Launched in November last year, Football Manager 2017 has since come under fire from a number of Steam players despite being one of the platform's most played games, and having secured good reviews elsewhere. Performance issues and the absence of Chinese localisation seem to form the majority of complaints—however if you fancy coming to your own conclusions know that Sports Interactive's enduring football management simulator is free to try on Steam this weekend. 

From now through Sunday, March 26 at 8pm GMT/12pm PST, the "full Football Manager experience" can be sampled giving players access to over 2,500 clubs from leagues all of the world. If you like what you see during that time, FM2017 is also subject to a 50 percent discount until Monday, March 27. Here's Paul Walker-Emig's review for further reading.

Football isn't everyone's cup of tea, though, thus if zombie hunting better aligns with your sport of choice, you may be pleased to know Tripwire's Killing Floor 2 is also free to try on Steam this very weekend. Andy mentioned this as a footnote while reporting on the Zed-slasher's newly announced free-of-charge Descent Content Pack—which brings with it new maps and guns—however I felt it merited its own post because everyone loves something for free, right? 

Similar to the above, the game which Tyler described as "repetitive but fun, a hellish challenge or a relaxing, spectacular gore bath depending on how you approach it" is free from now through Sunday 26, and is also going for half price till Monday 27.

As far as popular esports go, few mirror traditional sports as closely as Rocket League. So it's unsurprising that betting companies want a piece of the action, and Australia-based esports gambling outfit Unikrn has just added the game to its gambling line-up, which also includes Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends among others.

Although Unikrn has stated that Australia's gambling regulators have approved betting on the game (no surprise there – Australia's approach to gambling is notoriously freewheeling) the creators of Rocket League don't approve. A spokesperson said as much in a statement provided to Gamespot.

"Psyonix is not affilated with Unikrn, nor do we support or endorse online betting for our game," publishing VP Jeremy Dunham said. 

This prompted Unikrn's CEO Rahul Sood to respond. "We are not in any way associated with the publishers of Rocket League," he said. "However, we love the game, and like other titles on our sportsbook, we create odds and content on the pro matches and their top-tier tournaments."

Gambling on esports is technically legal in Australia under the Interactive Gambling Act, though that act was introduced in 2001 and probably didn't anticipate the rise of the phenomenon. South Australia was the first state to outright ban it last year, with independent senator Nick Xenophon proposing other states and territories in the country to follow suite.

It's hard to criticise a difficult game, because the assumption usually made is that you're only frustrated because you're bad at it. And to be clear: I am bad at Desync. It's an abstract, neon FPS about creative killing—with a focus on movement and positioning. I've died loads, and haven't progressed very far. This isn't, however, why I'm not smitten with Desync. Or, at least, it's only part of the reason.

Levels in Desync are a series of arenas in which you fight waves of polygonal enemies. You earn points for killing in interesting ways—by avoiding damage and counterattacking, or doing a 180 spin before firing off the killing blow. Such style is only possible when you're alive, and in Desync you're quickly overrun. Survival, then, requires dashing—a short burst of rapid movement that you can use to dodge projectiles and melee strikes, or to put distance between you and the things trying to kill you.

It's the basis for a solid twitch shooter, but it doesn't feel good. There's no fanfare or feedback, just the act of moving a set distance. It isn't just the dash. For everything that Desync does competently, it's undersold by its lifelessness. Even the aesthetic feels drab. This is the murkiest Tron-like neon playspace I've ever inhabited.

Good feedback is essential, but too many of Desync's systems are revealed through abstraction or UI elements. You gain ammo from enemy drops that are drawn towards you as you get near them. But the visual markers for receiving a pickup are lost amid the general business of Desync's presentation. It's easy to lose track of these resources, and even the ammo counter is abstracted to the point of being overly difficult to read. Ammo management and weapon switching are crucial systems, but doing it effectively here requires a level of mental processing that distracts from the on-screen action.

The visual style also means it's possible to lose track of your location within each arena. I died a number of times because I dashed too close to the traps placed around each space. Arguably this is my own stupid fault, but also something that never happened in Bulletstorm—a more vibrant, detailed FPS with a similar focus on trickshots and style. While Desync has a slightly different goal, it's nonetheless a useful comparison in regards to the difference that great audio and visual effects can make to the feel of a shooter with an emphasis on style and skill.

