DLC adding coliseum battles might sound somewhat unimaginative for a game as endlessly surprising and heartbreaking as Nier: Automata [official site] but that’s what is coming. Oh, wait, and it’ll let those lovable warteens fight the CEOs of Square Enix and PlatinumGames. That’s more like it! The action-RPG’s first DLC, titled ‘3C3C1D119440927’, is coming “soon” with coliseum scraps and rewards including cosmetic doodads like costumes from the first Nier. Here, check out this chief executive beatdown:

(If you haven’t gone through several of Automata’s endings, this post will show some things you may not know about.) … [visit site to read more]

Bayonetta [Steam page] just arrived on PC and though she’s late to the party, in some ways the timing couldn’t be more perfect. The game’s creators, PlatinumGames, are amazing when at their best, but have released a few disappointing duffers over the years. Bayonetta is not a duffer and might be my favourite of their games.

This belated PC release comes hot on the heels of NieR: Automata, another game that showed Platinum at their best. It’s a mini golden age for stylish third-person action over on the PC right now and I’m here to tell you why you might just fall in love with Bayonetta.

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He was a boy.She was a girl.Can I make it anymore obvious?He wrote the weekly Steam charts.She read them.

What more can I say?

Other than that these are the ten Steam games with the most accumulated sales over the past week, obv. See ya later, boy.

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You woke up this morning, got yourself a gun, Mama always said you’d be the chosen one to write the weekly Steam charts. These are the games which sold best on Steam last week.

This week: order returns. OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY … [visit site to read more]

Alec is still away, ostensibly on holiday but presumed dead. Ride in peace, Alec Meer. All that remains of last week’s chart caretaker is a selection of small bones John coughed up, so it’s my turn. It’s a good week in the charts!

We’ve some new games, some familiar faces, and at least one familiar face with a new game. It’s a shame Mass Effect: Andromeda’s Origin exclusivity keeps it out of this comparison. Not to ruin the suspension but: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the new early access Hunger Royale game, is riding high at the top of the hit parade.

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Platinum’s Nier: Automata [official site] is a cracking game, our Adam will tell you, and from the 16 hours I’ve played I’d certainly agree. Sadly, technical problems are dragging it down for some — not all, to be clear — players. Issues include fullscreen mode upscaling wonkily, crashes, and unexpectedly poor performance. The Automata team have now issued a statement saying they’re investigating reports. But in the meantime, players have come up with some good fixes themselves. … [visit site to read more]

Alec is away this week. I fear that if he can’t find a wifi signal on his travels he might resort to haruspicy to try and find the truths contained within the weekly Steam charts. These round-ups of the ten games with the most cumulative sales over the past week are his obsession and his curse.

This week: while the cat’s away…

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Nier: Automata [official site] is unpredictable, from beginning to end(s).

What begins as a robot-smashing action game with gargantuan bosses soon becomes an open world RPG, then a bullet hell circus nightmare with confetti and corpses, and then something else entirely. To describe all of the things that Automata encompasses, even in vague terms, would be to spoil its greatest asset: surprise. For that reason, I’ve avoiding the specifics of almost any of the wonderful and horrible things that happen. This is important.

Let’s stick with the basics then. Automata, at its best, fuses Platinum’s mastery of stylish action to a framework that works as both a tour and deconstruction of various genres, and a story both stranger and more interesting than it first appears. It’s awesome>. … [visit site to read more]