That’s a long time to wait to find out what really happens when you shoot a Barnacle creature. Germany has long been notorious for the strict limitations it placed on videogame content, and the noble Half-Life was a particularly infamous victim of the censor’s stamp. Until now. That means no more robots instead of soldiers, no more barnacles spewing nuts and bolts instead of blood and gore, and no more sad looks from invulnerable scientists if you shoot at them.

Sudden realisation: censored versions of HL are going to become collector’s items now, aren’t they? … [visit site to read more]

Every week we expose Brendan to the radioactive chemicals of the early access laboratory. This time, the time-bending puzzles of ECHOPLEX [official site].

I am stuck. There are 15 short levels currently available in ECHOPLEX, a first-person puzzler along the lines of Portal and Antichamber, and I am stuck on level 11. It is a toughie. The thing is, I m not sure if the game is working as intended. Bugs are part of the early access merry-go-round, for sure, but if they show up in the strict logic of a puzzle game they can be boldly destructive. But there s a bigger problem than that: I don t know if what I m seeing is a bug, or if it is simply part of the puzzle that hasn t been explained. … [visit site to read more]

We have a GIFbot in the RPS staff chatroom. GIFbot is a treacherous and unreliable creature, often offering wildly irrelevant or breathtakingly banal results when we type ‘/gif whateverphrase’ and then cope with whatever it randomly pulls from whatever reprobate corner of the internet it’s plugged into it. However, often enough its results are so irrelevant as to be perfection itself>. And so we shall keep it around for an eternity, and reach for it in our darkest hours.

For instance, in the absence of a better conceit for the latest Steam Charts. For these, once again, are the ten games with the most accumulated sales on Steam over the past week. Take it away, GIFbot. … [visit site to read more]

Monday can be a slow, quiet day but I’m certainly invigorated by the yelling and explosions of competitive Dota 2 [official site]. Valve’s second big tournament of the season, the Kiev Major, kicked off its Group Stage this morning. This is two days of Swiss group battling to determine brackets for the Main Event, which will start on Thursday. How’s it going so far? Well! I can tell you that there were wizards, then the wizards fought other wizards, then there were fewer wizards. As ever, the competition is streaming on Twitch and Dota 2’s ace in-game spectator system. … [visit site to read more]

Here’s a joke you can borrow for when you’re necking jars and dropping bantbombs with the lads tonight:

Q: What do Gargamel and Dota 2 Ranked matchmaking have in common?A: They both hate smurfs.

Steel yourself for some jolly vigorous high-fives from the lads there.

To crack down on Doters playing across multiple accounts, Valve will soon start requiring players register a phone number to play Ranked Dota 2 [official site]. Smurfs muck up the fun, you see, dropping into lower-level games with their higher-tier skillz. Ooo those smurfs make me sick! I must catch them! … [visit site to read more]

… [visit site to read more]

We re all used to Valve tinkering with the guns in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site], but its most recent update was more than just a tweak, it was an attempt to create a whole new play style. The developer beefed up the underused R8 revolver, but the more drastic changes were made to the Negev, the expensive, hefty, wild machine gun that players only previously used as a joke.

The first time you use the new-look Negev, or the Newgev , as the kids are calling it, it feels broken. You ll move at a snail s pace when carrying it, and the first 16 bullets of your magazine come out at random angles, making it impossible to control. Even the first bullet is wayward, so tap firing is completely out your only hope is to squeeze the trigger and pray.

The gamechanger is what happens after that first burst. Your aim levels out and the gun becomes laser accurate at short or medium range, the spray grouping tightly just above your crossbar with no horizontal movement. As long as you re standing still you can snap from target to target with pinpoint accuracy. … [visit site to read more]

He was a boy.She was a girl.Can I make it anymore obvious?He wrote the weekly Steam charts.She read them.

What more can I say?

Other than that these are the ten Steam games with the most accumulated sales over the past week, obv. See ya later, boy.

… [visit site to read more]

You woke up this morning, got yourself a gun, Mama always said you’d be the chosen one to write the weekly Steam charts. These are the games which sold best on Steam last week.

This week: order returns. OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY … [visit site to read more]

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

I know what you re looking for. You re looking for a game that let s you be a janitor in a school riddled with drug dealers and class clowns. But also a game that will let you be a cop fighting robbers. But also a game where you are a soldier in World War 3. But also a game in which you are a prison guard keeping rowdy inmates in check. But also a game where you can be a footballer. But also– … [visit site to read more]