“…crawling on four legs seems much more efficient and enticing than walking…” Empathy sims. The worst train driver in the world. Sludge dynamite paladin. Ghost towns of Myst.>

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Sundays are for staring in bemusement as the BBC attempts to self-destruct, and being grateful that there’s good games writing out there with which to distract yourself.

• It’s tempting to wonder if other people have put more thought about what they want to see in Elite 4 than David Braben. One of the most interesting discussions of what should be in there comes from PCGamesN’s Steve Hogarty, who really gets to the nub of the issues: “‘Cooperate on adventures or chase your friends down to get that booty,’ wrote David Braben on Elite: Dangerous’s Kickstarter page, betraying a keen understanding of why the game he co-created was any good. But what is that booty?” This is insight.

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Let us commence the weekly ritual of expanding your library of video game entertainment software, by offering some currency to the various digital distributors and developers. Not much currency, mind, this is no Expensive Game Bucket. I don’t know what kind of games you like, but I bet you’ll like some of these. If you don’t, then either broaden your tastes or consult with SavyGamer.co.uk to find even more deals on games across all platforms. (more…)

Since the dawn of time, people haven’t been the greatest communicators. Unable to bridge both geographical and interpersonal gaps, we’ve come to despise one another on pretenses that are flimsy at best. But maybe, all this time, we really just needed a universal language – a go-between that made sense of our Picaso collage of quirks and differences. What I’m saying is, maybe we needed non-region-locked StarCraft II servers. And soon – finally, mercifully, gosh, jeez, ugh – we’ll be getting them.

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I still don’t know what disfunglement means (it sounds rather painful), but I must admit to being quite impressed after playing a bit of Chrono Disfunglement‘s work-in-progress IGF build. In short, the seductively psychadelic puzzle-platformer allows nigh-unlimited control over the forces of time – ala Braid. There is, however, a slight twist to the formula that ends up making many of the puzzles radically different. See, CD actually offers two flavors of history-rewriting: entire world and individual object. Among other things, that allowed me to pull the block/switch puzzle equivalent of tying a string to a coin, dropping it in a candy machine, and then yanking it back out. Take that>, The Establishment.

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The mechanised middle class march onward, beating the bushes and scouring the horizon for fresh prey. Sir, You Are Being Hunted has been funded and is the only winner this week. In other news, Elite has a new logo, wrestling attempts to set up its squared circle on the PC and some promising projects stumble and stall. It’s another week without losers, but there are lots of slow movers. Also, be aware that newcomers are at the top of the ‘Players’ column so there is some mingling of dollars and pounds. Always check which currency your pledges would be in.>

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I have to say, I appreciate games that let us know what they’re all about upfront. These days, the industry revels in adding subtitles to subtitles, but there’s something to be said for simplicity, grace, and handsome elegance. That in mind, DEATH RALLY. It’s a rally in which everyone dies. Constantly. Beautiful. It is, of course, a remake of Remedy’s top-down classic with a new paint job and a few tweaks under the hood, which probably explains why it’s not called, say, Race Carr’s Armenian Fastdrive. Also, it’s free this weekend. Huzzah!

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Firefall. Among the made-up words I’ve met in my many travels, it definitely stands out as quite, er, aggressive. I mean, there’s fire and> falling involved. Both tend to perform their designated actions in fairly short order – leaving behind little question as to what happened and usually also some form of smoking crater. And yet, for all that, Firefall the game is taking its sweet time en route to release, polishing up an extended beta with no intentions of going live (or even into open beta) until its good and ready. But now, you can at least drop in for a brief stay in Red 5′s colorful world of shooting and looting. And by “drop in,” I mean never actually touch the ground for more than three seconds at a time, because jetpacks.

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I suppose it had to happen eventually. Blizzard‘s done a rather miraculous job of keeping hackers at bay for quite some time, but this year saw a few too many blemishes muddy its track record. So naturally, it’s lawsuit time. Specifically, the two plaintiffs target a May admission of an increase in account compromises on Blizzard’s part and August’s rather messy Battle.net breach. Then they take aim at what they believe to be the all-too-achey-breaky heart of the matter: authenticators.

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Greetings RPSers. I’m Andrew Tsai, a dedicated PC gamer who has been meticulously cataloguing hacks and fixes for PC games over the last year. You may recognise me as that guy whose baby will only eat during Gangnam Style, or maybe you may of heard ofPCGamingWiki, the website about fixing PC games which I administrate.

The aim of this new column is to help provide the very best experience out of any given PC game. Sometimes it’ll be brand new releases, other times it’ll be older games whose communities have come up with the goods over the months or years. Each article will focus on providing quality of life tips and improvements with recommendations on what mods to download, what fixes to apply and what pitfalls to expect. First up is Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition, which is on sale on Steam right now until Monday 6pm GMT at 33% off (£20.09/$26.79). >

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