Sundays are for walking past a minivan full of Toy Story merchandise with purple, green and white livery and knowing, knowing in your marrow that the owner has named it "Bus Lightyear". These are uncertain times, but any universe capable of materialising the concept of "Bus Lightyear" can't be entirely beyond redemption. Anyway, here's some stuff I've read this week.
A little while ago our deputy editor James 'RAM-bo' Archer said he wanted us all to get more involved with hardware criticism, because we all appear to think that videogames are powered by telluric currents and swearing. He offered me specifically the chance to write about a laptop - the relatively affordable (I stress, "relatively") MSI Cyborg 14, loaned to RPS for a few weeks by Swipe Right PR.
It was a grievous imposition, dealt out by somebody I had thought a friend. I do need a gaming laptop, and I am interested in the monstrous convolutions of the hardware industry, but I'm not really your guy for hot chat about keyboard depth and graphics card benchmarking. I care about that stuff a lot less than, to pick an example at random, climbing mountains. By happy coincidence, when James came knocking I was about to go on a 105 mile hike through the Eryri national park in Wales, including an ascent of Yr Wydffa, Britain's second highest peak. The compromise was as obvious as it was irresistable: I would attempt to review the MSI Cyborg 14 while hiking up Welsh mountains.
Due to work and a press trip, I am still only half way through redecorating the kitchen. The walls are now a lovely shade of terracotta, but dust sheets cover the floor, there are no doors on the cabinets, and paint pots and stained brushes litter the room. I just want to cook a meal on the hob. A single delicious hot meal.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 developers Warhorse Studios are refusing to confirm or deny a rumour that they're making a Lord of the Rings game for Embracer. This could indicate one of two things: firstly, they are making a Lord of the Rings game for Embracer. And secondly, they are not making a Lord of the Rings game for Embracer. We can rest assured, at least, that they're making a "huge, immersive RPG", in the words of content director Ondrej Bittner. Huge AND immersive? Sounds like Orc mischief to me.
When naming literally anything, great consideration should be taken in the act of doing so. It's the first scene setter, and a bad name can make you click away quite easily in this fast paced digital age. Yet there I was, humbly scrolling through Social Media Name, when I saw it: pipedog. It's pipedog! It is exactly what it says on the tin, and nothing more.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 might be what it is (a bit of a mess), but that doesn't mean the series is dead in the water. In fact, a whole new game is on the way! It's called Vampire: The Masquerade - Oaths and Ashes, and it is still technically an RPG, just one mixed up The Fly style with a visual novel.
Following confirmation that Greedfall 2 developers Spiders are being liquidated, the French Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV) union have issued a statement claiming that the studio's fate is "a premeditated and deliberate choice by Nacon’s management". They've also called for a boycott of the publisher.
