Writing by: Aarav Dixit, Kaiden Ashvini, Roshan Ramesh, Prathyum Barathi
Pictures/In-game Screenshots by: Kaiden Ashvini
Editing by: Roshan Ramesh
Video games: whatever your opinion on them is, it’s no secret that they are a big influence on most of our lives in the 21st century. Come on, we’ve all felt the racing rush of adrenaline when acing a round in Valorant, or that sweet sense of pleasure when stumbling into diamonds in Minecraft. However, in a world where there are countless games, it can be a challenge trying to find the perfect game to unwind after a long day at school. That’s why we did some of the work for you - and picked 3 games(for ages 12 and up), which are mostly free of cost. These games are Deltarune, Splitgate, and Hades; all perfect for a fresh new experience.
Deltarune (ESRB rating 10+)
Deltarune is a role-playing, retro style video game created by Tobyfox, which is split up into different chapters. The most recent chapter, chapter 2, was released on September 17, 2021. After getting an opportunity to play both chapters 1 and 2, we have a good understanding of why this game is so popular, and what would've made it better. Deltarune revolves around the characters Kris and Susie. In one of their school’s closets, the two friends find a portal to the Dark World, where they must go on a quest to seal the Dark Fountains. The designs of the characters and the art in this game are great. The graphics aren’t ultra-realistic, unlike games such as Assassin’s Creed - but they do follow a retro, simplistic style, with the characters being made of colorful and vibrant pixels. Honestly, this makes the game a more clean and enjoyable experience - and it gives a nostalgic feel. Plus, the soundtrack is just amazing; super satisfying to listen to. The sound design is in simplistic, 8-bit form, but is phenomenally emotional and massively compliments the excellent battles and story. Each Boss has a soundtrack to match the character, their personalities, the setting, and even the fight itself. The game’s songs are very recognizable and do help with making each boss fight more memorable.
On the negative side, the whole “save the world” theme is cliche, and there aren’t that many quests to follow. Even though as you progress to Chapter 2, a cool new recruiting mechanism(in which the monsters you spared to populate a town and can help you out by lending you their powers in fights) is introduced, the game mechanics still feel limited.
One of the many fun things about Deltarune is its battle mechanic. You can spare monsters, or choose to fight them, and there is some exciting, reaction-based combat. You move the “heart” to dodge the projectiles, and things can get pretty hectic when you fight multiple enemies.
If you have played the other hit video game created by Tobyfox, Undertale, you may think that Deltarune is the same game as it. Trust us, it isn’t. Deltarune includes a different battle mechanic, takes place in a different setting, and much more. In short, Deltarune is worthy of praise - and we highly recommend playing it.
Splitgate (ESRB rating Teen)
Another game we recommend this year is Splitgate, a classic FPS (first-person shooter) game with a striking twist. Technically, Splitgate was early-released on May 24, 2019. But struggling to maintain a viable player base, the project gained little to no traction with the community - until recently. In July 2021, with the beta release of the game officially out, Splitgate’s popularity massively took off, breaking the threshold of 600,000 console downloads in just a single week. But what is all the hype about?
The FPS can be most commonly described as “Halo meets Portal,” as IGN tells readers. This makes a “best of both worlds'' of two extremely hit games, similar to Halo with the revolutionary twist of portal mechanics from puzzle-platformer Portal. In Splitgate, strikingly realistic portals are the main focus of the game, with excellent maps that highlight and encourage using portals to form brilliant, cunning frags (kills). You might fall into a downward portal to be thrown out of a skyward-facing one, launching yourself through the air to get a sweet mid-air shot on an opponent. Or possibly, you stealthily place a portal behind an enemy to emerge from behind and take them down melee.
In the gamemode “Shotty Snipers”, you are armed with a shotgun and sniper weapon, and it’s a fierce, fast-paced race to get the most kills as a team before time runs out. Here, a player aims at an enemy from behind a portal.
“This makes for addictingly exciting action-packed gameplay that always rewards smart plays, and you have to try it to really understand. It was way too easy to spend 5 hours on this game. There was never the same frag twice. Amazing!” expressed a student at Centerville. Unfortunately, all new games come with some issues. Because of the massive surge of new players flooding Splitgate servers, queue times are at an all-time high, some reaching times in the hours depending on the time of day. 1047 Games (The small, 25-member company that produced Splitgate) are currently working on fixing the issue, and queue times will only continue to drop as this game receives great new content. Plus, with new updates come new game modes - something that would greatly benefit the sometimes stale games. After all, how many times can you play your same two or three favorite game modes? And, we also hope to see new maps, much bigger, that would also contribute to Splitgate’s special portal mechanics. Overall, as the team working on this game continues to grow, and we start to see fresh new updates to the beta release, this game continues to become more and more promising than it already is.
Hades (ESRB rating Teen)
Hades is a roguelike dungeon crawler game made by Supergiant Games. It has a strong position in being one of the best games of 2021 with a 9/10 star review from IGN. The game’s full release happened on the 17th of September of last year for the Switch, and PC, while the console release was on August 13th of 2021. Rooted deeply in Greek mythology, Hades has many Greek gods that are mentioned throughout the game. Hades features “Prince Zagreus” and his many attempts at escape from Hades or the Underworld. (The underworld in Greek mythology is also commonly referred to as Hades.) Prince Zagreus learns that his mother “Nyx” is not his mother, and goes to find his real mother, who he learns is “Persephone.”
(Above) Hypnos is one of the Chthonic Gods (Gods of the Underworld). He is one of the first people you get to talk to, and will often talk about the cause of death in your last escape attempt.
While you play through the game in your various escape attempts, you will gain the help of the Olympian gods. You will also gain guidance from, and befriend many of the Chthonic gods in Greek mythology. Many famous legends are also present, such as Achilles. With their help, you will be able to break out of Hades, and beat the game. Unlike most games, though, breaking out of Hades is not the end. The story continues and unravels as you break out multiple times. To say the least, it certainly is a complex story, as it has many branches, twists, and turns. You will also be able to complete many of the side quests, and gain side stories, making this game even more intriguing and deep. The enemies all have various methods to kill, and it is necessary to understand how to defeat the swarms of monsters. There are seemingly endless quips that change depending on each person, there is a lot of detail in the game. The quips will also depend on where you are in the game, and what you did in your last run. The dungeon is also a complex maze, unmappable because the map changes every run.
(Below) The defeated Bone Hydra (Also known as the Lernaean Hydra), which is the second boss in Hades. This is a difficult boss with multiple stages in the bossfight. There is not much change in the different stages, but it still is a difficult and fun bossfight.
With many rooms, and many types of rooms to run through, it will be a great game to play for hours on end. However, this game is not completely free of cost - and will set you back $25, making people wonder whether it’s worth it or not. We have not finished the game yet, but we believe it’s the best bang for your buck on the market right now because of the depth and intensity of the plotline, albeit difficult at times.
In a time where people are spending more time playing video games, it's important to have fun while playing them. There are thousands of games released every year, and it’s hard to experience all of them. But the highlights of the community that stood out this year were all something more than just animation and code; they had deep plotlines and beautiful characters with complex background stories, and once we started we just couldn’t put our controllers down. Now, you may have noticed you didn’t see a video game such as Valorant or the upcoming Halo Infinite. But, we wanted to cover the slightly underrated ones and show their concealed greatness. Deltarune, Hades, and Splitgate don’t strain your wallet and provide an astonishing experience, so they definitely need to be on any gamer’s bucket list for the year.
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