Hot on the heels (legs? Stand?) of the 240Hz C27RG come even more Samsung gaming monitors hitting the [cms-block] sales. The most eye-catching is the gargantuan Samsung CRG9, an almost amusingly large ultrawide monitor that’s dropped to a new all-time low of £890.
To call Wobbledogs simply a pet simulation game seems to do it a disservice. It’s an irresponsible dog scientist’s genetic playground and exactly the kind of ridiculous sandbox that I longed for as a kid playing other pet simulations. These boxy, mutating dogs will enter early access in January, but you can watch them stumble around in a new teaser trailer.
Three years after Mass Effect: Andromeda failed to ignite a new sci-fi RPG saga, developers BioWare today announced they are working on “the next chapter of the Mass Effect universe.” Huh! Sure, everyone expected them to announce remasters of the original trilogy today (because chat about them has been leaking for months) but this was a surprise bonus. BioWare give no hints about the new Mass Effect’s plot, setting, or anything, simply saying they’re in the “early stages” of development. While I imagine it’s yonks away, I’m quite excited.
Talk about the worst-kept secret in the galaxy. After months of rumbling and speculation, BioWare today announced the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, bringing all three (quiet, Andromeda) Mass Effect games into one remastered collection next year. While not full remakes, the Legendary collection spruces up Commander Shephard’s ageing space saga with better visuals, smoother performance, and all the extra DLC packed into the Normandy’s cargo bays.
Console exclusivity, man, it’s a nightmare to keep track of. With Call Of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War‘s release just around the corner, the latest Activision shoot-man game has come under fire for more PlayStation-exclusive gubbins. Going beyond just a time-limited new gamemode, the latest outcry concerns a host of boons that seem to ensure folks playing on PS4 and PS5 will have an edge on Cold War’s cross-platform battlefields.
I didn’t think Umurangi Generation could find a way to be more entirely my jam. And yet, with a heaping serving of skates, spraypaint and giant killer robots, today’s Macro DLC has managed just that. But alongside a new set of maps, lenses, and a toolset that closes the gap with Jet Set Radio even further, this week’s drop is also brazenly radical in capturing our current political hellscape on 35mm film.
So, you’ve grit your teeth, bit your nails, and mustered up the courage to see Amnesia: Rebirth through to completion. Now what? The scares shouldn’t just end with the rolling of the credits, right? This week, Frictional updated the game with a patch that lets you play custom, player-created stories, along with all the tools you’d need to make a bespoke first-person spooker yourself.
Just when you think you’re out, World Of Warcraft finds a way to drag you back in. Briefly, at least. Ahead of the release of World Of Warcraft: Shadowlands later this month, Blizzard are re-activating all your lapsed accounts for the weekend, in the hopes that a brief return to boar-slaying will tempt you back to the behemoth MMORPG.
Have you said hullo to our newest members of staff yet? They’re right over there. And right in here! Welcome Ed, Jake, and James to the feature we affectionally call WAWAPWAPWPAAWW.
What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on!
Hold up, don’t go racing off into the weekend just yet. The developers of Dirt 5, which just released yesterday, say they’ve received a possible buyout offer from Take-Two Interactive who own the creators of other sporty games 2K and Rockstar Games as well. Take-Two say they believe it would be a “highly complementary fit”. Ah, romance.
We’re nearly done with 2020, but the delay announcements aren’t over just yet. The Medium, the next horror adventure from Bloober Team, has been delayed until January 2021. They mention the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and “other games on the market” as part of their decision to delay and further polish the game.
For the fictional futuristic radio in Watch Dogs Legion, Ubisoft used some actual journalists in the UK to provide voice talent. Seemed like a neat idea until Ubisoft (and I) learned that one of the hosts whose voice appears in game has published some pretty ugly opinions about transgender people. That’s decidedly not neat, so Ubisoft say they’re replacing the two radio episodes that Helen Lewis appears in.
No need to spend an hour in character creation before you start playing Viking ’em up Assassin’s Creed Valhalla since you’ll be lacing up the boots of Eivor either way. What will you fiddle with before going a’raiding instead? A whole hunk of PC graphical and accessibility settings, of course. Ubisoft have run through all the options PC players can muck around with in a new video.
The best thing League Of Legends has done in years is create a virtual girl group, who now have a whole EP out. After years of ha-ha-hilariously cheesy promotional songs like Warriors with Imagine Dragons, Riot’s music team unexpectedly hit the big time in 2018 with K/DA, a group with real singers in the digital bodies of pop-ified alternate reality versions of League characters. K/DA’s debut song, Pop/Stars was straight-up a banger, and found play far beyond esports stadiums. Today K/DA’s first EP, All Out, launched and I think it’s time Riot give up League to focus on pop.
