Wolfenstein: The New Colossus [official site] is a tale of corrupted icons and waylaid motifs, as Hitler’s propaganda machinery sinks its teeth into the pop memorabilia of 1960s America, and there’s no more wicked instance of that than Elite Hans – the Nazi action hero who glares from book stalls, toystores and pinball machines in the game’s Roswell level, which I had a little play of earlier this month. Elite Hans is returning protagonist BJ Blazkowicz’s carnival mirror image: the artwork on one comic even mimics the original cover art for Wolfenstein 3D. Machine Games’ choice of period notwithstanding, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some kind of throwback Nazified shooter to unlock in The New Colossus a bit of old-fashioned ray-casting to wash down all that glistening high definition viscera. (more…)

Cliff Bleszinski and his Boss Key Productions are holding another open beta test for their gravity-bending multiplayer FPS LawBreakers [official site] this weekend. It’ll start Friday then run until Monday, and you can prepare by preloading the client now. The last beta was one month ago and the game will launch in a fortnight, so this is a chance to see basically what it’ll be like. Changes since the last beta include a sandbox tutorial mode, balance tweaks, matchmaking improvements, and all the character customisation doodads. (more…)

Welcome to the third communal Combat Mission skirmish a comment-driven confrontation between RPS readers and CM s decidedly dangerous AI. Turns span 60 seconds and rarely go according to plan. Late-war and Eastern Front, this summer s scrap takes place in a German-held Baltic port. Twelve turns in, the commenter-controlled Soviets have lost all but one of their core AFVs, but are close to securing the crucial town square VL in the centre of the map.> (more…)

Asses, blaggards, bleeders, blighters, bounders, brutes, cads, cheats, fannies, jackasses, jagoffs, jeb ends, knaves, loudmouths, ne’er-do-wells, nobheads, nuisances, prats, pricks, rascals, radges, rats, reprobates, rogues, rotters, and scoundrels beware: Blizzard are increasing punishments in Overwatch [official site].

“Play nice; play fair” is one of their main rules, they say, and flipping flipfaces are spoiling things. So from now on, they’re increasing penalties for bad behaviour, and they’re planning to expand their disciplinary systems. One such planned change is issuing notifications for when people you’ve reported get punished. Internet justice! (more…)

The thrills of gibbing demons and sitting still watching numbers go up combine in Idle Doom, a mod turning id Software’s seminal face-paced FPS into an idle game where you watch a machine kill monsters so you can upgrade to a bigger monster-killing machine. It is exactly what it sounds like: a Doom idle game. It’s just the ticket for people who want to feel like they still strafe rough and frag hard but, really, they’re quite tired so it would be grand if they could put their feet up with a cuppa and let someone else handle things for a bit and oh please turn the light off on your way out, ta. (more…)

Welcome back to Unknown Pleasures, our weekly round up of ten of the best (or thereabouts) new games released on Steam that have not, as yet, enjoyed the fifteen minutes of fame that they deserve.

This week: I’m actually covering two weeks’ worth of games rather than the usual seven-day crop, as I was away for a bunch of last week. The larger pool means more strong options than usual, including: high-speed 4X, FMV anxiety attacks, minimalist Shadow of the Colossus and the singular nightmare that is Hand Simulator. (more…)

I’m sure space is all good and well but it’s hardly a place to build a business, is it? Very few networking opportunities. Not many daily scrums. No LinkedIn invitations. We can change that. We can make space awful, thanks to Vostok Inc. [official site]. Released today, it’s a twin-stick shooter which mixes blasting aliens together with establishing a vast intergalactic empire of colonies, mines, factories, and executives. Yup, it’s a twin-stick space shooter smooshing in bits of idle games like AdVenture Capitalist. Have a look in the launch trailer: (more…)

I decided to make a little video to show you what I like about Walden, A Game [official site]. There’s a bit of Thoreau eyerolling, admittedly, but I’m trying to be reasonable and not judgy (WHICH IS MORE THAN HE DID), plus there’s an OWL! And a BLUE JAY! I refuse to go into the town of Concord but I do show you how you can purposely injure Thoreau’s hand. Swings and roundabouts, really… (more…)

I’m not an outdoorsy person but recently I’ve been craving a camping holiday. Night skies above, trees all around – a complete escape from the cities where I’ve spent most of my life. Perhaps that’s why Floatlands [official site] caught my attention when I was searching for interesting in-development games earlier today. It’s a survival game, with all the crafting and collecting that implies, but the environments are gorgeous. And just look at those deer!

(more…)

Do Not Feed The Monkeys [official site] is the newly announced digital voyeurism project from Fictiorama Studios. You might remember them from point-n-clicker Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today, but this is more in the vein of exploring surveillance culture rather than the aftermath of an apocalypse. My main observation from the trailer is that as a UK citizen I cannot hear In The Hall Of The Mountain King without assuming we’re off to Alton Towers. (more…)