“What is that puzzle game that you play in a browser and is white objects on black, almost ASCII art but not, and it’s about pushing things and also maybe there are enemies that are static boxes that push things? And everything makes really satisfyingly crunchy sound effects and maybe it has levels but also an infinite sorta roguelike-y mode?”

From this description, do you know what the game is? Can you break this description down into chunks that you can Google for? I could not. I was out of my mind, asking everyone I knew. What game am I thinking of?>

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It’s all fun and games until no one loses an eye because wonky netcode stops your gouging.

Mortal Kombat X [official site] is pretty wonky on PC, especially compared to the console versions, with poor performance and bugs galore. Creators NetherRealm say they’re still working with PC co-devs High Voltage Software to improve it, and a big patch is due today for starters.

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I own three keyboards: one for typing, two for playing music on. The one for typing is the only one I know how to use though, so I’m pleased with Touch Pianist. It’s a website in which you press any key in order to advance a piece of classical music one note at a time. It’s unlike Guitar Hero in that, if you stop typing, the music stops playing, but there’s still challenge if you need it in trying to match the rhythm of your key presses to that of the original piece. It’s quite lovely.

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There are two sides to every sport – sweat-soaked athletes and stat-soaked nerds. Frozen Cortex [official site] may have replaced the glistening muscle with lubricated machines, but the principle is the same. Out on the field, the players use their skills and training to follow the orders of a tactical technician. The initial release lacked the kind of statistical backdrop that a good manager can drown in though, so the news that Mode 7 were adding a fully simulated management mode was marvelous. Now it’s here, in the form of a free update, and it stole> my weekend.

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Today in News You Should Probably Be Glad You Never Heard About At The Time Because You’re Already Disappointed Enough And This Would’ve Been Frustrating And Yeah I Guess You Would’ve Written A Lot Of Annoyed Comments On The Internet And TBH Neither You Nor I Want That But Boy, What If This Had Happened: Deus Ex director Warren Spector and his (now-closed) studio Junction Point were at one point working on a Half-Life game.

The mystery game would’ve been a Half-Life 2 episode separate from Valve’s own core episodes, introducing a new physics-y magnet gun. But it was not to be, and Junction Point went on to focus on Epic Mickey instead.

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You may have thought we’d run out of nostalgia to mine for Kickstarter but good gravy no! A group of folks formerly of Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country developers Rare, now at their own studio Playtonic Games, launched a crowdfunding campaign for a ye olde 3D N64-stylee platformer on Friday and have already blown past their goal.

They were looking for 175,000 to make Yooka-Laylee [official site], billing it as a “spiritual successor” to Banjo-Kazooie. With 42 days still to go they already have over 1.3 million in pledges. Lawks!

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Each week Marsh Davies lurches drunkenly through the dank cloisters of Early Access and brings back any stories he can find and/or spasms like a misfiring physics object caught in a doorway. This week he wobbles and flails in the low-fantasy RPG Exanima, a smaller standalone prelude to the Kickstarted open world game Sui Generis.>

Exanima isn t like other RPGs, the Steam store page tells you with some insistence. It s true for several reasons, but the most obvious is its fully physics-modelled combat which renders close quarters engagements as tense, tactical affairs conducted between two or more appallingly drunk people. Every collision has a physical effect, as subtle or extreme as the speed with which it occurs, and so combat is about caution and timing, dodging incoming swings and finding the time to wind up, directing your weapon in a sweep to connect with your opponent s most vital areas with the most momentum possible. At least, it s about these things inasmuch as these things are even possible while piloting someone with a near-lethal blood-alcohol level.

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Star Wars started as cinema and ended up as something else – lots of things, from pillow cases to theme park rides. But chief among them, the form that best captures the core of Star Wars now, is games. The last Star Wars I enjoyed watching was released two years after I was born, in 1983, but since then games have given me dozens of dogfights, blaster battles and lightspeed adventures layered with the nostalgia, hope and acceleration that is essentially Star Wars.

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Like many of the liberal college WASPs of my generation I am a dedicated and loyal follower of cyberpunk. First, a fact: The birth place of cyberpunk is my birth place too, which can only be a sign of my deep allegiance to West Coast Neuromancy. So full of love am I, sometimes I’ll find myself a big metallic collander to put over my head like a helmet and pretend the kitchen is losing its air reserves because it’s sort of like being in the future.

So if you’re of that ilk, I reckon you’ll like this too: Technobabylon [official site], it’s a little cyberpunk adventure game in the vein of Westwood Studio’s Blade Runner. In fact it’s a whole lot like Westwood’s Blade Runner, right down to a few of the animation eccentricities. And now it has a release date.

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Carmageddon: Reincarnation [official website] is very nearly out of Early Access Beta, which means you can start feverishly throwing together Finish Line puns while I grit my teeth.

The game’s last ever Early Access update is now out, which stabilises a few known issues, game crashes included, and sets a new maximum count of six cars in multiplayer.

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