Activision have revealed the content roadmap for Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone’s first season which kicks off on 10th December. It promises a slew of free weapons, maps, and modes for Blops as well as a mysterious “Classified Warzone Experience”. Although, it’s all largely non-specific info. Thankfully Gunfight mode is making a comeback, which I’m pretty darn excited for.
2K’s Borderlands 3 still costs £50. Rockstar’s seven year-old GTA V costs £25. Just some food for thought. Anyways, Take-Two Interactive, the mega corporation who own the likes of 2K and Rockstar, think they’re charging players a lot less than their games are worth.
“We deliver the highest quality experiences in the business, and we charge much less for them than we believe they’re worth to consumers,” CEO Strauss Zelnick said in Take-Two’s earnings call yesterday.
hit the track yesterday but these race-y cars are dodging a few potholes, especially on PC. Codemasters published one batch of fixes on launch day and say they’re planning another patch to address issues that PC players are having with poor performance and crashing. The game, that is. If the cars crash, that’s on you. Well unless it’s due to frame stuttering, which I suppose is back in Codemasters’ court.
Apex Legends
may have burst onto the scene as a polished showstopper with all sorts of tricks up its sleeve, but it’s only grown more layered, balanced, and accessible over time. What’s more, the playerbase has grown and developed right along with the game – and after many hundreds of hours played, I’m happy to say I’m in a pretty great position to impart a number of practical Apex Legends tips and tricks for all players who are joining us for Season 7.
The phrase “put the pedal to the metal” always confused me. I get that it means “go fast”, but every time it’s said out loud I hear “petal” or “medal”. None of these words sound real anymore. Aaaaanyway, the only reason I’m thinking about this expression is because Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit’s remaster came out today.
The new and improved version of Criterion’s 2010 racing game comes with cross-platform multiplayer, touched-up visuals and all the main DLCs, as well as 4K and 60fps on PC.
As the early [cms-block] deals onslaught continues, one discount that particularly caught my eye as I was browsing through Ebuyer’s fresh batch of early bird Black Friday deals today was my much-beloved 1TB WD Blue SN550 SSD, which is now down to £90. While not quite as tantalising as its fleeting Prime Day low of just £85, it’s been several weeks since this excellent 1TB NVMe drive was this cheap, as it’s been at least £95 or above for the last couple of months.
is a big stretch. Not in a “you’ve taken it too far, buddy” sort of way, I mean I can quite literally feel the click of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s bones as they extend their arms to the sky and heave their collective sighs of satisfaction – finally, a fresh start.
They’ve taken this opportunity to strip all the best bits from Yakuza’s creaking action adventure foundations, and build something with renewed focus. If, before, the series had flirted with committing to the role-playing genre, Like A Dragon is down on one knee proposing to the JRPG with happy tears in its eyes. And this relationship works, alright. Oh yes it does.
There are two, pretty obvious, factors by which I judge strategy games: how immediately satisfying they are to play, and how well that satisfaction holds up in the long run. Success in the first respect is often a trade-off for success in the second, as the things that dazzle on day one become dulled by the cumulative effect of small design problems. It’s hard, then, to take the measure of a big ol’ strategy game during a limited preview play session.
But after just a day with it, I have high hopes that Empire Of Sin, the extraordinary prohibition gangster simulation coming from Romero Games on December 1, is going to hit the big time on both fronts.
A is for Alphabetised wargame and sim news.
Welcome to the cosy corner of RPS where the vehicular is valued, the historical is hallowed, and the paragraphs are shorter than 7.5 cm Kampfwagenkanone 37 L/24 barrels. (more…)
Below is a list of “33 things wot are rare”. Entries have been stripped of vowels and numbers and had any inter-word spaces repositioned*. For example, if Inverted Jennies was present it might appear as NVR TDJNNS. Supercentenarians would be SPRCNTNRNS.
*Hyphens are treated as spaces. Apostrophes are ignored. (more…)
Looking back at it now, 2020 doesn’t feel like a banner year for strategy games, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few gems. The list below – gathered by a panel of experts and regularly updated – contains games from as recently as 12 months ago alongside classics from as far back as 28 years ago. They’re all games we think you could play and love right now.
‘ seventh season dropped this week, and with it came a load of fun new things – a map, a character and even a vehicle. But it also brought some big changes to how the battle pass works. Unfortunately, these changes made the battle pass a whole lot more difficult to level up, making players need to do about twice the amount of work to get half the amount of progression. Last night, Respawn tweaked the new system, but players still have a huge grind ahead of them compared to previous seasons.
You thought it was over. You believed the year of anguish would be a memory by now. I’m sorry, you were wrong. The carousel of disharmony will never cease, and neither will the bumper car motorcade of video games. This week, the United States of America chooses a President in a logistical process entirely in-keeping with the carnival metaphor I am here constructing. Even in video games – no strangers to ineffectual binary choice – there is a more varied selection of candidates. Here are 7 Presidents other than those offered on this week’s ballot.
