All right, all of you. We’re heading into the weekend, and I can give you an idea of something I might be doing.
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SUMMERS: NPR recently polled employees and contributors about their favorite games. And now, James Mastromarino joins us to talk about what made the cut. He edits and contributes to NPR’s game coverage. Hello Tiago.
JAMES MASTROMARINO, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: All right. I have to confess, I’m a big fan of this list. And I’m excited to compare notes with you on some of the games we both love. So why don’t you start by giving us one of the highlights?
MASTROMARINO: Well, if you have a Nintendo Switch, the NPR team really loved Kirby And The Forgotten Land. You play as this pink puffball, Kirby. By the way, he just turned 30. His first game was released in 1992. And his signature move is that he can inhale and consume enemies to gain their abilities. But in this new game, he might even possess inanimate objects left behind in this post-apocalyptic world. Now, if it weren’t so cute, this might sound like a horror movie premise, but here’s how our own Alba Karuni put it.
ALBA KARUNI, BYLINE: In this new game, you can use bite mode to turn Kirby into a car, vending machine, traffic cone, etc. It’s really fun and really adorable.
MASTROMARINO: And I’ll add that it’s also great with two players. My wife and I played the entire game together. And when we were done, we gave it to my 6-year-old nephew, Ollie, and he just loved it.
OLLIE: I like fighting this palm tree monster. I’m using this skill – purple fire.
SUMMERS: (Laughter) The purple fire. It’s a little crazy to think that Kirby and I are about the same age. I can’t believe Kirby has been around for 30 years. Everything is fine. So this is Kirby and the Forgotten Land. But I’ve heard that there’s another post-apocalyptic game on this list that got me really excited. It’s Stray, and it’s about a cat wandering through a robotic dystopia. I know why I love this game, but James, why don’t you tell us more about it?
MASTROMARINE: Yes. So you are right. We have another kind of gentle post-apocalyptic scenario here. Stray just came out last week, and had the entire internet gushing about his feline protagonist. See how contributor Keller Gordon put it.
KELLER GORDON, BYLINE: You’re just a cat – a resourceful and ridiculously cute orange cat looking for a way home. You find yourself in Dead City, a city full of garbage, neon signs and robots. Fortunately, you are not alone in the dark. These robots are friendly and quick to offer a helping hand as you sneak, meow, and scratch your way to solving an age-old mystery.
MASTROMARINO: Stray is now available for PlayStation and PC, and is the most realistic cat simulator/adventure game I’ve ever played. And even if you’re not a cat person, you’ll probably fall for it.
SUMMERS: I am absolutely not a cat person, and I can attest to that. This game is very fun and well made. James, unfortunately we have reached the end. But I have to ask you, if you’re someone who doesn’t own a game console or a handheld, are there any games you would recommend that work well on a laptop?
MASTROMARINO: Yeah, a game called Norco really comes to mind. It’s more like an interactive graphic novel than anything else. It is set in the near future in the New Orleans metropolitan area. It’s another game with sentient robots. And if you’re feeling a tendency, Norco is also apocalyptic, but in the sense that it feels visionary, even mystical. It has really impressive images. And it’s about an America that is falling apart. And the contributor who wrote about Norco talked about how it evoked the American South he grew up in in all its beauty and contradictions and how it still feels totally modern to play.
SUMMERS: Alright, this one looks totally up my alley. I have to check.
SUMMERS: These are three new NPR-recommended video games, all accessible to new players. This is Norco, Stray and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. James Mastromarino edited and contributed to the full list, which you can read now at npr.org. James, thanks for that.
MASTROMARINO: Thank you, Juana. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
