Hello youse.

You all know how I feel about the Spartacus board game. It came in at number one on my list of the 50 Best Games Of All Time. (It’s worth mentioning that Cosmic Encounter was so high on the list it hovered ABOVE the top spot, as the best board game of all time.) Now, Spartacus was based on a TV show that I’ve never watched. Regardless, it was a slam dunk from the first play.

Now comes Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem. Another board game from the same company who brought us Spartacus. Another game based on a show that I’ve never seen. Can Gale Force Nine do it again?

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Adam has left his post, fleeing into the hills above Manchester to wail and leap around, emitting guttural noises which sound like pain but are actually carnal joy. And all because the Pathologic re-make has reached its Kickstarter target. People who have visited Ice-Pick Lodge’s original dark Russian adventure tend not to come back from its plague-infested town the same as when they entered, and now anyone who missed the original in 2005 – or anyone who found its off-kilter brokenness more enervating than engaging – will have a second chance to experience its grand weirdness.

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Virginia is an upcoming first-person ‘interactive drama’ infused with unabashed Twin Peaks and X-Files influences, which had already very much piqued the interest of Alice and Adam. I played a short demo build at the EGX games show over the weekend.>

It’s not fair on any game that’s primarily about tone and mood to experience it whilst sat a stone’s throw from a man bellowing into a PA system about Street Fighter. That was murder-mystery Virginia’s lot at EGX, sadly, but testament to how well its demo pulls off a languid Lynch-does-police-procedural style is that I nonetheless had a moment when I closed my eyes and let its sounds – and all they meant – wash over me. … [visit site to read more]

An occult-themed game of skill where players use magic squares to try to generate real cash all rooted in the developer’s own experiences with Texas hold ‘em poker? Why yes, Jason Rohrer does have a new game in the works, thanks for asking. It’s called Cordial Minuet because an occult-themed game without an anagram would be even sadder than a gaming news article without a pun.

The website for the game itself reads like a cross between a self-help seminar and a grimoire but Kotaku had a play and what they describe is far less demonic ritual and far more numerical mind games for money.

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Defense Grid 2 sees you building elaborate mazes of mounted guns which shoot, burn, zap, freeze and otherwise slaughter vast armies of dumb aliens who are attempting to steal ‘cores’ from a techno-thingy at the centre of the level. In other words, it’s tower defence. It’s also the sequel to one of the most-acclaimed and charming tower defence games around. Privately invested into existence after a failed Kickstarter last year, it was released on Steam last week. Here’s wot I think.> … [visit site to read more]

We should have posted more about Dark Souls II, and our mistake was partially my fault. I had planned another big Dark Souls Nites livestream bonanza with music, guests, phone-ins, and other chilled-out late-night radio fun. Then my Internet connection took a nose-dive and I felt too tired and here we are, five months later, now Dark Souls II has three DLC packs we’ve barely mentioned. Sorry about that. The final chapter of its DLC trilogy ‘The Lost Crowns’ launched yesterday and please, do tell me about it.

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

Aka ‘the one where a talking planet joins your party.’ Sure, Deus Ex gets all the Ion Storm cred, but let’s not forget that the other half of the John Romero-founded outfit also pulled off something pretty special, with gonzo roleplaying adventure Anachronox. Robo-chums, malignant aliens and interplanetary detective-work might be the superficial appeal, but it’s the strength of ideas, wit and cheerful weirdness that keeps it an essential part of the PC back catalogue.

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With every new release, the Borderlands universe becomes increasingly ridiculous. It’s been happening for a while now, with the puns, the slapstick and the hidden pop culture references that pepper Borderlands 2 and further season its DLC. I’m hardly complaining, because I’ve gradually disengaged from the first-person shooter over the last few years, confronted again and again by far too many po-faced, monochrome military affairs. Borderlands 2 has been a welcome exception.

Like a sudden burst of ketchup from a thoroughly-spanked Heinz bottle, even more of that often unsubtle flavouring is set to season our PCs very soon. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel comes out in two weeks. Developed in conjunction with 2K Australia, the Pre-Sequel is exactly what you’d expect from the series: more jokes, more cartoonish violence, more character diversity and a further expansion of a gun collection that would already make any Tom Clancy fan spurt like… well, like a sudden burst of ketchup from a thoroughly-spanked Heinz bottle.

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F.E.A.R. Online’s open beta test begins on October 7th, ahead of full launch on the 17th, and signups are now active. Go! Run! Register! It’s free!

Or perhaps not. The original F.E.A.R. takes place almost entirely in a succession of rather ordinary office buildings but that doesn’t matter because the combat is absolutely splendid. Bullets have tremendous impact and slow motion slides across debris-strewn rooms, ending in a chunky boot to the face, are like a John Woo shoot-out with weighty momentum in place of balletic grace. Thanks to a hard-working community, the multiplayer component is still available to play and I’m not sure how F.E.A.R.O. intends to lure people into its own take on the series’ combat and…gulp…lore>.

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In publishing these short sketches based upon the numerous Sherlock Holmes games from Frogwares, it is only natural that I should dwell rather upon their failures than their successes. And this is not so much for the sake of their disreputation for, indeed, it was when I was at my wits end that my energy and vitality were most miserable but because where they failed is where one should not spend one s money. And this one s rubbish. Of Crimes & Punishments, here’s wot I deduced.>

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