Why Into The Breach Is Not FTL 2

Into the Breach is Subset Games’ long-awaited new project, after their colossal success with FTL. I love FTL. You love FTL. The next game from the same minds is going to have enormous Half-life 3-esque expectations. But this isn’t FTL 2, and so we shouldn’t think of it as such. Whilst the pixelated art style is there, Ben Prunty is back (and better than ever), and the simple yet deep turn-based strategy is prevalent once again, Into the Breach is a very different game. Here’s why.

It’s a puzzle-tactics game

The biggest difference between the two titles is the way they play. This isn’t a rogue-like about managing a spaceship, Into The Breach is you embarking on missions to fight off the insectoid race known as the Vek with a team of mechs. Each mission is presented as a different region like in Advance Wars, and you have so many turns to defend your base. You can see what the enemy is going to do on the next turn, so it’s all about positioning and dealing with the incoming threats. You won’t be so much trying to kill all the Vek but deftly manipulate them into hitting each other, knocking them off the map, or pushing them into a big AoE attack.

Each map has bonus objectives too, so the better you play, and the more settlements you protect, the more resources you can get to upgrade your mechs.

No RNG

FTL was built on RNG, that is, certain things would happen because of random chance. The encounters were random, the galaxy quadrants were random, the missions you got, the stuff in the shops, the amount of enemy missiles you dodge, was all completely random. In Into the Breach, there is no hit percentage chance. If you get the enemy into a disadvantageous position, nothing will stop you from executing your perfect plan. This is definitely a puzzle game, rather than a turn-based strategy. However you look at it, there’ll be no 90% chance to hit misses like in XCOM. Sounds good to me.

Okay, some RNG

There are natural events that can affect the map, such as tsunamis and big holes appearing that can be used to your advantage, or really hinder your plans. The environment also plays a big role in your planning. Sand dunes that are hit can result in kicked up sand obscuring the enemy’s vision, and forests can be set on fire to cause even more damage. Each of the four islands you have to fight on have different climates and introduce different themes that present new features. The icy continent’s settlements are covered in ice, giving them more resistance to attacks. But it also bring with it more dangers to keep in mind.

Mechs instead of a ship

Each mission you can send out mechs to deal with the alien menace. You know that scene in Pacific Rim where they carry the Jaegers with helicopters then drop them in Hong Kong bay? Yeah, like that. Except cute pixelated Jaegers. The mechs are where a lot of the customisation comes in. You can get eight different squads, and equip different weapons and abilities. You can take long-range artillery mechs, big armoured fight-y mechs that throw enemies across the map, or specialised mechs that do things like freeze enemies. You can even get a randomly-generated squad, sort of a gamble button to either get a extremely strong squad or…not. The pilots themselves will level up and gain passive abilities, making them stronger and stronger…and more painful to lose.

You will complete it

Finally, one of the biggest differences from FTL, is that you will most likely complete this game. FTL was famous for being extremely difficult to reach the end of, let alone beat it. Into the Breach is a game that has no bonkers difficulty spikes, but lots of variety to explore, and that’s what players will come back for.

In the words of the co-creator Matthew Davis: “We intend for people to finish the game and then go back and explore new options and let the randomness drive its longevity. You’re always coming across new combinations that are fun and unique. I’d describe Into the Breach as something more like a board game. It’s not that you beat a board game, but you take it out to play for an afternoon and then you put it away and come back and play it again. It’s not something that you beat and then never touch again.”

Into The Breach is out on the 27th February, and if you’re still excited to play it despite it not being FTL, come chat about it on the community.

Every Warhammer 40k Faction Rated From Worst to Best

In the grim darkness of the far future of Warhammer 40k there is only endless articles ranking everything and everyone. Top 10 Primarchs, which Chaos God is hottest, which Lasgun has the highest efficiency, and so on.

Terrifying.

We at Green Man Gaming don’t believe in ranking things for no reason, we’re here only to rank when ranking is necessary, important, and also will let me write about Warhammer 40k for a few hundred words.

So here’s every faction that’s currently in Warhammer 40k, ranked from worst to best.

If you dispute this highly scientific and objective list, then either you are a heretic of the foulest kind, or you’re a Games Workshop employee. If you’re the former, please let us know on the Community why you think I’m wrong! If you’re the latter, can I have a money off voucher? Thanks.

Note: This list isn’t about who plays best or anything. and is 100% factual and serious.

Necrons

Necrons could’ve been cool, they’ve been slumbering under a multitude of planets, there’s hints of Old Ones, there’s a bit of Egyptian…ness there. They could’ve been something.

What do we have instead? Zombie robots.

I’m out.

T’au Empire

Ah the ‘how can we make cool mecha a thing’ faction. They’re not terrible, but their focus on ‘the greater good’ doesn’t always fit in the grimdark universe. And maybe that’d be alright if they’d stuck to it; a shining beacon amongst the rest, but over time the T’au have gradually become more grimdarkened, now it’s clear they subjugate lesser races and keep people docile under mind control.

I feel that if they’d kept to their guns we could’ve had something interesting, but they’re slowly becoming ‘just some blue guys’.

Cool mechs though. But could we get rid of the ‘ in T’au please too? Makes them sound like an 80s band, or a Vulcan.

Astra Militarum

Look they’re good and they try hard, but in the universe of the Imperium these guys are grist for the mill. They’re the delaying tactic until the real warriors turn up, they’re Operation Cannon Fodder. If they didn’t have tanks they’d be nothing.

The fantasy is good, Sharpe vs Daemons, WWI aesthetics vs space aliens, but the reality is just they get mown down. These poor guys are low rated here mainly cos they just deserve a rest!

I don’t hate them, I just feel sorry for them.

Grey Knights

What happens when you take a Space Marine and dial it up to 11. They’re just so over the top, and that’s saying something in the incredibly over the top Warhammer 40k universe. Some of the stuff they’ve gotten up to in the Warhammer 40k universe is just…ridiculous. They’re funny rather than threatening, a bit of a grimdark joke.

Adeptus Custodes

What happens when you take a Space Marine and dial it up to 2812749187. They look like the bastard offspring of a Space Marine and the hideous golden doors at Trump Towers.

Aesthetically, they’re a joke. Good weapons though.

Next!

Adeptus Ministorum

This is where we start turning it around, the Adeptus Ministorum have an interesting story to them, because they’re saints and worshippers of the God-Emperor, a divine being that defies his own divinity.

That’s interesting right?

They also lean directly into the grimdarkness of the universe, that special kind of Warhammer 40k grimdark where it’s grim and dark as hell, but they think they’re absolutely right. The Penitent Engine, the Repentia Squads? Good stuff.

Imperial and Renegade Knights

A newer addition to the Warhammer 40k universe, Knights are a stepping stone between dreadnoughts and titans. Bringing in a bit of flavour from medieval knights and feudalism, they are single pilot mini-titans, and they’re cool as heck. Seriously, they’re huge but not too huge, and so you just want one right?

Right.

Tyranids

I love the alien films as much as everyone else so Tyranids are always welcome. They make a wonderful enemy, faceless, unknowable, a tide from outside the galaxy who only seeks to destroy.

The only problem with them is that this is it, they’re faceless and unknowable…and that’s where their depth begins and ends. Bit two dimensional, our niddy boys.

Drukhari

Ah the original Eldar, still holed up in the Webway, still all fucked up and loving pain. They’re a good counterpoint to the prim, stuck up Eldar, all living in their bone spaceships and fearing death.

These Eldar treat everything differently, they’re slavers, pirates, experimenters with flesh.

If only they didn’t look quite so emo, y’know?

Chaos Daemons

Honestly I do love daemons in Warhammer 40k, I love them very much.

So why aren’t they higher up?

Because for every amazing daemony model, there’s one that isn’t quite so good. And even more than that, I feel that some of the daemon models don’t really ‘feel’ very much like their gods. Bloodletters for example, whilst useful, don’t feel hugely Khorne-y to me.

Officio Assassinorum

Cool assassins. Nuff said really.

Inquisition

The Imperium is beset by many enemies, both subtle and overt. The overt threats have armies to deal with them, but for the insidious threats which threaten the stability of humanity the Inquisition is there, blade, book, and bolter in hand.

They’re a really brilliant fantasy, always rooting out heresy, xenos infections, and daemonic incursions. They’re the lone warrior deep in a hiveworld, uncovering secrets and putting enemies to fire and sword.

Brilliant stuff.

Adeptus Mechanicus

Probably the best thing about the Adeptus Mechanicus is their models, they mix together body horror, far future mechanical augmentations, and 50s scifi aesthetics.

Maybe it shouldn’t work, but it does, and with absolutely brilliant robots and walkers thrown in too. Who can look at an Onegar Dunecrawler or a Kastelan Robot and not be drawn into worship of the Omnissiah? I know it’s a struggle for me not to!

Craftworlds

Alright, they’re dying out, they’re haughty, they’re prim, they call humans ‘mon-keigh’ which frankly is a joke that’s outstayed its welcome by several decades.

But they’re just so damn cool. Those sleek lines on their Wraithlords, the Howling Banshees, the Exarchs, Warp Spiders! Every model is alien with a capital A, they’re space elves yes but they’re damned cool space elves.

Space Marines

Space Marines are the main heroes of the Warhammer 40k universe, and for good reason. They’re humans but humans+, they get awesome armour, they get all the plot lines, and they’re diverse enough that you can make your own chapters and histories.

Basically anything goes.

So why aren’t they first?

Well because their standard chapters, the existing ones, can be a bit up and down in lore, in theme, in colour schemes. For every Dark Angel there’s an Iron Hand, for every Salamander there’s an Ultramarine, for every Blood Angel there’s an Imperial Fist.

And now I’ve offended probably every Space Marine player lets go on to…

Chaos Space Marines

Space Marines but cooler.

Also Word Bearers are Chaos Space Marines and they’re the best chapter in the game and Lorgar did nothing wrong and (That’s enough of that – Ed)

Harlequins

Similar to my theory about Chaos Space Marines, Harlequins are Eldar…but cool. They’re a specialised smaller force of individual performers and warriors, and it’s that which makes them so unique and interesting in the universe. They flit through society, performing and undergoing missions, and you never really understand what their goals are.

Most special amongst them all is the Solitaire, the figure representing death, something which rightfully terrifies all Eldar given that their souls are eaten by Slaanesh. Solitaire walks the battlefield, a lonely figure, unable to be hit by any mortal weapon until they reach their target and. Execute. Their plan.

