It's Sokoban! A game whose name I recognise as shorthand for this type of puzzle, and yet have never seen. It's also a genre I'm not overly fond of, preferring puzzles I can sometimes get through by intuition (Spring Falls), brute force (every switch-the-lights puzzle ever), or entering chaos mode (real life).
But I like Isles of Sea and Sky. From starting it almost on a whim, I was playing and figuring things out with zero fuss and no overt tutorialising pretty much immediately, and from there suddenly found that several hours had breezed by without frustration or boredom.
]]>Hitting pause in a video game is like dropping a wall across it. On one side of the wall lies what is called the diegetic space of the game, aka the fictitious world, which is generally the aspect that receives the most interest, the aspect that tends to attract the weasel word "immersive". On the other side of the wall lie menus, settings and other features that form a non-diegetic layer of bald operator functions - technical conveniences and lists of things to tweak or customise, from graphics modes to character inventory, that are cut adrift in a vacuum outside of time.
In theory, the pause screen and its contents are not truly part of the game. There is no temporality, no sense of place, no threat, no possibility of play, no character or narrative, no save the princess, no press X to Jason or pay respects, no gather your party before travelling forth. As the scholar Madison Schmalzer points out in the paper I'm wonkily paraphrasing here, "the language of the menu itself emphasizes the menu's position as outside of gameplay by labeling the option to continue as 'resume game.' The game world is always privileged as the site that gameplay happens."
]]>Liam and I have been playing looter shooter Remnant 2 in our spare time, as we realised we both couldn't stop thinking about it. Having been burned out of Destiny 2 and most live service games, we discovered Remnant 2 delivers all the benefits of blasting gangly creatures for skill points without all the live service baggage. What a refreshing thing.
Thing is, if two out of the three major bosses we've faced so far took us to court for cheesing them, we'd lose. And it brings us no greater pleasure, knowing we've carved powerful new weapons out of their remains. God, it feels good to be totally undeserving of any credit whatsoever.
]]>Alright, sure, so we technically assassinated your leader, and detonated a populated planet, and wiped out the first clan we ever met. But that was all self defence and we're not here to cause trouble. We just... have a lot going on okay.
The Pegasus Expedition is one of my favourite kinds of game. I'm not sure if it quite comes together enough, but it's trying something so original that even its partial success is worth celebrating. You're leading a 4X-ish effort to establish a power base in an unfamiliar galaxy. But you're not doing it to conquer everyone or win victory points. You're doing it so you can go back home and save Earth from annihilation.
]]>A decent name is one thing, but one like To Hell With The Ugly plain demands to be looked up. That's when you see the striking art style, and yeah okay, I'm already on on board.
Based on a French novel by Boris Vian, this tells a strange and surprisingly dark story about a famously handsome young himbo who gets caught up in a sinister plot in 1950s Los Angeles and has to adventure, talk, fight, and - horrors - reason his way to the truth. It's an adventure game with quick-time event bits, and a 50s America setting, all of which could put me off it entirely, but I can't bring myself to say anything bad about it at all.
]]>Over the last week and a bit, we've been steadily releasing a bunch of stories from our big, hour-long chat with XCOM and Marvel's Midnight Suns director Jake Solomon that took place at this year's GDC. It was a wide-ranging interview, looking at what Solomon plans to do next now that he's left Firaxis, and how he feels about his 20+ year career there. You can read the condensed version of that interview here, but as a treat for RPS supporters, I thought you might like to read our chat in full. There's still a lot I couldn't quite squeeze into separate news stories here, and I think (and hope) you'll find it interesting to read as a whole. So here it is. All 8760-odd words of it. Enjoy.
]]>Earlier this week I announced that RPS Yearly Premium Supporters can claim a game key for the Park Beyond closed beta, running until Friday May 19th. This is your reminder that you can claim them today, from 3pm BST/7am PT - that's in less than an hour's time!
]]>Any premium supporters who're missing out on a good theme park sim may have cause to rejoice this week, as the good folks at Bandai Namco have given us a blast of codes to give away for fantastical theme park 'em up Park Beyond's upcoming closed beta test, starting this Friday, May 5th. Park Beyond is not just a complex theme park management sim, or a physics-ish coaster builder (although it is both of those), it's also an anti-physics weird-ride expando-game, allowing you to unlock increasingly unrealistic upgrades for rides in a process the developers Limbic Entertainment call "impossification". Deets on how to get your code for the closed beta below.
]]>As I was pleased to let you know earlier this week, the next free game for RPS premium supporters is roguelite citybuilder Against The Storm. This is your reminder that you can log on to claim your copy today, April 13th, from 4pm BST/8am PT. That should be around the same time as Against The Storm gets is new free update, Sentinels Of The Forest, which adds Foxes as a playable species, along with new buildings, abilities, and porridge - the most sensible of all the breakfast foods
We don't have infinite codes, so this key drop, kindly provided by publishers Hooded Horse, is on a first come, first served basis until we run out.
]]>At PAX West in Seattle last year, I had the pleasure of interviewing the voice cast of Team Fortress 2. I chatted to John Patrick Lowrie (The Sniper), Gary Schwartz (The Heavy, The Demoman), Robin Atkin Downes (The Medic) and Ellen McLain (The Administrator) about the game's fifteen year long legacy, the process of finding their character's voices as well as their favourite quotes. It was a riot of an interview and, to be honest, a bit of a career highlight. It also did really well on TikTok, which I have mixed feelings about.
Fifteen minutes after the gang left the grimy conference room in which the interview took place (I had immediately crawled onto the floor in an attempt to ease the anxiety from having conducted said interview), I got a Twitter notification. Robin had posted a video. Following our chat, the group had attempted to order a sandwich from a cafe in-character, leaving the staff completely bemused as a result. Understandably the video did numbers, and over the last six months, the gang have been releasing new episodes in what is now known as "The Sandvich Saga" on a regular basis.
]]>There are few success stories more inspiring than that of Tarn and Zach Adams. After twenty years of development Dwarf Fortress finally made the jump to Steam in December 2021, complete with exciting new features such as "graphics" and "mouse support". Although the game was already critically lauded, its availability on Steam made it a financial success, with thousands of long-term fans thrilled to provide the brothers with a long-overdue payday.
Following their panel on the highs and lows of procedural generation, the pair had a chat with Rachel about the game's recent Steam release, upcoming features, their favourite player stories and - most importantly - Zach's dog.
