Now Playing: No, I’m not a Human

I first played No, I’m not a Human as a demo during a Steam Next Fest last year, attracted to the unique visual style and intriguing concept. The idea is that something has gone ‘wrong’ with the sun, forcing everyone to stay indoors during the day. And at the same time, mysterious ‘Visitors’ have begun to appear, clawing their way out from beneath the ground.

The Visitors are violent and dangerous, seemingly intent purely on killing. They can mimic humans and attempt to persuade you – a hermit living in a small home on the outskirts of a town – to let them in. Every night you’ll hear knocks at your door and you’ll have to decide to let whoever is outside in or not.

You might think – well, why let anyone in at all? But there’s a scripted Visitor who appears regularly across the 13 days and nights of the game and will immediately enter and kill you if you’re alone. In fact, there’s a fair number of scripted interactions within the game. Whilst many of the characters you encounter are randomised, some are always scheduled to appear on exactly the same nights. Some are always human and some are always Visitors.

Most though, as I said, are randomised, so you can never be quite sure who will show up and who will be a Visitor or not. Just because one character was human in one playthrough, doesn’t mean they will be in the next. As you progress you’ll learn different ways to test your new house guests and if you suspect any of them are a Visitor you can immediately pull out a gun and blow them to pieces. But you won’t know for sure until you pull the trigger.

If they’re a Visitor, the game will let you know with a jump-scare style flash. If you made a mistake and they’re human, they just die. In some ways, I feel like it would be more interesting if you didn’t know for sure because at its heart, this is a game about paranoia. It’s a bit like ‘The Thing’ in which you begin to suspect everyone – even yourself.

You have limited ‘energy’ each day so you might not be able to test everyone to your satisfaction, although there are ways to boost and increase this. Visitors will target and kill humans in your home, increasing that sense of paranoia when you think you’ve tested everyone and are sure they’re all human, only to wake up and find someone dead.

Because those tests aren’t always totally accurate and that also plays into the sense of paranoia but also the idea of being manipulated by media and the Government, which is represented by FEMA who send a regular operative to your door to take people away for ‘testing’ and who broadcast televised updates regarding Visitor ‘signs’.

Neighbour turns on neighbour. Society breaks down. Innocent people die. The game doesn’t lean as hard into these angles as I’d like. As I said in my post on the demo, I feel like the game is more interesting in concept than in execution but nevertheless, it remains an engaging and intriguing and certainly a unique experience.

You can ‘complete’ No, I’m not a Human in about an hour or so, maybe shorter if you get killed early on but the game is designed for multiple runs so you can meet and explore the fairly large cast of weird characters who show up at your door. There are also multiple endings to unlock based on your actions and choices throughout the game.

Some are rather convoluted to say the least. Some are downright bizarre and silly. But given you can run through the game so quickly, you don’t mind doing so in order to see all the weird and wonderful outcomes it has to offer.

Visually the game has a striking and unique style both for environments and characters. There’s no VA, it’s all text based but it looks and sounds good. I’m still working my way through the game, exploring different options to see how things play out and I’m enjoying my time doing so. It’s a game I’d recommend if you’re looking for something a little out of the ordinary.

7/10

Marathon (BETA)

I can’t say I’m particularly interested in ‘extraction shooters’ and I wasn’t expecting Marathon to change that. But when it had an open beta recently (or ‘Server Slam’ as they called it) I figured it was worth a punt. You play as a ‘Runner’ who travels to the world of Tau Ceti IV to scavenge from the ruins of a derelict colony.

You can play solo (how I played) or with two friends. You choose your ‘shell’ which is essentially your class, each of which has a distinct visual style and a couple of unique special abilities. You then equip your gear and load into the map. Your goal is to loot what you can, complete any contracts you can and then extract from the map alive. If you die, you lose everything you’re carrying.

It’s not a gameplay loop I find particularly exciting and as I said, I didn’t expect Marathon to change that. I played the beta for about an hour and a half, completing several ‘runs’ and successfully extracting alive all but once. I killed a couple of other players I encountered – more on that later – but only died on a single run when I ran out of ammo fighting several robots.

The colony isn’t deserted but full of ‘UESC’ security droids who happily shoot on sight. Engaging them is risky for two reasons – one, it might alert other players to your location and two, it consumes your resources (ammo, health and shields) that might be needed if you encounter said other players.

Although if you do, given that the ‘shells’ themselves kind of look like robots, the first time I killed a player I just thought it was another NPC! I actually felt a little bad about it because I’m not sure they were hostile! The same thing happened with the second, who shot at me first and I assumed it was another security bot. I killed them, took their stuff and extracted. I didn’t feel so bad about that one!