Desync is deliberately positioning itself as a hardcore FPS about mastery of its systems and spaces. In this, it arguably succeeds. Desync is difficult, and its highest ratings require a level of prowess that could well be beyond me. But its successes are all on a theoretical level. It is, technically, a challenging shooter with some clever upgrade systems that allow for a loadout variety that could make for some interesting leaderboard challenges. And yet, there's no heart or soul. By not accentuating the speed, thrill and feedback of a great twitch shooter, Desync feels sterile.

The Michael Fassbender-starring Assassin's Creed film that came out last year was, in our estimation, "a joyless retread of old ideas." Not terrible, exactly; just "a bargain bin collection of lights and noise and punching" that ultimately  "does nothing to change or elevate the series whatsoever." And we weren't the only ones to say so: It currently holds a paltry 36/100 aggregate ranking on Metacritic. So Ubisoft, naturally, is going ahead with a television series. 

There's been no official announcement and it may not even be in production yet, but Aymar Azaizia, the head of content for Assassin's Creed, effectively confirmed the "TV Show project" yesterday in a Reddit AMA. "It's like the movie guys, we will take our time, to get sure we deliver something we can be proud of, but if you wander [sic] if it's on our plan... YES," he wrote. 

Given how the movie worked out, I'm not sure it's really the sort of foundational touchstone that Azaizia sees it as. But it's possible that the wheels were turning on this plan before film critics dropped the hammer: Reuters reported last year that Ubisoft was in talks with Netflix about a series, although there was no indication at the time (nor is there now) that it would be based on Assassin's Creed. 

It does, however, fit with Ubisoft's multi-media model: The publisher's love for live-action recently made itself known in shape of the Ghost Recon Wildlands: War Within the Cartel short released in February on Amazon Video, and it's also making a documentary about the real-life Bolivian drug trade that serves as Wildlands' backdrop. The Division is being made into a film, too. Despite seemingly being on life support itself. 

Resident Evil 7 could have followed in the footsteps of its predecessor, a third-person shooter with very little of the series' horror DNA intact. Indeed, that's what the studio was aiming for back in 2013, before executive producer Jun Takeuchi joined the team, shifting its gears away from action and back towards survival.

That's just one of the tidbits in the first episode of this Resident Evil 7 documentary series, which promises to trace the game's development from start to finish. Also of interest, is that the game had a stealth mechanic centred around holding your breath, which was designed to make passing enemies a bit easier. Personally, I kinda wish they'd kept that.

The full first episode is embedded below. The instalment was a true return-to-form for the series, with our reviewer Andy Kelly describing it as a "tense and refined survival horror with a brilliantly bleak, grimy atmosphere".

Lifeless Planet, a game about exploring a distant alien world that's dotted with some oddly familiar features, did not thrill me as much as I hoped I would. But I still very much like the idea of Lifeless Planet: A weird, pulpy story styled after the softcover sci-fi classics of the 1950s. And so I was happy to receive today's announcement of a follow-up called Lifeless Moon, which is now in the works at developer Stage 2 Interactive. 

The new game will be set in the early 1970s, many years before the events of Lifeless Planet, and the teaser hints at a similar sort of experience: Two astronauts on a mission to the moon discover that things are not what they expected on arrival. But studio founder David Board said that while the two games are "rooted in the same universe," Lifeless Moon is not a direct prequel.   

"The Lifeless Moon story is actually based on an early alternate concept that I had for Lifeless Planet. While the story for that game went in another direction, I kept returning to this idea as a possible future story. So though it is not directly tied to the Lifeless Planet story, Lifeless Moon is rooted in the same universe," Board explained. "However, the two stories are loosely connected, so in that sense, Lifeless Moon is a kind of a spiritual successor to Lifeless Planet. Fans of the first game will recognize and hopefully enjoy certain elements of the story." 

Lifeless Moon will have a "deeper focus on puzzles" than its predecessor, and Board said the gameplay will "compliment the mysterious and psychological themes of the story." Platforms haven't been nailed down yet, but VR support is planned, and the studio—which since the launch of Lifeless Planet has "exploded" from a one-man operation to a team of three—hopes to have a playable beta out sometime this year. 

A Kickstarter is coming as well, although not for awhile yet. For now, you can find out more (and sign up for the mailing list, if you're so inclined) at lifelessmoon.com, and check out a few screens below.   

