"Collect berries and plant greens to avoid scurvy and ensure a healthy diet," reads the Steam description for Farthest Frontier. Yes, this is exactly what I want from a middle ages-ish citybuilder - one from the makers of action-RPG Grim Dawn. Come watch its first trailer below.
If you get stuck in Elden Ring, you might want to summon a pal to help you. That won't be possible for a spell tomorrow: the game's servers are being taken offline for an hour to undergo maintenance which will "help improve some multiplayer functions."
That up there is Ivan Ivanovitch. He's somewhere between Walter Mitty and Scheherazade. A man who invents successive tales of fantasy in an effort to stay his likely execution by an impatient general interrogating him in a dark room. Ivan is the little guy in every sense, small in stature, a hunching underdog to forces beyond his control. As the likeable hero of Little Orpheus, a vibrant modernising of the cinematic platformer, he builds a rapport with the general that carries the game as best it can through eight beautiful but ultimately formulaic levels. This is a light game, unchallenging by design, and for me, sleepily so.
Shadow Warrior 3 continues the series tradition of completely rebooting the style of each game. This time it’s going for a more linear arena shooter style, similar to 2013's Shadow Warrior, and it’s got generally the right idea. You play as the former freelance mercenary Lo Wang, and mainly just try to get from A to B. This means jumping through hand-crafted levels, and generally shooting and slicing your way through the various demonic mobs and mini-bosses that spawn in front of you. Whenever you’re not clearing out enemies in an arena setting, you’ll be parkouring between them, or using your skills to navigate some setpieces. That's basically it, that's the game.
As an owner of two cats who regularly bring home all manner of half-eaten wildlife from the neighbouring bins, hedgerows and overgrown student gardens, I often wonder how these adorable murderers are perceived by the local mice and rat population. If it's anything like ginger puss cat Tiger in Jeremy "Aviary Attorney" Noghani's turn-based RPG Small Saga, they're going to be in trouble, as these rodents come bearing switchblades and cigarette lighters to fend off their deadly foes. It's an intriguing take on the classic Final Fantasy-like job types of other RPGs - the switchblade is to protagonist Verm what Cloud's Buster Sword is to a regular human, while Siobhan's lighter allows her to cast fire 'magic' as the party's mage - and based on its hour-long Steam Next Fest demo, it's shaping up to be just as grand a tale as its lauded genre mates.
Platinum Games' online action-RPG Babylon's Fall is almost here, which may come as a bit of surprise to those of us living and breathing Elden Ring at the moment. But one thing that may draw your attention away from spectral steeds are spectral weapons, something called gut strings, and an upcoming collaboration with NieR Automata. Yeah, take that Elden Ring. Babylon's Fall will let me carve up sad androids with the aid of my innards, and it looks fun.
The Steam Deck is out! Technically! Or at least it’s finally begun shipping to those who got their preorders in the earliest. In any case, PC gamesdom at large is getting its hands on the handheld PC – and while it can comfortably run a good chunk of the Steam library, creators Valve aren’t anticipating future games to get Deck-specific features, control setups or performance optimisations.
Sundays are for reheating that leftover pizza. Before you see it sizzle, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).
I first encountered the Taiko no Tatsujin series in an arcade in Tokyo, but now it's even less accessible: it's out on PC but only via the Microsoft store. If you're willing to make that journey, you'll also be greeted by two new DLCs which adds Studio Ghibli tracks and music from classic Bandai Namco games.
So, James' Steam Deck review suggests the new handheld PC is pretty good. Good news for Valve, bad news for my wallet. I've apparently got a month before I need to commit to buying one, however, according to details laid out by Valve of when emails will go out to those who were first in-line with pre-orders.
Valve have no plans for a Game Pass-style subscription service, according to Gabe Newell. They're not against helping Microsoft launch Game Pass on Steam, though.
In between the Steam Deck reviews and Gabe Newell interviews yesterday came a surprise announcement of a new, short game from Valve. Aperture Desk Job takes place in the Portal universe and stars Grady, a new personality core, setting you product testing challenges while you sit in front of controls that look suspicously like a Steam Deck.
You won't need a Steam Deck to play it, though, when it launches on March 1st.
The Steam Next Fest ends on Monday, so do check out the bevvy of demos while you can. We've already recommended loads but I still have a dozen or so I want to play. Which other demos would you recommend to everyone, gang? And what are you playing this weekend?
Profits from the next seven days of sales from This War Of Mine and Slipways will be donated to the Red Cross to support people affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Both developers posted the announcement on Twitter today, with GOG joining in by saying that their share of sales of both games will also be donated.
Harriers are rare among the bird family, in that they’re one of the very few birds to have been overtaken in popularity by their namesake fighter jet*. Mention a harrier anywhere outside of an ornithology summit and people will assume you’re talking about the hovering aeroplane rather than the diurnal hawk. Tell somebody your harrier is hungry and they’re as likely to chuck a vole into a turbine as they are to feed it into your pet bird’s gullet.
So it’s unsurprising that Tiny Combat Arena is about Harriers of the cold and featherless kind. The one-person dev team behind the air-to-air combat simulator is apparently in love with the floaty-shooty jumping jet, so much so that it’s the only type of plane available to fly in the game's early access release. The retro-styled sim lets you pore over the low-poly plane as it rests in the hangar, to rest your chin in your hands as you lovingly scroll through its various specifications, inspecting its payload like you’re checking a dog over for ticks.
In school, I played with imaginary swords. Typical playground fantasy for those not good enough to be picked for football: battles under the netball hoops with weapons no one could see. Little did I know I’d be doing the same when I discovered Dark Souls over a decade later. Since the onset of chronic illness that left me cognitively limited in 2015, I’ve finished countless runs, collected everything, killed every boss, and didn’t see any of it.
After three years of waiting and hoping, Elden Ring finally launch last night and yep, sounds like it launched too early. Many PC players are reporting suffering low framerates, or stuttering, or crashes, or nonfunctional controllers, or.... While we wait for official fixes in patches, players are sharing possibly-maybe-kinda workarounds that might help.
