There are a lot of games that look like they might give me that Spelunky feeling but most of them just leave me feeling a little empty. Not Caveblazers [official site]0 though. Rupeck Games’ debut captures the craft and chaotic delights of Spelunky better than anything I’ve played since Spelunky itself though and it has quickly become one of my favourite roguelike platformers.
Here’s some cheapo games because you like cheapo things and you’re a cheapo person. Don’t give me that look, I’m just being honest. The same folks that do this sort of thing all the time are Humbling Bundling survival platformer Rain World together with Glittermitten Grove, which is a fairy management sim and definitely not hiding any other amphibious videogames inside its slimy belly sac, if that’s what you’re thinking. This is all part of the Adult Swim bundle, which includes some other bits and bobs.
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Overwatch [official site], aka the one you still think about when you fall asleep at night even though you are in a happy relationship, is getting a new map. It’s set on the moon. According to the increasingly tangled folklore of the multiplayer hero shooter, the Horizon Lunar Colony is where tanky gorilla Winston comes from. It’s an assault map and, although most of it will be grounded and normal, there are parts of the map where you can prance about in low gravity. But come down here to see what the map itself looks like.
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New feature! There are more new PC games released each week than any one human could realistically play, and while we try to zero in on the most interesting, many lovely things inevitably fall through the cracks. So here’s the deal: each week, I browse the teeming ranks of Steam (we’ll also be including itch.io a little later, incidentally) for ten likely prospects released within the past seven days. I play each for ten minutes, then decide whether or not I’d like to keep playing them. It’s not a review, but it is, but it isn’t, but maybe? In any case: new games for good people. That’s you, that is. … [visit site to read more]
Two years after leaving Overkill Software to form 10 Chambers Collective, the co-creator of heist game Payday is… still not quite ready to show off his new co-op FPS. But Ulf Andersson is now willing to state its name: GTFO [official site]. They call GTFO a “4-player hardcore co-op action horror FPS” and, going by a new trailer, it seems it’ll send us into some sort of ruined city hell. Dunno. Most of the game is secret for now, and now we have a new mystery: what does the acronym GTFO stand for? Gank That Flipping Owl? Gaga Twats Frank Ocean? Get That Floozy O’Connor? Mysteries. … [visit site to read more]
Arma creators Bohemia Interactive have announced that they’ll launch their free 5v5 tactical shooter spin-off Argo [official site] on June 22nd. They released a public prototype free in November 2016 under their ‘Bohemia Incubator’ label and have been tinkering and expanding it ever since. Argo’s an objective-driven game set on a remake of the original Operation Flashpoint’s island of Malden, and that new Malden is coming to Arma 3 on June 22nd too. Arma 3 will also borrow Argo’s cooperative mode, Combat Patrol. It’ll be a big day for serious simulated shooting. … [visit site to read more]
Tokyo 42 [official site] is a game of games. It comes across as having the pure and earnest intention to hybridise everything that has been most beloved in games from the last half-decade (and a couple from decades earlier), and then adds in cats and samurai swords for good measure. Inevitably, it doesn’t all work, but moments of half-madcap, half-measured brilliance glimmer through a patina of low-level frustration.
Take-Two Interactive Software, the owners of 2K Games and studios including Firaxis and Rockstar, have bought Kerbal Space Program [official site]. Unlike when Microsoft bought Minecraft gang Mojang, Take-Two are only buying the game and not the studio who make it, Squad. However, Squad will continue to work on the splendid spaceship-building sandbox game and its upcoming expansion. This acquisition is announced barely a week after Valve confirmed that several former KSP developers had joined them for something mysterious. Interesting times. … [visit site to read more]
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives and PC miscellany. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
There was a little resurgence of six-axis shooters a while back, seemingly all Kickstarter-funded, and no one seemed much to care. Which is a shame, because the process produced the very lovely Retrovirus [official site]. … [visit site to read more]
Oooh! Riot are prepping for a major overhaul of League of Legends’ [official site] most clunky features: Rune and Masteries! Runes Reforged is the name they’re giving to the project and the devs are hoping it will make the whole arcane faff of that extra layer of customisation into something players won’t refer to as e.g. “an arcane faff” or “League of Legends’ most clunky feature”. Allow me to explain! … [visit site to read more]
Perception [official site], the horror game exploring the history of a spooky house through the ears of a blind woman with magical Daredevil echolocation, is now out. Our Adam already told us all Wot He Thinks of it last week, which is that it doesn’t quite come together, but now you can actually buy and play it yourself and form your own opinions then, as appropriate, tell Adam to: 1) cram it; 2) keep on keeping on; or 3) you know, whatever. … [visit site to read more]
I keep thinking we’re going through the golden era of TV, until the next year starts and it gets even better. Cinemas keep trying to work out why no one goes to their ludicrously overpriced brightly lit caves of disappointment any more, making increasingly ludicrous excuses about piracy and, I dunno, petrol prices, but the truth is: TV’s just a lot better than the movies these days. … [visit site to read more]
The Sims 4 [official site] Parenthood pack is out now. The Parenthood pack is distinct from the toddler update which arrived in January and fleshed out that post-baby, pre-school period for the characters in your digital dollhouse. Toddlers were a free update, whereas Parenthood is paid DLC which seeks to change the relationships between parent and child characters making it more about guiding the development of your young charges and having interactions that are specifically designed around that caregiver/kid dynamic. … [visit site to read more]
