Category: Video Games

There certainly weren’t many flaws to shine a shaky flashlight beam on in Alan Wake II, but one thing I did lament in 2023’s excellent survival horror sequel was the total absence of Night Springs episodes on the in-game televisions. These quirky, Twilight Zone-inspired tales were a consistent joy to discover in Alan Wake’s original 2010 adventure, so to find them seemingly off the air as though they were the casualties of some sort of in-game writers’ strike was a touch disappointing. The good news is that the series has returned in a now fully-playable form thanks to the Alan Wake II: Night Springs DLC, which serves up three standalone stories that take us back to the small town of Bright Falls and beyond. They’re admittedly a little on the short side since I was able to knock all three episodes over in a single two-hour sitting, but I certainly had a blast with these twisted new nightmares while they lasted.

Night Springs’ first episode, Number One Fan, is definitely both the goofiest and goriest in the collection, allowing us to play as obsessive Alan Wake fan Rose Marigold as she waits tables in Bright Falls’ Oh Deer Diner. This action-heavy installment begins with Rose topping up coffee cups and clearing away pie crumb-covered plates, but she’s soon compelled to blaze a trail through a bloodthirsty mob after she’s sent an SOS from Alan Wake himself, who’s apparently been kidnapped. How does she receive this request for help? Via an unexpected transmission through the puckered maw of one of those wall-mounted Big Mouth Billy Bass singing fishes that thousands of disappointed dads unwrapped on Fathers Day in the year 2000. Yep, things in Night Springs are enjoyably off-kilter almost from the very outset.

Number One Fan completely strips the survival component out of Alan Wake II by strapping a fully automatic shotgun to Rose’s shoulder and lining the pockets of her apron with an almost limitless supply of shells. The whole episode takes place during the magic hour shortly before sunset so none of the enemies are cloaked in shadowy shields, and therefore there’s no need to burn the darkness away with a battery-hungry flashlight before you can dispatch them. Instead, the combat in Number One Fan swaps the series’ signature light-based fights for more high tempo running and gunning. Although its crunchy gunplay may be more straightforward, it still manages to be an ultra violent delight thanks to the campy ‘50s rock music that propels it and the cutesy quips that Rose spouts with each axe-wielding maniac she mulches – like she’s a pump-action-toting Princess Peach. Night Springs’ first episode kicks the collection off with a concussive sequence of skull-shattering bangs in Rose’s relentlessly entertaining and revved up rescue mission.

Guest Side Story

The second episode, North Star, slows the pace down considerably as you plunge into the inkiest depths of darkness you’d expect from an Alan Wake adventure. I was initially thrilled to step back into the shoes of Jesse Faden from Control here, however my enthusiasm took a bit of a hit when I realised that she hadn’t brought her amazing shape-shifting gun and spectacular suite of superpowers from the 2019 action epic along with her. Still, this midnight stalk through the creepy Coffee World theme park featured in Alan Wake II’s main campaign successfully ratchets up the tension after the comparatively carefree murder spree of the previous episode, arming Jesse with a flashlight and regular, non-transforming pistol as she is pit against the same spooky silhouettes that had me nervously shooting at shadows in last year’s game.

North Star is also the more puzzle-oriented of the episodes featured here, and I enjoyed cracking keypad codes and manipulating the mechanical controls of a ferris wheel during this brief investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Jesse’s brother. Still, I can’t help but feel that of the three episodes included in Night Springs, this second one is the least remarkable. It fails to leverage the jaw-dropping skill set of its guest star, and a lot of what transpires in it feels like well-made but fairly standard survival horror fare. This whole second episode effectively went down like a hot beverage from the Coffee World concession stand – stimulating enough, but it also left me with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.

Serling Silver

Thankfully, Night Springs’ third and final episode, Time Breaker, is the best and boldest of the bunch and rounds out this collection in the most mind-bendingly meta way possible. Here we’re cast as the real-world actor Shawn Ashmore, who we find reprising his role as Sheriff Breaker from Alan Wake II in a brand new game being directed by developer Remedy Entertainment’s creative director, Sam Lake. During a break in production and after a hilarious moment with Lake giving an extremely self-aware and exhaustingly acronym-heavy explanation of his new game’s plot, Ashmore is blinked into another time and space by Night Springs’ Rod Serling stand-in and multiversal maestro, Mr. Door.

