Premature Evaluation – Ultimate General: Civil War

Every week we dispatch Brendan onto the battlefields of early access alongside a battalion of eager troops. This week, he attempts to become a renowned tactician for the Union in Ultimate General: Civil War [official site].

I don’t know much about this period of American history, except that Abraham Lincoln was the goodie and Clint Eastwood won the war by blowing up a bridge with a Mexican friend. But I do like a good strategy game, the practice of shunting little toy soldiers about and watching as long bits of geometry engulf other, smaller bits of geometry. So come with me if you want to see what it’s like to “draw” a war.
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Pathologic teases trailers and a demo for Kickbackers

The remake/reimagining of Pathologic [official site] is being teased in some ongoing trailers this week, possibly to remind us that it still exists and is on target for an Autumn release next year. Meanwhile, some Kickstarter backers are getting a playable demo featuring a chunk of the plagued town-in-progress. Was the original Pathologic good? Was it horrific? Unfortunately, no one on earth knows the answer, as confusion and unsettled thoughts invade the mind of anyone who attempts to talk openly about the surreal videogame… event͠uall͟y͠ …… succùmb̵ing to………a ca͠tat͘o҉n̶ic̷ ………. s̠̣͉͈t̥̖̠u̷͍̰̗̱͇̦̻p̞͘o̹͕͓̝̗̮r͚̰͍̘͓̩ …………….
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Watch Dogs 2 is an antidote to the grimness of GTA

I’ve been playing Watch Dogs 2 [official site] for most of a day and a night, and I haven’t killed anyone yet. The game’s recreation of San Francisco and outlaw protagonist make Grand Theft Auto the obvious point of comparison, and while it’s certainly possible to take the ultraviolence and careless crime route in your travels around the city, stealth infiltration and surveillance are much more suited to the game’s toolset and mood.

Whatever else it might be, and I’ll cover as much as I can below, Watch Dogs 2 is a more thoughtful, brighter alternative to Rockstar’s take on the open world urban action adventure.

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Bee Hunting Simulator teaches how to track wild hives

Bee Hunting Simulator 2016 [itch.io link] is a simple browser game where you’re doing some map-based hide and seek to give a basic idea of tracking down wild beehives. … [visit site to read more]

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Have You Played… Endless, Nameless?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

When I first reviewed interactive fiction masterpiece Endless, Nameless in 2012, I just begged that people go play it without reading the article. I suggest the same right now. Just go play the game.

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Can you hack it, fellow kids? Watch Dogs 2 is out on PC

Watch Dogs 2 [official site] is out now on PC, two weeks after our best friends in Console Town got their hands on it. The delay wasn’t surprising coming from Ubisoft, who like to make us wait before letting us clean up all the icons they’ve spilled onto a new map. They said it was to make sure the game “runs smoothly across a broad range of hardware”. Well, now we can test that theory for ourselves. You there, with the Pentium II processor, get downloading.
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On abusing the peasants in Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Kingdom Come: Deliverance [official site] is about the ring of steel on steel, the august machinery of feudal politics and the intricacies of village society. It’s also about throwing turds at houses, as I discovered during a hands-off showing of the game’s prologue area. The house in question belongs to a man who has been singing the virtues of the German-backed Hungarian invasion of Bohemia at a nearby tavern. As a proud Bohemians, it’s up to Mr Protagonist and his fellow yokels to defend the country’s honour by, in this case, carpet-bombing a small piece of it with dung.

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