Month: Jul 2024

Hades

A game that isn’t just more Zelda! But can Hades capture the imagination the same way Hyrule could?

What’s The Game? Hades

What’s It All About, JG? It’s a roguelike dungeon-crawler released in 2020 by Supergiant Games, and if your eyes are glazing over already, wait, come back! You play Zagreus (I’ve heard that name before somewhere), son of Hades, of Greek myth. He’s trying to escape the Underworld, feeling unloved by his father, and to make it to the mortal realm and his mother, Persephone. Alongside the action, the story gradually unfolds, as Zagreus finds out more about his Olympian family, who help him along the way. The Underworld is divided into three distinct regions, each of which will contain a randomly generated series of rooms which Zagreus has to hack and slash his way through to move on to the next level. Each region has an end-of-level boss of increasing difficulty, the defeat of which allows access to the next level. Once all three have been defeated, there’s a final series of quickie rooms, then the Final Big Boss. But who could he possibly be?

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Jet Lag: The Game

Can Jet Lag: The Game be a YouTube series that’s worth spending time on? You better believe it!

What’s The Show? A first for this blog – a YouTube series, Jet Lag: The Game

What’s It All About, JG? It’s a travel competition, starring Sam Denby, Adam Chase, and Ben Doyle. Each season of the show centre around a different type of game – Tag, Connect Four, Capture The Flag, that sort of thing. These are played out over different geographical areas, so Connect Four involved capturing four American states in a diagonal or row as per the game, Tag involves trying to tag one of the other players while they each try to make their way to an end point somewhere in Europe. You get the idea. Tag has been done twice, actually – Tag Across Europe – but every other season has been unique in its gameplay. Sometimes the play area is a country, with the most recent series at time of writing playing out across Australia, sometimes it’s the whole planet, as with Race Around The World. Most seasons feature a guest of some description (except for the Tag seasons and Hide and Seek, which just feature the boys), with Ben and Adam comprising one team and Sam and whoever the guest is making up the other. The show is shot on iPhones, giving it an immediate, reportage, feel. In every iteration of the game, though, teams or individuals must complete tasks in order to earn money to allow them to travel. Thus it becomes a strategy of what you can earn and where you can go to secure the ultimate victory.

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