There is a siren on my desk that I keep in pristine condition. Every night I polish and clean the surfaces and check the wiring before heading to bed with a satisfied sigh. Its purpose is simple: whenever Blizzard release a new cinematic, it alerts me to this fact. Me and most of the neighbourhood. About an hour ago it went off again, as the legendary developer officially announced the new Diablo 3 expansion at gamescom. All the details and that unparalleled talent for beauty in the deeps below.

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Once bitten, and bitten, and bitten, twice shy, it seems at Maxis. After their utterly stupid and inherently selfish decision to artificially force SimCity to be always online, and then lie about why, it seems this time out they’ve decided not to push their luck. Sims 4, the PC and Mac-only release (I can’t see that lasting – surely> 3DS, Vita and next-gen ports will eventually appear?) will play one hundred percent offline, according to a report from VG247.

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Choo-choo! All aboard the possible disappointment train, it’s another Warhammer 40,000 video game! Alright, so Space Hulk didn’t go the way it should have despite having everything going for it. Let’s pack it up in its own little space and it can gestate, get a patch or two. The new boy riding into town with shining pale blue armour is Space Wolf, a collectible card game focused on the feral Space Marine legion. Most interestingly, developers Herocraft are promising a “tactical combat and CCG fusion” where cards will be played and then visualised in “glorious, interactive 3D environments.”

Hmmmmmmm. Desperate attempts not to set myself up for another wasted purchase after the jump.

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A trailer a day keeps the dread lord of games at bay, that’s what we say here at RPS. If we don’t, he’ll rise again to wage terrible war upon our castle, PR-catapults firing besuited fast-talkers at our poor, potholed walls. Our defenses are meek and few what with the great Sir Botherer’s new steed not yet full grown and aged knights Sir Rossignol and Sir Smith having defected to Germany. Thank the heavens, then, that Batman‘s swooping down with our neatly packaged, 1080p deliverance. (more…)

Ah well, not a full sequel then. But a hefty expansion, nonetheless – Firaxis style. (Actually, it’ll be a standalone game on consoles, but not PC, oddly.) Rather obviously XCOM: Enemy Within will have new maps (40 of them), and new soldier class (stompy mech) and multiplayer stuff (cuddles), but also introduces a rather significant new mechanic, changing how you approach the game.

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Oh man, phew. I was worried there for a second, but now I see that I was getting all worked up over nothing. I mean, seriously: what if> Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare and Peggle 2 had come out on PC at the same time they debuted on Xbox One? It probably would’ve spelled the end of all videogames – and, let’s face it, life – as we know it. The Xbox certainly would’ve sold markedly less than one> unit as a result. That’s for sure. Thankfully, Microsoft and EA have teamed up to save the day, pushing the PC (and, I suppose, other platform) versions of Peggle’s second coming and PvZ’s green-trigger-finger-twitching reinvention into even murkier depths.

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OK everyone, ready? Now breathe deep – fill your lungs with the thick, muggy air of anger surrounding your person – and siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Another week, another popular game got hacked. This time, it’s MOBA-kinda’s favorite largely benevolent emperor, League of Legends. You know the drill: change your various passwords and pay very close attention to your credit cards. The latter goes double here, because Riot’s confirmed that the hackers managed to make off with some old, thankfully encrypted credit card info. Better safe than sorry.

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Oh no, the sun is dipping! That’s not a problem, usually. It happens every day and tells me when it’s time to have a lovely sleep. But in Race The Sun, night falling is death. You’re flying across the strange landscape, heading straight at the dipping fireball in a solar powered racing wing. Even shadows will suck the power out of your bird-like frame, so a sun-starved sky will slow you to a deathly crawl. Game over. All you can do to keep going is to keep up with the sun, to always keep it hovering above the horizon, never falling below and dropping you to an embarrassing, skiddy ending. I spent the morning chasing that impossible dream.

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We’ve got the world’s first review of Shelter, the compellingly gorgeous and overwhelming badger simulation. By a kitten. It’s below.

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Vlambeer is making yet another videogame like it’s their job or something. They have probably lost their minds, but we may as well reap the rewards. Originally a quick and dirty Mojam prototype dystopia-’em-up, Wasteland Kings is now evolving into a full-on action-roguelike (or “roguelike-like,” as designer JW Nijman describes it) with heaps of characters, procedurally generated locations, and of course, guns. In practice, that means you run from area to area, dodging and blasting circles around enemies in a desperate bid for survival. All the while, you mutate new, largely randomized powers and pick up better, stranger weapons. Sounds a bit like fellow action-roguelike The Binding of Isaac, doesn’t it? And while the inspiration is certainly there, Nijman insists that Wasteland Kings is millions of cracking, sun-parched miles away from a carbon copy. >

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