I say watch because this week’s podcast takes place in a real room in front of a real audience (don t worry, there s an audio version too). At Rezzed in London this month, we thought it d be fun to re-enact three of the most memorable scenes of PC gaming, exactly as you remember them. So strap on your eye-wideners and prepare for some wonderful acting. Including a 100% faithful adaptation of the most notorious moment in any Final Fantasy game: the death of… Aerosmith?

Alice! Alice, what have you done to these scripts!?

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As this is my penultimate edition of Steam Charts, before I return to nuzzle into the warm infinite belly of Horace for all of time, I thought it might be fun to take a bit of a look behind the scenes of Steam Charts, to see how this weekly column comes together.

So, hey, join me as we step behind the curtain, and learn a little bit about the magic of Rock Paper Shotgun.

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Ah, 2010! Lady Gaga and Beyonc were tearing up the dancefloor with Telephone, Inception was fuelling one million drunk ‘philosophical’ conversations, Jackass had gone 3D, and Civilization V had yet to reach that point in every Civ game’s lifespan where it’s declared superior to its successor. If you wish to party like it’s 2010, you might enjoy a new Civilization VI mod made by actual Civ 6 art director Brian Busatti. It aims to make Civ 6’s landscape, buildings, and units look more like Civ 5, less vibrant and more ‘realistic’. Yeah, but like, what if we’re still dreaming we’re playing Civ – does the game ever stop or will “one more turn” keep going forever? Makes you think, maaan.

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Steam s updated approach to review bombing, which prevents off topic reviews from counting towards a game s overall score, has kicked in for the Borderlands series. It seems to be the first time that the (optional) filter has been applied by Steam, after users flooded the series reviews following the announcement that Borderlands 3 will be a timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store.

Viewing the games with the option turned on puts a little asterisk next to the mark of how positive the game is, which leads to a note that reads: Period(s) of off-topic review activity detected. Excluded from the Review Score, based on your preferences. It doesn t seem to actually hide those reviews, however.

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There ain’t no rest for the wicked, a video game once told me, and Gearbox Software certainly have been busy. Today they launched remastered versions of Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, coming to PC as free updates. They’re all prettied-up a bit, while the first game also now includes all the DLC as well as features borrowed from later games in the looter-shooter series. These updates are probably more for the benefit of the latest consoles, jazzing ’em up for a fresh audience before Borderlands 3 hits in September, but hey we benefit too. Thanks, Ian Microsoft and Ian Sony!

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April Fools silliness, or just a foolish slip-up? Hard to tell, but a message went out from Gearbox’s official Borderlands 3 twitter account earlier that was swiftly deleted. “Mayhem is Coming September 13. Pre-order now for the Gold Weapon Skins Pack!” says the tweet, now archived on The Wayback Machine, so you can verify for yourself. Also tweeted was a new video containing the Epic Store logo in the bottom-left corner. It was captured by “Wario64” and embedded below. While not confirmation of exclusivity, it seems likely that the over-the-top loot n’ shooter is headed to the new storefront.

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Borderlands 3 wasn’t the only looty shooty announcement Gearbox and publisher 2K had lined up today. They also announced yet another> re-release of the original trilogy (including Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel), this time with a few technical improvements, some optional 4k textures and some quality-of-life improvements for the first game. The good news for us PC folks is that if you already own the original Borderlands or either of the sequels, these upgrades will be entirely free. Below, a pair of predictably bombastic trailers for the polished-up loot n’ shooters.

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Gearbox Software are, as expected, headed back to a beat-up alien planet for more looting and shooting in Borderlands 3. They announced their third game in the FPS action-RPG series, which has also seen a prequel and spin-off from other developers, at PAX East today with a flashy trailer. A trailer which looked like heck during the big announcement presentation due to technical difficulties. Though the technical difficulties were more exciting than the slow card magic trick. Oh dear. But the handy-dandy YouTube version of the announcement trailer works just fine so hey look come and see.

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My favourite XCOM is XCOM: Enemy Unknown*, a pure and direct, no mess/no fuss modern-day remix of metagame-augmented turn-based tactics. My second-favourite XCOM is the polar opposite, XCOM 2 DLC War Of The Chosen, an absurd explosion of superheroics that throws internal logic to the wind.

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Standard-issue XCOM 2 is probably my least-favourite of the four different flavours of XCOM now available to us (i.e. including the Enemy Within and War Of The Chosen expansions), but that’s a bit like saying I don’t enjoy 29 degrees of heat quite as much as 26, 27 and 28 degrees. They’re all great! Make it like that all the time, please. Only, y’know, without the heat-death of the planet. And, yeah, keep on releasing more XCOMs.

If you’ve avoided Firaxis’ reimagining of The Greatest PC Game Of All Time (If You’re An Old Man Like Me), XCOM 2 can be a rather full-on point of entry. On the other hand, it’s currently free all weekend (and 75% off if you want to keep it forever), which is the easiest point of entry of all.

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