Bohemia Interactive's "Scanning the Horizon 2017" video offers a look at the studio's plans for the realistic military FPS Arma 3, including the upcoming Jets DLC, the Malden DLC that was announced last year, another one for Tanks, and something called Orange—named not for the infamous defoliant, but because it's being developed at Bohemia's new studio in Amsterdam.   

Orange is a "small development" that's "somewhere between Arma 3 Karts and Arma 3 Helicopters in size," Creative Director Jay Crowe said in the video. It will be properly announced later this year, but Crowe said it "explores a unique aspect of today's battlefield, a theme not often covered by other games," and will include "a couple of new vehicles, character clothing and gear, decorative objects, a mini-campaign, and more besides." 

The Jets DLC, being developed in partnership with Bravo Zero One Studios, will include three air superiority fighters, a drone, and some bonus content that Bohemia is keeping quiet about for now. It will support the new "extended damage model" and dynamic vehicle loadouts, but the "standout new feature," Crowe said, is the targeting enhancement, which is "built around adding greater depth to the simulation of radar and detection in Arma 3."   

Active radars give pilots the ability to detect multiple targets beyond the visual range, for instance, but the signals they send out also expose their position. Infrared sensors are passive but have a much more limited range, and are more susceptible to countermeasures. "Naturally, there's a lot more depth to this feature, and we plan to publish an op-rep soon to really dig into the details," Crowe said. "Overall, we see Jets DLC as really meaningful new gameplay [with] new choices that help balance the lethality of our advanced weapon systems in an authentic way." 

Jets will be premium DLC, but Malden, a "reimagining" of the Operation Flashpoint map of the same name, will be free for all plyaers. It will also include a new co-op multiplayer mode called Combat Patrol, which puts players together in infantry teams and confronts them with "heavily randomized" gameplay in selectable locales. More distantly, the Tanks DLC will add an "asymmetric package of armored vehicles" that will bring "new and improved gameplay to tracked and armored warfare." 

Arma 3 Jets is expected to be ready for release in May, and is available for preorder now at store.bistudio.com. Arma 3 Malden will be out on June 22, "Orange" is expected in the third quarter of 2017, Tac-Ops in the fourth quarter, and Tanks in the opening months of 2018.   

And now, because I like jets, more jets.

Yesterday, 2K announced that Persia, led by Cyrus the Great, would be one of two new civilizations added to Civilization 6 in upcoming DLC. Today, it unveiled Cyrus' partner in that expansion, and he's pretty great too. His name is Alexander, son of Philip, and he's the ruler of Macedon. 

Macedon's unique Hypaspist units are elite, shield-bearing soldiers who carry a spear and short sword into battle, while the Hetairoi—better known as the Companions—are a fast, heavy cavalry unit that's "widely regarded as the world's first shock troops." For a unique building, Macedon gets the Basilikoi Paides, where noble sons and young boys taken as political hostages are raised to "serve, honor and protect the king, and to serve Macedon’s interests above all else," and the unique "Hellenistic Fusion" ability grants it a bonus every time a city is conquered.   

As for Big Al himself, he's all about the fight. His ability, To the World's End, grants reduced war weariness, so that Macedon can stay at war with its neighbors for longer stretches without suffering unduly for it.   

Ironically, in the same sense of the term as Tomyris' appearance in the Persia teaser, Alexander was ultimately unable to reach the world's end: His army refused to follow him into India, and he was forced to turn back at the Beas River. He died three years later, in Babylon, at the age of 32. 

Macedon and Persia will be available together in an upcoming Civilization and Scenario Pack, scheduled to come out later this spring.   

When Magic: The Gathering first made collectible card games a thing in the mid-90s, a flood of them followed. For a while I was into one called On The Edge, which swapped the format from wizards summoning monsters to conspiracies controlling citizens—the cards in the front ranks were layers of pawns and dupes who had to be exposed before the real masterminds in the back ranks could be dealt with. Each card game tweaked the Magic formula in their own way.

Digital card games have followed the same trend, even down to keeping similar mechanics for attacking and defending while innovating in the space between players. The Elder Scrolls: Legends has its lanes, Duelyst has its grid, and Faeria—well, Faeria takes some explaining.

The dueling wizards of Magic: The Gathering played land cards, then tapped them for the mana points they needed to cast spells. Faeria takes this idea further. Between you and your opponent—gods rather than mere wizards—is an ocean divided into a hex grid. On your turn in addition to playing cards you can play land, pulling prairies and mountains out of the sea. It's like laying out the board for a game of Settlers of Catan as you go.

