Well, this was a terrible week for news; or at least exciting news to strap a rocket to and ride to the moon. Monday, Jaydyn covered the newly revealed PS5 specifications and Sony’s strange phrasing of backward-compatibility. Along with that, David spoke of the World of Warcraft XP boost and on Tuesday, Mortal Kombat Komplete edition‘s Steam disappearance. Wednesday, I spoke about Child of Light currently being free on Uplay for a short time, and on Thursday, I continued with the free giveaways as Drawful 2 is also free-to-keep on Steam. Then finally, Abdul covered the leak for the upcoming PlayStation Plus games for April.

Given you’re probably at home, bored, and want something to do, let’s get to the free Epic Games Store games. With that, let’s start with the one I already owned and was given a key for back at its release in 2017, Figment. Figment is an action-adventure/puzzle game of Maurits Cornelis Escher’s drug-induced dreams,l full of trees with ears, apples for houses, and convoluted bridges connecting islands in the sky. It’s not even the good kind of Islands in the Sky, by Arthur C. Clarke, it’s more of that Bioshock racism in the sky from Infinite. In all seriousness, I really do like Figment, it is fun.

You play as Dusty, an alcoholic lay-about that lives in the imagination of the cowardly lion. Oddly enough, like old PS1 games and some PS2 games, you are joined by a side-kick that flies, called Piper; See, Sparx of Spyro, or Clank of Ratchet and Clank. While the story is exposited by Dusty and Piper, it doesn’t detract from the game, rather imbuing the sense Rusty has towards Piper’s happy and exhilarated mood.

The next game, that we knew about last week, is Tormentor X Punisher. A “twin-stick shooter” that looks like the ugliest barfly that doesn’t by default want to work with an Xbox One Elite controller (the best controller ever). Playing with a keyboard and mouse, it keeps it from feeling like a “twin-stick shooter.” I get that it is meant to look like one of the worst things you could imagine, but it doesn’t feel fun; which is my biggest problem when covering these Epic Games Store games. It is the arcade-style of gaming, but doesn’t move anything to update that period of gaming or make you feel like you should be playing that over anything else.

A lot of rogue-like/lite games will do something similar by making the deaths part of playing. Between churlishly swearing every two seconds, weapons that sound powerful but feel as useful as a tic-tac is as a sex toy on a blue whale, and a visual style that would give you a migraine, I don’t see a point in playing this one. Sure, it is meant to be offensive, angry, and everything Hatred was without the backlash, but the core of that would be something fun. Playing aimlessly with the goal of upgrades I have no idea of seems pointless from the get-go.

The third, final, and surprise game of this week is World War Z. The game based on the book, in the same universe as that movie with the guy that played Jack Reacher in that series’ adaptation which I’ll never hear the end of. Ok, imagine Valve made this four-person online “co-op” shooter with zombies, and you used guns and melee weapons to kill them, that is all World War Z is. Much like the movie that the game share’s a visual style with, you’ll find hordes of zombies climbing over each other to eat your lovely man-meat.

If you are like me and thought this might have been interesting as a single-player game; well, I’d suggest picking up Sony’s first-party exclusive Days Gone. With AI that’s about as useful as being the second player in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, playing with actual people is your best option. Given I’d rather splay my genitals across an active railway track than do that, you might guess why I didn’t jump for joy over this one being a surprise.

Figment, World War Z, and Tormentor X Punisher are all free this week until Thursday, the 2nd of April. The only one I’d be intentionally playing this weekend would be Figment, though if you’re looking for something to chat with friends while playing, World War Z could be fun for you. If somehow you’re convinced by Tormentor X Punisher‘s lack of interesting ideas, it might be worth picking up.

Next week, tune in when I will have trouble explaining Gone Home for the second time without spoiling its brilliant ending. Though, as it stands it is a double-bill, much like last week, so you’ll also be able to pick up Hob; another action-adventure from the developers of Torchlight and Torchlight II. Next week should be interesting as I try not to say why I love Gone Home.

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