Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Cooperative puzzle games aren’t very common, but rarer still are cooperative puzzle games as good as this one. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is challenging and stressful, but it’s also a fun bonding experience thanks to its brilliantly designed conundrums. Navigating a path through an invisible maze based solely on directions spoken by a friend is hard but satisfying -- kind of like landing a plane while being directed by an air traffic controller. And riddling out the solution to a numbers puzzle by memorizing the position of the buttons you recently pressed on a constantly changing number pad requires no small amount of teamwork (you may want to consider pulling out a pen and notepad). Then, just when you think you're in a groove and have everything figured out, a siren will start blaring to distract you, or, worse, the lights will go out. You'll need to stay on your toes, think fast, and never stop communicating.

While Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a launch game for PlayStation VR, virtual reality doesn't really add a lot to the experience -- mostly because the designers didn't do much with it. The PlayStation Move controllers aren't even supported (you'll play with a regular gamepad), so you don't get to see a pair of virtual hands manipulating the bomb or pressing buttons. All VR does is create the impression that you're sitting in a different room and perhaps enhance the player's sense of immersion in a couple of situations -- such as when the power goes and the lights in the room switch off). That said, the misapplication of VR doesn't hurt what's otherwise a very fun co-op puzzler. Whether playing with friends or family, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a blast.