Nerves have been sufficiently jangled as of late, not least thanks to the slew of action packed games that have landed in recent months. I crave an altogether more sedate beginning to next year, and so my mind turns to games in which violence, reflex or any other kind of unblinking attentiveness takes a back seat.
]]>Ultrawide gaming monitors can seem excessive compared to regular 16:9 gaming screens, especially when their demanding resolutions often require powerful and expensive graphics cards to make the most of them. Once you try one, though, there's no going back. I've been a big fan of ultrawide gaming monitors for years now, as their extra screen space not only makes them great for juggling multiple desktop windows, but supported PC games also look uttery fantastic on them - and to prove it, I've put together this list of the best ultrawide games on PC.
]]>Come on in, readers. The water's free. Giant Squid's chill dive 'em up Abzû is once again opening its waters for free on the Epic Games Store. Someone must've thought it pairs well with the horrors of war, mind, because it's joined this week by Rising Storm 2: Vietnam. Both will be free to download and keep for the next week, at which point they'll be replaced by pigs and monarchs.
]]>It's been a tough weekend for a lot of people. And there's a tough season coming up, too. Despite Saint Nick's PRs working over time to make us all cheerful, Christmas can actually be a sad and stressful time, can't it?
Listen: it’s ok to be sad. It's fine. You feel what you feel. So, I asked the RPS hivemind what their gaming happy places were, so we could all share them together. They might turn out to be places you'd like to visit too.
]]>Occupying two very different spots on the spectrum of digital emotions, Abzû and The End Is Nigh are the latest games being given away free on the Epic Games Store. Abzû is a calm and colourful undersea adventure with lots of pretty sealife to gawp at. The End Is Nigh is a platformer with hundreds upon hundreds of deaths awaiting you.
]]>I’ve been playing the endless Assassin's Creed Origins, a game so gargantuan that the time on my save file lasts longer than Ancient Egyptian civilization did. This is a revenge mission stripped of all urgency by the simple fact of being five million hours long. Whatever big bad awaits at the end can rest easy knowing there are 800 fortresses to clear out before I reach him. Fearing a loss of sanity, I needed to remind myself of what progress actually felt like, so here are ten games you can see from start to finish in a more reasonable three hours.
]]>The dadification of games continues. So we’re going full Dad this week on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, as we’ve been asked to talk about the games we play with our children.
Alec’s daughter is excited by the unlockable characters in Rayman Legends (and she’s also strangely fascinated by Battletech). John’s son is a bit younger and likes to watch his dad diving in Abzu and Subnautica (but also manages to sneak glimpses of God of War’s quiet moments on the TV – naughty!). Brendan doesn’t have children, only a cat. She can’t stand games and thinks they are a waste of time.
]]>There are two games in recent memory which left me with an immediate thirst for more. Not in terms of story answers or glitzier sequels - it was simply that I wanted more of the same experience. I'd play a second Inside in a heartbeat - just more strings of strange and blackly comic scenes with well-judged, lethal puzzling. And I'd leap at the chance to swim in more of Abzu's gorgeous oceans, fish-watching anew. In lieu of that, InnerSpace looked like the next best thing - flying a spectral plane over land and undersea, gawping at fantasy fishies, revelling in glorious freedom of movement and a wash of colours, enduring no pressure other than that which I imposed upon myself.
InnerSpace isn't that, despite appearances and more than a few similarities. InnerSpace is far too scared that I might get bored. And so there is smashing, and strafing, and chatty demi-gods aplenty.
]]>We've already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin' and a-shakin' in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding pre-release expectations and most head-messing-with. Vintage cartoon-themed reflex-tester Cuphead leads the charge with two gongs, but ol' Plunkbat and The Witcher series also do rather well - as do a host of other games from 2017's great and good.
Full winners and runners-up below, with links to our previous coverage of each game if you're so-minded. Plus: I reveal which game I'd have gone for in each category.
]]>In ABZÛ, you play as a diver who is exploring the sublime and vibrant depths of the ocean. As you dive further down you heal and restore areas that have mysteriously decayed and help bring back their natural beauty. It’s a wonderful and emotional game that can turn even the clunkiest of players into a graceful aqua-dancer. Yet while moving through ABZÛ’s world makes you familiar with it, it is when you stop and absorb the surroundings that you start to get a sense of belonging.
