The latest in a series of “games” Microsoft started almost 40 years ago, 2020’s edition of Flight Simulator (which launched on PC only but is now available on Xbox Series X and S and working like a charm on console) is a technical marvel. It’s difficult to explain how compelling the process is on paper, but I urge you to give it a whirl chances are you’ll be quickly hooked into Barlow’s brilliant narrative.

The game’s library of clips features rehearsals, rushes and full scenes from all three of the films, plus table reads, behind the scenes footage and more, and the player gets to navigate them frame-by-frame in their own time, gradually piecing together bits of what becomes a creepy and brilliant treatise on the nature of filmmaking itself. A sort of visual detective novel, the player (perhaps ‘director’ is a more accurate term) is tasked with exploring the story of Marissa Marcel, a fictional actress who first came to prominence in the late 1960s but made only three movies (all unreleased) before disappearing in mysterious circumstances.

Like Sam Barlow’s previous games Her Story and Telling Lies, Immortality uses live action video, which players can spool through at their own pace and in their own order, to tell its story. Stranded Deep (PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S) At the time, we called it ‘a last hurrah for the golden age of pirate adventures,’ and is certainly worthy of your hard earned booty. The environments are immersive, while the puzzles are a fine balance between engrossing and enraging. Return holds on to all the elements that made the Monkey series so beloved. For thirteen years Monkey Island laid dormant, but this year the series was revived with Return to Monkey Island under the direction of its original creator, Ron Gilbert. The series, known for its dry wit and colourful character, spanned 19 years and five games, with Threepwood last appearing in 2009’s Tales of Monkey Island. The point-and-click puzzle and adventure series followed the trials and tribulations of Guybrush Threepwood as he swashbuckled and smartmouthed his way across a fictionalised pirate-era Caribbean. LucasArt’s Monkey Island series is something of a rite of passage for those who spent an offensive amount of time sat in front of a Windows 95 computer.

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