Last year (wahey), you narrowly decided that giving items to other players is better than throwing grenades back. I feel glad for your family and friends, who doubtless received wonderful gifts for Christmas rather than regifted junk. You're a little sweetie. Well, 55% of you are little sweeties. The rest... best not to dwell. Let's open this new year with a question of beginnings. What's better: a fresh new MMO server, or Viscera Cleanup Detail's Sniffer tool?
]]>It's time for another edition of Ask RPS, where we answer reader questions put forward by RPS supporters. Today's question is a nice, warm, fuzzy one, as it's all about the good times we've had playing games in co-op with friends and family.
It comes courtesy of Aerothorn, who asks: What is your favorite co-op gaming memory? (along with the additional clarification that these memories don't need to be confined to designed-for-co-op games, but could also stem from playing a single-player game with a friend. "I used to play Descent with me piloting and my friend gunning!" they said).
So which games make us think of happy times with pals and good company? Come and find out below.
]]>The very finest game about cleaning, Viscera Cleanup Detail, is now tidying up a spy spoof villain's secret island base in new DLC. Yes, this dastardly lair absolutely does have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads. And I think we might be able to blow up the moon with a giant ray gun? All in a day's work for our crack team of janitors. The DLC launch is accompanied by a free update which whacks in three new maps free for all Viscereers, though I don't believe you get to dispose of corpses by feeding them to sharks in those so what's even the point?
]]>This is Brendan, broadcasting live from rumour world, where everything is made of a nebulous candy floss-like substance. The locals call it “hope.” Amid this sticky cloud, a figure has formed. It’s Geralt of Rivia, hero of popular Gwent spin-off, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The monster-hunting swordsman will “make an appearance” in another game later this year, according to CD Projekt Red community lead Marcin Momot. Some have asserted that he'll be a guest character in upcoming fighting game Soul Calibur VI. Which makes sense given the close business ties between the Polish studio and Japanese publisher Namco Bandai.
It isn't confirmed. But it does raise the question: who else deserves a place on the stage of history? I asked the RPS treehouse who they’d like to see. Here’s the list we all settled on.
]]>To play Viscera Cleanup Detail is to be an enemy of environmental storytelling. It's a spacejanitor simulator where we sweep into levels and sweep away all the bodies, burns, blood, bullet holes, detritus, and alien goo that paints a clear picture of a terrible sci-fi incident. Once we're done, no one will ever know what will happened. (Well, unless we end up accidentally making even more mess.) Perhaps we're an agent of exposition, creating a blank slate so our dark masters can snare the next schmo with lengthy cutscenes. Whoever our spacejanitors are, thanks to another free update we can now enjoy a new level introducing something new to clear away: expository graffiti.
]]>This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the inner workings of their games. This time, Viscera Cleanup Detail [official site].
Viscera Cleanup Detail is a game about cleaning. You’ll wash blood and slime from floors and walls and pick up rubbish, bullet casings and body parts. Your slop will spill, your ichor-covered boots will leave prints over surfaces you’ve worked hard to scrub, and you’ll drop an oozing limb just as you thought you’d made things right.
It’s brutal, menial work, and every feature and level is designed to make it extra fraught with problems. “A main theme is that everything in the world hates you, or is at least indifferent,” developer Nolan Richert tells me. “The noble janitor has a miserable job to do and no one cares or witnesses their struggle. They only complain about the results. It's inspired by real life, you see.”
Also it’s fun, thanks to a set of tools that do all they can to hinder your attempts to just do your damn job.
THE MECHANIC: Physics bins and buckets and mops
]]>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.
]]>After the joys of cleaning up spaceguts in Visceral Cleanup Detail, I feel ready for something more constructive. I've mopped up blood and burned bodies but what do I have to show for it? A grubby office which my friends trash every time they visit. I feel ready for House Flipper [official site], a first-person renovator about smartening up homes by repairing, remodelling, painting, and decorating homes. Tasks like knocking down walls, fitting kitchens, and painting look a genuine treat, though sadly it seems to be singleplayer-only (and that 'flipping' premise is awful). Here, check out this trailer:
]]>I've grown immune to the draw of bundles as the number of them has increased, but the Indie Legends 4 Bundle has a good enough haul that it reminds of the early days of Humble. For €3.15 (around £2.62/$3.51) you get Viscera Cleanup Detail (with DLC), Door Kickers, Skullgirls, Sir, You Are Being Hunted, Reus, Lethal League, Party Hard, and Another World. I haven't played Sir or You Are Being Hunted, but I'd pay that much for Door Kickers alone.
]]>Pip is on holiday this week but I'm already laughing imagining the fun we'll have with the new update for Viscera Cleanup Detail [official site]. Yes, a new level to clean is nice. Yes, it's nice that the Shadow Warrior spin-off is now merged into the main game. Mostly, though, I'm looking forward to annoying everyone with three new songs blasting out the Big Banger boombox. I do so enjoy being a cheery jerk as we swab blood, incinerate corpses, and collect bullet casings with our space-janitor pals.
]]>We already chose 13 of our favourite games in the current Summer Steam sale, but more games have been discounted since. So, based on the entirely correct hypothesis that you all have completed every single one of our first round games and are now thirsting for more, here are 18 more to throw your spare change at. Everyone on the RPS team has picked three stone-cold personal favourites, making for a grand old set of excellent PC games: here's what we chose and why.
]]>I was in a long distance relationship for over two years and gaming was incredibly useful for keeping in touch with my partner*. But not every game was a good fit, either because of relative game experience or temperament or any number of other things. So here are some of the games which worked and some of the games which didn't. I'm going to explain them from my point-of-view because I don't want to presume to know exactly what his experience was!