]]>Game music that responds to your actions can be a magical thing. I'm talking about sneaking through enemy lines accompanied by an eerie string quartet, or cresting a hill while the scenery and music swell around you. Joost van Dongen, the man behind Proun and Cello Fortress, recently did an experiment with live soundtrack improvisation that makes for interesting reading.
Dongen and his fellow improviser Rene Derks set up shop at the Abunai convention in the Netherlands and invited people to come in and play any of 40 games. After turning in-game soundtracks off, Dongen with his cello and Derks on a djembe drum improvised their own music in response to whatever was happening on-screen.
]]>The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don’t worry. We’ve rounded up some recommendations - both general tips and some newly added staff choices.
Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You're welcome.
]]>Navigate the gallery by clicking on the left and right arrows or use the left and right cursor keys on your keyboard!
Real life is rubbish sometimes, and there’s nothing that video games can do about that. But I know that if I’ve had a particularly tough day at work, then sitting down at my PC and visiting a different world can often be exactly what I need to unwind.
]]>I am dad, hear me whinge. Too many games, not enough spare time, for all my non-work hours are spent kissing grazed knees, explaining why you cannot eat the food in that cupboard, constructing awful Lion King dioramas out of toilet roll tubes and being terrified that the next jump from the sofa to the armchair will go fatally wrong. I'm lucky in that my job to some extent involves playing games, so by and large if there's something I really want to check out I can find a way to, but I appreciate that there are many long-time, older or otherwise time-starved readers for whom RPS is a daily tease of wondrous things they cannot play.
Now, clearly I cannot magically truncate The Witcher 3 into three hours for you, but what I can do is suggest a few games from across the length and breadth of recent PC gaming that can either be completed within a few hours or dipped into now and again without being unduly punished because you've lost your muscle-memory.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
I fell hard for languid, gorgeous diving adventure ABZU at the time, but replaying it recently with my three-year-old daughter, it's become something else entirely. Not simply delightful - also strangely harrowing.
]]>Alice is away moonlighting as a chiptune DJ this week, as well as nobly helping to fill her local public swimming pond with cement in order that it might become a skate park. Hence, it falls to me to pose the question eternal. What the dickens are you going to play this weekend? Pretty sure I can take a good guess, if I'm honest. Here's what Team RPS is up to. Pretty sure you can take a good guess, if I'm honest.
]]>I know, you're all off exploring the stars, but please don't neglect the seas. ABZÛ [official site] is the most beautiful sight I've seen on my screen this year. I know it has its irritations - particularly, the controls leave my sense of tranquility battered and bruised - but nonetheless its explosion of undersea life and air of casual exploration pleases me enormously. I felt I should share some of the sights I saw with you.
]]>Last week's best-sellers, today. Most of the recent mainstays are still hanging on in there, but it's goodbye to Dead by Daylight (for now, at least). We do get two intriguing new entries, one glowering and one that is ALL THE FISH. Number one, meanwhile, is probably the number one you expected. That's right: Limbo of the Lost is back-back-back!
]]>Abzû [official site] is a beautiful underwater game which is, by turns, delightful and then very good at getting in its own way. I've played it twice now so follow me beneath the waves as I tell you Wot I Think:
]]>The ABZÛ [official site] E3 trailer was one of my highlights of the show with its colourful underwater world, lovely soundtrack and promisingly fluid movement. There's now a slightly extended trailer online showing more in the way of gameplay. If you watched the E3 one which I posted a LOT of the scenes will be familiar but there are some slightly extended sections which show you a bit more of the world and a touch more of the view which looks like someone definitely playing:
]]>ABZÛ [official site] is basically Pip-bait of the highest order. Beautiful undersea exploration with music composed by Austin Wintory. Oh god, the kelp forests! The jellyfish! The sea floor!
Come look!
]]>We gushed a little about Abzû in our E3 chat yesterday but in our fawning, er, hadn't actually got around to posting about it yet. (The same thing happened with Cuphead.) That may because we don't much at all about it, other than it's a gorgeous undersea game and that developers Giant Squid are lead by Matt Nava, who was previously art director of thatgamecompany's acclaimed console wander 'em ups Journey and Flower. It's not much to go on, but certainly is enough to pique my interest and fill our heads with fanciful dreams.
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