Have you had your Joy today? Because as Uncle Jack always says, there's simply no excuse anymore for feeling bad. It's a magic pill that paints crumbling masonry in rainbow hues, transforms disagreeable sights like blood spatter into a gust of butterflies and above all, keeps certain, very unpleasant memories at bay. Joy? That would be the reason everybody in Wellington Wells is so blissfully content, even the ones who have tuberculosis or scurvy. He'll sing you good morning when you wake, read you a story at bedtime and remind you incessantly to take your Joy.

Played to smarmy perfection by X-Men actor Julian Casey, his repertoire of shows includes interviews with long-dead famous Britons (sportingly pantomimed by the interviewer) and cooking lessons for those who may, for whatever silly reason, find meat and vegetables hard to come by.

A background antagonist comparable to the Joker in Rocksteady's Arkham games, Uncle Jack has the answer to all life's ills, not that life has any ills in Wellington Wells. Presiding over everything is Uncle Jack, Wellington Wells's twinkly Eye of Sauron, his smile dimpling every television, his chuckles wafting from every radio. Venture outside at night, not that any true Brit would ever violate curfew, and you'll hear them whistling God Save The Queen as they comb the fog for undesirables. Did you know the circus is coming to town? Have you heard about Constable Rossetti's wife's cake? In amongst them you'll find the Bobbies, all crocodile grins and Slenderman proportions, ever ready with a hat-tip and a 'right as rain, sir, right as rain'. Citizens - their high spirits and homogeneity ensured by mandatory white masks - play hopscotch, cuddle on benches, march up and down jauntily with elbows akimbo, trade morsels of village gossip. Head to the Parade District, the game's most affluent area, and you'll find candystripe roads, stooped cobblestone houses and tar-beamed pubs tucked in amongst modern residences with space age furniture. Riffing on the films of Stanley Kubrick and Terry Gilliam, the portrayal is absurd, fulsome, both dainty and menacing, with all manner of sceptred arcana popping through the seams of its tweed jacket as it brings a cudgel squarely down on your face. Set in the cheerily nightmarish, procedurally generated township of Wellington Wells during an alternate history in which World War 2 ended rather differently, it's a dystopian compilation of British traditions - the keep-calm-and-carry-on ethic of the Forties, the fledgling consumer culture of the Fifties, the sugary tunes and hedonism of the Sixties. Availability: Out August 10th on PC, Xbox One and PS4Īn uneven yet fascinating first-person role-player that mingles elements of immersive sim design with open world survival mechanics, We Happy Few is a love letter to all this, and - well, let's just say the letter isn't written in ink.

Empire of the undergrowth ps4