]]>As every good munchkin knows, premium supporters of RPS get free game key giveaways, and this week we're excited to have a blast of first-come, first-served freebies dark fantasy citybuilder Against The Storm. On a somewhat desperate mission to reclaim the wilderness for a kind of demanding queen, Against The Storm charges you with not only building a prosperous settlement, but linking it with multiple others in a vast network of prosperity and civilisation. Read on to find out how and when to get your free key.
]]>There's a moment in BioShock Infinite's opening act that's always stuck with me. As you emerge onto the floating city of Columbia, the game takes you on a guided tour of the sights and sounds of this airbone civilization. As you saunter through the streets, you learn about its citizens and its creator, just sort of taking it all in. The sun is shining. You're surrounded by smiles. Before you know it, an airship rises above the clouds and perches next to a hugging couple, gently swaying in the summer breeze. Aboard the ship is a barbershop quartet, cheerfully harmonising the iconic Beach Boys tune God Only Knows. It's a memorable scene, and has become an integral part of the game's lasting iconography.
But for Tyler, Nick, Derek and Greg, this section was more than just a fun tease for the secret behind Columbia's unusual success. Self-confessed music school kids, the quartet inspired them to create their own musical group styled after Infinite's singing hairdressers. In 2023, BioShop Infinite celebrated their ninth year at PAX East, where they performed a wonderful collection of harmonised tunes to an absolutely packed community room - and we were there to film it.
]]>I really like retro first-person shooters. Show me a game with a gun in it that looks like it could feasibly run on Windows 95, and all of the neurons in my brain will start to fizzle and spark. I just think they're neat, and their recent resurgance has been extremely nice for me, specifically.
Unsuprisingly, then, I've been very excited to get my hands on Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, a retro FPS by Auroch Digital set within the grim-dark universe of Warhammer 40k. A retro shooter where you play as a Space Marine is so obvious a pairing it's a wonder the concept has never been tackled before, to the point where the game's own marketing materials sort of pretend that it already was back in the 90s but everyone just forgot about it.
]]>At last year's PAX East, we spent a lot of our time poking around the PAX Rising Showcase booth, which is a collection of indie games curated by PAX itself. Not only did we find a bunch of cool games to play, but we were also able to chat to the games' creators, as all Rising finalists are invited to attend in person to show their work to the public.
This year, though, Rachel and I decided to go one step further. We interviewed the teams behind four of the eleven 2023 finalists, asking the developers behind Go-Go Town!, Paper Trail, Slay the Princess and Xenotilt: Hostile Pinball Action about their experience of bringing their games to PAX, what they learned along the way, and what it’s like to spend four days standing on your feet talking to thousands of attendees (spoilers: it’s really bloody tiring).
]]>Liam and I played a lot of games at PAX East, like a lot. Most of them we managed to make videos for, but there were many more that we just didn't have the time to cover, and that were also very good! So here's a quick list of five more games I wanted to spotlight in written form while Liam's busy in the editing mines working on all the community videos we filmed (the first of which is out right now, chronicling the PAX Facebook group that takes a community photo every single year). It's very wholesome. We've got more community videos coming out this week, plus an article listing our absolute favourite games we played throughout the entire event, so keep your eyes peeled for those, too. For now, though, let's dive into some more indie highlights.
]]>PAX East is a great place to play the latest games, sure, but as anyone who's attended the event will tell you the games are just a small part of a wider medley of things to see and do. Last year we highlighted the show's thriving pin collecting scene, for instance, interviewing a bunch of Pinny Arcade enthusiasts about the hobby and discovering that physical badges are just a minor part of the appeal.
Encouraged by the lovely warm feeling making that video left in my belly, we set out to shine a light on other lesser-known parts of PAX East during our time at this year's show. This led us to discover the PAX East Facebook group, a community of over 8,000 members brought together through their shared love of video games, pop culture and PAX itself. The page is dominated by a striking banner image, a photograph that shows a large group of people crowded around the PAX logo that's a permanent fixture in the main hall of the Boston convention centre.
Rachel and I found this photograph fascinating. Who were these people? Do they take this picture every single year? How did something like this start, and who was responsible for organising it in the first place?
]]>Imagine for a moment, if you will, that Persona 5 let you suplex your opponents. Even better, imagine if those moves were pulled off through timing based minigames that resembled the battles found in Nintendo's excellent (and underrated) Mario & Luigi RPG series. Sounds good, right? Well guess what, that game exists! It's called Wrestle Story and it's definitely a project to keep an eye on.
After spending twenty glorious minutes with its colourful demo at PAX East, I was keen to chat to creative director Steve Jimenez about the team's inspirations, the challenges of translating wrestling into a turn-based RPG and the exciting locations that players will attempt to liberate from a group of devious heels.
]]>Earlier in the week, Liam and I had the opportunity to chat with Animal Well's solo developer and publisher Bigmode about creating their eerie subterranean world. We then had a chance to go hands on with the PAX East demo, and wow, we were both incredibly impressed. Watch the video below for our enthusiastic impressions:
]]>Show me a game about a feral, furry creature with a never ending hunger for junk food and I'm immediately interested. I played Pizza Possum on the first day of PAX and knew it would make a great indie highlight for our time here at PAX East. Liam and I have now both played the demo and you can listen to our impressions in the video below:
]]>Liam and I had a fun time chatting with the folks over at Mega Cat Studios about their upcoming wrestling RPG WrestleQuest last year at PAX West, and this time at PAX East we finally cornered them in the ring for a proper interview.
]]>I've played a bunch of indie game demos at PAX East, but none left my head reeling as much as 43 Studios' fiendishly frantic action platfotmer Hell Of An Office. It's a super fast parkour adventure in the vein of Neon White, and after ten minutes with the demo my heart race was through the roof. If I owned a fitbit it would have been screaming at me to have a nice sit down with a cuppa. Check out my full impressions in the video below:
]]>I really enjoyed dark fantasy adventure Roki when it first released back in 2020, and keen to see what developers Polygon Treehouse have gotten up to since, I jumped at the opportunity to play the PAX East demo for Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island. You can watch my impressions of the demo in the video below:
]]>Out of all the game demos Liam and I have played at PAX East, we both agree that Animal Well is something special. It's a 2D metriodvania where you play as a little blob trying to navigate a subtterranean labyrinth filled with creatures - some cute, some not so cute.
]]>Join us for another PAX East game highlight straight from the show floor, and this time we decided to revisit a cult horror classic: Alone In The Dark. This psychological horror is being developed by Pieces Interactive with publishing backing from THQ Nordic and is a love letter to the original game released back in the 90s.