They’re beautiful, deadly, and the second best faction in the game.

Orks

So who’s best? Who’s the number one?

Orks.

Why Orks? Is it their mockney accents? No. Is it their beliefs that can alter reality? No. Is it their tech? No.

It’s that, out of all the races and species in the Warhammer Warhammer 40k universe, they’re the only ones that have won. A good day for an Ork is to wake up, and have a fight. A brilliant day is a day in which they have two fights.

So this universe of Warhammer 40k, this grimdark far future, is a future of only war. So the Orks are consistently having the times of their lives. Doesn’t matter if they win or lose, they’re having a great time. They’re along for the ride, and the ride is fun.

 

That’s what I think, my name’s been Alex, and if you want to disagree or lend your support to this perfect list, hit me up on the Community. Death threats can be addressed to the usual place.

I Played Frozen Synapse 2 (And was really bad at it)

You and your teammates are standing outside a building, unable to see in. The presence co-ordinating the operation has put your next moves into its probability matrix and worked out what it thinks you, and your unseen enemies, will do. It believes with some certainty that if you breach, cover each other, and then slide back into cover you’ll be fine.

The execute order comes through and you smash the door open, guns ready. Four shots ring out as you and your partners fall to the ground, your clone lives snuffed short.

That’s Frozen Synapse 2 and you’re the controller, and you’ve messed up again.

Frozen Synapse 2 is a sequel to 2011’s Frozen Synapse, and it’s taking the simultaneous real time tactical combat game further in every direction. The original was noted for its deep tactical combat where you can simulate yours, and your opponents, actions before executing your plan in real time and watching events unfold. The sequel follows up on this by adding more….more.

More weapons, more locations, more mission types, more terrain, more everything. This applies to more than just the combat too, the world and the way you interact with the world has been overhauled. Gone is doing a series of missions one after another, in is an open world, a huge city modelled with different factions all vying for territory.

It’s into this city, Markov Geist, that you step. Leading your faction to victory, doing raids, defending your own territory, there’s even diplomacy in it, albeit diplomacy at the end of a loaded gun.

If you’ve played XCOM: Apocalypse, think that Megacity, and then add in super intricate tactical combat, and you’re on your way to imagining what Frozen Synapse 2 is. Have a look at where the game’s at, as of a month or so ago:

I have a confession to make though; I am terrible at any form of tactics or strategy. In C&C I always got bored building stuff so would attack with vastly inferior forces, in Civilization I would make a tiny empire far away from anyone and just wait for their armies to turn up and kill me, and the only way I ever completed XCOM was by sticking it on easy and using a guide to help me decide what to build in the first part of the game.

I am bad at strategy, bad at tactical combat.

So why does Frozen Synapse 2 appeal to me so much?

It’s probably because even if – when – you fuck up, you know exactly why that happened. You have total information from the top down view, and if an enemy did something you didn’t expect it’s because you didn’t accurate model what they would do. The game might be tough, but it’s not unfair. The unfairness only comes from how you’ve seen the world, and how you’ve planned and interpreted the information around you.

I died in the tutorial, I died quite a few times in the tutorial, and then made it through to the first mission and…I died. A lot.

But it never felt frustrating, if I hadn’t been monopolising the computer I would’ve happily carried on. There’s something about having all that information in front of you, and making decisions based on that, that makes you feel like you’re not being cheated.

OK there were some times where I didn’t know what was going on, like when I burst into a building only to get shot in the head, but that’s few and far between and franky, it was my fault anyway.

Frozen Synapse 2 is looking special, it’s that small game that’s trying hard to be something bigger and better than its predecessor and is doing a lot right. I can’t wait to dive back into the world of Markov Geist, build my faction, and break some heads.

Frozen Synapse 2 is coming out…soon?

10 16bit Games That Need To Be Remade

The time of the remake is here!

Secret of Mana has just been remade and launched onto PC, and last year we had the love-letter to Sonic’s 16bit era with Sonic Mania. 16bit remakes are suddenly in, they’re popular, and those games we loved in the late 80s and early 90s are ripe for a remaking.

But it doesn’t start and end with Secret of Mana and Sonic, there’s more, much more out there ready for a remake. Here’s our top 10 16bit games, from the Megadrive and SNES, that absolutely need to be remade.

Rings of Power

Long ago in the mists of time, Naughty Dog made a little game called Rings of Power. It starred Buc, a young sorcerer and his party of mages who travelled the world looking to reunited the titular Rings of Power into the Rod of Creation, and defeat the evil god Void.

Imagine having a true open world RPG on a Megadrive, it was astounding to be able to travel across the vast world of Ushka Bau by foot, reptile, boat, or dragon and explore every single square of this giant world.

It was damned hard too, its random battle system didn’t pull any punches and you could meet end-game enemies on the first tile just after setting out, but hey ho, reload and try again.

It needs an update, if only to get it to a wider audience. Amazing game, cruelly ignored.

Uniracers

Forget all that GTA nonsense you’re doing now Rockstar, and go back to a simpler time, a better time, a time of DMA Design. A time when you made unicycles go REALLY FAST and do stunts to go even faster.

It was an incredibly intense game, because you had to pull of repeated and rapid stunts in short time frames just to maintain your momentum.

They also managed to imbue tiny unicycles have a huge amount of personality, who knew a wheel and a seat could look that expressive. DMA Design did!

Shining in the Darkness

Ah the forgotten Shining child. Shining Force has already had a remake for the GBA, but the original Shining game was a first person party based dungeon crawler. And it’s bastard hard.

Every step you might get a random battle, and grinding is the name of the game to be able to get tough enough to proceed into one of the many sub-dungeons in the huge tower of dungeonery you gotta battle through.

With Legend of Grimrock being a success and Bard’s Tale IV coming up, it’s time damnit, time to go back to dungeon crawlery joy!

Seiken Densetsu 3

Alright so Secret of Mana has been remade, hooray, cheers all round.

But what about the third in the series, about Seiken Densetsu 3.

It’s an action RPG that’s got a sprawlingly huge story, one that changes depending on what character and sidekicks you choose, and one that never got a release in the West. That along with the upgrade tree that means each class can be subdivided into many other classes, makes this a game with a huge amount of replayability.

It’s also semi-open world too, with routes and places you can revisit. I mean that should excite you. Are you excited? You’d better be. I know where you live, Steve.

The Ooze

It’s time for ‘one of the entries on the list that should be remade because the original wasn’t quite good enough’. The Ooze! You play as…ooze! And you ooze around the world.

It’s a brilliant idea and one that almost worked, you squeeze and slide and get smaller and larger as you get around the top-down world, but it just didn’t *quite* make it.

A remake can fix this, it’s an idea with legs (not literally) and one that should get another airing.

ActRaiser

It’s genuinely shocking that there hasn’t been a remake of this, because there’s nothing quite like ActRaiser. Combining a god game (literally) with a side scrolling platformer with boss battles is something that hasn’t been emulated. AND WHY NOT?

OK it got into a bit of trouble with the religious themes at the time, but it’s 2018, we can handle it.

Go on someone, make this anew. Imagine Black and White where you actually dive in and kick some arse. Yes please.

Powermonger

What made Powermonger amazing for the time was its huge polygonal maps where you could build your armies, set them pillaging, and take over the world.

Each smaller map made up a piece of a huge series of levels, and I honestly don’t know anyone who’s finished it. Seriously, there were so many levels.

But it was Total War scale battles before Total War was a thing, and that’s something we can always do with more of. Who wants to see their armies form a flowing tide across the landscape, c’mon, hands up? Thought so.

Terranigma

Another action-RPG because the SNES was just amazing for them. Terranigma isn’t the best for play – through it is solid – what sets this apart is the narrative and the world it’s set in.

Basically you’re living in the underworld and people have started turning to crystal, so off you go to figure out what’s going on and fix it. I won’t spoil what happens, but it’s sad and beautiful and wonderful all in equal measures, and takes in a storyline that grows from a small village to encompass a huge scale.

It’s good stuff, and anyone who’s played it probably wants to play it again, and if you haven’t played it then. Well. Get it remade!

Phantasy Star III

‘Why not IV’ you say, ‘why not II’.

Simple, they’re already amazing. Phantasy Star III is the one that missed a little, that didn’t reach its potential. Set on a world of linked valleys, Dark Force is back and it’s up to you to stop it.

Except, you can’t.

But maybe your kids can.

That’s right, it’s generational! You decide who you marry and that determines the characteristics and stats of your progeny, meaning already in this version there’s a load of replayability. But it just didn’t quite work, the whole thing needs tightening up a little across the board, and this entry is more of a sidestory to the Phantasy Star and Algol System’s story.

Bring it back, make it good!

Bahamut Lagoon

You like Pokemon yeah? Everyone likes Pokemon!

Fuck Pokemon.

Bahamut Lagoon is what Pokemon wishes it could be. Instead of wandering about beating up children’s pets for their lunch money, Bahamut Lagoon is about collecting dragons, training them up, and then battling with them in turn based strategic maps all directed from your floating magic island.

Look I can’t overstate this enough: Bahamut Lagoon is awesome, and like some of the games above, it needs a wider audience. It’s had re-releases but we need a remake. I want to see 4k dragons, damnit!

 

That’s our picks for 16 bit games that should be remade, have we missed one? Let us know on the Community!

Altered Carbon – Has Netflix Buggered Up The Book?

I love Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, so when I heard it was getting a big screen version I was cautiously excited.

Obviously that never happened, but what we did get a few days ago was a Netflix series, one that spans the entirety of the first book in the Takeshi Kovacs series. A lot’s been said about the Netflix series, about how well it compares to other cyberpunk outings or other Netflix tv series, but how does it compare to the book?

I watched the whole series over the weekend, and I’m can report back that if you’re a lover of the book, this Netflix series is a bit of a mixed bag.

Before I explain why, two things.

Firstly there will be spoilers. If you’ve read the book you’ll be aware of most of the plot beats of the TV series, but there’s still some differences.

Secondly this isn’t a whine about the fact that it’s not just the same as the book. I firmly believe that the absolute worst thing you can do when adapting material is just to try and recreate it, we’ve already got the original, do something new with it, do something different.

What’s Good About It?