What follows is a surreal string of sequences through ominous forest paths and disorientating hotel corridor loops, psychedelically shifting from the monochrome presentation of early television to the vivid colours of comic book paneling that seem to intentionally mirror Remedy’s past work on the Max Payne series. To say anything more would be to spoil too much, but there are some excellent story surprises and left-turn level designs to be found here that rival the most outside-of-the-box moments from the main Alan Wake II campaign, and it meant that Night Springs finished on a thoroughly hypnotic high note that left me wanting more.

Action game aficionados have been well-fed in the recent past with games like Stellar Blade and Sekiro, but based on a new hands-on gameplay demo at Summer Games Fest, it looks like Phantom Blade 0 will stand up with the leaders in the genre.

Aside from a short tutorial, the demo does not take much time setting things up, preferring to leap right into the action. The main character, Soul, is given two main weapons to switch between at first: a pair of short swords and one longer katana. This switching mechanic does not just change playstyle and reach, but allows Soul to regain their stamina bar immediately to continue their combo and scratch away at the enemy lifebar.

In addition to these offensive weapons, the protagonist is given defensive options in the form of both parries and dodges. As per action game tradition, parries break down the enemy’s wearwithal to open them up for a combo opportunity. Dodges, meanwhile, help you avoid enemy attacks that either cannot be parried or might be too difficult to try.

Where this comes into play is PBZ’s playstyle. Approaching it more like a Souls game is absolute folly, as that patience-driven, opportunity-seizing gameplay will end up earning a quick and unnecessary death to enemies that will get to those opportunities first. Instead, Phantom Blade Zero rewards a hyper-aggressive playstyle in order to make those defensive options shine.

Meanwhile, enemies are largely made up of warriors of similar size to Soul, suffering very little in the way of knockback to individual attacks. Combos with the pair of short swords will not stop an enemy intent on hurting Soul from completing their attack, but constantly hammering them with it will chip away as you switch weapons, dodge, and parry a path to victory. In this way, Phantom Blade 0 has more in common with something like Ninja Gaiden Black than games on the From Software spectrum, putting an emphasis on relentless attacks to outclass Soul’s opponents.

The art style is described by the developers at S-Game as “China Punk,” taking classical Chinese mythos and environments and combining them with modern sensibilities. The technical prowess on display so far indicates that PBZ will be able to reach those lofty goals with the final version and impress on a visual level.

The Summer Games Fest demo I played featured three small sections with increasingly difficult bosses. In the first, a cliffside fort featuring some warriors and archers needed to be defeated in order to move on. There are a number of options for taking them out, including using one Soul’s projectile weapons like a bow or a big handheld dragon mouth laser. Footholds and paths can also lead up to them, preventing Soul from being buffeted by arrows any further.

Defeating the boss, Tie Sha the Frenzy, is the first real test of skill in the demo and it demands a degree of understanding the parrying concept before moving on. Proper dodging and parrying can take care of Tie Sha quickly, but slipping up might make the battle more difficult to regain the momentum.

After Tie Sha, the demo moves Soul to another level where he encounters the second boss fight available: the alliteratively named Commander Cleave. This larger boss unsurprisingly wields a cleaver sword that tears through Soul’s defenses, so proper timing is paramount. He also has a fair bit of health and defensive options of his own, making him feel like the first real skill test of the demo.

Upon defeating Commander Cleave, the final challenge is presented: a one-on-one fight against Huangxing, the Sunken Pillar of Kunlun. Huangxing presents the hardest battle of the demo by being aggressive, having wildly damaging attacks, and being hard to predict. His one-hit kill, a move where he swings a basket around and lands it on Soul’s head to decapitate him, can only be avoided by staggering him with heavy weapons or leaping off a pillar in the room to dodge it.

The best way to stagger him turned out to be using a weapon received from Commander Cleave, his trademark cleaver, and start comboing Huangxing with the knives and switching to the cleaver for a big transitional hit. Beating the hulking warrior is not easy, but it is definitely satisfying.

What wasn’t in the demo, though, was any level design. Dropping directly into combat areas and bosses meant there was no space to look around and figure out the structure between fights. While Phantom Blade Zero absolutely nails its controls and the fighting feels fast and frantic, the unknown questions still leave more puzzle pieces to be filled in. Based on what has been shown so far, however, S-Game’s newest action offering is swinging for the fences and has a good chance of succeeding.