I d wager most folk around these parts devoured Left 4 Dead back in the day, just as I did. Valve s 28 Days Later with your friends infected my life for a good year, and a bigger, better sequel one year later only strengthened the disease. But as Valve haven t really been in the business of making games for a good few years – hopefully, that s about to change – and while it felt like Left 4 Dead was going to change the world back in (oh no) 2008, for a long time nothing filled the rotten hole where my heart used to be.

That is, until Fatshark s rowdy rat-smash, Vermintide. The four vs the world setup and the UI were highly reminiscent of Left 4 Dead, and what are Gutter Runners and Pack Masters if not reskinned Hunters and Smokers? But there was much more to that game than swapping out zombies for skaven. With both series now/still on their second games, let s look at how Vermintide ran with the legacy of Left 4 Dead, while managing to forge its own identity.

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They lurk, they creep, they skulk and weep. Monsters in videogames can be as simple as a big spiky cyclops ball, or as unsettling as a sobbing woman in a rainy alleyway. This week on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, the team is talking about their favourites, from flaming skulls to digitally possessed diving suits, and the clever ways in which game monsters inspire heebies, jeebies, creeps and sometimes even willies. (more…)

Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games.> But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol’ breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.

Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.

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To compile a list of the 25 best horror games on PC is to look into the void for so long that the void not only starts to look back, but shakes you by the hand and takes you out for coffee. It is to fight with monsters until you become a monster and then go on a European railtrip with the other monsters, and really bond over cocktails in Saint-Tropez.

It is also a great way to explore the wide range of possible experiences within horror fiction. Here, there is something for everyone, even the squeamish and the easily-startled. Yes, there are jumpscares, but there are also slow-burn psychological dramas and tongue-in-cheek splatterfests. There are uncanny things and real terrors, but there are smiles and smirks among the shocks.

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The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don t worry. We ve rounded up some recommendations – both general tips and some newly added staff choices.

Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You’re welcome.

… [visit site to read more]

The Steam summer sale is in full blaze. For a while it even blazed so hot that the servers went on fire and all the price stickers peeled off the games. Either that or the store just got swamped with cheapskates looking for the best bargains. Cheapskates like you! Well, don t worry. We ve rounded up some recommendations – both general tips and some specific staff choices.

Here are the things you should consider owning in your endless consumeristic lust for a happiness which always seems beyond reach. You’re welcome.

… [visit site to read more]

Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot. So its disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. It must be a creature of the night, black, terrible… it’s only the weekly Steam charts! These are the ten games with the most cumulative sales over the past week.

This week: DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER. … [visit site to read more]

So often the bleeding edge of games tech, yet so often fundamentally the same underneath: there’s a reason we can’t get enough of pretend shooting pretend people in their pretend faces. It is a pure test of skill and reflex, a game about movement at least as much as it is about violence, and done right it is absolutely delightful>. And hey, sometimes you get a decent gimmick or story thrown into the mix.

These are our favourite 50 first-person shooters on PC, from 1993-2017. Your favourite is at number 51.

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Louis, Francis, Bill, and Zoey, and Ellis, Rochelle, Coach, and Nick have returned, though probably not in the way you’d hope for. The Left 4 Dead survivors have found themselves transported back to Nazi Germany to tackle those dreadful Nazi zombies in Zombie Army Trilogy. A free update last night added the eight survivors to Zombie Army’s character lineup for your undead-redeading enjoyment.

To celebrate this merging of zombworlds, the game’s on sale on Steam this weekend.

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Below you will find the 25 best horror games ever released on PC. To ensure the list was as accurate as possible, the compiler was locked in a dark cellar with a copy of every game in existence and a computer capable of running them all. Two weeks later, the following article was found written on the walls in blood (the postscript was recorded on an audiolog). The writer was nowhere to be seen.

… [visit site to read more]