The big obvious thing about Altered Carbon is that it’s utterly beautiful. Netflix has a mixed record with visual effects, sometimes they’ve done amazing things but with some series you can definitely see the limits of their budget. The full world of future San Francisco is represented here and is largely pulled off, looking absolutely stunning.

It’s not just effects – the sets all pull you in and feel grounded and real in a way that’s very cyberpunk. The Raven Hotel in particular is a highlight, which is just as well as it’s the main stage for many scenes throughout the series.

The cast’s great too, I didn’t know what to expect from Joel Kinnaman in the main role, but he pulls off the morally ambiguous lead well. He’s obviously watched a lot of film noir to be able to fit into the surly template required for a cyberpunk main character.

In fact the casting is one place I don’t have a single complaint about, it reflects the book incredibly well and the actors themselves tread the cyber-boards with style and grit.

What’s Middling About It?

Some of the changes to the plot don’t help the story. The book has a bit of a thin plot, but it’s carried off with panache and character (and lashings of politics). Some of the changes to characters, to plotting, in the Netflix series takes a thin plot and spreads it a little thinner. For example, in the original book, Reileen Kawahara is a mob boss from Kovacs’ past who he meets up with again in the course of events.

In the series, she’s been altered to be Kovacs’ long lost sister. I can understand the change to an extent, it doesn’t change much by itself but what it does do is remove much of Kovacs’ backstory. In the new version he left Harlan’s World soon after killing his father, in the book he joined gangs, worked his way up, and then eventually joined the military. The Netflix series removes that, meaning that instead we’re just given little flashbacks of the horrendous life that he and his sister lived in their youth.

Another thing which weakens the plot a little is that it leans on the AI character of Poe, the proprietor and well, the actual ‘hotel’ The Raven. A few times this character pops up on screen to be nothing more than an info dump, coming up with previously unknown information to send them all heading in another direction, or to further the plot a little. It means that instead of a conspiracy, or a detective story, we’re left sometimes with ‘The AI says do a thing so we did the thing’, which just isn’t as exciting as a plot.

What’s Bad About It?

The Envoys have been changed in the series, and only in ways that weaken what they represent to the fiction. In the book they’re a secretive wing of the Protectorate, they’re horror-troopers from a fascist state that land on your planet in bodies that look just like you, talk just like you, can read how you think and how you act, and then tear apart your rebellion with brutal efficiency. In the Netflix series they’re…some…people…from a forest? They have some of the same abilities but they come off a little bit as a bunch of kids playing pretend with sticks and stones.

Also they leave their electronics outside and that’s going to be a health hazard.

Quellcrist Falconer has had a change in the series too, they’ve merged her character as the anti-Protectorate rebel leader and that of the Envoy trainer Virginia Vidaura – and don’t get me wrong, the actor who portrays this role does it incredibly well. The problem is that somewhere along the way they’ve lost Quell’s teeth.

See in the book, Quellcrist Falconer is a rebel leader, poet, and philosopher who espouses a series of beliefs that are full of fury, of wanting to tear down the status quo, of wanting to see the structures which prop up the rich burned down.

In the Netflix series she’s an Envoy trainer who lives in the woods and who wants to get rid of the ability to be transfer to other bodies because it’s unnatural and makes us less human. It’s just not quite got the same bite to it. I can imagine that having an extremely anti-capitalist as a ‘good’ guy might be troublesome for a TV series made in the US, but I found myself just waiting for a Quellist quote to come out…and was sorely disappointed when nothing happened.

Another downside to the series is sex and its treatment of women. The sex scenes are largely unchanged from the book and that’s frankly somewhere where that could’ve been altered, because they’re pretty awful. Other than that, the camera and the series seemed to almost enjoy the violence against women. I understand that this is the future, and in this future we don’t care about bodies in the same way and that’s meant to be a reflection of the morals of the day, but it’s still hard to stomach women getting beaten up, getting cut up, getting dismembered over and over again over the course of ten hours. Yes men get hurt too, but the violence against them is much less insidious and much more straightforward. They’ll be punched out or shot, a woman won’t be on the end of such knockabout action in the same way.

So Is It Any Good?

With all that, I have to say I enjoyed it. I have caveats about enjoying it, I can’t recommend it to everyone and really I don’t know if I can recommend it to anyone, but I don’t regret the ten hours I spent watching the series.

I love the book, and some of the problems of the series are present in the book, it’s just for me what I love about the book didn’t quite make the translation across to the small screen. It’s left a little void in what could’ve, for me, been a standout cyberpunk tv series. As it is, I can only think of it as entertaining, but problematic.

Have you seen Altered Carbon or read the book? Head over to our Community and let us know what you think.

6 Reasons Why Assassin’s Creed: Origins is for the Haters

There are a lot of gamers who stopped playing Assassin’s Creed right after III. I get it, III was the low point, and you got burned out on the whole concept of the series. You missed out on the rest and that’s fair enough. Maybe you dipped back into a Unity or Syndicate and still the problems you had with the series persisted.

Here’s 6 complaints that I’m happy to report are addressed in the latest Assassin’s Creed, Origins.

Complaint: “The combat is too easy. Press ‘counter’ and win. YAWN!”

So the first Assassin’s Creed brought in it’s own brand of 3rd person combat. Enemies come at you one at a time, a signal flashes, you hit ‘counter’ and gut them. Rinse and repeat. Then came Batman: Arkham Asylum and Shadow of Mordor and made everyone get kind of bored of pressing ‘counter’ to win. Dark Souls didn’t help by coming along and showing that pressing ‘roll’ is infinitely more fun, or even ‘block’. Assassin’s Creed introduced different enemies, enemy levels and weapons but it was no good. The infamous ‘counter’ button wouldn’t shift from the tedious hivemind of the internet…until now.

Origins has no ‘counter’ button. You can now lock onto enemies to focus them, hold up your shield, and the only counter is a well-timed parry that has no prompt. Enemies have no qualms attacking in groups, and gone are the auto-aim ranged weapons. Stealth killing dangerous enemies feels like plunging a blade into the neck of a real pain in the arse that you won’t have to deal with later. Escaping after killing your target ASAP becomes more natural.

 

Complaint: “They took my dagger and duel hidden blades and axe and-“

Back in Assassin’s Creed 2, you had a load of weapons to play with but the fights almost always ended up the same way. A heavy halberd didn’t really have that much of a different feel then a normal sword. The counter was more fun to watch but there was no difference in feel or skill. That’s why in future games the weapon range shrunk (not to mention in Victorian London wearing a multitude of melee weapons were frowned upon).

Now thanks to the new combat system, you’re going to be extremely chuffed to poke enemies to death with a 2 metre spear, or dance around them with your dual blades as they swing their big dumb mace through thin air. There’s also a metre that charges when you fight, and filling it lets you deal an awesome attack, normally one-shotting foes. The auto-kill button becomes something hard to achieve rather than one button on the controller. There’s also bombs, 3 different types of bows (the shotgun bow is a blast), and plenty of goodies on the tech tree, like different ways to use your shield.

 

Complaint: “These assassins are definitely NOT Ezio.”

The series started with Altair, a solid 7 out of 10 in terms of protagonists. They then went for Ezio and, over the course of 3 games, encapsulated what we liked about the series. His lifelong fight against the Templars was badass, but he also had the flair and cockiness that made him the Starlord of Renaissance Italy. After that we had series low point Connor, Kenway the pirate was alright but basically just a pirate, I can’t even remember the French guy’s name (Arno!), but he was mostly forgettable. The Frey twins were cool but didn’t reinvent the wheel. No-one has measured up to brilliant Ezio.

Meet Bayek. He’s a Medjay, which is essentially a 00 agent for the Pharaoh. His son is killed and is on the hunt for vengeance with his equally awesome and deadly wife Aya. He’s clever, strong, determined to avenge his boy, but still not afraid to take a side quest where he gets into a drunken fight with an old friend and wakes up in a stable. It’s like they took all the best bits of Ezio (cut out the whiny teenager bit), gave him an Egyptian license to kill, and made him a great guy to boot, with an awesome wife.

Complaint: “How did this assassin know how to assassinate peeps so good?”

It’s only about 2 minutes into Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag that the assassin steals a hood and hidden blade, and is then free-running like a parkour expert, jumping off buildings and doing duel assassinations, and doing the pushing-people-out-the-way thing that ONLY ASSASSINS CAN DO. What gives? I know that having a 10 hour prologue like Assassin’s Creed 2 every game would be impractical – AC3 showed that quite well – but let’s at least be a tiny bit realistic.

Bayek, as mentioned earlier, is one of the most trained warriors in all Egypt. He’s got many years of fighting under his leopard skin belt; hunting dangerous animals is part of his job description; and he’s trusted to protect the god-on-earth Pharaoh, AND his entire village. When we meet him he’s spent a year already hunting down those who took his son, in a rather brutal fashion. He’s ready to be the original assassin.

Complaint: “STOP TRYING TO MAKE DESMOND HAPPEN, UBISOFT.”

The most divisive part about the series itself has always been Abstergos, Abstergi, Abstrogon…the present day stuff. It started out with Desmond, the guy who has all the memories of the assassins running through his DNA. They got rid of him and then each subsequent game had another person, ranging from faceless Abstergo employee to with-face Abstergo employee. Either way, it’s always been a drag to be dragged out of the interesting historical setting.

In Origins it feels like they’ve hit just the right amount of present day stuff, even if we all wish they would do away with it. The person you have to play is an actual person with a personality which helps, and you can also do as much or as little in present day as you like. You can nope the hell out of there and jump straight back into the animus if you choose. No more running around as Desmond, and no more Danny Wallace.

 

Complaint: “This game has too much sea/open space/wilderness/not enough variety.”

We started off with a couple of cities to play with, then it was one city, then another, with a bit of countryside, then more wilderness than town, then the whole Caribbean, then another big city…you get the idea. Fans of the series have their opinions about how much building they want, how much open space and how much space for their great galleons there is.

It’s not Paris, and it’s no Caribbean, but the map in Origins is huge, and goes from Oasis towns in the desert, to Alexandria with it’s huge libraries and lighthouses, to various rural zones that do feel different. And you get around on a camel, which is cool, or a chariot, which is even cooler.

Agree or disagree? Let’s take the debate over to the community.

