It was a real surprise to me when Planet Zoo started to truly click. It doesn’t happen often, with games this high on the complexity ladder. There’s such an incredible amount of stuff to learn about Planet Zoo, not just about the running of the zoo itself and the needs and desires of every animal, but also the remarkably powerful building tools available to the player. I genuinely didn’t think the moment would come when I could get through a session without having to look up a dozen different things about the game.

But after many hours, that point did arrive, and it probably wouldn’t have happened if the game weren’t so enjoyable even when you have no idea what you’re doing.

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‘Building’ is a pretty broad theme. There are a lot of games where you build things, after all, and they can be very different. Helpfully, then, I’ve split this list of the 20 best building games on PC into four sections, each covering a sub-category of this big, messy genre.

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Was only a matter of time before Planet Zoo went to Oz, eh? They’ve got all the cool animals down there, and some of them won’t even kill you for a bad look. Next week’s Australia update brings a small selection of Aussie fauna into Frontier Development’s zoo sim, along with a warehouse packed with down-under doodads and a host of free goodies for zookeepers who’d rather stay at home.

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When Noah was faced with the task of stocking the ark, it was a fairly simple business: two of everything, mate, and don t bother with the unicorns. In fact, considering Noah was most likely a hapless Bronze Age farmer trying to survive a regional flood, it was probably even simpler. The situation more likely boiled down to as many goats as you can force on board, plus a couple of cows and maybe a donkey if it ll fit. Easy. By contrast, Frontier Developments task, in choosing what animals to include in Planet Zoo, seems daunting – even if it did involve less in the way of physically manoeuvring goats onto a raft.

There are, after all, very very many types of animal in the world. Species totals between one and two million get chucked around all the time, but these come with a big caveat: however you choose to slice things, a big chunk of these totals will always comprise beetles that only an expert could distinguish from other, very similar beetles. So with that in mind, let’s slash the total right down to just the number of species currently kept in zoos and aquariums, and only in the US. Alas, we still end up with 6,000+, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. That’s a lot of animals. To find out how Frontier got from here, to the list of 76 animals in Planet Zoo at launch (there are 80 now), I had a bit of a duck-billed chatypus with PZ s senior artist Lisa Bauwens, and game director Piers Jackson.

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2019 was a great year for PC games – aren’t they all? – but you might not yet know what the very best> PC games of 2019 were. Let us help you.

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Planet Zoo already got Rock Paper Shotgun’s “bestest best” stamp when it released in November. If possible, it is now even bestier than before with its first DLC which adds arctic animals to your zoo’s list of potential inhabitants. There are two new scenarios, new buildings, foliage, and most importantly polar bears.

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Winter brings out a part of me that immediately seeks a mountain of blankets in which to burrow. Even in my seasonally confused state of Texas, the weather has tended towards the chilly and left me with little excuse not to have a kettle boiling interminably as I layer on socks and pull the biggest comforter from the top of the closet. But this presents a problem likely familiar to other cozy connoisseurs: how does one game while properly bundled?

I will admit it does limit possibilities considerably. That’s why I’ve curated a small selection of games perfectly playable while your other hand keeps coffee or tea always within sipping range.

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This is, really and truly, the last ever Steam Charts.

Which, I realise, is something I’ve said before. More than once. But this time it’s really true!

Erk, I’m not really sure how to convince anyone of this. I’m the boy who cried last ever Steam Charts.

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The results are in! The links between the longevity of Steam Charts and the decreases in violent crime, the improvement of sanitary water supplies, and sudden global drops in serious health issues, are no coincidence at all!

To quote from the paper recently published in Nature, “Causal links have been shown connecting Rock Paper Shotgun’s Steam Charts articles to a remarkably number of positive worldwide trends, with strong suggestion that a global dependence on the column has been established, such that its weekly appearance is vital to humanity.”

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Planet Zoo is a game where you can build your own zoo. It s buggy, intermittently opaque, frequently saccharine, and – barring an eleventh hour miracle – it s my undisputed game of the year. Because here s the thing: it s a game where you can build your own zoo>. And by thunder, it delivers on that promise.

Usually, by the time I review a game – especially one as savagely time-guzzling as this one – I m burned out on packing so many hours of play into a few days, and I m ready to say my piece and move on. This time, my instinct is just to nod distractedly, tell you it s good, and get back to playing. But here, for the sake of professional responsibility, is wot I think.

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