]]>We've had our eyes on Goodbye Volcano High since it appeared in Sony's State Of Play back in February and the demo at PAX East is one of the first times that the devs have placed a game preview in the hands of eager players. I had the chance to sit down with the demo and play KO_OP's teen dino adventure first hand. Check out the video below if you're interested to know what I thought:
]]>It's almost become an RPS tradition to search the show floor at PAX events and find the coolest stuff and highlight it in a video, so that's exactly what we've done at PAX East. There's a lot of cool booths, fun props, and generally weird stuff to see, so we've chosen our absolute favourites and have listed them in video form for your viewing pleasure.
]]>It's day one of PAX East and what better way to kick off our show coverage than highlighting a great indie game! We first came across Demonschool back at PAX West last year and have loved it ever since. It's a slick, tactical Persona-like where you play as a band of university students navigating school life by day and beating up ghosties and ghoulies by night.
]]>Most RPGs set you off on some kind of grand quest, a hero's journey filled with danger and peril as you track down some legendary sword to defeat a world-ending evil. Boots Quest DX, however, has much humbler aspirations. You are a mere boot enthusiast on an adventure to find the very bestest best boots known to man (or blobs, I genuinely can't tell what provenance these rotund creatures hail from), and nothing else will deter you from achieving your lifelong goal. Find a honking great sword on the beach? Trash. A pirate's cutlass? Get in the sea, literally. If it's not a pair of boots, you're not interested - and it all makes for a brisk, anti-RPG adventure that's incredibly refreshing.
]]>Last week I talked about how I spent my week off at Christmas playing PowerWash Simulator like it was my job. When I wrote that, I was about two thirds of the way through the story in Career mode, which turns out to be just before PowerWash Simulator goes as bananas as everyone's home baking in the summer of 2020. I can't believe I need to say this but: this article contains spoilers for the PowerWash Sim story.
]]>At the beginning of November, we announced we were going to write a bumper crop of supporter articles for the month to celebrate the launch of our new introductory offer on our monthly Standard subscriptions. Normally, these exclusive supporter articles are reserved for our Premium subscription tier, but because we wanted to give those Standard introductory folks a taste of what Premium has to offer as well, we decided to make a bunch of them visible to all subscribers.
About a week into November, we realised that we didn't have a very good way of flagging which of those articles Standard subscribers could actually read (our bad), and due to a combination of holidays, illness and general busy-ness, we completely failed to come up with a solution. Apologies! To remedy that, I've now listed all of them below. Enjoy!
]]>Some games are just December games. When the air turns biting, I hear their siren song in my bones. They Are Billions. Frostpunk. Phoenix Point. Factorio. None of them are exactly what you would call a Christmas-y game. In fact, they're all pretty bleak and threatening in tone. But they're also amazingly comforting.
Just imagine: sitting down in your favourite chair, electric heat pad on your back, cat on your lap, mug of hot chocolate or coffee by your side. Legions of undead roiling at the gates, trying to break through your cosy little town's defences. Ahhhhh. It's Christmas.
]]>It’s getting to the time in winter when we reflect on the year, and pick our Bestest Best games that we’ve played over the past twelve months (okay eleven months, but December is always kinda quiet). We recently had this chat in the RPS hive-mind, and going through each month and making note of my favourite releases completely shocked me with how many fantastic mystery games have come out this year. It’s honestly awesome.
I’m a huge fan of mysteries in games, with some of my all-time favouites being Kentucky Route Zero, The Return Of The Obra Dinn, and Disco Elysium. I just like getting wrapped up in a good story that will kick my brain into gear. Strange murders, devious disappearances, and just general strange happenings - I love all of it.
]]>Vampire Survivors is a game where you control a little pixellated person who auto-attacks periodically. Your aim is to survive for as long as possible as hordes of slime and bats close in around you, and it's an excellent time. So excellent, in fact, that it's already seen a few spin-offs.
And having sampled a couple of Vampire Survivor-likes, it's made me appreciative of the game's visual clarity. Yes, things can get messy, but at least you're able to make out what's happening on screen. I don't think it's something the subgenre has quite grasped yet.
]]>Dave the Diver (character) is a bit out of practice, but he's an easygoing sort and it doesn't take much to convince him to get back in his flippers to look into the local anomaly at the behest of his arms dealer "friend", who would be clearly bad news even if his name wasn't Cobra.
Said anomaly fills with new sea creatures from all over the world every time it's visited, and possibly building-sized terror beasts and ancient merfolk, but Cobra's sure it'll all be fine, so in you go, mate. It's certainly pretty down there if nothing else, and Dave the Diver (game) is, if nothing else, a rare game that makes the usually tedious water level a bit of a treat to wander round in.
]]>I toyed around with this intro a lot, because I didn’t want to start with a super pessimistic bang. But, for lack of a nicer way to put it, I’ll simply say things are looking pretty scary out there, huh? Capitalism is failing, the economy is crumbling, and normal people have nothing left to give. It’s something I've been thinking about a lot lately, but I don’t really talk about it. I keep it all inside, like a microwave holding a ball of tin foil while it spins on full power.
At least, that was the case until I played Citizen Sleeper. It’s a rather simple RPG inspired by tabletop roleplaying games, giving you a limited number of action dice that you can spend each day to receive consequences. Mechanically, it doesn’t stretch much further than those actions and consequences, meaning I can instead focus on connecting with characters. In its simplicity, I found a cathartic way to process my thoughts on lots of scary stuff happening in our actual world. I also realised that Starfield, the big space game looming on the horizon which I was previously pretty excited about, just doesn’t seem appealing anymore.
]]>The other week I played a short demo for the upcoming Resident Evil 4 remake. You’d think being lucky enough to actually play the damn thing would have numbed my hyper-fixation about it a touch, but, nope. I’m afraid not. It turns out the guy who owns eight physical copies (and four digital) of the original Resident Evil 4 is still pretty excited to play the remake. Who ever could have predicted this?
The day my preview went live, Capcom showed off a couple of additional bits as part of a hefty Resident Evil showcase. Alongside a fresh story trailer the company also discussed the various gubbins you’ll receive if you fork out for the game's special edition as well as a short gameplay demonstration. Surprising no one, I’ve watched these clips so many times I now have a load of thoughts that are not only completely useless but are taking up vital brain space I usually reserve for things like pin numbers and dates. If I don’t vent all of this garbage out of my skull there’s a chance I’ll forget my Mam’s birthday again, something that genuinely happened once when I was 17 and I haven’t stopped feeling guilty about it since. I bought her a plant from a Tesco Express three days later thinking that would help. It didn’t. This event haunts me more than any Resident Evil jumpscare ever could.
