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What do boulder-shouldered fantasy Vikings do for the holidays? It’s a question that I’ve pondered far more than I care to admit, but I’ve never been able to come up with a conclusive answer. Evidently, however, I just wasn’t looking in the right places. Instead of scouring their mead halls in search of wafting feast fumes and bawdy tunes, I should’ve headed straight for the most axe-strewn, arrow-speckled of battlefields. The Banner Saga’s Vikings, you see, continue to duke it out even as we speak, and a new Yuletide update’s trotted some formidable toys out to the frontline. Thanks, nasty, brutish Viking Santa!

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It happened in a flash. No bangs. Not even a whimper. And then there was nothing.>

Nothing except a farm. >

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The Saturday before Christmas is for being thankful that you got all your Christmas shopping done before the seasonal bacterial invasion riddling your body has turned from “a bit of a cold” to “full on poorly”, wrapping yourself around a mug of Lemsip and whiskey, then taking a look at the great many number of PC games that are available to buy for not very much money. There’s loads more cheap games to be found over at SavyGamer.co.uk, and there will be some fantastic deals over the next few weeks, although I’m going to try to take some time off this year too. Here’s this week’s bucket: (more…)

Twenty-two is a number that is important for all sorts of reasons, but perhaps the most important is that it is the neighbour of the eerie and secretive 23. Twenty-two is our only good way of keeping an eye on what twenty-three is up to, and it’s often on the phone, reporting his activities. That weird bastard… I bet he has a gimp locked in the basement.

Anyway.

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The break’s nearly upon us, and the news has already fled into its cozy hibernation hole to avoid the harsh shifts in weather and people caring. So now I’m going to tell you about some patch notes, because they’re all that’s left in this desolate winter wonderland. Fortunately, Far Cry 3‘s brought a fairly sizable bounty of improvements back from its latest bug hunt, and it even managed to bag the big one: notifications. Yes, you can finally banish those loathsome pop-ups from Jason’s face.

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You probably remember that legendary RPG powerhouse Black Isle Studios abruptly rose from the dead earlier this year. You might also remember feeling supremely baffled by that fact, given that Interplay’s now a penniless shell of a company, and the “old band” it was hoping to get back together had already, you know, done that – just at Obsidian and inXile. So how exactly does this new studio wearing Black Isle’s pajamas hope to paddle through the overwhelming waters of seeming impossibility? Well, predictably, that’s where you come in. But, to be perfectly honest, you probably won’t want to.

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Er, I suppose there’s some uncertainty that Metro: Last Light might actually be released, but for now let’s proceed on the basis that THQ have managed to save themselves from the moneyan apocalypse.

Last Light, from an hour or so I spent watching real-time play recently, appears to be almost a do-over of the ambitious but awkward Metro 2033 rather than a traditional sequel. It’s rescuing and remixing the stuff that worked but, as far as I can tell, without devolving into a shiny Call of Dudebro affair. That critical switching between indoor and outdoor action and gun-free survivor settlements remains, as does the strange bullets-as-currency system. It’s much more like 2033 than I’d presumed, I’m relived to find, glossier though it may be. (more…)

I could write a thousand words and I wouldn’t be able to explain Potatoman Seeks the Troof as eloquently as the wise old tiller in the video below. He says things like, “Strange year already, what with the bears nestin’ up under the crops, givin’ them the ‘tater shakes.” What I will tell you is that it’s the new game from the home of Dino Run, Pixeljam, and it’s available for $3 or in a pack with Dino Run, and other games and soundtracks for $10. There’s even a $5 pack with an album of music and a pixel game creation tool. The trailer alone is worth $20 though and yet, bizarrely, you can watch it below for free.

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Twas the day before week’s end, when all throughout space,Dark troubles were stirring, a deadly arms race!The void filled with beacons, transmissions and prayers,In hopes a Drox Operative soon would be there.

I’ve been exploring space sectors in Soldak’s latest ARPG. Here’s wot I think.>

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