***** The RPS team now are in their winter hibernation state and will return on 4th January. In the meantime we didn’t want you to think we’d forgotten about you or the supporter program so we have hand-crafted a selection of the Bestest Best RPS Cracker Jokes. It’s also our way of giving you the “reveal” moment we no longer have in the advent calendar. We’ve made these posts open to all. Whether you celebrate or not we hope they raise a smile. Love, RPS xxx *****>

Q: Why did the Overwatch team see snow in spring?

… [visit site to read more]

Sundays are for… Christmas. It’s Christmas day. I guess that doesn’t mean we can’t link to just a few articles about videogames from across the week.

Simo Parko is at the Guardian this past week with a long feature about FIFA and how it changed football.

… [visit site to read more]

Here we are at last. What was the best game of 2016? What was the best hell of 2016? It’s the same game. It’s behind the final door of the RPS Advent Calendar, which lists our favourite games from across the year…

It’s Devil Daggers!

… [visit site to read more]

***** The RPS team now are in their winter hibernation state and will return on 4th January. In the meantime we didn’t want you to think we’d forgotten about you or the supporter program so we have hand-crafted a selection of the Bestest Best RPS Cracker Jokes. It’s also our way of giving you the “reveal” moment we no longer have in the advent calendar. We’ve made these posts open to all. Whether you celebrate or not we hope they raise a smile. Love, RPS xxx *****>

Q: What’s Christmas like every year at Ken Levine’s house?

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Ho ho hooooo that’s us done for another year. As you’ll have seen, we’re turning on the automated broadcasting system until January 4th in the year THE FUTURE. Do enjoy what we’ve got lined up – except for the Horacemas cracker jokes, please don’t encourage them – but do also tell us what you’re playing over the holiday. … [visit site to read more]

So long, farewell. Auf Wiedersehen, adieu. Adieu, adieu, to you and you and… No, not you.

RPS is entering its great winter slumber, in which we nuzzle under the furry folds of Horace for four days and then awake, jaws slack and ready for the great slaughter. The slaughter then continues till we return in the new year, bellies full and ready for another 12 months of videogames. Fear not – there will be things to read while we sleep and feast.

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This is The Mechanic. Taking a dive into Dishonored 2 [official site] with Harvey Smith, it marks the first anniversary of the column. Holy heck! I hope you ve been enjoying it. I want to thank everyone who s read The Mechanic, and all the amazing designers it has given me the opportunity to speak to. Here s to many more next year.

In the city of Karnaca is a district that lies under mounds of encroaching dust. Home to the labourers of the silver mines, Batista has been worked into exhaustion. Its people are spent and the mines so overexploited that dust from them has been billowing out and falling over the streets and squares, the heavy wind whipping it up into storms and engulfing entire buildings.

Dust District is one of Dishonored 2 s largest levels, a dense network of byways, apartments and compounds peopled by downtrodden miners and two warring factions. But you don t need to play any of it. In fact, the entire level is designed around an idea that speaks to Dishonored s deepest design principles. Because the Dust District is all about:

THE MECHANIC: Skipping stuff

(Light-ish spoilers for both the Dust District and subsequent level naturally follow.)> … [visit site to read more]

From the forum threads full of arguments to the constant tweaking and occasional overhauls via patches balance has long been one of the pillars of strategy games. It means fairness, a level playing field, and in competition it means that victory comes purely from player skill. But balance, and the quest to reach it, can easily become the enemy of surprise and of the joy that comes from succeeding against the odds.

Balance s lofty position implies that nobody wants to be the underdog, that conquest is only satisfying if you have the exact same or at least equally effective advantages as your opponents. Sure, when actual money and trophies are involved, this sort of balance is necessary, but when you re playing for fun? When you re playing on your own? Give me the imbalanced every time.

… [visit site to read more]

If DOOM was the year’s second best hell then what was its best first-person shooter? Day 23 of The RPS Advent Calendar, which highlights our favourite games of the year, brings…

Titanfall 2!

… [visit site to read more]

I keep lamenting that there are so few games about jumping, as most platformers are secretly roguelikes or crafting games or RPGs or. Hopiko [official site] meanwhile is about only> jumping, to the extent that it doesn’t include other genre staples like walking. Instead you move simply by using the analogue stick to aim in a direction and then releasing the stick again to set yourself in motion.

… [visit site to read more]