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Forbes
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
14 Of 2025's Best Games You Should Play This Easter
'Split Fiction' is your top choice if you want a great multiplayer experience this Easter, but there ... More are plenty more suggestions for great games to play over the April break. Easter is finally upon us: the perfect long weekend to finally catch up on our backlogs. Still, trying to narrow down the best games to play can be tricky, given we've got lives to lead, kids to feed, or gardens to weed. With this in mind, here's a collection of 14 games, released or ported since the start of 2025, that are absolutely worth your time over the April break. They've been split into 'how long to beat' status, meaning you can choose the right one for your circumstances. The RRPs are also listed, but make sure you cross-compare costs for multiplatform titles, because Easter's also a great time for sales. Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S Price: $19.99 (also on Game Pass) Roguelite FPS Mullet Madjack is a delirious cocktail of Hotline Miami, Duke Nukem, and Smash TV, hurling you into a neon-drenched capitalist hellscape where you've got ten seconds to live — unless you keep killing. You sprint through 80 floors of robotic enemies, deadly traps, and countless upgrades, all to rescue a kidnapped influencer princess. 'Mullet Madjack' is absolutely nuts, in all the best ways. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder It's fast, brutal, and gloriously self-aware. You'll punt robots into extractors, split skulls with anime comics, and survive by milliseconds in a haze of adrenaline and absurdity. New hazards and buffs slot in seamlessly, you rebuild your playstyle with every section, and every run feels like a bloody sprint against the clock. Despite a few technical glitches and a punishing final boss, Mullet Madjack delivers one of the most satisfyingly unhinged arcade shooters in years, even if it can give you a headache. Read the other reasons to play this game here. Platforms: PC Price: $5.99 Spilled! might only last an hour, but it's one of the most blissfully cozy games you'll play all year. You pilot a tiny boat through trash-filled lakes, cleaning oil spills, rescuing animals, and gently restoring beauty to a world drowning in pollution. It's meditative, charming, and surprisingly moving for something which, on the surface, is so simple. 'Spilled!' provides one of the best hours of gaming you could ever hope for. Created by solo Dutch developer Lente, who lives and works on a boat, Spilled! is a love letter to doing good things slowly. Each cleanup earns you cash to upgrade your vessel, unlocking new areas and mechanics in satisfying bursts. It's a completionist's dream, rewarding you with cleaner waters, happy animals, and little triumphs over environmental ruin. Learn more about it in my review from March. Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Switch (consoles on April 17) Price: $11.99 Leila, from Turkish indie dev Ubik Studios, is an introspective narrative game that pushes players deep into the mind of a middle-aged woman. Using a memory-exploring device, players journey through pivotal moments in Leila's life, experiencing memories firsthand in a storytelling masterclass that navigates insecurity, big mistakes, trauma, and self-forgiveness. The game is packed with thoughtfully designed puzzles that tie directly into each chapter of Leila's story, unfolding across cleverly designed spaces between the 1980s and 2000s. You can confront or avoid memories, shaping the narrative path as you go. Save for a couple of surprisingly tricky puzzles, this hand-drawn experience is deeply personal, creative, and emotionally resonant. Platforms: PC Price: $9.99 Your House, an indie game by Spanish indie house Patrones & Escondites, is a challenging and deeply satisfying puzzle adventure that demands full mental engagement and old-school note-taking. Its striking art style and strong voice acting support a baffling but delightful story about a house that contains a boatload of secrets. Though its final act falters a little, and puzzles can be occasionally unclear; on a wider game level, Your House requires the broadest skillset in problem-solving. However, it's a truly rewarding experience, especially for just $10. Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Switch Price: $24.99 Sorry We're Closed is truly unforgettable — a surreal, low-poly survival horror that mixes Lynchian nightmares with Silent Hill and Killer7. You play Michelle, a lonely shop worker pulled into a demonic love story that spirals into feverish, reality-bending horror. It's eccentric, atmospheric, and surprisingly heartfelt — a stylish and deranged indie standout. Crafted by British duo à la mode games, its six-hour story blends classic fixed-camera exploration with inventive first-person combat via a 'third eye' mechanic, which reveals twisted realities. Add in weird characters, haunting sound design, and multiple endings, and you've got a cult classic — one that thoroughly needs a sequel. Check out my review of the game here. Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Switch Price: $14.99 Atari knows how to get the absolute most out of its aging properties, and Breakout Beyond is no exception. Across 72 levels — plus an unlockable infinite mode — this high-score-focused game starts slowly but soon becomes a compulsive, hard-to-put-down experience with plenty of replay value for record seekers. Level design is varied and intriguing, supercharged by power-ups and made easier with a slowdown feature, giving you time to breathe or respond to on-screen madness at the expense of your final score. Each challenge tier reduces your time; run out the clock, and you'll see each row slowly become indestructible, meaning time is of the essence. Platforms: PC, PS5 (Xbox Series X/S coming soon) Price: $24.99 Karma: The Dark World is a trippy, slow-burn experience that doesn't explain itself, but that's kind of the point. In this action-adventure puzzler, you play as a memory-diving agent in a grim, alternate East Germany, uncovering twisted personal histories while the world flickers between bleak realism and surreal nightmares. 'Karma: The Dark World' is one of the most beautiful indie games of the last few years. It's slow, sometimes frustratingly so, and you won't always know what's happening, but it rewards patience with rich worldbuilding and absolutely stunning art direction that'll stick with you long after it's over. It's not without its faults — clunky controls, the occasional flat line delivery, and missed opportunities to get the most out of its setting. Still, it's absolutely worth your time if you're into games like Soma or Observer. Here's my full review, if you want to learn more. Platforms: Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC (and coming to Switch 2) Price: $49.99 Of all the games of 2025 so far, few have brought quite as much joy and inventiveness as Split Fiction. Sure, you need a friend to play with you — thankfully, only one of you needs a copy of the game for online co-op — but it deserves a place on GOTY shortlists this awards season. Taking narratives to a whole new level, Split Fiction casts you and your significant other as Mio and Zoe, a pair of down-on-their-luck writers who become trapped in a combination of their stories (sci-fi meets fantasy) due to an accident at a groundbreaking literary tech firm. It's far-fetched in all the right ways, and in typical Hazelight fashion, what follows is a constantly evolving and thought-provoking masterpiece. It's the perfect shared experience — it's probably the best story-focused multiplayer game I've played with my friend on the other side of the Atlantic. It regularly demands problem-solving skills, precision, and patience, but rewards you with big laughs, top-tier storytelling, excellent performances, and some of the most memorable moments of any game in the last five years. For $50 new (though you'll likely find it for $35 or less now), it's a no-brainer. Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC Price: $49.99 (also on Game Pass) Atomfall is Fallout in Northern England — Fall-owt, if you will. Rebellion's first-person action RPG, which debuted day one on Game Pass, is based on the very real Windscale fire of 1957, though the reasons for the in-game disaster aren't nuclear, but something altogether more sinister. It offers a 'choose your own adventure' approach, encouraging you to follow clues, explore areas, uncover hidden paths, with multiple endings based on who you trust (or don't). As survival experiences go, it's superb — its smaller, interconnected maps have much more than meets the eye, while bartering, rationing, crafting, and careful planning are all essential for success, especially at its recommended harder difficulty. Platforms: Xbox Series X/S, PC, PS5 Price: $69.99 (and on Game Pass) Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was initially released on the Xbox and PC in December 2024, but it's coming to PS5 on Maundy Thursday (April 17), giving you the perfect 24-hour window to download it just in time for Good Friday. If you've heard anything about it already, you'll know it nails the feeling of being Indy: whip cracking, trap dodging, and Nazi bashing. It's also got plenty in the way of clever puzzles, solid combat, and cinematic flair. Most importantly, it nails non-combat very nicely; patience is a virtue, and stealth is handled brilliantly. Even though it's under the 10-to-20-hour header, that's the mainline length; side missions will bump that to 25+, and completionists can get ten more hours out of it. It's probably worth playing it on Xbox or PC, if it's an option; it's still on Game Pass, and costs $70 if you want it on PS5, even though it's worth it. Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Switch Price: $19.99 Robobeat brings a fresh, more forgiving twist to the rhythm-FPS genre, combining Superhot with Metal Hellsinger. It's just as enjoyable as its heavy metal comrade, and also much more forgiving, thanks to its tight controls, customizable timing windows, and changeable soundtrack with a varied BPM. You play Ace, a bounty hunter hunting down the evil Frazzer across his ever-shifting lair. Its roguelite approach, built around temporary upgrades and permanent buffs, is chock-full of surprises and secrets, and constantly encourages you to go deeper and explore its surprisingly profound lore. It has a few rough edges — its wide field of view and minor bugs might dissuade a few players — but Robobeat finds its rhythm, and solo dev Simon Fredholm continues to make it bigger and better with regular new content. Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S Price: $69.99 (also on Game Pass) Action RPG Avowed takes a while to get going — its opening four hours are clunky, with awkward controls and too many tutorials. Honestly, stick with it; it's one hell of a game that offers a gorgeous world, sharp writing, fantastic voice acting, and great side quests. The main narrative fades into the background quickly, but that's okay — the real fun is in exploring, making tough choices, and shaping your godlike character along the way. Your companions are memorable, the atmosphere is rich, and despite bugs and pacing hiccups, it never derails the overall experience. It's got that classic Obsidian charm, delivering clever systems, strong dialogue, and a world that sticks with you. It's not a flawless game, but it's one you can't avoid. Avowed certainly has its quirks, though — check out my 11 top tips to get you started. Platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S Price: $29.99 (also on Game Pass and PS Plus) Blue Prince came out of nowhere, so much so that this recommendation is for me as much as you. This puzzler, which landed just this week (April 10), has attracted critical acclaim for its impeccable pacing, novel mechanics, and its ability to keep secrets hidden deep into the game. In Blue Prince, you control Simon P Jones, who must find a hidden 46th room in his inherited mansion within one day to claim ownership. The mansion is a shifting grid of rooms that players explore by using keys, managing a limited number of footprints (steps), and strategically placing new rooms. Each area can contain items, tools, or puzzles, and failing to reach your goal resets the mansion, forcing you to start again. The trailer is enough to sell it, but it's also available on both Game Pass and PS Plus, meaning you have every excuse to play it this Easter. Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Switch Price: $29.99 Obviously, Tomb Raiders 4-6 aren't exactly new. Still, Aspyr has followed up its superb job on the original trilogy by remastering The Last Revelation, Chronicles, and PS2 franchise debut Legend, and it's once again made the most of the source material. As with the first release, Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered quietly demands that you learn tank controls to get the experience as intended, especially given how surprisingly brutal the games can be, even when compared to the more difficult and baffling moments of Tomb Raider 3. Chances are that this latest trio of games may be more of a 10-to-20-hour experience; Tomb Raider: Legend hasn't aged well, despite being the newest game, but that's personal preference — and the first two games are worth the ticket price alone, especially The Last Revelation. This isn't a definitive list of the best games of 2025 — that's an impossible task, even at this early stage — but if you've got any recommendations, especially for lesser-known indie games, be sure to leave a comment and share the love.
Forbes
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Spilled!' Review (PC): Cozy Gaming's Finest Hour
'Spilled!' is exactly what it promises to be, and exactly what everyone needs right now. It's not often that a game takes longer to write about than it does to complete it, but few experiences are as unique and delightful as Spilled!. Releasing today (March 26), this Little Indie That Could makes you feel positively zen in under 60 minutes, delivering one of the finest hours for cozy gaming. Few new releases have an origin story quite like it, and it's one that supercharges its charm. Spilled! is the debut for Lente, a solo developer who lives and works on her boat in the Netherlands. She quit school to make her dream game, picking up part-time work to support her savings, before successfully using the Kickstarter community to fund the rest of its development. I outlined the game last year as part of a round-up for 2024's best-looking indie games, but as is the way with these things, Lente took an extra few months to perfect it. Patience is rewarded, because it's worth the wait, to the point it's pretty much impossible to find any complaints with it — except, of course, that you probably want it to go on for longer, and/or forever. Spilled!'s premise is simple: you're in charge of a boat in a mountainous, lake-filled region which, if it wasn't so damn cute, would most definitely be described as the worst possible biological disaster to destroy the most beautiful place on Earth. It's like the Exxon Valdez and Great Pacific Garbage Patch were dropped from a great height on Iceland. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Your little tugboat is small, slow, and limited, but you clean oil spills with your capture spout, shuffle plastic bottles to collection zones, put out forest fires with your little hose, and save tiny, 8-bit creatures such as a swan called Evelin and a turtle called Aaron Dunbar. Told you. It's an ecological game, but one that even the most rouge-faced, eternally angry anti-wokeist would struggle to hate, even by 2025's social media standards. It's just so satisfying to clean, earn dosh for doing so, then upgrade your boat's speed, tank, and collection contraption to tackle larger spills, funnel more plastic, and tackle more extensive areas of abject catastrophe. Any gamer's instinct is to try and do things perfectly well or to at least optimize any strategies, but Spilled! uses simple blockers to make you earn your progression, and not be too successful too quickly. A large oil slick will be just too much for your current storage tank, or your bottle-collecting bracket is just a little narrow to get all the trash in one go. Still, you earn cash, upgrade your boat, and get those constant pangs of satisfaction. Sometimes, you try your hardest to do everything perfectly. You want to collect every bottle in a small section, but one or two slip from your grasp — victims of your overambitious greed. An oil spill will go beyond your capture area, leaving minor slicks despite your otherwise careful collection. Eventually, you just accept that you can't be perfect, and that in itself is a valuable lesson in gaming. You can't do everything at once. At its heart, Spilled! is a completionist's dream. Each area gradually gets more beautiful and clear-watered as you fix it, revealing more happy animals swimming in its increasingly crystal-clear waters. It visually rewards you, topped off by a cheeky flash of the area to let you know you've completed it, and you can move on to an even grubbier, more significant section. There are even a few mini missions, where you reunite other boats with their missing items. Spilled! feels much better with a controller. The only gripe is the ship's movement; based on rudders, movement is understandable while accelerating, but the same rules don't seem to apply to going backwards. I've spent way too much time trying to understand how boats work, and I'm convinced the reversing mechanism is incorrect, but in real terms, it just doesn't matter. Lente should be immensely proud of what she's created. What's more, Spilled! has the potential to be so much more. It doesn't need new levels; it'd benefit from a randomly generated 'endless' mode, where small areas give you five minutes of solvable respite to take you away from the horrors of real life. This option, alongside the game's gorgeous art style and beautiful soundtrack, could be something everyone could get on board with. Ultimately, Spilled! costs $6.99 and is an hour long. Lente has been clear on this since day one — the Steam listing says as much — but it's the price of a coffee and a Danish, lasts longer, and will bring you way more joy. If you can, take the opportunity to support one of the most unique indie creators of 2025 — you won't regret it.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The World Is A Mess, But This New Tiny Boat Game Lets You Clean It Up
I probably don't need to tell you, a person reading a website on the internet in 2025, that the world is a big, horrible mess right now. It's been like this for a few years, longer if you ask some people, and it doesn't seem to be getting better anytime soon. Thankfully, Spilled is here. It's a new game about a tiny boat cleaning up a big mess that at least lets us fix a digital world. Spilled, out today on PC, is the first indie game from developer Lente. She lives on a boat, and this is her first release on Steam. And in Lente's Spilled, you are given the role of a sleepy little boat, tasked with cleaning up a gorgeous pixel art world using an upgradeable vacuum, water cannon, and crane. Some nasty, evil boats have been putting around and leaving black goo everywhere across various biomes and its up to you to save the day by collecting all the goo and recycling it into coins—coins that can then be used to upgrade your boat. It's a fairly simple concept, perfectly nailed in Spilled. Controlling the boat feels good and upgrading its engine to make it faster feels even better. Early on, the goo you encounter is in small patches and easy to suck up. But later on, the spills of goo you find are massive and you'll need to go back and forth through the messes to effectively clean them. And doing this is immensely satisfying, like perfectly removing the sudsy water from a car windshield using a squeegee. Clean up an area enough and sea critters, like whales and dolphins, will return and the water will turn blue again. Spilled will take most players about an hour or so to finish. Though if you want to clean every inch of its cozy world and collect all the hidden animals, you'll likely need to spend about two hours total. It's short, but its also packed with a lot of ideas. Every 10 minutes or so, Spilled was either teaching me a new way to clean stuff up—like using a water canon to remove hard-to-reach gunk on rocks—or letting me upgrade my boat again. I'd love to see a sequel to Spilled that adds more levels, more ways to clean stuff up, and maybe even co-op. But for now, Spilled is a solid and gentle indie game that lets me clean up the world for an hour, and that's nice. I really like that. . For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lawmakers in both chambers adopt tax compromise in session's final hours