Reasons Why We Can’t Wait for the PC Gamer Weekender

The PC Gamer Weekender is fast approaching, it’s being held on the 17-18th of February right here in sunny London town. It’s a celebration of everything PC Gaming and would you believe it, that appeals to us at Green Man Gaming.

We’ll be attending and we’re incredibly excited about what’s going on there, here’s some reasons why we think you should be excited to attend too.

You get to play upcoming games before they’re out

When you’re there you’ll get the chance to hop on a PC and play a game before it’s out, games like Warhammer: Vermintide 2, Phoenix Point, Rend, Production Line, Mashinsky, Cobalt WASD, Spellforce 3, Frozen Synapse 2, Biomutant, and much more will be there. You’ll be able to have a play, see what you think, and then tell all your friends if something’s amazing. Or if something’s terrible! The key thing is; you’ll know, and you can lord it over your friends forever.

Well, until these games come out anyway.

There’s Dev Talks

One of the best things that happens at events like this is that you get to go to talks held by developers, meaning you get an insight and a bit more understanding of how things work, what decisions were made, and just the whole creative process behind making some of your favourite games. This year Creative Assembly are doing one, so you can bone up on Total War, Fatshark will be there to talk ratty Warhammers, Mojang will be chatting about Minecraft, and Subset Games will be doing a talk about Into the Breach.

If you’re interested in how games are made or just want to know more about the games industry, these are a perfect place to jump in and get learned up.

PC Workshops

The best thing about being into PC Gaming is that you’re in control – it’s your PC, it’s owned by you, and if you want you can build it, tweak it, and upgrade it as you see fit. PC Gamer are hosting some PC Workshops held by Tom Logan from OC3D. This’ll be a great opportunity to anyone wanting to know more about how computers fit together and how to build and upgrade your system, stuff that’s not essential to be a PC Gamer, but it’s stuff that is worth learning about!

The Overwatch Bootcamp

Want to get better at Blizzard’s hero based shooter? Then the Omen by HP Bootcamp are there to kick your arse into gear and get you playing Overwatch like a champ. You’ll be tutored by players like Mark ‘Valkia’ Purdy and members of the Overwatch World Cup UK Team – Realzx and Kruise, who are going to sort out your skills and make an Overwatch GOD of you.

Free Game

And frankly if the above isn’t enough to get you excited, there’s a free game with every ticket purchase – Lethal League – and you’ll get four copies of it so you can share it with your mates!

It’s the cream on top of the dessert that is the PC Gamer Weekender.

So that’s some reasons why you should attend, of course the real reason you should attend is that you might bump into Alex (social media) and Olly (community) there, so say hi if you see us!

The PC Gamer Weekender is happening on the 17th and 18th of February and tickets are available now!

We’re also giving away 5 Weekender+ tickets over on our competitions page, so check that out too!

Remothered: Tormented Fathers – The Lowdown

Chances are unless you’re a horror games fan, you might not have heard of Remothered: Tormented Fathers. It emerged from Early Access on the 30th of January, and it’s currently sitting at Very Positive for lifetime reviews on Steam, so you know this is a good ‘un.

OK It’s Reviewing Well, But What Is It?

Remothered: Tormented Fathers is an intense 3rd person survival horror game, one that sets out to explore a psychological and dynamic narrative, as well as exploring stealth, horror, survival themes, all in a terrifying and spooky house.

It has a storyline that’s not only concerned with psychology, but it’s also a deeply ambiguous one – there’s no right, there’s no wrong, there’s just shades of grey. It ties into the realism of the setting and the game, because just in life, there’s often no ‘right’ answer.

What’s It About?

You play as Rosemary Reed, a 35-year-old woman who’s investigating the disappearance of a young girl called Celeste. This investigation takes you to Richard Felton’s house, an old man who’s affected by a mysterious disease. Gloria greets you as you reach the house, the nurse who looks after Mr. Felton…and the story begins.

Alright Why’s It So Special?

You’re being stalked throughout the house, and it’s left up to you how you outwit, evade, or run from them. You can hide, you can fight, you can trap, you can cower in a corner. All that’s available to you as you try to survive the horror of the Felton house. It feels like a mix of the Clocktower series, Resident Evil, Alien Isolation, and Amnesia.

In addition to that, it tries to keep the setting and the puzzles you encounter realistic. Whilst people may turn into monsters and monster may exist, there’s ambiguity there, are they really monsters or is this a representation of their, or your, psychology?

The soundtrack’s also something that needs paying attention to – it’s directed by Luca Balboni and Nobuko Toda, you might recognise the latter name from games such as Final Fantasy, Halo, and Metal Gear Solid.

I’m Scared, Will This Scare Me?

Yup, to be honest when I was researching this piece I looked at a gif that frankly did me in, so if even a gif can scare me, the game will probably be well worth it in terms of AGH value.

Where do I Find Out More?

Check out the trailer: (CW, gore and horror).

and if you like what you see, head on over to our store for more!

Remothered: Tormented Fathers is out now, and it’s bloody scary.

 

Green Man Gaming’s Playday Sale!

It’s been a long month hasn’t it. January is always the longest of months, especially for the ol’ bank balance. You spent everything on Christmas and maybe your work even paid you early for it, which is a lovely idea but you just ended up spending EVEN MORE on Christmas.

But it’s nearly over. Payday is on its way and you’ll be back in the black soon enough.

Why not celebrate your upcoming salubriousness with a videogame or two? We’re here to help you out!

What is the Playday Sale?

Simply put, it is videogames, that are cheap.

Less simply put, we want to celebrate the end of January (the month that never ends) and give you the chance to pick up some games for less. We’ve even stuck a voucher out there that lets you save EVEN MORE on your order, and you can check it out on the VIP page once you’ve signed in.

Alright, what games are included in the sale?

This is only day one of the sale; we’ll be adding more, and more, and more, and more as we go through the coming days. The sale ends on the 2nd of February, so head back to our front page EVERY SINGLE DAY until then to see what’s new, what’s good, and what you can pick up at a price that’s frankly robbing us.

Here’s some highlights from day one:

Injustice 2 -30%

This is a game where you can be the Flash, punching Gorilla Grodd in the face, then slamming him back and forward in time and eventually smashing him into himself.

I mean c’mon. It’s ridiculous, and stuff like that is worth the entry price alone.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War -30%

The game that everyone made a big fuss about, turned out they were wrong, and then never actually seemed to say sorry afterwards. Its Shadow of War! It reviewed well, and it’s much like the first game only bigger in every way. Check it out if you wanna kill some orcs and make some orc buddies!

Rocket League -40%

It’s Rocket League, the game of rocket powered cars and football. I mean it’s a winning combination, unless you let the ball into your own goal. Then you don’t win so much. Put it in the other goal, and gloat over the opponents for the rest of time.

Rise of the Tomb Raider -67%

Climb, hack enemies to bits, kill some dogs, skin the dogs, wear the dogs, make friends, make enemies, loot tombs, learn Greek, it’s Tomb Raider! Lara’s back and she’s got issues, and she’s going to work out those issues by shooting a load of bad dudes in the face.

Just Cause 3 -85%

BLAM, SMASH, BOOM, EXPLOSIONS, DRIVING, ZIPWIRES! It’s Just Cause 3, and it’s the literal definition of ‘explosive’.

Life is Strange -75%

Have some emotions, go on, you’re not just a soulless automaton, you want to feel, to love, to laugh, to live! This is the game for you.

Overcooked -66%

Overcooked

Alternatively you can play this and scream at your friends as they PUT the DAMN TOMATO in the WRONG PLACE AGAIN.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 -30%

If you like superheroes or LEGO, then this is the game for you. We enjoyed it! Read what we thought here.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided -85%

There are few genres that are more ‘PC Gaming’ than the immersive sim, and the Deus Ex series is some of the best immersive simming about.

Dungeon Siege -75%

This game is old now but you can get it for less than a coffee, so yeah. Check it!

The Escapists 2 -20%

Have you escaped prison recently? No? Then this is a game you should definitely check out, you never know when you’ll need the skills you learn in its pixel schoolroom!

Check back here regularly as we’ll be adding top picks from every day of the sale!

What’s The Best Stuff That’s New On The Store?

Did you know that Green Man Gaming is more than just a blog and newsroom? We’ve actually got a store too!

OK yes, you all knew this.

Each week we’re going to put together a list for you here, just showing off some of the best stuff that’s appeared on our store over the last week.

This week, we’ve got for you:

Forged Battalion (Early Access)

Customize your unique faction in a new take on real-time strategy as you fight in a variety of skirmish, solo, and multiplayer battles. You are not only a commander, but also an engineer – so you have ultimate control over your faction’s units, factories, superweapons and economy.

Manage, customize, and develop the blueprints of your emerging faction to create ever-evolving factories and units. Between missions a deep tech tree unlocks components that you’ll use to design combat units. As more technology is unlocked, your designs become more advanced and powerful.

Using resources gained in battle, you’ll unlock new options through the metagame Tech Tree to choose the archetype, armor, locomotor, weapons, and special abilities such as stealth and regeneration that will make your faction one of a kind. Ultimately, you will have access to the most powerful options, including an array of deadly superweapons to launch against your foes.

Metal Gear Survive (Pre-Purchase)

METAL GEAR SURVIVE builds upon METAL GEAR SOLID V’S enduring stealth action gameplay while introducing the new elements of exploration and survival to create a bold new experience.

METAL GEAR SURVIVE is a spin off from the main METAL GEAR SOLID V story that takes place in a strange alternative universe.
Create your own character and learn to survive. Scavenge resources, craft weapons, build a base camp and explore the unknown while developing the survival skills necessary in this hostile environment.

In CO-OP mode, assemble a team of four players to infiltrate and defend areas from hordes of creatures. Place fortifications and defensive weapons strategically to give you an advantage against ever intensifying enemies. Team work and resourcefulness are key in these fast paced co-op missions.

Dynasty Warriors 9 (Pre-Purchase)

In DYNASTY WARRIORS 9, players will explore China as it existed when feudal warlords vied for dominance over the land – the waning days of the Han dynasty and emergence of the Three Kingdoms era. Unifying the classic, time-tested “one versus thousands” action iconic to the Warriors series with a variety of new features, characters and content in an expansive open world environment, DYNASTY WARRIORS 9 aims to deliver the most immersive and ambitious DYNASTY WARRIORS experience to date.