The stuff you collect ranges from gear (weapons, ammo, equipment) to materials needed to trade for items, to currency, to junk that you can sell for more currency. You’ll likely have to spend some time figuring out what each category of item is, how valuable it is, and if it’s worth picking up – because your inventory space is limited, so you won’t be able to keep everything you find.

You have an active inventory that you take into the map with you and a ‘vault’ where you can store whatever you want to keep / are too afraid to lose. Aside from the simple loop of enter, loot and extract, there are ‘contracts’ to accept from the different factions vying for power on Tau Ceti IV. These are somewhat randomised missions along the lines of ‘kill X amount of enemies’ or ‘scan X location’.

There is a ‘story’ of sorts, told via these contracts and within the world itself through item descriptions and the environment. Does it really matter though? Eh, probably not! Visually, I really like the way Marathon looks. I like the style and the architecture but I also feel like it’s a potential weakness for the game going forward.

Even with my limited time with Marathon, every location on the map seemed to blur together. No area felt unique. It felt like I was traversing the same rooms, hallways and walkways no matter where I went and even though I like the way the game looked, I didn’t see the visual variety I’d need to keep me engaged. The enemies also all look very similar – at least the ones I encountered did.

And the UI? The UI is an absolute nightmare. I got the hang of using it fairly quickly, but none of it felt intuitive. It always felt like I was fighting against it. It’s just so . . . busy and muddled. When you have a full backpack of items on a run it looks like a convoluted mess of different colours and weird icons, a lot of which all look the same. The menu system is also pretty terrible.

I don’t see Marathon flopping at release the way other live service games have recently but it’s also hard to see how the long term player engagement will pan out. Even though Marathon isn’t my thing, there’s clearly a solid enough game here for fans of the genre, but I’m not sure there’s enough variety or hook here to keep them coming back. Not yet, at least. I’m curious to see how this one does. I won’t be picking it up, but I never expected to.

Now Playing: RV There Yet?

RV There Yet? Is a co-op focused game in which you (and up to three friends) are tasked with driving an RV across a map from point A to point B. And that’s it. That’s the game. I’ve seen it affectionately (and sometimes not so affectionately) referred to as ‘friend-slop’ because it’s a cheap and cheerful little game targeted at people who want . . . a cheap and cheerful little game to play with friends.

And that’s exactly why I bought two copies in the Winter Sale, one for me, another for a friend so we had something new to try after clocking 300 hours or so in Phasmophobia together. Whilst it is technically possible to play RV There Yet? solo, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it. This is very much a game where the majority of your fun comes from interacting with your friends within the sandbox provided. I imagine that trying to play it on your own would probably be a rather miserable and dull experience.

At the time of writing there are two maps available to drive across with your friends and I’m currently working my way through the second and having a great time doing so. And I hope we get more maps in the future too, because despite the simplicity (and silliness) of the concept, there’s certainly room to expand and improve.

Getting from A to B on each map is obviously not as simple as it might sound. Along the way you’ll encounter all kinds of obstacles in your path that will require team work and coordination to navigate – from broken bridges to water hazards to angry bears – there is a very mild puzzle aspect to the game as you try to figure out the best path forward, and there is some light optional exploration as you explore various structures along the way to collect materials or cosmetic items.

Your RV is both incredibly fragile yet incredibly resilient at the same time. You might reverse accidentality into a tree and see your entire roof fall off, but you might also accidentality drive off a bridge, plunge into a steep ravine, land upside down and still be able to get out, flip the RV over and drive away. Your RV has a health bar that lowers with each knock you take, leading to pieces of it falling away.

Your engine can also take damage and your wheels can come off. But with the right tools and an abundance of scrap you can repair as you go and keep the old girl running. If the RV does take excessive damage it will be destroyed, restarting you at your last checkpoint. These are at various service stations you’ll encounter as you traverse the map where you’ll also find randomised items to help you on your way.

The physics in RV There Yet? make little sense but there is an important degree of consistency to them. You can use a winch to drag the RV up steep hills or swing it 90 degrees around sharp bends. It’s best not to take it too seriously and just enjoy how silly it all is. You play as short, dumpy (yet shockingly resilient and strong) little dudes who can drink, smoke and eat burgers whilst wearing various silly hats and glasses. There’s a fair degree of interaction with the world, items and each other meaning you can dick around as you drive.

Visually the game looks nice. It’s going for a simple, clean, colourful style that should run just fine even on low-spec systems. Oh, and the last stretch of the first map was a wonderfully fun little surprise. I won’t spoil it!

Overall, RV There Yet? might be ‘friend slop’ but it’s also a very fun and enjoyable co-op game that you’ll easily get a good twenty or so hours out of if you play through both maps – and maybe more if we get more maps in the future. At only 6 quid you really can’t go wrong with it. Just remember – it’s about the journey, not the destination.

