Oh, to be able to talk more about what I’ve been playing this week – the third part of Inkle’s conversion of Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! That’s their exclamation mark, by the way, not mine. Unfortunately, it’s not available on PC, so I can’t. I can’t say how ludicrously impressive it is, from the way it’s converted the largely linear gamebook experience to an open world format, to the narrative masochism of then doubling-down and adding time-travel on top of that>. Curse thee, thou wretched yet beautiful non-PC game, available right now on iTunes and Google Play. Ahem.

It’s not however the only RPG gamebook in town. This week then, I thought I’d check out a few that are a bit closer to home. Steam, show me what you’ve got in your magic catalogue…

… [visit site to read more]

Last week, Valve launched support for paid mods within Steam, beginning with a select number of Skyrim creations. Alec deftly summarised the details, pros and cons over here. Since then, the discussion has continued via blog posts, forum threads, protest mods and with game creators, mod creators and Gabe Newell getting involved. On the off-chance you didn’t spend the weekend reading this stuff while hunched over your computer like I did, I’ve gathered the most pertinent Internet Opinions below.

… [visit site to read more]

I’ve been trying to change my use of ‘awesome’ from the ’90s exclamation of bodaciousness to the more reverent and terrified connotations it once had. But no, the mod Brutal Doom [Mod DB page] is totally awesome, not to mention tubular, radical, excellent, gnarly, wikkid, sikk, righteous, and wikkid sikk. It’s the gory fever dreams of a child of ’90s excess after a hard day’s fragging.

The long-delayed version 20.0 finally has a release date – June 5th – and a new trailer shows off so many ridiculous things that I had to laugh. A Baron of Hell picks up and tosses an explosive barrel, monsters lose limbs and keep on coming, you dual-wield big guns, and Doom Guy punches and kicks and rips and tears, and everyone explodes into bloody little bits. Awesome!>

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Picking fights is a lark and all in Elite: Dangerous [official site], but you’re all a bunch of kids playing slapsies and shovefight in the park, really. No, grown-ups pick fights because someone else told them to. Elite will wander down this path with its next update, introducing factions which players can choose to ally with as they vie for control of the galaxy.

The ‘Powerplay’ system, announced last week, will let players join factions to compete and cooperate with each other in whichever way their faction prefers, whether it’s economic power, military might, or goodness knows what else. There are, of course, rewards.

… [visit site to read more]

You may remember Infested Planet [official site] from the numerous times we’ve talked about it: an indie strategy game, amidst the backdrop of pesky aliens and cluster bombs. Sort of like War and Peace in Space. Now the wonderfully named Rocket Bear Games has announced the launch of expansion DLC that will make things even harder for your relentless campaign of death.

… [visit site to read more]

Over a year since the first act was belatedly released, Double Fine’s seminal Kickstarter project Broken Age is now complete. Act 1 was bursting with potential, if a somewhat flawed PC adventure. Obviously this review is of the second half of a game, so will contain some light spoilers for the core plot (but avoids most). Can it live up to the potential it suggested in its first half? Here’s wot I think:>

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The Gera School of Game Development has one simple tenet: When in doubt, just add dogs. Our alumni is extensive, and includes but is not limited to a game with an Alsatian in it and Fable 2. Now being added to this list is the glorious two-dimensional Terraform-em-up Starbound [official site] which lets users have pets on board their personal space ships as of this week’s patch.

… [visit site to read more]

Take an MS Paint concoction and some sort of Cronenbergian fever dream and you get Hiveswap [official site], an episodic adventure game from the incredibly indie one-man team at Pumpkin Studios.

… [visit site to read more]

There’s something about watching trailers for racing games like Project Cars [official site] that makes me feel like I’m going to have to confess it to my nearest priest. Even the taglines are full-throttle sex. In fact, let’s play a little game of Who Said It:

Who said the line “What matters is finishing first.” Is it:

a.) Project Carsb.) Caligula

Find out in the sweatily placed trailer below. … [visit site to read more]

After a successful Kickstarter campaign and probably a seance where someone spoke Jeremy Clarkson’s name into a mirror three times, an extensively realistic simulation game about being a car mechanic – rightfully named Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 [official site] – is now out.

… [visit site to read more]