Replaced: A Gorgeous Game Worth Playing

Replaced (Xbox, PC, £16.99 or included with Xbox Game Pass)

Verdict: Dazzling dystopia

Rating: 4/5 

Just imagine living in a world in which American power is diminished, everything feels broken, and artificial intelligences are everywhere. Crazy, right?

Thankfully, we have fiction to show us what these things would look like.

The outlandish dystopia I just described is the setting for Replaced, in which you play as a scientist who’s been fused with an and has to fight his way back to the lab to make things right.

The fighting itself is pretty good. It’s a 2D version of the free-flowing combat of the Batman Arkham games.

Some goon will appear behind you with a pipe; you press a single button to counter his hostile attentions; then another to career into a separate goon. How long can you keep the sequence going?

But what really makes Replaced stand out is how it looks. In fact, this might be one of the most beautiful games ever made.

I thought I’d grown used to the mix of retro pixels and modern 3D effects that was pioneered for recent remakes of old Japanese RPGs – but here it’s used to wowing effect. Every new screen is like another wonderful diorama to gawp at.

After a while, it was the prospect of more glorious sights that kept me pressing on through Replaced’s world – more than its combat or Blade Runner-ish story.

Which may sound like a knock on those other things, but it’s not, really. It’s a measure of the spectacle on offer.

I’d gladly have this digital creation uploaded into my own consciousness.

Vampire Crawlers (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £8.99 or included with Xbox Game Pass)

Verdict: Survivors trump Crawlers

Rating: 3/5 

Four years ago, Vampire Survivors came seemingly out of nowhere, and catapulted its developer, a tiny studio named Poncle, to prominence.

It was – still is – an amazingly compulsive experience. You tear around as a constantly attacking character, hoping to last as long as possible against the hordes of Italian Count Dracula, Bisconte Draculó.

Now Poncle is back with Vampire Crawlers. It’s the same hordes, the same retro visuals, the same frenetic pace – but it’s more a spinoff than a direct sequel.

Because, rather than shooting out fireballs and lightning bolts, this time you’re attacking with cards.

Yes, Vampire Crawlers is one of those deckbuilding games that have become so popular.

Your character faces off against the denizens of the dark lord by playing card after card from your hand, with each card representing some power or other.

As a translation of Survivors to the deckbuilding genre, Crawlers is impeccable. Its main mechanic is what it calls ‘combinations’: if you play the cards in a particular order, then subsequent cards become more powerful.

When you get used to it, this perfectly emulates the constantly upgrading attacks of Poncle’s earlier game.

But when compared to the deckbuilding genre as a whole, Crawlers is a little lacking.

Its systems are not nearly as varied, nor as rewarding, as those in, say, Monster Train, Balatro or (an underrated favourite of mine) Cobalt Core.

Besides, Crawlers lacks the joyous surprise factor of Survivors.

That one felt as though it had unearthed something entirely new from the past.

This one feels as though it’s dug out something entirely familiar from the present. Mi scusi, Bisconte Draculó.