]]>Just over a week ago, we launched a new introductory offer for the RPS supporter programme that chops the price of our monthly Standard tier down to just £1 / $1 for your first month. This primarily gets you the ad-free version of the site (alongside some other small quality of life bonuses), but after listening to your feedback, it's clear that the thing you really want to sample is the exclusive Premium-tier supporter articles we write alongside our regular games coverage. So we're doing just that.
For the month of November, we'll be making a selection of supporter articles available to all Standard subscribers. We've also made a bunch of Sin Vega's indie-focused Scout Report posts available to all Standard subscribers right now, too, as a little extra thank you for signing up. And to all our existing Premium tier supporters, we've got something for you as well. As an even bigger thank you for all your continued support, we're doing a bumper crop of supporter articles this month, with the aim of publishing one each day of the week for the whole of November. But wait... there's more!
]]>Join us for our mega tour of the PAX West show floor where we go behind the scenes of the show's hustle and bustle to bring you a little slice of PAX gaming heaven. We've been stomping around the show floor looking at all of West's greatest sights, including bonkers booths, game demos, cool cosplays, and all the different gaming areas to give you a full picture of everything there is to see at PAX.
]]>After some unforeseen technical hitches, I'm pleased to say that, finally, the next free key giveaway for RPS premium supporters is now live. Yes, right now, so go on. Hop to it.
]]>UPDATE #2: Hello again folks. Sorry again for all the confusion over this week's free game key giveaway. Thankfully our tech wizards have now sorted all outstanding technical problems, and we will now be holding the giveaway on Monday, July 18th, at 4pm BST / 8am PT. Thanks again for your patience on this. As ever, I'll write another post on Monday a few hours ahead of the giveaway going live to remind everyone when it's taking place.
]]>Aside from our eternal love and gratitude, lovely folks who choose to support RPS at the premium tier get extra perks - and one of those is getting regular access to free game keys. Today I'm excited to tell you that we have two more games stepping up to the code plate, and you can choose one of them to take home for free later this week: The Longing or Ghost On The Shore, both beautiful and contemplative games.
]]>Yesterday, we announced our next free game key giveaway for RPS premium supporters. This is your reminder that you'll be able to claim said game key for the beautiful action roguelite Have A Nice Death today, from 5pm BST / 9am PT. That's in just a couple of hours time.
]]>Year Two of RPS' relaunched supporter program is well and truly underway, and to celebrate, we've got another free game key giveaway lined up for our premium supporters. That game is Have A Nice Death, the gorgeous 2D action roguelite from Magic Design Studios where you step into the robes of the Grim Reaper himself - and it's just received a big chunky update today to boot. Here's how to claim your free copy.
]]>One of my biggest highlights from PAX East a couple of weeks ago was attending Shirley Curry, aka: Skyrim Grandma's panel about her roleplaying adventures in Bethesda's enormous RPG. Despite suffering a stroke just a couple of months beforehand, the 85-year-old YouTuber was on fine form during her PAX East panel, speaking to a packed out theatre of fans and viewers who have spent the better part of six years following her various playthroughs through Skyrim as a multitude of different characters. She talked briefly about her writing and character creation process for her Let's Play-style videos, before spending a whopping 45 minutes answering questions from the audience. These covered everything from her favourite things in Skyrim to her favourite, real-life candy, and also included a surprising number of horror game recommendations. In her own words, she loves stuff that's "weird and creepy", and has recently been looking for something new to play. "I’d really like to play a dark, scary game," she said, and the audience were only too happy to oblige.
It was a truly wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon, and as soon as it was over, both Liam and I knew it was too good not to share. Here's a written transcript of the entire audience Q&A in full, plus a summary of her opening speech, for your reading pleasure.
]]>PAX East 2022 may be over, but we’ve still got plenty of things to talk about from our time in Boston. We have a bunch of videos in the pipeline that I can’t wait to share with you (including a fun piece exploring PAX staple collectible Pinny Arcade) but for now I think it’s about time we spoke about one of the best bits of in-person shows: the booths.
Now, we already highlighted most of the booths at PAX East in our show floor tour that we published during the event itself, but we wanted to focus on some of our favourites in a little more detail. Come and see them (and their carpets) in all their glory below. I'm not kidding about the carpets. They were astounding.
]]>If you thought Larian's walled castle booth at this year's PAX East was impressive, wait until you clap eyes on TinyBuild's full-on PAX carnival. It was here where we saw Potion Craft's delightfully detailed little magic tent, for example, as well as the world's largest luminescent, inflatable spider, who was on hand repping their new arachnid-based multiplayer lightsaber game, Spiderheck. To talk more about the stand and the publisher's upcoming slate of games, we spoke to CEO Alex Nichiporchik, all in the company of his good (and grizzly) friend Larry the bear.
]]>PAX East 2022 may be done and dusted for another year, but we've still got plenty more PAX-related goodies coming down the content pipes - and what better way to kick off our post-PAX offering than by rounding up all the best cosplay we saw down on the show floor? After all, it wouldn't be PAX, or indeed any kind of convention, without attendees showing off their incredible handiwork, so come and celebrate their sewing needle and glue gun skills by watching the video below.
]]>PAX East 2022 has officially closed its doors for another year. We've had a great time over the last four days, but alas, it's time for us to head back home to the RPS Treehouse, find a nice cosy corner, and sleep for 100 years. Before we do that, though, here's our final daly round-up video, which is all about games, games, games. Enjoy!
]]>Of all the booths at PAX East 2022 this year, Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 stand was by far one of the most impressive. Not only did they construct an entire walled city to hark back to its iconic, titular location, but they also had an enormous Nautiloid crashed into the top of it. There was a Mindflayer statue on hand as well, for fans to pose with next to their official cosplayers, and a little campfire for attendees to have a small sit down on, just like they'd do when resting in the game. It was such an incredible booth that we asked Larian to give us a tour of it, and while we did so we also took the opportunity to chat a bit about the reception of Update 7, the confirmation of its 2023 release date and more.
]]>Day Three of PAX East 2022 is done and dusted for another year, which means it's time for another daily round-up video. We had another jam-packed schedule today, checking out Dome Keeper (formerly known as Ludum Dare darling Dome Romantik) over on the Raw Fury booth, before heading over to the PAX Rising Showcase to check out a specially curated selection of upcoming indie games. We also caught up with Larian to chat about Baldur's Gate 3 (watch out for a dedicated video coming in the next day or two), and we capped off the day by attending Shirley "Skyrim Grandma" Curry's panel over on the Bumblebee Theatre stage. I'll be writing up a separate post about this in the coming days, but needless to say, Shirley was an absolute delight.