Key Features:

➢ An expansive open world environment – The sweeping new narrative of DYNASTY WARRIORS 9 is portrayed across an expansive map of China. Setting out to complete various objectives, players will utilise an unprecedented world map to navigate and traverse a variety of different landscapes ranging from vast plains to snow-covered peaks presented with dynamic day/night and weather cycles.

➢ Gain the upper-hand in battle, adapt to your surroundings – Exploring the impressive environments is enhanced through the ability to adapt to surroundings to gain an upper-hand in battle; throw enemies into the wall or use the environment to hide from your foes – the option is yours!

➢ Play as all-new and returning characters – 83 characters from the DYNASTY WARRIORS series make their return with newly designed costumes! A selection of new faces join the fray in DYNASTY WARRIORS 9, such as the long-term retainer Cheng Pu.

InnerSpace

Your greatest journey is within.

In the final days of the Inverse, you must help the Archaeologist recover the last remaining memories before they are lost forever. Fly through ancient skies and abandoned oceans to discover the lost history of this fading realm, where entire civilizations have died, yet their gods still wander.

InnerSpace is an exploration flying game set in the Inverse, a world of inside-out planets where gravity pulls outward instead of in. InnerSpace began as a project among college friends and evolved into a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014. After years of development, PolyKnight is proud to welcome you to the Inverse. Your greatest journey is within.

Features:

  • Discover The Inverse – InnerSpace is a game about exploration, about player-driven moments both small and grandiose. Take your time, soar through the skies and dive through the oceans, and the secrets of the Inverse will reveal themselves.
  • Relics of the Past – Scattered among the ruins are priceless relics, the final messages from the extinct civilizations that once ruled the Inverse.
  • Airframes of the Ancients – Adapt lost technologies to build new airframes, each with unique abilities to soar above the waters, and below.
  • Colossal Mystery – The Inverse is dying, but you’re not alone. Demigods still roam here, hoarding what power they have left, the keepers of secrets as old as the Inverse. Fly carefully.
  • The Art of Flight – Featuring an ethereal art style and soothing electronic musical score, InnerSpace delivers a thoughtful, provocative flying experience unlike any other.

 

What Gamers Say vs What They Mean

Class! Class, sit down please. My name is Mr McHugh and I’m your substitute teacher today. Today’s lesson is Gamer Speak 101, and it’s our goal at GMG Academy to make sure that when you’re out there on the mean streets of Los Santos, the mean streets of Gibraltar, or the mean streets of Wii Sports that you’re ready for the chat you’ll get.

Gamers like to talk, but if you’re a non-gamer you might not understand exactly what they’re saying. Thankfully we’re here to school you, to give you the lowdown, and give you the heads up on the words and phrases you’ll hear in your gaming career.

Right. Are you listening? Then we’ll begin:

What they say:

GG

What they mean:

I am happy that I won the game

What they say:

GG WP

What they mean:

I hate that you played well and I loathe your entire existence

What they say:

GG EZ

What they mean:

I have issues expressing my emotions to the people around me

What they say:

Stop feeding!

What they mean:

I am playing poorly but I refuse to take responsibility

What they say:

LOLZORS, u have been p0wned by me, the pwnz0r mast3r

What they mean:

I am 56 years old.

What they say:

1v1 me bro

What they mean:

I challenge thee to a duel sirrah, thou hast offended mine honour and I will stand it no longer!

What they say:

360 noscope

What they mean:

Three hundred and sixty noscope

What they say:

I just got my first chicken dinner!

What they mean:

Meat products are scarce in 2018 and a meal including chicken is something to be celebrated.

What they say:

Get rekt

What they mean:

This attack is my magnum opus, verily, I say to thee, this attack I am performing will curse the very land thou walkest upon, foe of mine!

Well done for passing this course in Gamer Speak, you’re now ready to go out there and load up some League of Legends and converse freely with your gamer friends.

Except for you Jenkins, you weren’t paying attention, you’ve got extra homework to do.

10 Games That Came Out in 1988 That Will Make You Feel Probably Nothing Really

We’ve done 2008 and we’ve done 1998.

This is the last one (this year)

Here’s ten games that came out in 1988 which frankly, most of you probably won’t remember or have any emotional attachment to. Even I, aged as time itself, can barely remember some of these titles. Well, actually a couple I remember really well.

Let’s look back into TIME and see what games came out thirty years ago, in the Year of Luigi, 1988.

Exile

A non-linear semi-open world adventure with physics? Yeah it’s Exile, and you’re on Perseus to rescue survivors, defeat the big alien baddie, and get the hell out again. Remarkable not only for the amount of ideas it had, like the aforementioned physics system but also how it’s enemies reacted to you and the fact that you can complete the game in many different ways, and even render the game uncompletable. It’s also get a jetpack, and frankly jetpacks make all games better.

Wasteland

Receiving a marvellous sequel in 2014 and getting a third installment hopefully later this year, Wasteland is the ur-post-apocalyptic game. As Interplay couldn’t get the rights to the Wasteland name, they went ahead and made the Fallout series which shares many of the same themes and ideas. It’s a huge RPG with a load of locations, set in a post apocalyptic Nevada, dealing with issues such as ‘AI’ and ‘more AI’ and ‘oh god the AI’. Free for many who bought Wasteland II, so check it out yo!

Bard’s Tale III

Speaking of games getting sequels, Bard’s Tale III is getting Bard’s Tale IV later this year, by the same team that brought Wasteland II to us. Bard’s Tale, if you’re not familiar, is a light hearted RPG dungeon romp series with a deep and complex combat system. It had a…strange spinoff in 2004 which was a sort of action-adventure thing, but Bard’s Tale IV looks like it’s going to be back with the Bard’s Tale formula: laughing while you’re in a dungeon.

Final Fantasy II

After Hironobu Sakaguchi and Square had a surprise hit on their hands in the form of Final Fantasy, they decided to do one more. Just one. Similar to the first one, it standardised a lot of what would later be common themes in the Final Fantasy series. The big revolution that FFII introduced was…the Chocobo. Can you imagine Final Fantasy without Chocobos? Cos the first one didn’t have them.

Battle Chess

Or ‘Sod Chess Let’s Just Murder Each Other’ Simulator, Battle Chess took the game of chess and added animations for each character vs each other character making the game much more a war. I played loads of this game, mainly just to see the animations because I suck at chess, and still do. You can play this game in a 2D mode without animations, but who wants that?

Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts

A platformer that’s bastard hard, Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts gives you a free hit, and then you’re dead. You lose your armour the first time you’re hit and then that’s it, tough luck if you get smacked a second time. Featuring lengthy and damnably hard levels, Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts was an arcade game that would suck up your coins, because not only was it hard, you had to complete the entire game twice in one sitting in order to really complete it.

Captain Blood

I idolised this game when I was little, because it was a game about meeting and talking to aliens and it was incredibly incomprehensible, meaning your imagination had to fill in the gaps and do the heavy lifting. Aliens would talk to you in their own languages and you’d try to figure it out, and inevitably fail. Not only were the aliens hard to understand as you scooted about the universe in your spaceship, but the UI for the spaceship itself was almost impossible to use. Wonderful, experimental stuff. It received a sequel in the 90s, but I don’t know anyone who’s played Commander Blood. Have you?

BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk’s Inception

A turn based RPG set in a world of mechs, it was one of the first times that BattleTech had been adapted for the home computer. An Infocom game made by the sadly defunct Westwood, it featured three distinct sections with a semi-open world map and party based mech combat. Harebrained Schemes, the developers who successfully took over the Shadowrun series are working on a sequel, and the rumours are that it is Extremely Good.

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny

Ultima is the series that made RPGs. Well, not literally, but the Ultima series contains some of the absolute highlights in the RPG genre, and if you can get them running today then most of them are worth revisiting. Ultima V is set after the groundbreaking Ultima IV and features the virtues being twisted into something horrible, something darker by Lord Blackstone and the Shadowlords. It’s not as innovative as the predecessor nor as polished as its successor, but Ultima V is a solid entry in the series and one that has callbacks to the start of the Ultima series.

Carrier Command

Remade in 2012, Carrier Command is a hybrid between and RTS and a vehicle combat game. You control a huge robotic carrier, and plan to colonise a series of islands and archipelagos through taking them over from opposing forces. You can set your water and aircraft to work autonomously or with pre-programmed commands, or you can step in and take control of them yourself. It’s a game that’s incredibly ambitious, and an idea that’s been bounced around a few times, such as the semi ill-fated Battlecruiser 4000.

There you are, that’s some games that came out a whopping thirty years ago. Do you remember them, did you play them at the time? Hit us up in the comments below!

10 Games That Came Out in 1998 That Will Make You Say ‘You’re So Old’

I am old.

Not, old old. But old enough. Old to remember no internet, to remember tape decks for my Commodore, to remember the Megadrive coming out, to remember Maggie Thatcher being in power.

So probably older than most of you reading this.

I recently covered ten games that came out in 2008, because time is horrible and frankly I can’t believe it’s been ten years since Mirror’s Edge came out.

Now I’m going to take a look a bit further back into the depths of time, and see what came out in 1998. No doubt I’ll have an even worse reaction and go ‘oh hell no, no way is that twenty years old’ a lot, and you reading this will probably go ‘ha ha that came out before I was born’ or something.

Here we go.

Half-Life

Right starting off with the big guns with Half-Life, the game that made Valve and Gabe Newell into household names.  Still one of the best opening sections to any game, with the slow realisation that the laboratory is just boned and you’re going to have a hell of a time getting out. Even better is the moment the troops turn up, because whilst the aliens are the star attraction and the narrative impetus behind the story, it’s always more fun to shoot humans. In video games.

StarCraft

It’s not really fair that Blizzard got to perfect the RTS genre, and do it twenty years ago, but they did and StarCraft is still a work of art, a masterpiece of RTS design. Featuring three races that feel distinctive and independent to each other, it’s finely tuned and an example that hasn’t really been bettered, even by Blizzard themselves. No wonder it’s had its own remastering recently, because this is a game that’s just as relevant today, twenty years later.

Fallout 2

The OFFICIAL best Fallout game, as ranked by me, the official Fallout ranker. Fallout 2 takes everything that Fallout did, with an open world, an ambiguous narrative, and a serious-but-not-always-serious setting, and took it just that few steps further. Dispensing with the original’s time limit and giving you a few more tools to be able to actually build a party, Fallout 2 is a highlight in RPG design. Even if Vic can never shoot straight.

