‘Played’ isn’t quite the right word for Hardly Workin’ [archived official site]. You may need Quake II for it but Hardly Workin’ is machinima – a movie made in a video game, before that term was yoinked by a site which became a #contentnetwork. What made Hardly Workin’ stand out to me was that you could hardly see it was Quake II. While most early machinima drafted existing in-game characters and assets for action figure pantomimes (and heck, Red vs. Blue still does this – no disrespect), Hardly Workin’ is built from scratch for a silly cartoon tale about two lumberjacks getting jobs in a diner.

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I’ve always been a big fan of the universe that the Halo games are set in, and with Halo Wars 2 [official site] headed our way in February of next year, I’m keen on gleaning as much information about its story as possible. That’s good for me, because Microsoft have released a short video documentary detailing some of the finer points of the story with an added emphasis on the villain who will be tying everything together.

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Pull on your data gloves and slap on your mirrorshades for Quadrilateral Cowboy [official site], the latest from Thirty Flights of Loving and Flotilla developers Blendo Games. Quadlat Cowbo is a first-person heist-o-hacking game about sneaking into places using gadgets, gizmos, and good old-fashioned hacking. It’s from the command line school of hacking, having you tap out commands and scripts to carefully time hacking cameras, laser grids, doors, and such so you can waltz right in. It was jolly special when I played an early version two years ago, so I’m mighty excited that it’s finally finished and out.

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Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – First Assault Online [official site] is a long name. Too long, in fact, so I’m going to call it by the more palatable acronym GITS-SAC-FAO for the rest of this article. Anyway, GITS-SAC-FAO has left paid Early Access and is in free-to-play open beta ahead of a full free-to-play launch this week.

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I’m loath to write another No Man’s Sky [official site] release date story because those discussions have led to or fed into some particularly damaging and extreme responses. But I’m also part of a community which is curious to play the finished version (and part of the professional community who need to know timings for reviews) and see what the game is like. As such, the ongoing confusion about release dates is of interest. At the moment it’s revolving around the “about” page on the NMS site which now states:

“No Man’s Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated galaxy, coming to PS4 on August 9th in North America and August 10th in Europe, and on PC worldwide on August 12th.”

[If you’re not interested in No Man’s Sky LOOK AWAY. Reading on will only make you cross.]

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Playing The Wolf Among Us with my wife was one of my favorite gaming experiences ever, so I’m pretty excited that Telltale has seen the potential and will be adding a new multiplayer mode with upcoming releases, starting with Batman, that will let participants vote during decisions to decide the outcome of the story.

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Something that happens every now and again is I try to play Jalopy [official site]. It’s the driving game where you’re tasked with keeping a dilapidated old car roadworthy as you go on trips across the former Eastern bloc.

I really like Jalopy, but I don’t think the game and I are a natural fit because terrible – or at least non-great – things seem to happen a lot each time I play.

Last time I ran out of momentum to go up a hill but an angry AI driver behind me meant I couldn’t go backwards. In the end I parked on top of that AI driver, abandoned my uncle in the passenger seat and walked off down the dual carriageway.

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I should get better at keeping an active eye on what’s going on with BitSummit. It’s a Japanese indie event which last year brought me Forget Me Not: My Organic Garden. This year I’ve been leafing through some round-ups and tinkering with the first few levels of a neat grid-based puzzler called Graph March [online demo].

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Every week, Brendan is thrown into the deadly arena of early access to fend for himself amid the crafting games and first-person murderthons. This time, he tries to survive The Culling.>

When the man with the pink mohawk walked into my tripwire and got his leg trapped, I knew I had him. This creep had been chasing me the whole way down-river, firing arrows at me and harrassing me every step of the way. He pursued me to the arena in the centre of the jungle, where I quickly set up a handful of traps at various entry points. He plodded in and – snap! – gotcha. I ran at him. This was it. Spear up, Brendan. Revenge!

Then I was smashed in the side of the head with a pickaxe. The man’s team mate was still alive.

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It’s hard not to compare Human: Fall Flat with Ubisoft’s Grow Home and Boneloaf’s Gang Beasts, because Human: Fall Flat [official site] tumbles in the exact same physics-powered footsteps. In Grow Home you control a little robot called BUD, unsteady on his feet, using physics to solve puzzles and climb a giant plant. In Gang Beasts you control little blobby creatures, unsteady on their feet, using physics to have multiplayer fights. In Human: Fall Flat you control a little blobby creature called Bob, unsteady on his feet, using physics to solve puzzles and progress through its rooms. However, rather importantly, HFF makes a strong effort to do something appropriately different with the same ideas. Here’s wot I think.

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