So yeah I’m like half a month late on this one, but I only recently got back from vacation so better late than never. Anyways, summer has started and with it comes a flood of cool new games. June was no exception, so here I have seven games to show you all that may have flown under your radar this past month. Definitely quite the variety here, so thanks to the publishers who sent them to me in order to make this list possible and let’s get started.

20 Minutes Till Dawn

20 Minutes Till Dawn starts up and gets right to the point. You immediately get to blasting enemies, upgrading your loadout, and coming up with some absolutely insane synergies with those very upgrades. Yeah, people are probably comparing this one to Vampire Survivors, but I never played it – so I can’t say I’m able to make such comparisons. 

Regardless, the gameplay is fast, fun, and very difficult as it gets going. You may think aiming is the important part, but movement much more so and as enemy types change you’ll need to adjust movement to match. It’s a bit more involved than I originally expected going into it and that only made the experience that much more rewarding, especially so when you’ve got bullets flying everywhere and enemies dropping all around you.

20 Minutes Till Dawn retails for $3 USD and is available on Steam as an Early Access title.

POSTAL: Brain Damaged

Having never played a POSTAL game, I don’t know what I expected here. Whatever it was, it definitely was not a fast-paced boomer shooter with a dedicated pee button. Within just the first level alone, I was thrown into this mind-bending suburban nightmare, blowing up stuff with my own urine, and swapping through a small arsenal DOOM-style as I grappled, slid, and jumped around.

It is vulgar for sure, but mechanically it’s actually pretty good and the level design is equally so. The devs did a great job hiding secrets around, designing unique weapons to use, and really just setting this one apart from the crowd – a genre we’ve definitely been seeing a lot of lately. I can’t say it’s an easy recommendation given its content, but it is one I will make regardless.

POSTAL: Brain Damaged retails for $20 USD and is available on Steam and GOG.

Redout 2

Some years ago we got Redout – a super fun and incredibly fast anti-gravity racing game – and now here we are in 2022 with a sequel to that very experience. Having now played it – yeah, it’s just more Redout and I guess I can’t complain. More of the same fun and fast gameplay, some really cool track designs, tons of vehicle customization, and the changes to things like physics and controls make it a bit more mechanically deep than I remember the original being.

The tutorial throws you right into it and as soon as you’re out – the difficulty absolutely spikes and you quickly need to get the hang of all the different movement options in order to set those records and get the coveted first place. The journey to that point is quite fun though and it’s always a good time to be going as fast as this game lets you go. It’s definitely a racing game I’ll be returning to from time to time and an easy recommendation for fans of that genre.

Redout 2 retails for $30 USD and is available on Steam. It is also available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. You can get an official Steam key 15% off and support the channel using my Gamesplanet partner link. This also applies to the deluxe edition and to the ultimate edition.

Gravitar: Recharged

I kinda like these recent Recharged releases of classic arcade games and Gravitar is the latest example as to why. It’s straight to the point in preserving the original arcade experience – which was very difficult for the time and even still today – but does so with a massive facelift and a bunch of bonus features on top of that. You get the base game itself – which has you navigating environments with a very unique movement system and completing a variety of different tasks – and then a mission mode and even co-op mode on top of that.

The base game is fun on its own, but I had even more so in the mission mode, which also has the added bonus of online leaderboards. It’s not a complex game by any means, but worth a look for arcade fans.

Gravitar: Recharged retails for $10 USD and is available on Steam. It is also available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch.

Souldiers

So this one came out of nowhere. It’s a full-fledged 30-something hour metroidvania complete with incredibly detailed pixel art, expansive level design with plenty of exploration, a good bit of lore, and some simple, yet effective combat. There’s even replayability in the fact that there are multiple classes to choose from – the scout, the archer, and the caster. Of course, I’m a big fan of ranged attacks, so I went with the archer. 

It is a way bigger game than I thought it would be going into it and it appears to be a bit divisive too – mostly with regards to its difficulty. Some find it to be a bit much, but the devs have released updates to address this and I can’t say I’ve had any problems thus far playing it over a month after it was released. Whatever the case, it’s been a fun one and as someone that is really into metroidvanias – especially those with great art like this one – it’s a fairly easy recommendation to make.

Souldiers retails for $20 USD and is available on Steam and GOG as well as PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch. You can get an official Steam key 15% off and support the channel using my Gamesplanet partner link. This also applies to the deluxe edition.

Mago

Mago is an interesting one. I expected a straightforward SNES-era 2D platformer and while I did get that to an extent, I also got a lot more than just that. Some levels just have you platforming, some are boss fights, some are racing, some are even shooters. It’s got a surprising amount of gameplay variety and couples this with some nice chiptune music and charming graphics.

It’s also not as easy as I would have expected, so really this game is just full of surprises. I have no idea how far I am into it – and it’s definitely a bit of a nostalgic one for sure – but one worth a look if you’re into retro platformers.

Mago retails for $15 USD and is available on Steam.

TEN – Ten Rooms, Ten Seconds

Perhaps the most overlooked game of this list – it only has six reviews on Steam – is TEN. It’s a very straightforward precision platformer with the simple goal of surviving ten seconds each in consecutive rooms. Some of these rooms will throw saw blades at you, projectiles, lasers, or even timed explosives that you have to disarm before the ten seconds are up. As you can expect, yes, the game is VERY difficult and requires a lot of memorizing room patterns and quick platforming movements.

Having just come off of completing Super Meat Boy for the first time, this was a fun game to follow it up with and it’s a shame that it hasn’t really gotten much attention. If you can handle difficult precision platformers, do give it a look.

TEN – Ten Rooms Ten Seconds retails for $5 USD and is available on Steam. It is also available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch.

And that’ll bring this late list to a close. Again, another month with some solid picks. I liked Redout 2 and Souldiers, but if I am being honest, my favorite was probably 20 Minutes Till Dawn – that is definitely one I’ll be coming back to. Regardless, hopefully at least one of these games caught your eye and as usual, all of the links are down in the description below. I’ll be back hopefully on time next month with some more cool games so do be on the lookout for that.a

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