While I've my issues with Amazon's global mega-monopoly, I can't deny that the monthly sack of games that Twitch gives out to Amazon Prime subscribers is an oft-impressive bunch. This month more impressive than most - it's a bundle of Devolver Digital's best, including Broforce, both Hotline Miami games, Strafe (much improved by updates), Crossing Souls, The Swords of Ditto and recently lauded ninja platformer The Messenger. You can grab a month of Prime (even the free trial) and once it lapses you get to keep the games, to be launched through the Twitch desktop app.
Update: Until December 31st, Twitch Prime also gives you the SNK Bundle, Hacknet: Complete Edition, Smoke & Sacrifice and Poi, all of which you get copies for yourself to keep and a spare to give to friends. The Devolver pack doesn't come with extra gifts, but is available until January 31st.
]]>Crossing Souls gets off to such a great start. It immediately looks vividly beautiful, a gorgeous splash of pixels and colour, incredibly detailed scenes that would only look less elaborate, less refined, if they were depicted in a more updated graphical style. Then it goes head-first into nostalgia-poking happy places, a story of kids starting an adventure on the first day of the impossibly long summer holidays.
Or you could say: Crossing Souls, a game that grows steadily worse the more you play, immediately beginning by ticking off every tropey 1980s reference one by one, as it introduces its stereotypical gang of kids in a cavalcade of ‘80s movie clichés, grabbing hold of the very tip of Stranger Things’ coattails.
It would very much depend upon how cynical you were feeling. Both are true.
]]>When it comes to crowdfunded indie games, patience is a virtue that is often well rewarded. Kickstarted back in 2014, we've had our beady eyes on Crossing Souls for a long time, and it looks just as tempting now as it did then.
After a lengthy development cycle, the game launches next week on February 13th, but to ease potentially skeptical players into its quirky world of movie-inspired 80s nostalgia, developers Fourattic have released a generously portioned demo to both Steam and GOG.
]]>It feels like so much has happened in the world since we first saw Crossing Souls, an ambitious 80s-tinged action adventure about a band of mismatched tweenage kids thrust from a life of small-town suburban normality into fighting against a dangerous government conspiracy to control a parallel dimension and the powers it holds.
For starters, we've had two seasons of Stranger Things.
Not dissuaded by the Duffer Bros' totally biting their style, Spanish studio Fourattic have been grinding away quietly after their mildly successful Kickstarter. Now paired with publisher Devolver, they're ready for the game to be seen again, and have a new trailer for us, along with a firm release date on February 13th.
]]>Did you know? In the past, things were not quite the same as the present. The music was different! The clothes were different! Tellies were a different shape! Children were only ever to be found either on bicycles or at the local arcade! Cartoons were good-natured romps full of ultimately harmless monsters and unabashed toy promotion, in which no-one ever got hurt and everyone had a nice laugh at the end! Everything was better in the past, even though we didn't have MP3s or the ability to inject microchips into our pets.
Crossing Souls wants to be one of those cheerful, colourful cartoons, in which kids from an everyday American town are transported away to fantastic adventures, presented as a Zeldalike, as is now Indie Law.
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