ratchet, a Lombax –a half feline/ half humanoid foxy looking fellow – along with your robot AI companion, Clank, who hangs onto Ratchet’s back like a little metallic backpack. Lombaxes come from the planet Fastoon in the Polaris Galaxy.
The cartoony feeling game begins with Clank making a gift for Ratchet that allows them to jump through interdimensional portals. In line with the goofy cartooniness, it is called the Dimensionator! The action kicks off pretty promptly, with the villain, Dr Nefarious, who surely must have changed his name once he chose to go to the dark side, who pops up and steals it, kicking into action the characters, the story arc, and your game play.
There is also a female Lombax called Rivet (her robot companion is called Kit) who is playable for those looking for some gender diversification in their gameplay. You will play as both characters, jumping from one to the other as you jump from location to location – that is to say, some levels require Rivet, while others use Ratchet.
As well as some gender balance, there is disability representation too: Rivet has a prosthetic arm, which is handy when Clank loses an arm and isn’t dealing terribly well with his loss. She helps him to come to terms with his new look, teaching him some nifty one-armed tricks.
You battle a host of enemies, which can be great fun simply because of the variety on offer. The robot-pirates are a bit mechanical, as are the drones, but all enemies, from the dullest to the most exciting burst like juicy fireworks before vaporising into nothingness.
Taken with dinosaur skeletons clattering into nothing, those little orange heads bursting like berries and the gorgeous array of exotic colours (deep vibrant purple, electric blue, red-hot lava and gorgeously textured honey-coloured stone), combat feels rather like a celebration instead of a warzone.
Aimed at children and younger players, this game still has a good offering for adult players. Try out the various skills on easy the first time round, using grappling hooks, blasting things with lasers, unleashing a storm of bullets and mastering the jump-dash that comes in very handy later on. Make sure you pick up everything dropped by enemies and keep an eye out for bosses lurking sneakily out of sight, waiting to ambush you!
Cranking up the difficulty means that even the most experienced player will have to keep an eye on your ammo and aim a little more certainly, and this beautiful balance between ease, engagement, and challenge means that you will find that hours have flown by once you get into the ‘zen’ of the gameplay!
As you gather loot, make sure you especially keep an eye out for raritanium: as the name sounds it is rare, and therefore valuable. You will quickly get into the habit of almost absent-mindedly picking up loot dropped during battle or while you explore the game’s map.
As might be expected with child-friendly game there are some hilarious weapons to try out as well as the more traditional ones.
Icarus for PC is available for purchase on Instant Gaming for a fraction of its retail price. You will receive an official key and be able to play the game in seconds. Play smart. Pay less.
$18.93
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