What happens when the turn-based tactical violence of Worms becomes a real-time shooter? See for yourself in the free Worms Rumble open beta weekend, which started today. This latest Worms spin-off is a 32-player side-on shooter with all the usual wacky weapons, throwing down in deathmatch and battle royale modes. I like Worms because of the game it is, not the brand, but Rumble could be good in its own right. The beta is also on PlayStation 4 and does have cross-platform multiplayer, so you can batter your PlayPals too.
Want to know the best Apex Legends characters heading into Season 7? There’s never been a better time to get stuck into this hero-based battle royale now that there are 15 Legends to choose from, each with their own unique skillset, and each one can be used to lead your team to victory. But despite this, we’ve still managed to put together our own tier list of the best Apex Legends characters and abilities in Season 7, with write-ups on the strengths and weaknesses of every Legend.
I’ve already put myself on record as being obsessed with the Ace Attorney series. Comparison can come off as a backhanded compliment, but Aviary Attorney is a game so clearly inspired by Capcom’s courtroom series that comparisons aren’t really avoidable. Aviary Attorney carries across so much of Ace Attorney’s template, from gathering and presenting evidence, to the threeday time limit for each case.
How do you enjoy Fall Guys? Like it? Love it? Reckon you’re the game’s biggest fan? Well tough luck, mate, because that honour goes to the bean stumbler’s upcoming new stage, a whirly-twirly fan-packed gauntlet arriving in next week’s midseason update. Oh, and it also looks like there’s another mystery obstacle on the way, in the form of…
Oh, they called it Little Yeety? Sure. Why not. Fine.
T-minus another year ’til takeoff, astronauts. Spacefaring simulator sequel Kerbal Space Program 2 has delayed its launch once more, and now won’t shoot for the starts until 2022 at the earliest. It’s the third time the game’s been delayed, but the devs reckon they’ll need the extra time to make sure their cobbled-together starship is built for the long haul.
Say what you want about modern games, but they’ve gotten pretty good at rendering fauna. If Red Dead Redemption 2 wants to show you a goose, it’ll damn well show you a goose. Last month, a new Twitter account popped up to remind us that this is a fairly recent development, cataloguing the smart, strange, and downright cursed wildlife created in the name of saving a few dozen polygons.
Most cops are pigs, is the going theory. But in the rain-swept noir world of Chicken Police, at least two of them are poultry policemen. The monochromatic farmyard murder mystery begins its investigation today, a cinematic point ‘n’ click thriller about two bad birds getting back together for one last case in the dead of night. After all, in the city of Clawville, every animal is nocturnal.
Driving a virtual truck is a serious job, no doubt, but I make time to appreciate the view in American Truck Simulator. The haul ’em up tentatively introduced sightseeing spots with its Idaho expansion, a few spots where we can roll up to enjoy cinematic views of landmarks and landscapes, and now it’s added more. Preset cutscene points are not the first-person wandering I ache for, but I accept that’s beyond the scope of this game, and will settle for seeing more of Washington and Utah.
It’s the mid-80s, and the United States Of America is about to face its most dangerous enemy yet – itself. Out today, Möbius Front ’83 is a new tactical wargame from Opus Magnum and Infinifactory developers Zachtronics, a dimension-hopping military strategy romp that sees the puzzle boffins take their shot at a more violent form of problem solving with troops, tanks and attack helicopters.
N7 Day, or Mass Effect day as you might know it, is right around the corner. This Saturday, a couple of BioWare devs and a load of the original trilogy’s voice cast are holding a “very special” panel to celebrate. Now, there are suspicions and whisperings of what may or may not be said at this panel – it would be baffling if all this fanfare wasn’t to reveal the long-rumoured remasters of Commander Shepard’s adventures. But what if! What if they threw a complete curveball and announced a fifth Mass Effect game?
Remember Samorost 2? I don’t, admittedly, but then I was only ten years old when the whimsical space gnome set off on his second adventure. Fortunately, now’s the perfect time to check out the pint-sized sequel, with the developers dropping a surprise anniversary update bringing the stylish 2005 point ‘n’ click up to date with enhanced visuals, new sounds, quality of life improvements and full Mac support.
The makers of Street Fighter and Resident Evil have reported that a ne’er-do-well got access to their computer systems this week. That’s bad. Luckily for us, they say they’ve found no hint that the unknown baddie got into customer data. That’s good. Though I’ll be changing the password of any Capcom account I have, just in case. And this happening so soon after hackers reportedly leaked Watch Dogs: Legion’s source code does make me wonder if a dramatic twist will follow.
