Mechanical men have arrived in XCOM 2 [official site] with today’s release of the DLC pack Shen’s Last Gift. I’d expected the DLC would add cyborg MEC Troopers like those in XCOM: Enemy Within but nope, the potential new squadmates are proper robits. That’s paid DLC but everyone can benefit from the new patch which also launched tonight. It brings performance improvements, bug fixes, and balance tweaks including buffing the sword-swinging side of the Ranger skill tree.

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The PC is brilliant. It’s brilliant for all the things you can do with it. But it’s also brilliant for being something you can build yourself. Yes, you at the back. You too can build a PC. Almost anyone can. And it’s not just easy. It’s fun. Once you get the knack, you won’t want to turn back. You’ll also be much more confident in future whenever you have to crack open the case. So here’s the RPS guide to the basics of building a PC.

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The Ship: Remasted [official site] has added political figures including Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and I don’t know if I have enough tension-defusing “little bit of politics” Ben Elton riffing in me to survive much longer in the current political climate. Clinton and Trump can now lark around on a luxury cruise ship, trying to smash in each other’s heads in with tennis rackets and golf clubs. And in the game. A little bit of politics there, ladies and gentlemen.

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In some ways Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens [official site] is a refreshing of the extraordinarily prolific Traveller’s Tales series. In other ways it’s fastidiously adherent to the tried-and-tested formula. In nearly all ways it’s a completely splendid game, but even I – the most enthusiastic proponent of this series – am beginning to weary. Here’s wot I think:>

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Several games have waved H.R. Giger’s subliminal dicks and fannies in our faces, mostly through Alien> connections, but in recent years I’ve seen few go for it quite as much as Scorn [official site]. It’s an upcoming mix of first-person shooter and adventure game, with all the biomechanical ribbing, pumping, throbbing, squicking, and glistening of Giger with touches of Zdzis aw Beksi ski and David Cronenberg. I’ve peeked at Scorn before but what pushed me to post about it now was this new trailer – it seems to show a meatgun changing function as the player pulls out a toothed, gristly gland and swaps in a fatty glob of sphincters. It’s the small things in life, you know?

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Suddenly, we have an embarrassment of System Shock riches. First System Shock Enhanced, then a Warren Spector-augmented System Shock 3, and now System Shock Reboot, a total remastering of the first game. It’s just poor old System Shock 2 that’s left in the cold, as EA jealously guard the rights to the sci-horror series’ most acclaimed instalment. That’s another day’s concern, though: right now, let’s talk about the free alpha demo released to promote System Shock Reboot’s Kickstarter. When they say ‘reimagining’, just how much similarity and how much change does that actually mean? It’s compare and contrast time, chums. … [visit site to read more]

Paradox release some cracking games, but they often need a patch or two to start to shine. If you’ve been waiting for Hearts of Iron IV [official site] fixes, good news: Paradox today launched the first major patch for their new WW2 grand strategy game. Along with the usual bug fixes, crash fixes, and balance tweaks, update 1.1 gets stuck into improving the game’s AI.

This also means we can start enjoying more of the weird fun patch notes Paradox’s complex sims often bring, such as “King George V only dies once, now.”

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

If you’re a fan of blistering bullet trains and beautiful Bo-Bo-Bos, the Train Simulator 2016 DLC list must make depressing reading. Today’s top rail sim seems to have no interest in the iron horses of Japan. How different things were back in 2001.

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I will be honest with you. I entirely came to read these Smite patch notes because they showed a character skin which turns a scarab beetle into a lobster. I stayed because who even is Erlang Shen and what’s his deal and OH! HE HAS A PET DOG?

RIGHT.

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Battle Royale>-style FPSs are the new zombie sandbox survival games, which were the new CCGs, which were the new Minecraftbuts, which were the new MOBAs, which in turn were the new tower defences, which were the new MMORPGs, which were the new FMV games, which were, of course, the new Doom clones. Now Brendan ‘PlayerUnknown’ Greene, the chap who created a Battle Royale mod for Arma 2& 3 and helped on H1Z1’s Battle Royaleing, is getting his own game with his own name on it.

Bluehole, the makers of MMORPG Tera, today announced they’ve signed up PlayerUnknown to work on a standalone Battle Royale ‘em up with vehicles and all, named PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds [official site].

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