]]>The first McPixel was one of those point and click adventures that was just so wholesomely silly that it won you over with its mix of daft humour and bonkers, quickfire 'save the day' scenarios. Now, everyone's favourite bomb disposal expert is back in McPixel 3 (solo developer Sos Sosowski prefers we never mention the likes of McPixel 2), which we got to see in action over at the Devolver booth at PAX East 2022. Sosowski took the reins for us in this demo, showing us exactly how not to save the world in this equally comedic sequel, proving that the McPixel formula is still just as potent ten years on from the original.
]]>PC hardare modding is never something I had the guts to try during my time in the RPS hardware mines, but after attending The Evolution Of PC Modding panel at PAX East this week, I wish I'd been a little bolder. Moderated by Overclocking-TV.com's Isaïe "Trouffman" Simonnet with special guests Joe Gialanella from ModMyMods, Eric "hobbseltoff" Hobbs from PC Modding Enthusiast, and Justin "Robeytech" Robey, these four experts took us through the history of PC modding over the last 15 years, the highs and lows of some of their very own builds, and what lies in store for PC modding going forward. It was a fascinating panel, and we caught up with Simonnet afterwards to try and recapture some of that excellent hardware chat for you folks at home.
]]>We're now halfway through PAX East 2022, which can only mean one thing: it's time for our second daily round-up video. Instead of plonking ourselves in the middle of the empty show floor after hours, we snuck back into Devolver's booth to film our Friday catch-up, where we started our day some 10 hours beforehand. We got the lowdown on McPixel 3 from solo dev Sos Sosowski, and marvelled once again at the lovely overgrown arcade cabinets of reverse citybuilder Terra Nil. We then moved over to the Focus stand to play supernatural cowboy slayer Evil West and the ultra fast FPS Warstride Challenges. We also stopped by the Pinny Arcade communtiy meet-up today, and sat in on a couple of panels, including one about the history of PC hardware modding and a Wordle Royale. Find out exactly what that means in the video below.
]]>Pretend it's Thursday for a second. We've just emerged from Gearbox's 80-minute panel at PAX East 2022, and we're wondering how they managed to spend so much time talking about so little. You know something's gone wrong in a conference when you've got an entire segment dedicated to just merch, and Gearbox groupies are hollering for Tiny Tina G-Fuel cans like it was mana from heaven. Lucky for you, we suffered through all the merch plugs, the failed trailer loads, nothing announcements and yet another 20-minute magic set to bring you this condensed version of Gearbox's panel news, all so you don't have to suffer through that interminably long stream. Here's everything you need to know from the Gearbox Main Theatre Show panel in 5 minutes.
]]>Recently, we asked what's the deal with all the wacky golf games coming out this year? Well, we thought we better answer that question by going straight to the source. While we were out at PAX East 2022, we tracked down the director of upcoming roguelike Cursed To Golf, Liam Edwards. As well as asking him about the enduring appeal of sunny green fairways, we also putted our way through its excellent PAX East demo, discovering this golflike is anything but cursed.
]]>PAX East 2022 is in full swing, and we've been marching round the show floor to capture all the sights and sounds going on inside the Boston convention centre. After all, why should attendees have all the fun? Join us for our giant tour of the PAX East show floor, where we go behind the scenes on all the biggest stands, games and arenas to give you a snapshot picture of all things PAX.
]]>We're still putting the finishing touches to our big PAX East show floor tour video, but while we wait, I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at some of the best (and worst) things we saw on our travels round the Boston convention centre. In the latter category, first prize definitely goes to the trio of highly cursed doll babies scattered around the stand for Chernobylite, the post-apocalyptic survival horror roguelite that came out last year. They were also accompanied by two gas masks, casually strewn across the corners of TV screens, but nothing compared to the truly haunted look of these semi-melted plastic husks.
]]>PAX East 2022 opened its doors for the first time in two years today, welcoming the masked and vaccinated masses to the Boston convention centre. As mentioned earlier in the week, Liam and I are out there in person, and we're making exclusive behind the scenes videos for RPS supporters. To kick things off, we've put together our first daily round-up video, where we tell what we got up to today, along with the biggest news from the show floor. Come and join us for our first daily rundown of PAX East.
]]>I have now received most (but not quite all) of my stuff after moving, so I have a TV and two (2) consoles to play games on. One thing I've been playing recently is Ghostwire: Tokyo, a ghost huntin' action game that's a bit less weird and a bit more "kind of like an Ubisoft game" than I was expecting. But I like Ubisoft games just fine, so I'm having a blast - plus there are still some clutch ghost fights to be hand when I run out of finger-ammo for my magic hands.
I am extra delighted by the animals, though. For whatever reason, they are unaffected by the evil fog that has swept through Tokyo and turned everyone into spirits, so there are a few dogs and cats just sitting around and (and this is the good bit) you can read their thoughts.
]]>Last year, Ed wrote about how he wished Ian Hitman could skip in IO Interactive's big shiny assassin sim. Well, Agent 47 clearly needs to make the next stop on his international mission list a nice, relaxing retreat on the Mediterranean island of Pinar del Mar. Not to murder anyone, of course. But to hang out with Alba for some all important frolicking lessons. She's a pro at this skipping marlarkey. If she's not throwing her arms out like an aeroplane when she's running up and down the yellowing hills of this sleepy little island village, she's doing a jolly little skip that is probably the most delightful thing I've ever seen in a video game. In fairness, the whole game is just pure joy distilled into a chill wildlife photography adventure, but man alive, the skipping is something else. More of this please, developers.
]]>Through an entirely unplanned sequence of events, I'm currently playing two big action adventure games that couldn't be less alike. One is God Of War, a big, serious dadventure epic about an emotionally distant father trying his darnedest to connect with his (at times very irritating) son. The other is Kena: Bridge Of Spirits, an altogether more wholesome adventure about a young girl cleansing a lush, forested mountainside from a serious case of bad vibes and helping lost ghosts pass on to the other side.
About the only thing they have in common is that they both have what one might call 'cute' NPC companions. Dad Of War is joined by his eager archer "BOY!" Atreus, while Kena has her gaggle of black, fluffy Rot friends (above, right). According to the widely accepted law of big googly-eyes, I should find the Rot absolutely adorable and thus beyond reproach. Atreus does not have big googly-eyes (they are merely wide and naive), but he is certainly a lot cuter than God Of War's other main companion, a talking disembodied head. And yet. Even though Atreus has now reached that stage where he's doing all his adolescent whining and rebellion and "I know you are, but what am I?" nonsense in the space of about two hours, I would much rather have this sulky pre-teen by my side than the interminable Rot. Let me explain.