Rep. Derrick Lente (D-Sandia Pueblo) and Sen. Carrie Hamblen (D-Las Cruces) said they appreciated the cooperation on the tax package negotiations in the session's final hours. (Danielle Prokop / Source NM) The House and Senate both adopted a compromise tax package on a voice vote late in both chambers Friday night, after hours of negotiations and a failed vote earlier in the day on the multimillion dollar tax package. The conference committee mended the rift exposed between chambers over the tax package on Thursday — just later than expected. At about 9 p.m. the heads of the tax committees, Rep. Derrick Lente (D-Sandia Pueblo) and Sen. Carrie Hamblen (D-Las Cruces), presented a much smaller package of benefits, and eliminated a new tax on oil that had previously funded the whole measure. Instead, the Legislature will pay for the $113 million dollar compromise package of tax credits from the state's reserves, which will be pulled from next year's budget. Lente said other options were considered, but ultimately discarded, because of the time crunch of mere hours left in the session. In the compromise package: an Earned Income Tax Credit for lower-income single people and families; removal of gross receipts tax on medical services; a 20% increase in liquor at the wholesale price expected to generate $10 million a year for a tribal alcohol alleviation fund; and a tax credit for foster parents and guardians caring for children. What didn't make the cut: 0.28% tax on oil paired with a reduction in natural gas taxes contained in House Bill 548 expected to generate $130 million in revenue; and a series of other tax credits for emergency responders, search and rescue, publishers and newspaper printers and quantum facilities. The increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit will benefit the approximately 200,000 who qualify currently for the Working Families Tax Credit and expand to about 100,000 more New Mexicans, Lente said. The credit allows people making minimum wage, to families of three up to $70,000 annual income to not pay state income taxes. 'That's a far reaching, very broad benefit that we would be able to protect in this tax package,' Lente said Friday evening. Hamblen said the pieces that failed to make it into this year's package will be reconsidered in the future. 'I think we've got this really great foundation,' she said. 'We've got our hopes and dreams of what we need to look at next year and I'm excited about that.' Rep. Mark Duncan (R-Kirtland) was the lone vote against the package, saying he thought using reserves to pay for the tax package was 'a bad way to do business,' and noted the Legislature was paying $171 million from reserves to balance the budget this year, in addition to the tax package. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lawmakers seek more than $1.2 billion to fund infrastructure projects in New Mexico
SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – Every session, lawmakers make funding requests for infrastructure projects across New Mexico. This year, these capital outlay funds, HB 450, total more than $1.2 billion and more than 1,400 projects statewide are on the list to receive funding. Story continues below Weather: Hazardous winds leave a trail of destruction in New Mexico Crime: ABQ police take 11-year-old into custody in connection to fatal hit and run Entertainment: These movies were filmed in Santa Fe. Have you seen them? During a committee hearing on Wednesday, lawmakers learned what those projects include. 'You know for many communities in our state, the capital outlay bill is their one and only source of revenue to do anything substantial for infrastructure in their communities,' said Representative Derrick Lente, (D-Sandia Pueblo). It's one of the most awaited bills during any legislative session, the capital outlay proposal includes funding for projects that the governor and lawmakers want to get done across the state. The bill gives nearly $4 million for Balloon Fiesta Park upgrades, including $1 million for a museum playground. Another $4 million dollars is going to fund the Domingo Baca Aquatic Center, which has been in the works since 2005. The University of New Mexico is getting more than $100 million in funding including, construction dollars for the College of Pharmacy and School of Medicine. In previous years, lawmakers have faced criticism over infrastructure projects that get started but sit uncompleted. During a committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Derrick Lente said having extra funds has helped them finish some of these projects. 'An additional 8 million dollars was provided for waterline expansions in Curry County. That fully funded that project that otherwise would never have received fully funding of that project,' said Rep. Lente. He said this year's bill set aside $50 million to help complete projects like improving water lines and fire stations, especially in rural communities. 'In this bill itself that it actually helps to complete projects versus just continuing a process where we give a little bit, we give a little bit, we give a little bit but never could fully fund it because the goal post is always moving because inflation affects things, prices go up right,' said Rep. Lente. During the committee meeting, some Republican lawmakers voted against the capital outlay bill, due to a project that the governor is funding, that would create a reproductive healthcare clinic that performs abortions. The package will be heard on the House floor Wednesday. If it passes there, it will then go to the Senate side. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
