Hey, it s me. I was gone for a while, but now I m back. Back to prematurely evaluate some early access games, like an impatient baker wrenching open the door of an oven and plunging his fist into a molten ball of uncooked dough. Like an open heart surgeon dialling down the anaesthesia to wake his patient up while they re still on the operating table, just to let them know the operation is going okay. That s me, that s my job. Graham won t let me review finished games in case I m irreparably spoilt by an abundance of levels, features and polish. So here I sit, trapped in the RPS basement, waiting for scraps of half-done roguelikes to come clattering down the dumbwaiter they feed me sausages through. They told me a wizard has done a curse on the entire outside, so I wouldn t even like it up there anyway.

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I may pride myself on being the resident retro FPS guy, but this genre revival has been so wild that some neat-looking stuff even flies under my radar. Nightmare Reaper launched into early access yesterday, a roguelite FPS by Blazing Bit Games. I’d almost overlooked it thanks to its extra-chunky graphics and the inherent difficulties of combining random generation with fast-paced FPS combat. But word on the old-school grognard grapevine is that this one’s pretty dang good, with some clever ideas and big plans for its time in early access. Have a peek at the debut trailer below.

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