]]>There were a lot of games I played last year that could have been on our Best Games You Missed list at the end of 2021. I ended up going with Studio Pixel Punk's Unsighted in the end, but it was very nearly OPUS: Echo Of Starsong, a stunning visual novel adventure game from Taiwanese studio Sigono Inc. I'd seen a few other games journalists raving about it when it came out on Steam last September, and hey, over 3000 overwhelmingly positive Steam reviews can't be wrong either, so I took the plunge, and golly, it sure is something special.
]]>On a stretch of futuristic tarmac, something clicked. Yellow quest markers hadn't built my relationships in Cyberpunk 2077. When a job needed doing, then they'd steer me in the right direction. But for those initial sparks of story, my cellphone had been key. Chats and texts buzzed into my brain at all hours. "Hey V", "V, got a minute?", "V!"
Characters would get in contact with me, not the other way around. And I liked that. In fact, I'd say it helped build a living, breathing world more than Night City's towering skyscrapers and moving billboards. More than, perhaps, any other big RPG I've played over the last couple of years.
]]>As part of our relaunched supporter program this year, we've been busy organising lots of great free game keys for RPS premium supporters. Admittedly, the last two we've done (Darkest Dungeon and Wartales) have both been quite small with only limited numbers of codes available, but I'm pleased to say we've finally put together that long-awaited 'big' free game drop that all premium supporters will be able to get involved with.
That next free game is Plunder Panic, a swashbuckling pirate 'em up in which teams of up to six players battle it out on the high seas. Here's how to get your copy.
]]>On Monday, we announced the next free game for RPS premium supporters, the all-new, early access open world strategy RPG, Wartales. This is your reminder that you'll be able to claim your free copy of Wartales today, December 1st, from 4pm GMT / 8am PT.
]]>If you've been on the fence about whether to get an RPS subscription on the cheap this Black Friday / Cyber Monday period, our latest free game announcement might just be the thing you need to tip you over the edge. Hot off the heels of our Darkest Dungeon giveaway, the next free game we're offering to existing RPS premium subscribers is the all-new open world strategy RPG, Wartales.
]]>Earlier this week, we announced the next free game key for existing RPS premium supporters, the excellent gothic roguelike Darkest Dungeon. This is your reminder that these free game keys will be available to claim today, November 11th, from 4pm GMT (that's 8am PT for folks across the pond).
]]>When we relaunched the RPS supporter program at the end of June, one of the benefits of becoming a premium subscriber was regular free game keys, as curated by the RPS staff. Today, we're announcing one of the next game keys that will be available for existing premium subscribers: Darkest Dungeon, the exquisite gothic roguelike that's also one of our favourite RPGs of all time.
]]>Brinkmanship doesn't get explored all that much in games. Precipice is almost certainly derived from Balance of Power, a political strategy simulation from 1985 about the Cold War powers and their winner-armageddons-all staring contest. It was impressively original, complex, and completely unplayable. Happily, Precipice has kept most of what made that game interesting to begin with, and dumped the baggage.
]]>Happy 10th anniversary Dark Souls! Here's to you, Sin the Slumbering Dragon. And to you, Crossbreed Priscilla. Chin-chin! Oi, not to you Ornstein, or to you, Smough. How did you even get in, anyway? This is an invitation only event for bosses who have cuttable tails.
There's a tinge of sadness to this celebration, though. Cuttable tails were all the rage back in the original Dark Souls but now they're lost to time, never to be seen again, just like the tails you cut off themselves. Although a part of me hopes that the cycle will renew (like the sort of tails that grow back after you cut them off). And just like skinny jeans are slowly going out of fashion in favour of the 90s wide leg, I'm hoping FromSoftware's bosses won't cling so closely to their tails in Elden Ring and maybe, just maybe, they'll let us lop them off again.
]]>It was 3am and Hucks the cellar spider was finally surrounded by, instead of carrying, her wee hatchlings. Clarice, her slightly dim neighbour, was resting after another hour spent fruitlessly stumbling around after an even dafter flying thingy that would eventually blunder right into her face.
Playing Webbed seemed inevitable for someone who watches her ceiling spiders when she can't sleep or finish an article. But within about a minute of playing, it became clear that it's the kind of game that will bring joy to almost anyone. Webbed is immediately brilliant.
]]>Rejoice, JRPG fans. Bravely Default 2 has finally arrived on PC, and cor, you're in for a treat. Previously confined to Nintendo-only consoles, first on the 3DS and later the Switch, the Bravely series is simultaneously a love letter to the classics and - in my eyes, at least - one of the genre's best modern advocates. We've seen plenty of games try to reinterpret Final Fantasy's four heroes of light and elemental crystal schtick over the years, but Bravely Default is the one that really gets it, scratching that retro itch while also bringing something new to the table in the form of its fantastic risk and reward battle system, compelling job classes and absolute chefkiss.gif soundtrack (which also plays a surprisingly big role in combat, too). It's legit one of my favourite JRPG series to date, and I'm so pleased it's finally made its way to PC.
]]>During Geoff's Gamescom MegaMix earlier this week, we got another extended peek at Death Stranding's upcoming Director's Cut, which adds loads of new features, modes, story missions and ways to transport your cargo to Kojima's esoteric postal hiking sim. Personally, I couldn't care less about the bum-warming jet pack or the mountain-scaling catapult. Instead, I'm ALL about Sam's Buddy Bot, and I 100% plan to use its strong, muscly robot calves to carry me all the way across America when I inevitably end up playing it all over again. Watch out, BB Boys. I think we might have a BBBB Boys road trip on our hands, too.
]]>Old school shooters are still in vogue and that's basically a good thing. But I wonder where it'll lead.
G String might offer a clue. As well as having possibly the worst name in history, it's a strange sort of throwback to the early/mid 2000s, an era you might, if you had to say these things for a living, call "middle school". I'm surprised at how refreshing I found that.
]]>Continuing my recent trend of "Ed tries an indie game and realises he quite likes it", I have another one for you. It's called Dreamscaper and it's a bit like if Hades and Life Is Strange had a child that's both murderous and heartfelt. So if you're up for adopting a new roguelike, then this might be worth taking a look at.
]]>I spent some time this weekend wallowing happily in Back 4 Blood, the co-op zombie smasher positioned as a "spiritual successor" to Left 4 Dead. Had a great time; got covered in blood. Genuinely, I favour melee quite a lot, and one of the people I played with kept saying "You are covered in so much blood!" in a tone I took to be one of admiration.
