Mercenaries are great. I’ve never met one in real life, mind, and don’t think I’d want to, but they’re invariably great when they pop up in games. Perhaps part of the appeal is that their apparent amorality lets us play soldiers without considering politics or aftermath – whatever the reasons may be, I’m usually glad to see a band of guns/swords-for-hire. Whether they’re a shortcut to short-term success in a strategy game or the delightful bastards of Jagged Alliance, the mercenaries of gaming are alright with me.

Now we can add Battle Brothers [official site] to the list of Good Mercenary Games. Currently in Early Access, it’s a very lovely thing indeed.

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People often ask me, “Alice oh Alice, when oh when will another I get to install another download client? I’ve got everything from GameTap to a mint condition copy of the very first version of Steam (preserved in a mylar directory, of course) but I want more.” Good news, chum-o: GOG are about to open up the beta version of their Galaxy client to everyone.

Unlike most store’s download clients, mind, Galaxy is entirely optional. GOG games still come as DRM-free installers but if you do fancy auto-patching, friends, chat, stats, achievements, matchmaking, and whatnot, hey, give it a whirl.

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Mate.

Mate. I didnae even know there were that many animals.

Sometimes it’s good to look at a board game that has a little bit of an educational slant to it. Board games are great to play with kids, and there’s nothing better than busting out something that can broaden their knowledge while they play. And you can broaden your knowledge too. Because, most likely, you’re an idiot just like me.

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Cordial Minuet [official site] – Jason Rohrer’s arcane-themed magic square betting game – has officially launched. As you might expect given Rohrer’s previous game launches this one also involves a fair bit of showmanship in the form of a gold amulet ‘n’ cash giveaway.

I’ve not played since pre-alpha so I’d imagine it will have been tweaked a little in the interim – at least if only to implement a more occult-y user interface – but the game is based around a 6×6 magic square. You and you opponent pick rows and columns from the square for both yourself and the other person. The boxes where these intersect determines the numbers which go towards your final total. You’ll also be able to bet between rounds, trying to work out whether you’ll have the higher final total, perhaps even psyching your opponent out with your behaviour. You can see the video explanation after the jump:

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We are just one day away from the release of the Scandinavia expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2 [official site], and Alec’s review is already in progress. I imagine that even as I’m typing these words he’s navigating fjords, shipping Moomins, solving grim transnational murders, and explaining to onlookers that, though included in this DLC and part of the cultural region, Denmark is not strictly speaking a part of the Scandinavian peninsula.

Me? I’ve got to settle for this all-too exciting launch trailer.

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Grand Theft Auto V [official site] is our Game of the Month for May. To steal its jewels and show them to you, a crack team of criminals – Adam, Alice, Pip and Graham – gathered inside the RPS safehouse to gaze over the blueprints, outline their crimes, and discuss how much they like driving within the speed limit.>

Graham: I am wondering: how do people feel about the game-game part of GTA V? I’m wondering whether our warm feelings towards it have more to do with Los Santos as a place for exploration and japes than it does its cinematic story and crim sim noise.

Or rather, since I enjoy the missions quite a bit, whether I’m the only one.

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We live in a land of plenty, in which the bountiful supply of videogames to play can feel like a gift in one moment and a suffocating deluge in the next. That’s what Game Of The Month is for. Each month, we’ll pick one game that we think you should play if you have time for just one game>. Then we’ll write a flurry of features spread across the month to explain why.

In May: you should play Grand Theft Auto V [official site].

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If we acknowledge that many jokes have been made about the Half-Life series then may we, you and I, accept that there’s no need for us to crack any more and vow never to ever again ever?

The commercial version of Black Mesa [official site], the fan-made remake of Valve’s seminal Half-Life, arrived on Steam today at 14.99/$19.99. On Steam Early Access, to be precise, as it’s still missing the Xen chapters. While those are absent, present are new additions since the free mod release like Steam Workshop support and deathmatch on six classic HLDM maps.

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Being a cold and distant sort, I don’t know what to make of crying. It’s the thing where your face gets wet without swimming, yeah? I’ll trust Square Enix when they say “the human emotion of crying” is “one of the most difficult representations for existing real-time CG technology” but not know what to make of their fancy new tech demo with high-def crying.

Squeenix last week showed off a new DirectX 12 tech demo with a crying lady running on a chunky PC packing four Nvidia GeForce Titan X GPUs. the demo named so-very-Squeenixly ‘WITCH CHAPTER 0 [cry]’ is some pretty fancy pixel-pushing, but even to my reptilian eyes I don’t think we’re out the weird creepy puppet people phase yet.

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Who knew crying babies could generate so much news? Anyone who knows new parents, I suppose. Jokes. But here I mean The Binding of Isaac [official site], which has exciting new things going on with both its original Flash version and the fancy remake Rebirth.

BoI’s ultra-difficult ‘Eternal’ update is now out, introducing a new difficulty mode full of ridiculous bullet-spewing variants of enemies. It’s somewhere between challenging and trolling. We also have more word on the ‘Afterbirth’ expansion for Rebirth, with a glimpse of new alternative levels and talk of making secret character The Lost maybe actually fun.

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