We dispatched Brendan back into sci-fi disaster simulator RimWorld [official site], where he quickly established a failing hotel in the middle of a scorching desert. Last week, the hotel staff were in the grip of drugs and cancer. In part two of this three-part diary, a tragedy brings the hotel to its knees.>

Wide-eyes Pete was on another one of his binges. He d gotten his hands on some Wake-up thanks to a passing group of merchants and after spending the previous week in withdrawl he was now sucking it down like sugar. In terms of work rate, this is bad because you can t control RimWorld s cartoon men and women when they enter a state like this – they just refuse to do their jobs. But in terms of happiness, I would rather Pete get high every day and stay chipper than descend into a spiral of withdrawl. That s why I bought him the drugs. He s better like this.

… [visit site to read more]

Dark Souls III [official site] will be the end of Dark Souls, as far as director Hidetaka Miyazaki is concerned, but we’ve still got two DLC story add-ons to come before it wraps up. The first of these will be Ashes of Ariandel, which is due on October 25th, and… do you want to know more about it or enjoy a surprise? If you fancy going in fresh, probably don’t watch the new trailer released today. Its four minutes of gameplay show not much, really, until they show exciting spoiler-ish things that honestly I’d rather have seen fresh while playing. Be warned. For the bold, onwards:

… [visit site to read more]

Duelyst is Hearthstone s child. You can see the shared DNA everywhere, from the menu layout and free to play business model to specific minion abilities and hero powers. Almost everything Hearthstone does, however, Duelyst does better. I ve spent years grinding away at the Hearthstone mill, but now I ll never go back.

… [visit site to read more]

Have a whale of a time with…no. These creative kills are whale-y good. Oh no no no.

I understand the appeal of playing a game like Dishonored 2 [official site] without killing a single person, I really do, but Arkane are sorely tempting my no harm, nn foul-festering-bloodfly-feeding-frenzy policy. A new video shows both Emily and Corvo using their supernatural skills to create deftly calculated carnage. There are doppelgangers, body-swaps, blink-kicks that send people flying through the air like footballs, and combinations of time manipulation, razor traps and vertical violence that make a stab to the back seem so simple as to be uncouth.

… [visit site to read more]

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

I couldn’t afford many games as a teenager, so like many other people I turned to the only other available legal avenue: cover discs. The demos they offered were often the only way I ever played the biggest games – games about which I still have strong memories and thick opinions years later, despite only experiencing a sliver – as well as the method by which I procured patches in an age when dial-up internet was slow and expensive.

… [visit site to read more]

Seraph [official site] is described as an acrobatic shooter “without aiming”, which means you can jump, double-jump, wall-jump and otherwise focus on movement while pressing the shoot button causes your bullets to always hit one of the enemies skittering nearby. This is good, because I am bad at aiming in games even while standing perfectly still. There are other neat ideas in the game I like as well, though – including dynamic difficulty. It’s just left early access and is out now.

… [visit site to read more]

The BBC have unveiled a concept for a live television game show based upon a multiplayer video game, smooshing together bits of The Crystal Maze> with livestreaming and a top-down shooter. It sees contestants playing a game at home while a live-action presenter in the studio is zapped into the game world to be mean to them. This here ‘Multiplayer Broadcasting’ is not a show the BBC are actually making, to be clear, rather an idea Auntie’s R&D folks have been tinkering with. They’re interested in the future of audience interaction, see. Here, have a look:

… [visit site to read more]

Ivern, The Green Father is the latest champion to be announced for League of Legends [official site]. He piqued my curiosity partly because new LoL champion, but also because I’m always interested to see how the nature-themed characters turn out in MOBAs. Ivern sounded kind of treant-ish and treants are one of those MOBA staples where all the games kind of have their own version – Treant Protector in Dota, Sylvanus (well, Grover, the treant Sylvanus rides) in Smite, Maokai in League, so what was Ivern doing that was different?

… [visit site to read more]

When they first appeared in the skies, you knew what to do. While your family stood in the streets watching the flocks of winged toasters, you ran. When the ground shook to a latin beat, you dug your nails into your palms fighting urges to raise your right arm, your left, flip right hand flip left, to shoulder to shoulder, to head to head, to hip to… Days pass, somehow. You’ve dodged the shambling shell suits, so far, and are almost- there! There it is, the bunker! Just as the evacuation notice said! You run in, slam the door, turn the wheel, and collapse, gasping. After your eyes adjust to the darkness, you see cameras? Actors you half-recognise? No. Oh no. This bunker is the filiming location for The Bunker [official site]. You’re in an FMV game. The Nineties have you now.

… [visit site to read more]

When I saw The Hit [official site] this morning, it took me a while to realise I’d read about the game before. That’s partly because it’s been a while since we heard anything about the game – two years – and partly because I have dreams that look a lot like The Hit. Dropped into a procedurally generated city, you have a target to kill, and should try to do so causing the minimum of commotion so as not to attract unwanted attention from the police and other players (solo play will be available too). It looks lovely, playing with social stealth and crowd behaviour in a way that tickles my fancy.

… [visit site to read more]