Back 4 Blood does have a whole rich story (including that the Ridden are technically mutants and not zombies, but potayto, potarto. There's also some lovely set dressing, particularly in safe houses. One is a flat that has a calendar with a picture of a snapping turtle. Ed really liked that. My favourite bits, though, are the graffiti and post-it notes.
]]>As someone who both adores Adam Robinson-Yu's wholesome adventure game A Short Hike and has spent many hundreds of hours playing Animal Crossing over the years, Fabien Weibel's new camping indie game Haven Park seems like the perfect cross-section of my personal gaming tastes. It's set on a colourful island paradise-cum-outdoors adventure park, much like A Short Hike, and your task is to make this place a nice, cosy hangout for prospective campers, building and crafting new facilities to fulfil their needs, which is very much in the same vein as Nintendo's animal life sim. And having played a bit of the game so far, I am happy to report that this really is the perfect cross-section of my personal gaming tastes, and I will likely be losing the entire weekend to it as I continue my little adventure.
]]>Managing the climate is usually an afterthought in colony building games, if it's included at all. It tends to be a non-issue until the game’s basically over, and its effects are usually underwhelming.
Imagine Earth isn't entirely about the environment. And it needn’t be, given that you're working for a business colonising one of countless worlds. Who cares if you destroy a planet when you can easily skip over to another one? You can do that. You can be pretty rapacious. But I find it more fun to be the oceanic aliens, because they start out with lots of seabase technology, so when your rivals accidentally melt the ice caps you can mostly just laugh at them.
]]>14 years on, it might say more about me than about games that I automatically want to reference Portal when I play a game like Claire De Lune. It's a bit unfair to compare everything in the first person physics puzzle subgenre to one of the best games ever made as a default.
You have a zappy non-violent gun necessary for navigating a series of platforming challenges. That's... actually where the similarities end. Instead of the increasingly sinister laboratory and wry humour, Claire De Lune crashes you into an alien planet and asks you to reunite with your daughter while periodically getting a flash of sad backstory.
]]>I am not a train person. I like travelling on trains. Or at least I would, if I was rich, or lived in a country where all train companies weren't contemptible thieves actively draining the blood of society. But games about trains always passed me by. Not even the classics of the genre nor acclaimed descendants like openTTD have ever grabbed me.
So I started playing NIMBY Rails almost as a joke. Then I coughed, and two hours had passed. It is dangerously engrossing.
]]>Going Medieval will be huge. I had an eye on it, but didn't expect it to land quite so well as it already has, and now that I've had time to try it out, hoboy. What a delight.
It is, in a word, the leading contender for the next Rimworld. I try not to be so reductive, but denying Rimworld's influence here is pointless. It has a less colourful setting but aside from that it copies pretty much everything. And that’s okay.
]]>Ever since I reminisced about Screamer, I've been on a car game kick. By this I mean that I gave WRC 9 a go, then swiftly rage quit as I realised I wasn't cut out for "Dark Souls on gravel". So ever since that fateful night, I've fled to YouTube, where I now watch people play rally games beautifully. And I can't seem to stop.
]]>Monster Hunter Rise isn't due to arrive on PC until early next year, but I've been playing the Switch version over the last week after getting the game for my birthday - and I actually can't stop. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been slicing up its oversized lizards with my beloved Dual Blades like nobody's business, gutting their scales, pelts, fangs and goodness knows what else to make even stronger pairs of dino pants so I can get back out there and take on ever-larger beasties and make ever more fashionable trousers. It's a familiar rhythm to Monster Hunter games of yore, but there's something about Rise that's kept me hooked far longer than my jaunts in previous MonHan games, including PC mega hit Monster Hunter: World. And I think it's partly down to my new dog friends, the Palamutes.
]]>I haven't played a car game in over a decade. Not out of spite, or because of some bizarre gaming diet where I am not allowed to consume anything with four wheels, but it's just that everything nowadays is too realistic, or trying too hard to be unrealistic. I desire a car game that slots nicely in-between the two without fanfare. A simple, unceremonious racing game is what I'm after; Screamer. That game is Screamer. A third one. It's just, would I actually like it?
]]>There was a time when actual arguments were had over the validity of "real time with pause" as a design choice. A foolish time we ought not to revisit. I bring it up because I've been playing Fates Of Ort, a light-hearted action RPG that's more like "pause with real time".
Everything is frozen in time until you move, swing a sword, or cast a spell, replacing the usual reflex-based clickfest with a measured pace. Combined with its intriguing magic system, it lets you combine conditions and spell effects without becoming a test of how many button sequences you've memorised. There's even a hint of bullet hell, an experience I evidently enjoy more (ie: at all) when I can pause, and a tiny pinch of Dark Souls in its respawning/healing system. It's fun stuff.
]]>This weekend I have been playing and absolutely loving Laybrinth City: Pierre The Maze Detective. It's an animated, interactive puzzle game that's sort of a cross between Where's Wally and Hidden Folks. In it, you (Pierre, the Maze Detective) must hunt down the mysterious Mr. X, who has stolen the Maze Stone from the local museum and is using it to turn everything into a maze. This is causing no small amount of havok.
It's a beautiful game, with the mazes growing in complexity and size as you go. You start off in the museum, where the exibits have come to life. The city streets are overrun with a festival. Later you enter a magical forest, and run around the giant trees. There's also a magical city-castle, where the statues have come to life and are rebelling against being statues. It is - perish the word - absolutely charming, and full of details. But after playing for a few hours, I realised it didn't remind me as much of Where's Wally as it did of the Usborne Puzzle Adventures.
]]>Update: This offer is expired and all Phantom Abyss codes have been claimed.
Last week, we made it easier to support RPS. Now, as promised, we've added a new benefit for premium supporters: a copy of Phantom Abyss, which released in Steam Early Access earlier today.
]]>The RPS Supporter Programme launched back in 2014 as a way for readers to directly fund the kind of work we love most. The strange, the experimental, the personal, the obscure; the kind of work that's expensive and time-consuming, and loved intensely by those who get it.
Today we're making it easier to support RPS - and changing the way you access your benefits if you already do.
]]>Tanks are usually a boring, one note interruption to the exciting infantry shootytimes I was having.
Armoured Commander II, however, is fun. How dare it.
]]>There was a moment over the E3 weekend where Alice0 pointed out that a lot of people are remaking Left 4 Dead - apart from Valve. I have mentioned this before, but playing L4D2 accounted for about 60% of my time at university. I have a tattoo of the safe house symbol on my ribs (it is terrible).
The Left 4 Dead formula is simple on paper - small team of co-op players vs monster horde, getting from point A to point B with potential incidental side objectives on the way - but is tough to nail. You need to get the mix right. And this year's E3 has revealed a lot of people are rolling up their sleeves to have a go. Let's have a look.
