That cyberpunk stunt-racing game with all like, flashy fluorescent neons and that is out on Steam Early Access. VROOM THAT DAFT PUNKESQUE NIGHTMARE INTO THE NIGHT SKIES MY FRIENDS. Now you can try out Distance.
Every month, we dispatch Brendan to some of gaming s best blowouts to schmooze and play party games with the partygoers. This is part three.>
Loading Bar (aka Scenario) is a videogame-themed bar in London that hosts gigs, games and parties. As well as having a cushy basement filled with screens and games consoles, it regularly welcomes groups of Smash Bros devotees or Netrunner fans to take part in friendly tournaments. It also hosts a local multiplayer night called Multiclash, where developers can show off their party games. All this while serving up colourful cocktails with names like Earthworm Gin and Rum: Total War . Obviously, with all this going on, RPS needed somebody to investigate.
When I arrive at the bar, located deep in the city s hipster underbelly of Stoke Newington, there are about five games on show. It is probably best to go through them one by one, giving each its due attention. But before that, a trip to the bar staff is in order. As the night wears on, I find that the cocktails being served to me have become (mostly) synchronised to the games, each a little alcoholic companion that would last only until I finished murdering that wretched blue swordsman in Samurai Gunn, or outpacing that dastardly unicorn in Speedrunners. For the most part, they were pretty damn good. As such, it would only be fair to rate the cocktails as accompaniments alongside the games. What games, you ask? Well, let s take a look at what we played.
The Bends is short, free, pleasant, and even playable in your browser if you want. There, that covers the list of excuses you might have to not play it. It’s a walkable song, I suppose – a pretty little valley filled with megaliths that build a chilled-out song piece by piece. After a busy week, it might help you unwind or get pumped for the weekend. I don’t know what you’re into. I don’t know what you get up to. Please, don’t tell me.
In a year when the genre seemed to be in the ascendant once again, Divinity: Original Sin is the most playful and experimental RPG in a strong field. Taking its cues from the intricately interactive world of Ultima VII as much as previous Divinity titles, Original Sin is one of the year’s finest games.
Adam: Partly crowdfunded, wholly crowdpleasing.
Yes, it jolly well is, you lot. For years and years you’ve been promising to pay attention again, but it’s never quite happened, has it? All you did was squeeze Games For Windows Live onto our lawn from some unspeakable orifice, then disappear back to your Xboxes and not-quite-right phones. Our Graham even ran a history of all the times you’ve made these claims in the past, and look where we are now: in exactly the same place. Or are we?>
Today’s claim comes in the form of a twitter reply from Xbox and Microsoft Studios boss Phil Spencer*, but the simple line “I’ll be focusing more on what we are doing on Win10 in January, it’s time for us to talk about gaming on Windows” is backed up by a couple of things. Maybe.> … [visit site to read more]
Strife, originally released in 1996, could be seen as the answer to that most famous of critical questions in the history of gaming. Not ‘Were Sonic games ever> any good?’ or ‘Do people actually enjoy racing games or do they just like the crashes?’ – not even the one about whether the 1982 E.T. game was actually the world’s first misunderstood arthouse walking simulator. Strife answered a very specific question, extrapolated from Edge’s review of the original Doom. What would> happen if you could talk to the creatures? In Strife, you can. Eighteen years after its original release, the FPS-RPG is returning later today in a revamped ‘Veteran Edition’.
I hadn’t played Five Nights At Freddy’s until Saturday night and when I finally got around to it, the game made me angry. I stomped around my flat, complained loudly about how much I hate jump scares and screamers, and told anyone who would listen that the whole thing is terribly designed.
Stress can make liars of us all.>
More than any Call of Duty in a long time, I fancy a crack at Advanced Warfare. I want to see how those exosuits and zany futuristic weapons shake up what was already a pretty fast for a modern FPS, but I’m not curious enough to splash out – strewth! – 40. Thankfully, the multiplayer side is free to play on Steam this weekend, so I’m downloading that now. One minor issue: the download is 36.5GB, so you might not have much time left to play by the time that’s finished.
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>
There was a point back in 2009 when I became obsessed with Red Faction: Guerrilla. I’ve always liked destructible scenery in shooty, ‘splodey games and Guerrilla looked like it might change the landscape of action gaming forever. No more would we tolerate canned collapses – instead, we’d demand authenticity of a sort, with physics engines ensuring that every building caved-in and crumped in a believable fashion. Hammer time.
It’s the day for gaming comebacks! Just so long as they’re gaming comebacks in which it’s difficult to ascertain whether anyone meaningfully involved in the original thing is on board. Interplay’s latest attempt to re-enter our affections isn’t quite as suspicion-clouded as West Games’ second dodgy-lookin’ gesture towards a spiritual STALKER sequel, but it’s fair to say that whoever wears the Interplay skinsuit are not Interplay’s original founders. They have, however, managed to recruit Chris Taylor, one of the Fallout’s designers, and it’s he who’s made an “officially-licensed” boardgame adaptation of Interplay’s space combat sim Freespace. Wot no Clayfighter 4? … [visit site to read more]