The land's not just there for visual flourish. You can only summon creatures and structures on your own land, and while neutral cards can be played on any habitat, colored cards need to be matched—red on mountains, yellow on desert, green on forest, and blue on lakes. Controlling land near the wells at the board's corners gives bonus mana points called 'faeria'—and at the far ends of the board are orbs that house the gods, which they splash down into like comets at the start of each match. The gods are you and your opponent, and to knock off the traditional 20 hit points your rival god has, you march across the land you've made and get right up in their oversized face.

What this shifting board brings to Faeria is positioning. Some card games resemble JRPGs where heroes line up on opposite sides of the screen and then wail away at each other. Having to move across the board brings Faeria closer to XCOM. Where each character stands is as important as what special ability they can unleash. It's possible to flank and rush and block, and if the space isn't there to let you do that then you create it for later.

The grid in Duelyst has a similar effect, but it's the same every time, an eternally blank canvas for units to march across. The board Faeria plays out on changes every match. Maybe you build a bridge straight up the middle to rush across, making use of the fact that the neutral lands called prairies are available two-for-one to get there faster—though neutral land means you'll be stuck playing neutral cards like Yaks (Faeria is way into its cute yaks) until you bring some of the slower-to-construct mountains, deserts, or lakes into play. Maybe you spread out to control the wells on your side and turtle until you draw your best cards, or maybe you try to push up and take a well your opponent wanted. 

Broadly speaking, Yellow decks are great at rushing, thanks to plenty of desert-themed cards with abilities like Fly and Charge. Green decks tend to be defensive, with foresty cards like Seedling slowly growing stronger every turn. Nautically themed Blue decks let you leap off the land and swim right up to wells with Aquatic cards, although your fish can then be blocked in with well-placed land if you don't get lakes on the board. Red decks are aggressive, all lava and demon cards, typically better in a fight than Yellow but slower at getting into position.

There's other stuff unique to Faeria beyond the board. Faeria points are saved from turn to turn, meaning you're not pushed to spend it instantly—saving is a valid strategy. If you don't want to lay down land on a turn you can get an extra point or draw another card instead, making card-draw abilities less powerful. Deckbuilding is easier thanks to ready-made “formulas” unlocked as you level up, which can then be edited for specific effect or to work in that rare card you just found in a chest.

Like every free-to-play card game that isn't Hearthstone, Faeria feels generous in its rewards, like it's showering you with chests to keep you from leaving.

Then there's the art style, a warm and painterly look that brings to mind the illustrations from collections of fairytales or the kind of book where tweens get transported to a land ruled by a dark lord. It's refreshingly soft compared to the pixels of Duelyst, or Hearthstone's parade of cartoonishly exaggerated characters. I don't care about the fluff that explains why gods are fighting in Faeria, but I do like to look at its pictures of glowing wisps in swamps and goofy yaks in fields.

What held me back from enjoying Faeria while it was in early access was how hard it was to find a game. Compared to Duelyst, matchmaking took much longer and the community felt fractured and thin. Now that it's been fully released player numbers have grown, and the recently launched Hub for its community has probably helped, with guides and livestreams and an online deckbuilder that lets players share and comment on decks.

It'd be nice if Faeria managed to find its niche among all the other digital card games, although if the boom and bust tabletop collectible card games went through in the 90s is any indication, it'll need plenty of luck.

Although late to the party, Grand Theft Auto 5 launched on PC with the game's Rockstar Editor in tow. A thriving performance culture has since flourished, whereby hobbyist entertainers have crafted television shows, short films and documentaries that have been watched by hundreds, thousands and even millions of viewers in turn. 

One group which has grown significantly in light of the Rockstar Editor is the GTA stunt scene, which, while stretching back as far as 2001's GTA 3, has come into its own over the course of the fifth main series entry's tenure. I've written about my enthusiasm for the GTA 5 stunt scene on a couple of occasions in the past, however the latest Evolve Stunting montage has bowled me over. 

Edited in three parts by team stunters Teeqy, Rzed and Penguin respectively, the following video includes death-defying BMX grinds, unlikely fighter jet and sports car mid-air combos, and a fair wad of jaw-dropping motorbike tricks—all of which toy with the game's impossible free falling physics.

I mean, how stunter XCudzy manages just about any of that around the 2.23 mark is completely beyond me. Just, wow.  

Big thanks to prolific stunter Ash Skyqueen for alerting me to this one.