]]>I don't know if this is a news or a feature or what, but I wanted to talk about first-person space janitor clean-em-up Viscera Cleanup Detail [official site] again because I'm still playing it.
]]>We made our list for Games of the Year or Bestest Bests or Advent Calendars or whatever it was but some of my candidates were missed off the list for NO GOOD REASON WHATSOEVER. I mean, fine, some of them were console games and some of them are from the wrong year but they're still games that were good this year and I still want to highlight them. Read on for gory janitorial duties, party crypts and the end of Dinklebot. I've also included a link or two in case you wanted to read a bit more about those games :)
]]>When spacethings go spacewrong, call in a spacehero like Ian Doom to spacekill everything. Once that swaggering spacemurderer is done, though, you need the help of a real specialist: you need the Viscera Cleanup Detail [official site].
It's been a few years since I first picked up my trusty spacemop and bloodbucket in a prototype to clean up scenes of spacehorrors, long enough that I'd forgotten was still in Early Access. But it is. It was. I've only just noticed - and been surprised - that RuneStorm's first-person swabber officially launched on Friday.
]]>Being a space janitor is pretty ruddy exciting, we can all agree. After an merry day of scraping guts out vents, mopping up blood, and collecting bullet casings, I need something slow and dull to unwind. And in the game.
Viscera Cleanup Detail [official site] today added a little drudgery to its workload with post-cleanup incident reports full of boxes to tick and text areas to complete. They're optional, but who could ever turn down an opportunity to squeal on Pip to the guvna?
]]>Pip has been playing Viscera Cleanup Detail - a game about being a space janitor - to avoid having to clean her room. She's even streamed it from her room and other people have watched her doing her fake cleaning. She and Alice investigate what's so enjoyable about mopping...
Pip: ALICE. My life now revolves around cleaning all the things.
Alice: Should I be concerned? Tell me about your plans for flying boats.
Pip: WHAT? Is that a euphemism or a code or something?
Alice: I was imagining you as Howard Hughes in a hermetically sealed frog onesie. Tell me Pip, what are you cleaning?
]]>Each Monday, Chris Livingston visits an early access game and reports back with stories about whatever he finds inside. This week, space station sanitation in Viscera Cleanup Detail.
I've been picking internal organs off the floor, mopping blood off the walls, cramming severed limbs and heads into an incinerator, and I've only just now noticed the shell casings, dozens of them, scattered around the room. In every other game, spent shell casings vanish when you're not looking. If you ever wondered where they end up, it's here, in Viscera Cleanup Detail, where they wait to be picked up, one by one. It makes me desperately wish for that Bioshock Infinite vigor that lets you collect bullets into a big hovering mass. Of course, vigors like that tend to lead to scenes of carnage like this. A simple magnet on a stick might be a better idea.
]]>Casting players as space-janitors cleaning up after an alien attack, Viscera Cleanup Detail is pretty great as one-note wacky physics sim jokes go. Now let's go one step further. Imagine playing as the dying lab technician without whom the space marine hero would be lost. Dragging useless gnawed legs behind her, she leaves diary entries hinting at puzzle solutions, scrawls cryptic warnings in her own blood, and plants supplies. Stack chairs and crates to reach odd hiding spots, hunt down iron tablets to top up her blood ink, and sacrifice everything to ensure that bumbling dolt triumphs. An idea for me to make in the next Peter Molydeux game jam, perhaps. Anyway.
For those who insist upon only buying games on Steam, keeping their games library as tidy as their space station, Viscera Cleanup Detail is now on Steam Early Access.
]]>When I first saw the news that there's now a Shadow-Warrior-themed level for Viscera Cleanup Detail, I was surprised for all of 0.2 seconds. Then, with the speed of a magical sword severing an already spurting limb, the universe made perfect sense again. It's a match made in heaven, and I don't know why I didn't realize it milliseconds sooner. Shadow Warrior leaves piping hot piles of plasma in every conceivable corner, and Viscera Cleanup Detail features the universe's most formidable mop. And now they're married! N'aaaaaaaw. See for yourself below.
]]>The Steam Greenlight machine keeps right on churning, and I have to say: it's getting a little more efficient. Initially, batches of new games were wheezing out in sickly trickles, but now we're getting 15-game shotgun bursts every couple weeks. There's still plenty of room for improvement of course, and it remains to be seen whether or not Valve can keep pushing this pace, but it's good to at least see some baby steps in the right direction. With that said, let's dive into this week's selection. Standouts include Syndicate spiritual successor Satellite Reign, the ever-popular (and hilarious) Viscera Cleanup Detail, open-world zombie sandbox 7 Days To Die, extremely ambitious god game Maia, and quiet, thoughtful ghost romp The Novelist.
]]>I put on my pants one leg at a time just like everyone else in the morning. Except then I just have really great ideas for games. [pats self on back]
This game is Viscera Cleanup Detail, it's a first person spaceship janitor simulator and it's my absolute favourite game. People (like Sponge) will tell you that the idea was used 'before' or something in a game called Space Station 13 but since I haven't played that and don't know anything about it let's just pretend that the idea came entirely from me.
]]>I am that odd middle point in life. I'm old and grumpy, but I don't have kids. So when I play a game where insides are spilled, the walls are sticky with gore, and horrific violence is rendered in 1920x1080, I don't think of the children. I think of the janitors. Someone is going to have to clean all that up. There's innards on the outside, the Trafalmadorian ambassador is coming over any minute, and the guy with the guns and helmet just walks away and leaves it all for muggins. There's a toe in the chronosynclastic infundibulum, for crying out loud! Oh no, by all means have all the fun, but when it comes to the real work they leave it for for the Viscera Cleanup Detail crew to soak up the blood and pick up the wobbly bits. It's up to you to make it right.
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