Snowden-em-up email thriller Top Secret out now

Top Secret [official site], a game about whistleblower Edward Snowden that you play in real time via email, was released at the weekend. It lurked on Kickstarter back in 2015, when Joe leaked his thoughts on it, delving three days into a demo where he met a cryptanalyst who made him genuinely encrypt all future emails he would send. It’s all generated by clever machines of course, but the delay between sending a message and receiving a reply is there to make it feel real.
… [visit site to read more]

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A collection of dishonourable acts in For Honor

The murderfields of For Honor [official site] are busy – despite the god-awful networking – and it has become a place where all sorts of foul multiplayer deeds occur. It’s obvious now that Ubisoft called the game For Honor as a joke, because I have seen (and done) all kinds of dishonourable acts. Here, in handy visual form (warning: many GIFS!) are just some of the terrible or stupid things that can happen in any hard-fought battle. Things you can do to your foe, things you can do to your mates, things that can be done unto you…
… [visit site to read more]

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Rogue Trooper, world’s finest 7/10 game, gets a remaster

Huh. Big day for blue people. I’ve long wished that venerable Britcomic (and home of Joe Dredd) 2000 AD would take another shot at sticking its best characters into videogames, and I say so no merely from wishful thinking, but also because they did it rather well the last time they tried in earnest. Rogue Trooper was a Good 7/10 third-person action game developed by 2000AD owners Rebellion back in 2006, starring a vengeful blue dude with a talking hat, gun and rucksack. I’ve always been fond of it, and now it seems I’ll get to play it again as whatever a ‘redux’ version turns out to be.
… [visit site to read more]

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Wot I Think: Stories Untold

Gosh, we’re living in brilliant times for interesting games. It seems barely a month goes by now without something novel and fascinating appearing, pushing at the edges, upcycling old ideas for new minds, and messing with our brains. The latest that fits all these categories is the really very splendid Stories Untold [entirely pointless official site], ostensibly a collection of four novella-like adventures linked by an opaque theme. It’s part parser-based text adventure, part horror peculiarity, part 80s TV show… It’s unlike anything you’ve played before, despite being built from the half-remembered remains of a childhood of gaming.

So a familiar caveat to accompany such a review: if you trust me, if you want to experience the game with as little information as possible so everything’s a surprise, then take the above paragraph as everything you need and spend £6 on this. If you want more details (wonderfully written and spoiler-free), then read on. … [visit site to read more]

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New Avatar game coming from The Division studio

Any time I read that there are four more Avatar movies on the way, I involuntarily ask the air “FOUR?” You can add another video game to the list of things starring James Cameron’s spacesmurfs, as Ubisoft have announced one coming from their Massive studio – the mob behind Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment’s Tom Clancy’s The Division. Ubisoft already released a mediocre Avatar game alongside the first movie so hey, maybe they’ll make a good one this time. … [visit site to read more]

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The Division launches Last Stand, big update, and demo

The paid third expansion for The Division [official site], The Last Stand, will launch today alongside a big free launches today, alongside a big free content update for all players. Last Stand adds a new 8v8 point-capturing PvP mode (you’ll never guess what it’s named), while additions and changes in Update 1.6 include adding new areas to almost double the size of the Dark Zone. That’s not a bad pair of launches. Also out today is a demo, letting all and sundry play through the start of the shooty action-RPG. Not a bad trio! … [visit site to read more]

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Stomp-o! Turok 2 remaster coming in March

It’s still weird to me that the company behind the revival and resumption of System Shock is also giving us re-releases of games like Turok 2: Seeds of Evil [official site] but hey, that’s the rich tapestry of the 1990s. Now Nightdive have announced that they’ll release the remaster of Iguana Entertainment’s 1997 shooter on March 16th. This is Turok 2 expanded and rebuilt in a new engine, which means that yes, the claustrophobic distance fog has lifted. See for yourself in this new trailer: … [visit site to read more]

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Cities: Skylines getting blimps in Mass Transit DLC

Blimps. They’re big, they’re full of hot air, they’re historically prone to crashing to earth in an unstoppable blaze. If you like blimps then we have good news for you. The physical manifestation humankind’s hubris can soon be added to your bustling metropolis in Cities: Skylines [official site] as part of the Mass Transit DLC pack, which is also adding ferries, monorails and cable cars. This is so that your commuters can get to work more efficiently. I don’t know what right-thinking member of the public would get the 7am zeppelin every morning, but the mayors of Cities: Skylines have never been ones to indulge sensible policies.
… [visit site to read more]

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Yooka-Laylee is a more open take on the ’90s platformer

Yooka-Laylee [official site] is designed to feel like getting into a warm, foamy bath of nostalgia. The characters and world are new but the industry veterans behind this 3D open-world platformer know exactly which buttons to hit to ease you into comforting familiarity. Everything from the colours to the font transports you back to the 1990s. While playing I half-expected the Spice Girls to break down the door and throw a Tamagotchi into my hands.

Nostalgia is a tricky thing, however. Although the wildly successful Kickstarter (raising £2.1 million from 80,000 backers) shows that there is obviously a huge appetite for it, many people won’t have familiarity with games like Banjo-Kazooie. I have a strange third-person nostalgia for these games, as I never had the consoles growing up but did watch friends play them. Because of this, I wondered if Yooka-Laylee would grab me when I played it in the same way the mere idea of it had grabbed others. … [visit site to read more]

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Total Warhammer DLC ended with Bretonnia as devs switch to sequel

As the fantasy Frenchman of Bretonnia arrive in Total War: Warhammer [official site] today with a free update, The Creative Assembly have announced they’re done with this instalment of the Twarhammer trilogy. The plan all along has been for one core game followed by two stacking standalone expansions, and the devs say they’re stuck well into the second part. While they don’t say quite where or who this will add, it will be leaving the Old World.

Speaking of new places, The Creative Assembly also teased that they’re working on a new game set in an era they’ve not visited before. … [visit site to read more]

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Steam Charts: guns vs swords

Blood for the blood god, it’s only the weekly Steam charts! These are the ten games which sold best on Steam last week.

The debate has raged for an eternity. The infinite dilemma that has defeated even humanity’s greatest minds.

Which is best: guns or swords? Today, I have a definitive answer for you.

… [visit site to read more]

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Click me up: Thimbleweed Park coming March 30th

Thimbleweed Park [official site], the new adventure game from Maniac Mansion creators Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, finally has a release date. On March 30th, two-and-a-quarter years after the game’s crowdfunding campaign ended, we’ll be welcomed into the small town of Thimbleweed Park to investigate murder and other strange goings-on. It’ll bring puzzles, chat, jokes, japes – y’know, stuff you’d broadly expect from the reunion of a pair of LucasArts adventure veterans. … [visit site to read more]

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River City Ransom: Underground resumes retro beatings

The old-school biff-bopping of a beloved NES beat ’em up has resumed with the release of River City Ransom: Underground [official site], an official licensed revival. It bleeps! It bloops! It barfs! It is, to refresh your memory, a scrolling beat ’em up with a touch of action-RPG as a group of plucky heroes kick the living heck out of badguys. I’m still delighted seeing how elaborate and acrobatic some of their moves are. Peep this: … [visit site to read more]

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