Grim Fandango

The best Casablanca game that there ever was, Grim Fandango takes place in the land of the dead over the course of several years as you, Manny Calavera, investigate the corrupt core of the institutions that govern the undead world. Borrowing heavily from Mexican and Mayan imagery and ideas, and incorporating lots of Film Noir feel, this is Lucasarts at its best. The only downside is the tank control scheme, which thankfully can be ditched in the remastered version. That said, you will get an achievement if you play through the remastered version using the tank controls! (And for bragging rights, here’s mine.)

Baldur’s Gate

Probably what everyone thinks of when they think of ‘D&D Games’, Baldur’s Gate is a sprawling epic of a game, set over a huge section of the Sword Coast as you try to work out why your Guardian is dead, who you are, and just what the HELL Saravok wants with you. Featuring real time-with-pause combat and a robust roleplaying system, it’s a beautiful and well crafted game that deserves to sit at the head of the RPG table. Even if the sequel is better.

Thief: The Dark Project

The first game to really ‘get’ stealth takes you as Garrett, a Thief, going on jobs to fill your pockets, but who ends up uncovering the secrets that lurk deep underneath The City. It has an innovative sound and light based sneaking system which contrasts well with the frankly terrible combat system. Which is fine, because it’s called ‘Thief’ not ‘Sword-Dude’. The world itself is filled with secrets, hidden stuff, guards discussing rats, steampunkery, and a bit of Lovecraftian horror. The sequel is probably a bit more polished and doesn’t feature those damnable zombie levels, but the original Thief is still an amazing stealth game. Especially now Thief Gold is available.

Unreal

Ah, the game that started it all. Years later we’re still using the Unreal engine to make games, and none of that would be possible without the original Unreal. Sitting somewhere between the narrative-heavy Half-Life and the Shoot-anything-that-moves-heavy Quake, it was utterly beautiful at release and still has some standout moments today. The soundtrack, for example, is still absolutely fantastic. It’s got a great opening section which riffs off Alien, and then goes full sci fi adventure from there.

Descent: Freespace

The best space combat dogfighting game there is, and that’s still the case now 20 years later because there’s been about 4 space combat dogfighting games since then. Again, the sequel is a bit better in terms of mechanics and in terms of beam lasers, but the first is still well worth checking out. It starts off with you as a human pilot, taking part in the war against the alien Vasudans when suddenly, the war’s made trivial by the arrival of the Shivans, a mechanical race that cannot be communicated with and who is only concerned with wiping you out. One of the good things about games set in space is that they don’t age at the same rate as other games, so even though Freespace II is a little prettier, this game still looks alright today.

Oh and it’s got nothing to do with Descent.

Die by the Sword

The first game on this list that might not be remembered so fondly, this was a true experiment. Die by the Sword takes what you know about control schemes for third person action games and throws them out the window, sets fire to them, and makes something that almost exactly fails to satisfy. Mapping the arc of your sword to mouse movements, or keypad presses, you swing the sword about from left to right and back again trying to hit enemies. You can see what they were aiming for, as it’s true that a simple attack button doesn’t encapsulate the full range of a duel, but this just meant every battle was nothing but two people flailing about in the air at each other.

Battlezone

With a new Battlezone coming out sometime this year, Battlezone 98 is itself a remake of an even earlier game, also called Battlezone. A first person RTS, it’s another experiment but this time it really paid off. It plays a lot like other RTS games, you build units, you gather resources, you build buildings, you train stuff, you attack the enemy. But the move to first person means there’s more to it than just a ‘build a load of stuff and steamroll the enemy’ simulator. You’ve got to aim, you’ve got to control tanks, you’ve got to be well, a battlefield commander from the front lines. No Napoleon sipping wine in a distant tent here, you’re down in the trenches with your tanky lads and it’s WAR. There’s a Redux version available which will help to get this running on current systems, while you wait for the brand new version later in the year, of course.

Right, so now I feel incredibly old and I fully expect you lot to laugh at me because all these games probably came out before your parents were even born. I’m so old.

But for more blogs and suchlike, don’t forget to check out our blog!

10 Games That Came Out In 2008 That Will Make You Say ‘I’m So Old’

2008 was clearly only a couple of years ago right? At most, 3 years ago. Surely.

WHAT, it was a decade ago? You’re joking. *checks calendar* oh god I’m so old.

Anyway, I want to share this feeling. So here’s 10 games that came out 10 years ago that’ll make you feel just as old as me. Enjoy!

GTA IV

It only seems like yesterday that we’d moved past the GTA 3 / Vice City / San Andreas engine and seen this amazing playground of Liberty City unveil itself before us. With a compelling and deeply broken lead character, GTA IV was a huge step forward for the series, and one I can’t believe is already ten years old.

Left 4 Dead

It’s been ten years since we all encountered two things. One is the witch. The second is your friend who thinks it’s funny to disturb the witch when you’re sneaking carefully around it and your screen has gone black and white. Still one of the best co-op games out there, give it a reinstall and get the gang back together.

Dead Space

‘What if System Shock was crossed with Resident Evil 4 and was super gross’ is what I imagine the brief for this was. Featuring an immersive UI and more foot stomping than you can shake a foot at, this action horror game has since become a classic and holds up perfectly today.

Fallout 3

Oh I remember watching the trailers for this avidly. Y’know instead of waffling for a bit, here’s the trailer that really sold me on the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7a1GVlC9SM

Fallout 3’s a great game, a huge step away from the previous ones, but it managed to revitalise the franchise and introduced Fallout to a whole new load of fans. But it’s 10 years old? IMPOSSIBLE.

Burnout Paradise

We’re getting a remaster, which surprised me because ‘no way has that game been out long enough to require one’. Apparently it has been! Featuring the best Avril Lavigne-based soundtrack, it’s a brilliant semi-open world racing game about smashing billboards. Oh also there’s some driving in there too.

Sins of a Solar Empire

Not played by everyone on the planet, but Sins of a Solar Empire is an amazing real time space 4X game, with a tactical mode for managing your space battles. Also it’s basically got the best name of any game ever?

World of Goo

Since ported to every device known to man (and some that aren’t), this is still one of the best puzzle games ever made. With a brilliant soundtrack and an actual narrative and puzzle design that’s truly surprising and innovative, there’s a reason this is on every device. Cos you should play it.

Braid

Widely credited with being the starter signal for the Indie Renaissance that we saw where indie games suddenly became popular, could become big, and suddenly were accessible on every platform, it’s worth remembering that Braid is still a great platformer with unique and incredibly difficult puzzles in it. Well worth playing, even today.

Mirror’s Edge

Look not everyone likes Mirror’s Edge and it does have some problems, but the feeling of running over rooftops, leaping over gaps and doing whatever you can to maintain your speed and your momentum is still a great feeling. Also due to the powerfully strong art direction, Mirror’s Edge still looks just as good today.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

Our Lord of Strategy and Community Manager, Olly, has informed me that this is ‘the last good C&C’. With a cast featuring such luminaries as Tim Curry, Peter Stormare, Jonathan Pryce, J.K. Simmons, George Takei, David Hasselhoff, Randy Couture, Jenny McCarthy, and er, Gemma Atkinson from Hollyoaks, this is a game with the best cutscenes money can buy. And if you don’t like it, then you can just go to the ONE place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism:

For more retrospectives, fun articles, and more, don’t forget to check our blog!

2017 – Our Favourite Games

2017 is over and we can look back on the highs, the lows, and most importantly; the videogames we played.

It’s been a good year for games, with some of the best games of recent years all coming out in these short twelve months.

But what were our favourites? I asked the social and customer support teams about their year and what they loved, and here’s what they have to say about 2017, the year of GAMES!

Alex

Torment: Tides of Numenera

A world where civilisations have risen and fallen so many times history cannot be charted. A world where thought and feeling can become manifest. A world where items you find could be a bomb that could crack the planet open, or could be a child’s toy. A world where you are a blank slate and define yourself through your deeds, your words, your interactions. A world where portals open up in a vast flesh tunnel system to distant universes. A world where it seems, anything can be possible.

That’s Torment: Tides of Numenera. That’s why it matters, that’s why it’s my game of 2017.

Tokyo 42

There’s few things more beautiful than Tokyo 42, imagine a mad LEGO builder ran amok in the world of Blade Runner, but only had the sunny colours left over, and you’re on your way to imagining what Tokyo 42 looks like. As a hitman in this tiny isometric world, you have to clear your name by shooting a whole heck load of people. Fun, endlessly beautiful to look at, it’s well worth a peek if you haven’t yet.

The Signal from Tölva

Or ‘What if Proteus and STALKER had a robot baby’, this game features you, controlling a robot, as you gain territory, investigate mysteries, recruit robot followers, and take bases to work out what the hell the eponymous Signal is. It’s got a huge amount of weapons from laser shotguns to sniper rifles to just the ‘gun that makes robots do what you say’, and it’s a big open world filled with factions and interconnected events that happen without your interference.

But it’s not just that, it’s not just shooting and territory-holding. There’s moments of wandering across beautiful scenery and looking up and seeing a fluttering of birds flap across the sky. It’s a beautiful world, and a great place to do some shootin’ in.

What Remains of Edith Finch

I can’t say much about this game because anything I say will probably ruin it, but it’s a game about loss, about family, about learning the truth behind the stories we tell ourselves about our own family histories. It’s about truth, it’s about the lies we tell to smooth over cracks, it’s about all that and much more.

It’s amazing, and it just needs to be played. Now. Stop reading this and go play it.

Olly

Horizon: Zero Dawn

You start this game and you run around, shooting arrows and stabbing things with a spear and crafting herbs into items and you think ‘oh I get it, it’s open world game number 2,310’. Then you keep playing it, and the story unfolds, and you start taming the mechanical dinosaurs and learning what they are, and traversing this incredible and wild world, and you’re hooked. I wouldn’t say this game is as good as The Witcher 3 but it gave me that same open-world fix, except in this game you’re playing an even cooler character, and numerous weapons and gadgets that you’ll have never used in a game before that makes you think on how to hunt those massive beasts.

