The latest Shield combines home entertainment with serious gaming, and it has the titles to prove it. We take a look at the first seven games that were remastered for Shield.
There’s a new member of Nvidia’s Shield family in town. The Shield Android TV is the ultimate set-top box, featuring a cutting edge Tegra X1 processor and Nvidia’s Maxwell architecture providing top-quality graphics. It’ll play 4K video with 7.1 surround sound, it’ll hook straight into your preferred video streaming service and it’s a fully fledged Android device that can run countless apps from the Google Play store. Best of all, it’s an absolute gaming monster! You can use it to stream games in maximum detail, straight off Nvidia’s GRID service, it can stream games direct from your PC and Nvidia will also release a series of new and classic titles, remastered and revamped to look their best on Shield. It’s available now for $199, and here are the first seven games you’ll be able to download as soon as you get it out of the box.
Hotline Miami
This isn’t one of those games where getting shot results in losing a bit of health. In Hotline Miami a single shot will kill you every time, and you are up against a load of trigger-happy goons who’ll shoot the second they see you. Yes, you’ll die an awful lot in Hotline Miami, but as you keep dying you’ll learn the right mix of stealth and gunplay that’ll help you get a bit further. It’s a thoroughly over-the-top homage to ludicrous 80s action films, rendered in lovely retro pixel graphics, a host of weapons to grab and plenty of blood to spill.
War Thunder
Recreate the second World War and play alongside PC, Mac and PS4 gamers in this epic online shooter. In War Thunder you can take to the skies in simulated warplanes with hundreds to choose from, or keep things more down to earth by commanding a tank. There are hundreds of vehicles to choose from, with naval forces slated to join the fray in the near future, and you can take part in fun arcade-style deathmatches or enjoy more realistic re-enactments of actual battles.
OlliOlli
Tony Hawk games are few these days, but the skateboarding genre received a much-needed shot in the arm in the form of OlliOlli, which goes all the way back to basics with retro 2D visuals and a stripped-down control system that makes it easy to pull off a huge variety of jumps, tricks and grinds. It’s a glorious little game of audacious stunts balanced against the need to hit the ground safely afterwards, and it’ll keep you coming back time after time to try and squeeze a few more points from every level.
Luftrausers
Who said flying an airplane had to be difficult? Luftrausers strips everything down to the basics and lets you fly into the action in a nippy little fighter plane that can zip around the sky and turn on a dime. You’ll need all that maneuverability, since the skies of Luftrausers are packed with enemy planes and thick with flak that’ll test your dogfighting skills to the limit. Thankfully you can grab an added advantage by upgrading your engine, hull and weaponry as you progress through the game. Tally ho!
Juju
Everyone loves an old-fashioned platform game, and if you have a taste for Italian plumbers or curiously colored hedgehogs, then you’ll be right at home with Juju. Designed to work as an intense single-player platforming challenge or as a more family friendly piece of co-operative fun, this brightly colored cartoon romp sees you as Juju the panda, accompanied by his friend Peyo the lizard, out to save the world and his father at the same time.
The Talos Principle
If your brain’s in need of a workout, look no further than The Talos Principle. Not only does it feature over 120 puzzles of increasing complexity and fiendishness that’ll tax your logical skills to the limits, it also features a philosophical sci-fi storyline where a robot apparently achieves a human level of consciousness and attempts to make sense of the world it suddenly finds itself in. Beautiful and challenging, it’ll stretch your mind in more ways than one.
Doom 3 BFG
It’s been a long while since Doom 3 took the original concept of a single space marine battling the inhabitants of Hell for an epic war on Mars, but it’s been given a huge revamp for its appearance on Shield. Pick your way through a dark and forbidding research station, blasting holes in a terrifying array of grotesque monsters as you attempt to save the solar system from an invasion straight from the depths of Hades. It’s a true gaming classic that’ll exhilarate and terrify you in equal measure, whether you’re revisiting it or experiencing it for the first time. Although you won’t see it at launch, expect Doom 3 BFG very, very soon.