7/10

Sony State of Play 2026

There were a few things that caught my eye at the recent Sony State of Play, so I thought I’d write a quick post covering them. Once again, it’s pretty irritating how Sony chooses not to list all of the platforms these games are coming to. In the case of stuff like Marathon it really makes no sense to me! Given how many live service games flop hard at release these days, and given Marathon’s own troubled development, you’d think they’d want everyone to know exactly when and WHERE they can play it! But no! As for Marathon itself – it looks fine, but not really my thing. I might give it a try if there’s an open beta though.

Kena: Scars of Kosmora! I enjoyed Kena: Bridge of Spirits quite a bit when I reviewed it back in 2023 and I said in that review: ‘I’d actually be interested in a more expanded sequel. I feel like there’s a much bigger and more complex game to be built upon here especially if it leans harder on the Pikmin angle.’ Well, it does look like we’re getting a bigger and more complex game, but I was disappointed by the lack of ‘rot’ companions which were such a fun aspect of the original and one of the key ways I wanted to see a potential sequel expand and improve.

Because the rot were a little Pikmin-like and we don’t have enough games leaning into that angle. Instead, it looks like you get a new (singular) creature companion. It also looks like there’s more NPC stuff where, once again, I kind of liked the original for the ‘everyone is already dead’ vibe. So I’m certainly interested in this sequel, but I’m also hoping that the game doesn’t lose the unique charm, atmosphere, mechanics or tight focus of the original. Because bigger is not always better!

Ghost of Yotei is getting a new Legends multiplayer mode, although no word yet on a PC release, but given how disappointed I was by Ghost of Tsushima, I can’t say what I’ve seen of Yotei makes me very interested in picking it up when it does. It reminds me too much of the other big Sony sequels I’ve not played yet – Ragnarok & Spider-Man 2 – where it just looks like more of the same without really addressing my issues with the original.

Speaking of sequels not really addressing my issues with the original we have Death Stranding 2! I liked the original enough when I reviewed it in 2021, even though I kind of wanted to punch it as it slowly descended into self-indulgent nonsense towards the very end. Now the sequel is coming to PC and . . . I’m just not sure I have the patience for it!

There was another trailer for Pragmata which I played a demo of recently on Steam. It was okay, I guess, but even during the demo I found the hacking mini-game you need to do for *every* enemy a little grating. Also from Capcom, another trailer for Resident Evil: Requiem which I’m hoping will be better than Village which I was pretty disappointed by when I reviewed it back in 2022!

A new Dead or Alive game was announced. I don’t think I’ve played one since the Dreamcast days and to be honest, I think I mostly played it for the jiggle! We also got a new look at Control: Resonant – another sequel! I reviewed the original in 2021 and enjoyed it a fair bit but Resonant looks like quite a change in direction. I’m not totally sold on it yet, mostly because it stars Dylan who I described in my review of Control as a ‘an irritating, unlikeable weirdo’, but I am intrigued. One to keep an eye on!

And finally we had another look at Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls which is still looking great, but I’m curious to see how extensive the single player content is because that’s all I’m really interested in.

Now Playing: Dispatch

Dispatch is an episodic adventure game in which you play as Robert Robertson AKA ‘Mecha Man’ a superhero without superpowers. When his mech suit is destroyed in a battle against the supervillain Shroud, Robert agrees to take a desk job at the LA branch of the ‘Superhero Dispatch Network’ to act as a dispatcher – someone who guides a team of heroes through various missions across the city providing advice, intel and hacking support.

Robert finds himself landed with the Z-team, which is comprised entirely of reformed (mostly) supervillains as part of the Phoenix Program. He has to earn not just their trust but also their respect if he’s going to turn this team of misfits and f**k-ups into a team of actual heroes – and maybe a (dysfunctional) little family too.

I first played Dispatch as a demo during a Next Fest last year and was intrigued by the concept but concerned by the gameplay aspect. This is very much a ‘Telltale’ style experience in the sense that as the episodes progress (8 in all) you’ll make choices big and small that determine how the scenes and the game as a whole plays out. And like those older Telltale games, most of those choices aren’t really important no matter how many ‘X character will remember that’ messages pop up in the corner of your screen.

There are some choices, however, that do have a big impact on how things progress – one involves choosing who to cut from your team early on, the other on who to replace them with. And I’d say it’s worth playing through Dispatch at least twice so you can see how things change based on those choices. And then we have the romance angle in which Robert can pursue a relationship with two other characters (or neither, depending upon how you feel) although I’d say the game is clearly pushing you more towards one character than the other.