Total War: Warhammer 2

I’ve been a fan of Total War since Shogun, and each iteration will be played for 5 hours or 500. Total War: Warhammer was more the latter, and so I had high hopes for 2. After playing a couple of battles at EGX and using the Skaven ‘DoomWheel’ and ‘Ogre Rat’ I knew they’d leaned more into the bonkers Warhammer lore then ever. Ditching the kind-of lame dwarves, men, undead and orcs for High Elves, Dark Elves, Ratmen and Lizardmen (and now Tomb Kings), Warhammer 2 feels fresh and adds a whole bunch of ways to play through your long campaign, not just ‘Secure 120 provinces’. Special tasks and missions that directly push your main quest forward gives you a reason to do more you wouldn’t normally do, and helps you get into the mindset of the race you’re playing. Brilliant, strategic and bonkers.

Saevar

Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice

This game was easily one of the most underrated games to come out in 2017. It has all the facets of a triple AAA game but without the price tag. The story was absolutely enthralling. You play as a Nordic woman, Senua, who suffers from Schizophrenia. You delve into the depths of her mind and follow her into the depths of hell to bring back her lost love. The artwork is top-notch, the voice acting and even the simple-yet-elegant combat system was done amazingly well for a small dev team. This game is positively mind-blowing and I think everyone should give it a try!

Josh

Resident Evil 7 -biohazard-

Boasting a gripping theme song and dropping back down to its intense survival horror roots, it’s hard to dismiss Resident Evil 7 as a 2017 wonder.
Changing the formula once again the team behind this Resident Evil game have captured what I love about horror games brilliantly, by switching to a first-person perspective and even offering VR support, it’s a fright to behold and definitely kept me on my toes whilst trying desperately to stealthily make my way around the mansion, avoiding detection and the madness that is the Baker family.
It takes my spot for one of the best games 2017 had to offer for refreshing the genre once again for all to experience.

Matt T

Agents of Mayhem

As a huge fan of the Saints Row Series, I was beyond excited to get my hands on Agents of Mayhem, and despite some of the negativity thrown towards it, it really lived up to my expectations. Its ridiculous humour, an insane amount of customisable team options and a stupidly fun story mode made for a throughly enjoyable experience.

Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire

As MMOs go, GW2 never really grabbed me. The 2nd expansion however, had me absolutely hooked. The introduction of mounts added so much more than I would have expected, the new zones were stunning and the main story had me clawing for more. I’ve officially spent more time in game since the expansion than ever before!

Matt P

Throne of Lies

This title is an amazing entry to the underrepresented social deduction and deceit genre of games, you will be designated a class across one of three factions: Blue Dragon, Neutral or Cult/Unseen all with varying win conditions. To win for yourself (and the faction depending on your role) you will need to use your in game abilities to stab, spy or support your fellow factions members to the top, but the abilities alone will only take you so far you must also use your wits and cunning to obtain information as to who is your ally and who may be your enemy.

The game is broken down to days both with a day / night cycle the day is predominantly used for accusing players / discussing and whispering leads on other players but some of the more treacherous classes can silence or even poison, the Night is where the real fun begins with abilities ranging from healing an ally, occupying a target or even stealing another players body.

At current the developers at Imperium 42 are constantly making balance changes to ever role to ensure that every role is both useful and fun.

Karl

PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds

Nothing brings friends closer or tears them apart quicker than trying to win some chicken dinner. PUBG filled that gaping hole in my life that H1Z1 failed to.

They Are Billions

An addictive blend of tower defence, Age of Empires & colony management. Nothing like watching hours of work ruined by one sneaky Zombie.

That’s what we got! The top games we, from the social and customer support teams, have to say about 2017. What was your favourite game from 2017?

2018 – The Year Of Dino Park Games

Every year has a theme, 2012 was the Year of the Bow, 2013 was the Year of Luigi, 2017 was the Year of Dads, and 2018 looks like it’ll be the Year of Dinosaurs.

It’s even more specific than that, 2018 is going to be the year of Dinosaur Park Sims. Already on the horizon we’ve got Jurassic World Evolution, Prehistoric Kingdom, Mesozoica, and Parkasaurus. That’s just what’s been announced so far, there’s 12 months of hot dino action reveals yet to come.

So why’s this happening now? Why is this Year of the Dino Park?

2018: The Year We Made Dino Park Games

Well obviously, the big thing is that Jurassic Park is back. Sorry, I mean Jurassic World. The first in the new Jurassics hit in 2015 and we’ve got another one that’ll come out this year. In addition to this, we’re also seeing the rise of the monster movie again, with Pacific Rim, Godzilla, Kong, and more all coming to cinemas.

So we’ve got monsters becoming big again and obviously, the OG monster is the Dinosaur. Why make something up when genuinely there really were big monster dudes wandering the Earth? Sometimes the original really is best.

That’s the dinosaur part of the mix accounted for, what about the park sims? Well you see there’s a little game called Planet Coaster made by Frontier Developments, and it’s been smashing away reinvigorating the park sim game genre for a while now. Frontier are old school, they made Elite (which yes, I am old enough to remember and own), and they made a whole load of Rollercoaster Tycoons.

They’ve taken that knowledge and pumped it into their own Planet Coaster theme park simulator, and made a surprise hit. It’s no wonder that heads are beginning to turn, and wonder ‘is now the right time for the park sim to come back?’

With dinosaurs and monsters being popular on one hand, and park sims seemingly doing well on the other, it’s time to mush those two hands together in a big mess of Dino Park joy and get some damn dino games out.

Any Concerns?

There’s only one potential problem with Dino Park games, and it’s one I’m sure they’ll fix but. It’s a concern.

It’s that, well, management games are about managing. They’re about constructing a place and having it run smoothly.

The best part of dinosaurs isn’t them hanging about meekly in cages or fenced off areas, it’s when they get out and munch down on Samuel L. Jackson or bite that lawyer who was on the toilet.

So if your Dino Park game works like a normal management game, if you’re good at it you’ll be rewarded with…a smoothly running park and no bitten in half humans. If you’re bad at it you’ll get outbreaks and murder, and frankly that’s why anyone watches Jurassic Park. No-one would have watched the film if it was just ‘some paleontologists go for a nice holiday’.

How are these games going to balance the twin desires, to have a successful and well running park, and to watch a load of dinosaurs rampage across what you have built?

It’s a tricky wire to walk, and one that they’ll have to cross if 2018 is TRULY going to be the Year of Dino Park.

Until then, watch this space for more news on Dino Park games!

2017 – Our Most Popular Blog Posts!

We’re off into 2018 at last! But before we jump into the unknown of 2018ery, let’s take a look back at the year we’ve just had. We’ve already looked at our news items from the previous year, but what about the blog? The blog so full of ideas, so full of articles, so full of giveaways.

I’m sure you’re all going wild with anticipation over finding out, so here’s the top 10 articles we posted over 2017!

10. Ghost Recon: Wildlands Giveaway

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Obviously you like the chance to get some free stuff, and Wildlands was a fairly big release early in the year.

9. Dishonored 2 – Emily vs Corvo, Who’s The Best Character?

With a game like Dishonored 2, who you play makes a huge difference to your playstyle and how you’ll be experiencing the game. So who’s better? Corvo? Emily? This article doesn’t really answer, but it gives you the tools to decide for yourself!

8. Xbox Play Anywhere Codes

We started selling Xbox Play Anywhere Codes. Don’t know what they are? Click the link!

7. D&D Classes Ranked Best to Worst

Olly is not only our community manager, he’s our team Dungeon Master and the man knows D&D, that’s why he’s put together the 100% definitive ranking of D&D classes. If you read any other one, that one is wrong. Tough luck. Sorry, it is.

6. For Honor Giveaway

For Honor Valkyrie

You want free stuff. Makes sense.

5. 7 Days to Die Alpha 16 Latest

Patch notes for the 7 Days to Die Alpha! Very popular, much reading happened.

4. 7 Days to Die Alpha 16 Update

What is coming in the patch notes for the 7 Days to Die Alpha! Apparently you guys like clicking on patch notes about 7 Days to Die.

3. Mass Effect Andromeda Giveaway

You want free stuff, this link gave some of you free stuff.

2. Fallout Games Ranked

Another 100% scientifically correct, accurate, and final list of games. This time about Fallout Games!

1. Competition Page

FREE STUFF! *rings bell* FREE STUFF! FREE STUFF! FREE STUFF! No but seriously go check it out, there’s always a giveaway on that page.

So there you go – our most popular pages from 2017. What will 2018 hold for us?

(I imagine some free stuff).

Is Burnout Paradise Still Burnout Paradise Without the Soundtrack?

It’s coming, Burnout Paradise is getting a remake at long last, at least on the PS4. We’ll finally get to go back to that city, Paradise City, and drive really fast into billboards over and over and over and over and over again.

It’s brilliant news because Burnout Paradise was one of the last of the truly great, and accessible, racing games. Since then racing games have either gone more GTA-y, or they’ve gone more serious. People have been crying out for a new Burnout, and if we can’t have that then at least we’ll have Burnout at its best, all shiny.

But there may be a problem.

The soundtrack.

You see this is something that doesn’t get talked about much in games, is that soundtracks when they’re produced using licensed music, tend to have fairly strict limits on how they can be used.

Often, this includes a time limit on how long they can be used. This is why you’ll sometimes see some games disappear from market. We don’t know which games are affected by this, but for example, is this why you can no longer buy the original Prey which heavily featured Don’t Fear The Reaper?

We don’t know, but the issues that surround licensed music might affect the soundtrack to Burnout Paradise’s HD Remaster. We won’t know until the game’s actually released, but it’s something to worry about and something to get confirmation on before putting money down on pre-orders.

Just to be clear: every song you love from the original may well be in the remaster.

But would Burnout Paradise still be Burnout Paradise without the iconic soundtrack?

Imagine starting the game up and not hearing Guns and Roses, imagine not having Killswitch Engage pounding out as you hit top speed along the harbour, imagine not having Soundgarden playing when you’re skidding around corners.

The unthinkable could also happen.

What if, and I can barely write these terrible, fearful words. What if ‘Girlfriend’ by Avril Lavigne isn’t in the game?

What would be the point of racing if you can’t do it to ‘hey hey, you you’? Why perform tricks or smash billboards or unlock shortcuts if you’re not going to find out whether or not Avril Lavigne likes your girlfriend? And to anyone rolling their eyes – you damn well know you skipped through all the other songs to get to ‘Girlfriend’ more than once. Don’t deny it. I know.

If the original soundtrack isn’t present, whilst the structure of the game would remain – and make no mistake, it’s a damned good game – the soul of the game would be ripped out.

