Neon White is a singleplayer speedrunning FPS about honing movement and violence to shave seconds off times while slicing heads off demons. It's also a visual novel about a goofy good-time gang of anime doofuses who've ended up competing for a chance to enter Heaven. It is extremely good and stylish. A demo is available in the Steam Next Fest, and I suggest you have a go.
Another week, another episode where I get the number wrong again. Contrary to what I say on the recording, this is in fact episode 175 of the Electronic Wireless Show podcast. I probably got it wrong because I'd been up all night at the discotheque. Yes, this week we're taking a suggestion from the listeners and talking about our favourite nightclubs in games. And three more qualified people to talk about clubbing you would not meet.
But first this week there's some big Henry "Vitamin H" Cavill news to get out of the way, plus we discuss drinking animal blood in VIP sections (which is what rich people do), and at what point it stops being cool to go to a nightclub. For me? Almost immediately. And me and Matthew have actually been playing a game, but it's a PlayStation game so please don't listen to us talk about it. But you should definitely listen to Matthew's Hitman-themed Cavern Of Lies.
First things first, this is SPOILER TERRITORY. Please do not read any more of this article if you're sensitive to Elden Ring SPOILERS. What are you doing?! Get OUT! Out I said. Oh – you're still here? Presumably that means you don't care for a spoiler or two. Okay, that works for me.
I'd like to wax lyrical about a good boss in Elden Ring, if you don't mind. He's a beastman, of sorts, who awaits you at the end of a castle. But more than that, he's an optional challenge that both leaves a lasting impression and doesn't at the same time.
This is the game where you peel a dead woman’s face off. You do it slowly, with a blunt dog tag, making several raggedy incisions before tearing off the face proper. After lingering over the resulting mess of blood, muscle and bulging eyes, you then place your recently drowned identical twin sister’s face over your own. It’s just a dream, but still, this is far from the only time Martha Is Dead insists you do something unspeakable, nor is it even the only time you’re forced to desecrate your sister’s corpse.
Apart from poor writing, these excessive, brute force attempts to disturb define Martha Is Dead. They suck. Horror games are allowed to be horrific, but the way to cultivate real fear is through restraint rather than desensitising bombardment. For the most part Martha just made me frown and go “ew”.
Like many, I was excited by the existence of Pharaoh: A New Era beacuse I played a lot of the original Pharaoh as a kid. There's a demo of the big fancy remake on Steam as part of the Next Fest, and Katharine mentioned it made her realise she had no idea what she was supposed to be doing when playing Pharaoh back in the day. I then tried A New Era for myself, and can only say "big mood".
When Square Enix started re-releasing older Final Fantasy games on PC a few years back, it was a mixed blessing. Yeah, they were officially available on PC, but we got them all blurry from shoddily remastered mobile versions. Recognising that people wanted pixels not smears, Square Enix last year started releasing 'Pixel Remasters' of the early series. That's now complete with today's launch of Final Fantasy VI's Pixel Remaster version. That's the one with the clown.
Back in 2012, the late great Antony Bourdain tweeted an impassioned defence of a fellow food writer, then 85 year old Marilyn Hagerty, whose recent positive review of her local Olive Garden had become the subject of widespread memery. I’ve never eaten at an Olive Garden because a.) we don’t have them in the UK, and b.) unlimited pasta sounds like a death sentence. But I understand it’s viewed as a faux-fancy chain for people who think Al Dente was the name of the man who invented spaghetti, and not somewhere you’d want to earnestly praise as a quote unquote ‘serious critic’.
Big Tones was having none of it. He applauded Hagerty’s celebration of Olive Garden as a genuine expression of widespread American food culture, calling her detractors ‘snarkologists’, and then published a book of her reviews. A class act, no doubt. And it’s this championing of the everyman gourmand, this deep passion for non-exclusionary, unpretentious foodie culture, that powers Total War: Warhammer 3’s most joyfully silly campaign experience.
