Summer. The heat age. Scorch season. Spring’s hangover. It’s the mid-point of the year and you know what that means. No, not “mojito time”, Geoff, put those away. It’s time we told you what the best games of the year are so far. There are quite a lot of them. Just look how many videogames have escaped from their developers in the past six months and are now running amok through the blistering streets, getting stuck in the melting tarmac, like ants in jam. It’s unsanitary. So allow us to round up these unruly games and trap them in a handy list. Here are our favourite sword swingers and space ‘splorers so far this year (and a couple of DLCs for good measure).

Okay, Geoff, now> bring the mojitos.

(more…)

No, that s not me screaming the game name at you, that s how it s stylised. Though I ll sentence case it when I mention it in the rest of the article because if I talk about ISLANDERS like this it might make you spill your tea all over your keyboard. I don t want to make you jump, plus we hold no liability for tea-soaked keyboards.

(more…)

I know I’ve banged on about this enough that people are wishing it had happened three weeks ago already, but I’m leaving RPS (and full-time games journalism) in 5 days. Regrets, I have more than a few, but right now chief among those is that we are in the throes of a building game renaissance. I’m pretty burned out on shooting stupid pretend men in their stupid pretend faces, but I could have gone a good few more years arranging tiny settlements just so. Foundation, Dawn of Man, Tropico 6, Satisfactory on the more production-based end of things, Two Point Hospital if you want throwback, Kenshi if you want far, far beyond building: these are the finest of times for a genre once left to starve and die. Heck, I won’t be here for the next Anno.

Now here comes Islanders to rub salt in the wound, another clever and beautiful twist upon old plop’n’play tropes, another herald of good things to come that I won’t be here for. Screw you, Islanders! But I really like you.

(more…)