You see the soundtrack, whilst often overlooked in videogames in favour of mechanics or visuals, is integral to the feeling that a game has. Dear Esther wouldn’t be Dear Esther without Jessica Curry’s soundtrack, FTL wouldn’t be the success it is without Ben Prunty’s sci-fi inspired melancholic tunes, Mass Effect wouldn’t be Mass Effect without the works of Jack Wall.

Burnout Paradise would still be amazing, but it’s not Burnout Paradise without the soundtrack.

So we’re amazingly happy that it’s coming, but before the party starts we need to get confirmation of the soundtrack. What music’s going to be in there, and if the original soundtrack isn’t present, will it be a ‘true’ remaster?

PlayLink: PS4 party gaming for controllerphobes

Are you the only person in your family who ever uses the house PlayStation 4? Have you ever wanted to introduce the rest of your relatives to the joys of gaming, only to discover that they find console controllers intimidating? If so, Sony has a new technology called PlayLink which might just let you position the PS4 at the centre of your family’s party-gaming.

What PlayLink does it pretty simple: it essentially lets you hook up a number of mobile phones to the PS4, and use them as controllers in place of your Dual Shock 4s. Which completely bypasses non-gamers’ fear of controllers – everyone has a mobile phone these days, and is completely comfortable using it.

PlayLink only arrived in November, but it’s the perfect party-gaming technology, and its burgeoning roster of games already reflects that. Plus, it’s not just about party-games: developers are starting to use PlayLink to experiment with radically different control schemes and narrative forms, so it has plenty of appeal to more hardcore gamers seeking new experiences.

How does PlayLink work?

While PlayLink games, by their very nature, are slightly more fiddly to get up and running than ordinary PlayStation ones, setting them up isn’t too much of a pain. First you have to buy the actual game for your PS4 – all PlayLink games are available via download and, much like PSN games, generally cost around £15.

Next, you must download a free app specific to that game to every mobile phone which will be used as a controller – all the PlayLink apps are in both Apple’s App Store and Google Play. Then you just fire up the game on the PS4, and every player can jump in by launching the app on their mobile. Most of the apps are pretty small, but the odd one comes in at over 150Mb, so downloading may take a short while, but storage shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The apps do require proper smartphones with touch-screens and cameras, so grandad’s museum-piece from the 1990s (which he probably never turns on, anyway) would pose a problem.

PlayLink games

So far, the PlayLink games which are on sale fall broadly into two categories: party-games and interactive movie-style games. Here’s our pick of the best of them.

That’s You

Available free to PlayStation Plus subscribers, That’s You is the perfect Christmas-gathering game. Between two and six people can play it, and it begins by persuading everyone to take a selfie to act as their avatar. Selfie-taking looms large throughout the game, so the camera-shy might want to amuse themselves otherwise when you’re playing it.

That’s You alternates between three types of rounds, which play on how well you know your fellow contestants. You might have to answer questions about what other players would do in odd situations (sample question: “Who would be most likely to taser themselves when making an arrest?”), emulate animals or the like by posing in a selfie, or draw pictures on your mobile screen.

Each round ends with a vote on whose contribution was the best; if there’s a stalemate, players can employ jokers (which are in short supply) to tip the verdict in their favoured direction. The final round involves everyone taking a selfie, embellishing it by drawing on it, then passing it around to the others for further embellishment. It’s all very light-hearted, and guaranteed to breed plenty of hilarity.

Knowledge is Power

This one is another all-out party-game, also playable by two to six people. It’s a fairly standard quiz, except with some amusing PlayLink-enabled twists. It starts off with everyone picking a quiz-question category as well as a Power Play to use.

Power Plays provide a means of hampering your rivals’ ability to answer questions – for example, the ice Power Play apparently freezes their screen so that they have to tap away several times, shattering the virtual ice, before they can see the possible answers.

It ends up becoming slightly tactical – if someone is winning, the others can gang up on them and bombard them with Power Plays. Plus it has a two-team mode which operates independently of the PS4, and involves passing one phone around between teams. A great party ice-breaker.

SingStar Celebration

Sony’s karaoke game needs little introduction, and for years, it has employed mobile phones in place of microphones – which may be where the idea of PlayLink came from in the first place — so a PlayLink version of the game seems a tad superfluous. Nevertheless, Sony has made one, and if you’re in a party situation in which everyone has got to grips with how to get PlayLink games running, it may well be worth downloading.

The PlayLink version of Singstar Celebration does allow four people to vote on setting a playlist of songs, and it adds some party modes in which up to eight players can participate. But as in the normal game, it only allows two people to sing at the same time. With its playlist skewed heavily towards recent artists, it could turn out to provide a handy means of entertaining the younger members of any Christmas get-together.

Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier

Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier isn’t really a party-game, although it is playable by up to four people. It falls very much into the interactive-movie category, and might go down nicely if your Christmas family gathering tends towards the more cerebral end of the entertainment spectrum – that is, if you like to settle down for a good movie-watch.

The rebooted Planet of the Apes movies are great, and effectively Last Frontier is another one of those. Regarding those movies, it has impeccable credentials, as it was developed by The Imaginati, which is owned by The Imaginarium, Andy Serkis’s company based in Ealing Studios, that was responsible for all the performance-capture from the movies.

The Last Frontier documents a new encounter between apes and humans, and you play it by making a barrage of moral decisions, and deciding whether or not to perform actions. A key mechanic is its voting system – if you play it with others, the majority vote holds sway, and if there’s a stalemate, each player has one joker which he or she can choose to play.

It’s a game with multiple outcomes, covering three broad scenarios: apes win, humans win or peace is achieved. So, much of the fun lies in trying to achieve your favoured outcome. When playing it with a group, that approach inevitably breeds a large amount of debate. It requires a certain amount of commitment – each play-through takes two to three hours – but it’s very immersive. After playing it, you’re likely to feel like you’ve been living through an episode of Gogglebox.

Hidden Agenda

This one also falls into interactive-movie, or possibly point-and-click adventure, territory. Created by Supermassive Games, the developer behind Until Dawn, it’s a police procedural with very impressive production values. Like Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier, it encourages you to make moral decisions – regarding your investigation, lines of questioning and so on – and to perform actions by swiping around your mobile phone screen.

Up to four people can play it co-operatively and, when decisions must be made, the majority holds sway. But with the timed actions, all players must nail them before the countdown ends, so there’s an added sense of responsibility.

There’s also some detective work to undergo, and the possibility of multiple outcomes adds replay value. If you like police-procedurals and fancy yourself as a sleuth tracking down a serial-killer, it should fit the bill.

Erica

Erica isn’t out yet – with luck it will appear earlier rather than later in 2018 – but we’ve had a sneak preview of it, and it looks set to create quite a stir. That’s because it shows how developers can take advantage of PlayLink’s unique attributes in order to craft thoroughly new and fresh gameplay experiences.

It, too, falls into the broad interactive-movie category, but it eschews conventional linear narrative and uses PlayLink to create an impressively tactile experience. You control a woman called Erica, who is plunged into a mysterious intrigue which unfolds from a first-person viewpoint.

What Erica does brilliantly is to use the mobile phone’s screen to recreate the sorts of things you would do in real life. Thus, when you find a crumpled ball of paper, you must stroke the right parts of the screen to unfold it, or you can rub the screen to remove dust and uncover a clue.

Visually, Erica is great – there are no transitions between scenes, so it plays like a single-take film. It’s definitely one to look out for, and we’ll bring you a closer look at it before it launches.

 

2017 – A Year In PC Gaming News

2017 has been A Year and that’s an understatement. Remember 2016 and we were all ‘ha ha at least 2017 can’t be as bad’. How young and foolish we were!

Thankfully though, it’s been a good year for video games, meaning we’ve had SOME refuge and respite from the muchness that has been 2017.

There’s been a lot of video game news too, so here’s the top 10 News articles we did this year, ranked by popularity, and let’s look back over the year and remember some of the newsy things that happened. GO TEAM NEWS!

10. Gaming Ladies Event Cancelled Following Harassment

Well the title of this piece says it all, a ladies-only event was cancelled following harassment. It was, however, later rescheduled, but no-one really clicked on that news story.

9. Darksiders 3 Has Been Leaked

Who would’ve thought that Darksiders would be getting another sequel? But it is, and news of it was leaked ahead of the announcement, so now we’re just waiting!

8. Valve Removes 173 Low Quality Games From Steam

Nearly 200 games by Silicon Echo Studios were removed from Steam in September, as these games were often reported and generated frustration amongst Steam users, a statement from Valve said.

7. Man Saved By Morrowind Receives Bethesda Bundle

It’s official, Morrowind is the most powerful videogame in existence. It can even stop a bullet! (If there’s a few other games in the way first.)

6. PewDiePie Uses Racial Slur During Livestream Causing Outrage

I’m going to try and write about this news story without getting an internet hate mob coming at me, like we do every time we mention the P word. PewDiePie said a bad word, and people didn’t like that.

dontkillmedontkillmedontkillme

5. British newspaper reports on ‘repulsive’ game Detroit: Become Human

It’s no secret that gamers love to hate on games, but damnit they’re OUR GAMES to rag on, so when the Daily Mail took aim at David Cage’s next work the pitchforks were OUT.

4. Ubisoft Giving Away Two Free PC Games This Month

Everyone wants to read stuff about free stuff right? So you clicked this news, and also hopefully some of you got your hands on Black Flag which is low key the best Assassin’s Creed game.

3. Firewatch Review-Bombed Over PewDiePie DMCA

Oh god, review bombing, a dev taking a stand, and the P-man? I’m just the messenger, don’t hurt me.

2. PewDiePie Nearly Slips Up Days After Racial Slur

Oh hell, another PewDiePie news story in the top 10, and again it’s about racist language? Is it too late for me to change my name and move to Aruba?

1. Jennifer Lopez Becomes Part Of $15m Investment In Esports Team

Honestly I have no recollection of this and if you’d have told me about this I would assume you were joking. J-Lo invested in Esports? Really? That happened?

Well you guys clicked on it a whole heck of a bunch of times, making it #1 in our Most Clicked On News Items From 2017 List (note to self, think of a better name for this feature).

That was 2017! Here’s onto 2018, when hopefully we’ll have fewer PewDiePie news pieces up so I can sleep easier!