Rock, Paper, Shotgun
It's been a week. Possibly, a three-day weekend of rest and games will do us all some good. And maybe by the end of it, it'll be a new week. Here's what we'll be clicking on this bank holiday weekend.
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It's been a week. Possibly, a three-day weekend of rest and games will do us all some good. And maybe by the end of it, it'll be a new week. Here's what we'll be clicking on this bank holiday weekend.
Calling it now: this is the least intriguing article you will read about 11 bit's The Alters, a blend of Danny Boyle's Sunshine and Duncan Jones's Moon in which (deep breath) you are a marooned space engineer who must spawn different versions of himself by means of backstory-branching gadgetry in order to operate an enormous, rolling base and escape the apocalyptic rays of the local sun.
We're not going to talk about any of that hoity-toity quantum wheeling-and-dealing in this piece, however. We're going to talk about the fact that the opening stretch reminded me of Gears Of War and the many over-the-shoulder adventures it has influenced. I'm sorry. It's been a complicated week involving minimal sleep, and I no longer have the grey cells for branching timelines, though they are certainly the more fascinating aspect of this game.
In one of the better gaming trends of the last few years, we appear to have entered a golden age for booting the crud out of doors. There’s Deathbulge of course, but also the upcoming Anger Foot, Abiotic Factor, and a load more I’m sure. There was also literally Door Kickers, but that was ages ago. Anyway, the latest game to put a hinge-disrespecting protagonist front and center is also my current obsession: the excellent Post Void/Hotline Miami-type beat, Mullet Mad Jack. It’s a very fast, very silly FPS about shooting robot billionaires that takes its aesthetic from 80’s anime and PC-98 games. I’m not sure what else you need, honestly.
While I’ve always thought the race towards graphical hyperrealism isn’t as pervasive as it's often perceived, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is definitely one of those> games. The kind that probably has twelve artists dedicated to the recreation of visible pores, that sort of thing. It’s so focused on looking pretty that it hasn’t even noticed the title and subtitle got mixed up.
Sure enough, Hellblade 2 is a harsh test for older hardware, with a heavy reliance on DLSS or FSR upscaling to keep performance sweet. That said, it’s no Dragons Dogma 2-style technical horrorshow either. A happy balance of visuals and smoothness is attainable on plush PCs and low-end laptops alike, while DLSS 3 frame generation can deliver an effective kick in the framerate pants on RTX 40 series GPUs.
The classic anime series Gundam examines the traumatic experience of war, particularly the unalterable effect it has on those young soldiers forced to participate in the horrors of fighting for their life while taking the lives of others using weapons of inhuman strength and devastation. Which clearly makes it the perfect fit for a bit of upcoming DLC for military-fetishising interactive gun range Call of Duty.
In a twist of fate I've mentioned in some recent Destiny 2 news posts, I am fully back into Destiny. Former vidbud Liam and I used it, initially, as something we could do while catching up on life. But now? Now we're all in. Liam has created a spreadsheet of things we're ticking off to prepare for the upcoming expansion, and I think it's the perfect summation of what the game is to us: something that makes no sense at all and yet something that makes our brains hum with happiness.
And what we've found with Destiny, in all of its bloat, is that we haven't explored for a single second since our return. Everything is accomplished through menus, making it quite Starfield-esque, which is terrible… but also good. We can't make sense of it and we don't think we ever will.
At RPS we like Alices. When somebody comes along with the name "Alice" you don't just say "oh hi" like some insolent rube. You nod with solemn respect and you say, "Alice". An Alice is someone you should not take lightly, nor take for granted, nor leave unmonitored. For they will destroy worlds and build better ones while you are not looking. This is dangerous and exciting. Alices are a force to be reckoned with. To treat an Alice poorly is to invite shame, dishonour, and contempt. Here are some of the best Alices in video games!
Flashy action-RPG Stellar Blade looks like it could be the next PlayStation 5 exclusive to find its way over to PC, as developers Shift Up say they’re pondering a PC release. They’re also thinking about a sequel - probably not much of a surprise given the first game has sold well on just the one platform, by all accounts - while working on a new game that should also be headed to PC, codenamed Project Witches.
If you're after a lightweight wireless mouse to help you win more games of Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant, then the Logitech G Pro X Superlight Wireless 2 is definitely one to consider.
