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]