Most of ‘playing’ Dispatch is just you sitting back and watching it. There are (optional) QTE moments, mostly reserved for the bigger action scenes but honestly, I turned them off after I played through the game once because I found them annoying and distracting. You might get a slightly different scene if you miss a bunch of prompts but – as I discovered when I tested it by deliberately missing several in a row – the game continues regardless and the outcome is the same. My advice – turn them off and just enjoy the animation.

Because Dispatch looks fantastic. Great style, great animation, colourful, fun, like watching an (adult) Saturday morning cartoon. It’s also very funny and very well written. You’ll come to like and care about these characters and become invested in the story as it unfolds. A game like this just wouldn’t work without strong writing and characters and I’m pleased to say that Dispatch delivers the goods.

In fact, I liked it so much that I wanted more and that’s my main criticism of Dispatch – just how short it is. Each episode lasts about 40 minutes and I feel like there’s a lot more they could have done with this story and these characters. And I’m sure they wanted to – because this is a new game from a new studio and I have no doubts they would have have done a lot more if they could.

So let’s talk about the core gameplay of Dispatch – the actual dispatching job you do as Robert as you assign your team of heroes to various missions as they pop up on a map of the city. It’s very simple but it’s also surprisingly engaging and fun figuring out what hero (or heroes) to send based on their unique skills or stats.

As they complete missions they level up and you can spec them how you prefer. Each hero also has special abilities that activate depending upon the situation, and you can unlock new ones by assigning them to training missions that appear as you progress. Some missions involve a simple stat check to succeed, whilst others can be completed by using character specific skills – provided you sent the right hero for the job.

There’s also a ‘hacking’ mini-game that you’ll be required to play at times, but it’s very simple and a bit boring – especially on a repeat play. Once you understand how the dispatch system works it becomes pretty easy to ace each shift. These shifts tie various story events together and you get some fun banter back and forth between you and your team as you play. It’s not overly complex or deep but it’s something more substantial than just picking dialogue choices and I quite enjoyed all the dispatch segments, limited though they are.

Overall, Dispatch is an excellent narrative driven adventure game. Be aware that this is a game you’ll be watching more than actually playing, but if you miss the Telltale style experience then this offers something very similar but with a level of production value and polish the Telltale games never quite had. Fun, funny and engaging, I hope we get a sequel because it’s left me wanting more.

8/10

X-Box Developer Direct 2026

Another year, another great Developer Direct. First up was Forza Horizon 6 AKA ‘Shut up and take my money.gif’. Seriously though, this looks fantastic and I’ll be there day 1. I loved Forza Horizon 5 (which was my entry into the series) clocking nearly 200 hours.

I love the setting, and I really like the ‘you’re a nobody’ approach when it comes to the Festival. The building stuff doesn’t really interest me that much, but it might be fun to tinker with. Just give me lots of cool cars and races and a great map to explore and I’ll be happy.

Next up was Beast of Reincarnation which looked pretty interesting when it was first revealed last year but this showing left me feeling a little cold. It’s not that what I saw looked bad, more that it looked rather . . . derivative, I guess? Like the game was cobbling together lots of stuff I’ve already seen and played in other games – from visuals, to combat, to story and stetting, to music.

That said, there are some aspects of the combat that do look fun – utilising your wolf companion and triggering combined / support attacks for example. I also like that there’s a guy called ‘Brad’. This is still one I’ll keep an eye on.

Kiln was the surprise addition to the Direct and is a multiplayer focused game about creating and fighting with . . . pots? Okay, this really isn’t for me . . . and honestly, I’m not really sure who it’s for. It does look like fun, I can’t deny that. It’s colourful and weird and it’s the kind of game that I don’t want to see large publishers like Microsoft shy away from backing.

I’m sure expectations aren’t high as far as sales go, just as they probably weren’t for Keeper, but Keeper is a singe player experience that will remain playable forever. A multiplayer only pot based party brawler? Not so much, eh? Like I said – not for me, but glad it exists.

And finally we have Fable. Kind of nuts to think that Playground Games might be releasing two GOTY contenders in 2026. I never played the original Fable games but I always liked the concept of them. I just – based on what I saw of them – didn’t believe they lived up to that concept quite the way I hoped. That’s why I’m excited about this new Fable.

It really looks like they took the core concept of the original games and delivered on it in a way the originals never could. It clearly still needs some polish and optimisation, but with another eight or so months until release, they have plenty of time to knock it into shape.

I love the look of the world, the ‘fairytale’ approach, the fact that they’re not trying to be too ‘cinematic’ or realistic (even if that hurts their GOTY chances because we all know too many gaming publications don’t like things that look too ‘video gamey’ as ridiculous as that sounds). I really wasn’t expecting all the dynamic worlds stuff with the ‘living population’. Yeah, it looks great.