It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s THE mosssssssst wonderful tiiiiiiiiiiiime ahaahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah I wish I had a machinegun ho ho ho ahahaha, get stuffed 2016. … [visit site to read more]

Valve has dressed its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site] chickens up in many a festive outfit over the years, from chicken-sized Christmas jumpers to pink Easter bunny ears. But how do these festive fowl stack up against one another in terms of holiday loveliness? There’s only one way to find out: an Alice and Pip chat.>

Pip: Alice! It’s the most wonderful tiiiiiiiiime of the yeeeeeeeear. With the CS: GO chickens all wearing their knitting and I’m of good cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer! It’s the most wonderful tiiiiiiiiiime of the year.

That said there are other wonderful times of the year if we’re talking chicken dress-up. Halloween! Easter! CS:GO’s birthday! Can we truly decide which is the *most* wonderful time of the year?

Alice: It’d take two grizzled experts with a long history of dressing up imaginary characters. Two hardened veterans committed to arguing the toss. Two people who understand that the Halloween chickens wearing spooky ghost sheets are the best and if you don’t agree I WILL END THIS FRIENDSHIP RIGHT HERE. … [visit site to read more]

Alec is away this week, following the Vengaboys around on tour. Or, if they’re not currently touring, just visiting places they’ve been, taking photos and placing them inside his scrapbook alongside some brief reflections. That means it falls to me to tell you which ten games were the best selling on Steam in the past week, and there are some pleasant games inside.

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We can all agree that the Christmas season doesn’t begin just because John Lewis tries to punch you in the heart or because Ian Starbucks cracks open the syrups again. That’s crass commercialism denigrating the season where people buy me presents. No, the only corporation I trust managing Christmas is Valve Corporation, who each year put cute little festive jumpers on the chickens in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site]. That’s real Christmas to me. Ladies and germs, Christmas is here.

Oh, and Valve added some fancy technology to improve positional audio to help folks play the game better but look, the chickens are what really matters. … [visit site to read more]

Had a week off. (No, not a holiday, no such thing when there’s a three-year-old in the house). Bit of a break from writing about games. Though I’d rebuild and resupply a little, come back fighting fit, ready for anything GAMESWORLD might throw at me next.

Anything but this. … [visit site to read more]

Counter-Strike has changed very little over the past decade, and aside from new maps and a couple of new modes, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site] has mostly stuck to old routines. Thank goodness for modders, then, who add things such as maps which randomly select weather patterns at the start of each round. … [visit site to read more]

Well, this really isn’t the chart I’d expected to see at this point of the year. We’re in peak Silly Season, and yet last week’s 10 best-selling games on Steam form a broadly unexpected bunch.

Which is exactly what I like to see.

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We’re nearly at the end of silly season: most of the big releases are out now, with only Watch No Underscore Dogs Two really still to go. It’s been a messy one for a lot of the big companies, by all accounts. Let’s see how it shook out during Dishonored 2 launch week.

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Last week, like drinking mulled wine on a chilly November evening, I found great comfort in a Steam top ten that seemed to reflect the wide, weird and wonderful nature of modern PC gaming. After months of recurrent names, it was a bright new dawn of variety. Anything is possible.

I am a fool. … [visit site to read more]

An altogether healthier chart than we’ve had over the last few weeks, even if the usual ghosts continue to haunt it. That was a spooky halloween reference. It’s probably still Halloween in Tazmania or something. Even if it’s not, there’s definitely a hungover guy in a vomit-smeared David S. Pumpkins costume shambling down a street somewhere. … [visit site to read more]