Borderlands 3 wasn’t the only looty shooty announcement Gearbox and publisher 2K had lined up today. They also announced yet another> re-release of the original trilogy (including Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel), this time with a few technical improvements, some optional 4k textures and some quality-of-life improvements for the first game. The good news for us PC folks is that if you already own the original Borderlands or either of the sequels, these upgrades will be entirely free. Below, a pair of predictably bombastic trailers for the polished-up loot n’ shooters.

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Gearbox Software are, as expected, headed back to a beat-up alien planet for more looting and shooting in Borderlands 3. They announced their third game in the FPS action-RPG series, which has also seen a prequel and spin-off from other developers, at PAX East today with a flashy trailer. A trailer which looked like heck during the big announcement presentation due to technical difficulties. Though the technical difficulties were more exciting than the slow card magic trick. Oh dear. But the handy-dandy YouTube version of the announcement trailer works just fine so hey look come and see.

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My favourite XCOM is XCOM: Enemy Unknown*, a pure and direct, no mess/no fuss modern-day remix of metagame-augmented turn-based tactics. My second-favourite XCOM is the polar opposite, XCOM 2 DLC War Of The Chosen, an absurd explosion of superheroics that throws internal logic to the wind.

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Standard-issue XCOM 2 is probably my least-favourite of the four different flavours of XCOM now available to us (i.e. including the Enemy Within and War Of The Chosen expansions), but that’s a bit like saying I don’t enjoy 29 degrees of heat quite as much as 26, 27 and 28 degrees. They’re all great! Make it like that all the time, please. Only, y’know, without the heat-death of the planet. And, yeah, keep on releasing more XCOMs.

If you’ve avoided Firaxis’ reimagining of The Greatest PC Game Of All Time (If You’re An Old Man Like Me), XCOM 2 can be a rather full-on point of entry. On the other hand, it’s currently free all weekend (and 75% off if you want to keep it forever), which is the easiest point of entry of all.

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Sin Vega first introduced me to X-PirateZ three years ago, already a sprawling X-Com: UFO Defense mod by “Dioxine” about leading a crew of sexy lady air-pirates in a post-apocalyptic world. She called it “The greatest total conversion ever made” at the time, but I wasn’t so convinced. Massive as it was, I felt it was still skeletal and confusing, requiring much trial and error and many false starts. A lot has changed since 2016, and it has grown into a (mostly) coherent strategy RPG sandbox with a devil-may-care attitude on par with Disgaea.

Orbital, underwater and underground missions are in. Story arcs, bounty hunts, tons of factions, over a hundred mission types and more guns than anyone could ever use. There are duels and even dating>, somehow. There are also problems, of course, any mod of this scale has some, but I’m officially on board now. This may be the best total conversion I’ve played, and less likely to kick newcomers in the teeth than classic X-Com. Still, there’s a lot to learn and tons of new systems, so here’s a crash course on X-PirateZ, plus a guide for surviving your first year as a corsair captain. (more…)

The Darkness II is a game about being a mafia hitman, shooting everyone, and feeding the hearts of your enemies to the black abomination coiled inside your chest. But it s also a game about fighting your darkest self, doubting your own mind, and finding salvation in love. When John reviewed it, he said: I was genuinely expecting a brash, stupid shooter, noise and bluster and shooting at heads. That it s so smart is a fantastic surprise .

The Darkness II (like its console exclusive predecessor) is actually based on a comic book series, first published in the nineties.

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Cyber Monday is, of course, a pure and honest celebration of all things cyber. We hack the planet as one, united against corporations, capitalism and the class divide. Then we all burn our 4K televisions and go off to have a massive rave-orgy in an abandoned sewer. Such is the way of the Cyber Monday Warrior.

But it’s not all talking in C++ and overthrowing distant tyranny. Cyber Monday is also a time to remember the sacrifices made in the name of the hacking. None of these are quite so tragic as otherwise great games laid low by poorly-judged hacking minigames, forcibly inserted by executive pressure to pad out the running time. Today, let us honour the fallen. (more…)

Six years ago, Firaxis pulled off the impossible with XCOM, re-envisioning a DOS classic – next week, they’re celebrating this feat with the Tactical Legacy pack for XCOM 2: War Of The Chosen. It’s pure fan-service of the less-sexy kind (unless Carapace armour turns you on, in which case fly your freak flag high), featuring old favourite equipment and environments used in a new series of tactical mini-campaigns. Better still, it’ll be initially free to owners of War Of The Chosen. It’s out next week, October 9th. Check the reveal trailer below.

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Then the bus EXPLODED. Hello, this is the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, and we are here to talk about the best game openings and intros. Whether they are cold opens or slow burns, we love a good first impression. (more…)

We’ve just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It’s a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you’ll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.

2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets. (more…)