]]>Double Fine's most treasured son (apart from Jack Black, who is not a real man and was obviously designed by a committee of wacky game developers some time in the late 90s) is undoubtedly Raz, protagonist of their 2005 cult hit Psychonauts.
Psychonauts is classic Double Fine. It's a 3D platformer with some puzzley bits that sees Raz training to be a psychonaut at a secret government facility disguised as a children's summer camp by having adventures that take place inside people's subconscious brains. This premise, you will note, is a cracker, even if not that many people thought so at the time. It's become more popular in recent years, though, and every so often I go back and give it a look, most recently being this weekend. So let me be the latest in a long line of people to say, "Blimey, it's still a bit good, isn't it?"
]]>Despite being a self-professed wimp when it comes to horror games, it takes a fair amount to properly rattle me when I'm actually playing them. I tend to get more stressed than frightened when playing games like Resident Evil, and the only time I've ever been properly scared and actually screamed in my seat was when I was playing P.T, Kojima's short teaser game on PS4 for the now cancelled Silent Hills. I had the lights on, Matthew by my side, and yet when we turned a corner in that creepy, looping corridor house, a ghost suddenly rushed us out of nowhere. Both of us yelled in terror at the sight of it, and it took ages for us to calm down and work up the courage to carry on.
It's not like I've been chasing that feeling in the intervening years (I am, after all, an officially certified wimp), but playing Resident Evil Village's House Beneviento section this week put me right back in that tiny London flat where we both screamed ourselves silly. It's proper nightmare fuel that place, and of course I had the good foresight to play it just before I was about to go to bed. Well done, Katharine, bravo.
]]>Every now and again, I think about Dishonored 2 and how good it is. I don't play it, I just observe it in my head like a photo album. I flick through my memories and shake my head in disbelief at how ingenious its levels are. I also take a moment to remember Karnaca, this beautiful port city nestled in the mountains and surrounded by forest.
I just wish I could explore more of Karnaca. I want to break free of the game's constraints and just wander into the hills, or potter around the mountains. This isn't a criticism, it's more of a compliment I think. That Arkane crafted a world I hunger for, but I probably won't ever get to explore fully. All I can do is bash my character against invisible walls and wail in agony.
]]>I've been thinking a lot about video game recommendations recently. Specifically, things like, "What game would you recommend to someone who's never played a video game before?" and, "What kind of games would you recommend to people who read a lot but don't necessarily play games very much?" My answer to both questions would probably be What Remains Of Edith Finch in the first instance, mostly because it has a really good story and its controls aren't too intimidating. But this week I realised I rarely think about the inverse of that last question: "What books would you recommend to people who play lots of video games but don't have much time for reading?"
Happily, I now have two solid answers, and they both come from the highly talented Stuart Turton: "The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle" for fans of Outer Wilds, The Sexy Brutale and Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries, and The Devil In The Dark Water for The Return Of The Obra Dinn likers.
]]>I developed this new allergic reaction this year, namely that my eyes feel like they're being blowtorched if I don't plop some miracle liquid into them regularly. They water and itch and I spend a lot of time blinking, which sort of feels like how a rusty shop grate sounds as it lowers.
I realised quite quickly into my playthrough of Before Your Eyes that I'd forgotten to administer the holy water. And in a game where time skips forward as you blink in real life, I thought I'd royally messed things up. But it turns out that having an allergy actually enhanced the experience.
]]>After I lived and breathed NieR Replicant for review, I looked back on my play time with a mixture of fondness and pain. The payoff of the fifth and final ending was worth the effort, but good lord was it a test of resolve. It was brilliance nestled in multiple layers of gift wrap, and I was happy to call it a day once I'd seen the final (x5) credits.
But one thing I haven't stopped thinking about is the menu sounds. NieR Replicant has excellent noises for its start menu and inventory management, both of which aided that sense of being transported to another world of monsters and emotion.
]]>Okami celebrated its 15th anniversary this week, and it got me thinking back to a series of articles I wrote about ten years ago (lawd) about the game's underlying myths and folktales, back when I was all young and pretentious and used phrases like "literary allusion" in posts with a straight face. I know better now (hopefully), but I still look back on that series fondly, and I'd like to share some of those stories here today in honour of the birthday of our favourite sun goddess. You might be surprised just how many characters are drawn from Japanese mythology, because lemme tell ya, Okami pretty much did the whole Wolf Among Us fairytale-characters-all-living-together schtick waaaay before old Bigby was even a speck in Telltale's eye.
]]>Recently I have been hoofing through Mass Effect Andromeda in my spare time. Like, properly hoofing - 10 hours at a time, like I'm back to being an adolescent with nothing to do except play video games and eat huge quantities of the short-lived early-noughties crisp spinoff Wotsits Wafflers. If anyone knows where I can source Wafflers, please get in touch.
Much like the Wafflers, Andromeda is probably not quite as good as I remember, but I still don't think it's bad. And actually, looking at it with fresh eyes, there's a lot in there that shows how really nearly almost great it is. In fact, I think it would have been much improved with the addition of more trees.
]]>Whenever I have a chunk of holiday sitting in front of me, the possibilities seem endless. Maybe I'll finally play Cyberpunk 2077 now it's been properly patched, I think. But maybe I should also finally finish Nier: Automata in preparation for when Replicant comes out at the end of the month. There are also those dozen odd indie games I've got piled up, too. Narita Boy, the final bit of Record Of Lodoss War: Deelit In Wonder Labyrinth, Signs Of The Sojourner and goodness knows what else. "I could probably do a bit of each!" I say optimistically. In the end, though, my grand plans for playing loads of games never really materialises. I might be able to manage it if I literally play games every second I'm awake from morning til night, but that's not very relaxing now, is it?
In the end, after an impromptu viewing of the 90s western film Tombstone, I decided to opt for the very manageable mission chunks of Desperados 3 as my big Easter holiday project, which is the latest rootin' tootin' real-time tactics game from the Shadow Tactics devs, Mimimi Productions. I'd played the opening few missions back when it came out last summer, but its long, sprawling maps gradually demanded more time and dedication than I was able to give them. I like to do entire missions in one go, you see, and do them stealthily, which often takes even longer because I'm pretty bad at being sneaky - as my five hours doing a complete ghost run of Dishonored 2's Clockwork Mansion level will attest. Now, though, I had entire afternoons to luxuriate in its detailed, densely packed playgrounds of trigger happy cowboys, and goodness, what an astonishingly satisfying and generous game it is.
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