Sep 21, 2017

Discover and destroy a deep Metroid-style world in SteamWorld Dig 2

SteamWorld Dig 2

Do not hire me to dig a tunnel. If you put me in an actual mine equipped with an actual pickaxe, I'd collapse the entire thing in a matter of minutes. My first few hours with SteamWorld Dig 2 have proven that. I've dug straight up and dropped boulders on my head. I've dug straight down and plummeted to my death. I should've checked, but I was in a hurry. There was loot.

As you may have figured out, this is a game about digging tunnels. You play as Dorothy, a twin-tailed robot miner on a mission to find Rusty, the protagonist of the first SteamWorld Dig. Armed with an upgradeable pickaxe and an ever-expanding array of gadgets, you plunge deeper and deeper into the earth in search of Rusty's last known whereabouts—and anything shiny that isn't nailed down. It's Metroidvania at heart, but SteamWorld Dig 2 is as much about carving your own path as it is navigating an item-gated platforming adventure.

Tunnel vision

There's a hidden skill set to digging tunnels. You have to keep your eyes peeled for ore and enemies, yes, but you also have to dig cleanly. Your tunnels leading down are also your footholds going up, so if you blindly dig out everything in sight, you'll find yourself with unruly scaffolding that's tough to traverse.

After tearing up the first cavern I got my destructive metal clamps on, I started to think carefully about how my tunnels would turn and how I'd go up them. "I'll wall-jump up that section," I'd tell myself, feebly justifying digging straight down again, "and sprint-jump across that gap." It might sound tedious, but digging a single, snakelike tunnel that's navigable, hits all nearby treasure and looks nice on the minimap really is fun. It's every bit as cathartic as digging The Perfect Mineshaft in games like Minecraft and Terraria.

You'll also want a clear goal each time you head underground. Are you going to stop to explore caves containing bonus items, or just dig as deep as possible in order to reach the next fast travel point? Technically, you can mine for as long as you want, but it becomes incredibly hard to see once your lantern runs out of fuel. You're likely to overlook traps and loot digging in total darkness, so it's important to refuel regularly and budget trips by lantern light. And sure, you can always come right back, but it just feels good to earn as much experience and money as possible in one go, like bringing all the groceries from the car to the house in one trip.

Enemies sometimes drop fuel, but time spent killing enemies is time not spent digging deeper. Plus if you take too much damage from enemies, you might want to back out anyway, lest you die and lose some hard-earned money. A rhythm starts to emerge as you subconsciously assess risk and reward. Should I kill those enemies for experience and fuel, or tunnel around them and snatch the ore they're guarding? I've almost got enough money to upgrade my pickaxe, but would I rather top off my experience and level up? Little decisions like these keep exploration fresh.

That being said, the thing that really set the hook for me was SteamWorld Dig 2's abundant upgrades and collectibles. You're constantly showered in new stuff which often totally changes the way you approach exploration and combat. Buried machines routinely spit out new items and abilities—like a grenade launcher to break far-off blocks or a jackhammer to cut through tough blocks— which you can then upgrade with money earned by selling ore. And items can be further customized with mods, which are purchased with cogs found in optional caves and secret areas. There are also ancient statues to find and trade in for special mods, like one that destroys adjacent blocks whenever you harvest ore.

Everything feeds into everything else. You quickly wind up in this addictive, satisfying cycle of digging tunnels, finding loot, upgrading your gear and then digging more efficient and varied tunnels. You're incentivized to explore because upgrades are actually useful, and exploring gets you items that unlock new areas to explore. Nothing feels wasted. SteamWorld Dig 2 is gorgeous and tightly designed, and I'm looking forward to delving deeper.

Sep 21, 2017

LawBreakers update adds regenerating health, new map, and daily login rewards

PC Gamer

The LawBreakers 1.4 patch is going to bring some very big changes to the game, including increased health for all characters, out-of-combat health rengeneration, and a new "group spawning system" that will ensure players spawn more often with teammates instead of on their own.

"The main goal this patch is to increase average lifespans across the board," developer Boss Key Studios said, "as we've found that many of our players are spending significantly more time staring at a respawn screen than we'd like."

The studio aims to achieve five goals with this update:

Extend the combat dance and create more interesting decisions about when commit to a fight or retreat to safety.
Reduce the overall amount of insta-gibs.
Provide more incentive to use abilities and combos in order to finish a fight.
Health regen on all roles is about letting teams without a Battle Medic have a chance, who previously had too much of an impact on the outcome of a match. We were careful here not to adjust regen values too high, we want to preserve the viability of both Battle Medic and Harrier as excellent support roles.
Health regen on all roles actually keep players in combat LONGER, which we’ve seen has been a positive change during internal testing. It increases players amount of action and fun rather than having them retreat to a health station.

It's a major switch, especially for a game that's not much more than a month old, but also one that's probably necessary. LawBreakers came out of the gate very slowly, and its fortunes haven't improved since: Its peak concurrent player count for today is 205, which actually puts it behind the famously tanked Mirage: Arcane Warfare. Boss Key boss Cliff Bleszinski said last week that he remains committed to making the game a success, and so it's a good bet that more big changes are on the way.

The 1.4 update also adds a new Skirmish mode, a new map called "Namsan" to the game—a preview of that is below—and makes the usual array of changes to characters and gameplay. The full patch notes are available on Steam.

Sep 21, 2017

Divinity: Original Sin 2 review

Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

Playing Divinity: Original Sin 2 is uncannily like playing a tabletop RPG. The way that Larian’s sequel embraces player creativity immediately conjures up memories of days spent sitting around a table, asking the Dungeon Master if I can attempt the last stupid idea that floated into my head. And like a good DM, Original Sin 2 usually answers that question with “Yes, you can attempt it.”

My plans don’t always succeed, of course, but embarrassing failures, like the time I froze my entire party during a fight with some demons, can be just as entertaining. That freedom to experiment and to make mistakes is present right from the get-go, when you make your would-be hero. Or villain.

You can play everything from an undead Dwarf who loves nothing more than swinging his two-handed axe and throwing rocks to a sneaky Elven wizard who can talk to animals and get visions by chowing on corpses. There are pre-made classes and characters with rich backgrounds and personal quests, but it’s also possible to create something that’s entirely your own, constructing a persona and custom class out of a series of origin tags, attributes and skills.

I do recommend picking a pre-made origin character, though. You can still customise their appearance and skills, but it’s their quests that are important. Each is blessed with a long mission that runs parallel to the main quest, fleshing it out and making the stakes all the more personal. They also tend to get the best lines, especially the undead Eternal, Fane, whose biting sarcasm keeps me warm at night. The origin characters you don’t pick, however, become companions that you can recruit, letting you still experience their stories.

With so many different potential paths, it’s handy to have a party that covers all the bases. Conveniently, companions—you can bring three along with you—can be customised the moment you meet them, and any mistakes made can be undone by respeccing via a mirror you’ll get access to around 15 to 20 hours in. Given the broad range of skills and multitude of opportunities to mess up, it’s a major boon.

When there are limitations, they’re always hidden well, and Larian has done a phenomenal job at anticipating what players might want to do, even how they might try to break the game. Take the teleport skill. You can get your hands on this early on, and it essentially provides a shortcut through a lot of obstacles and quests. It almost feels like cheating, using it, but not only does Original Sin 2 support it, it offers up the idea in the first place.

As she gushed about her son, it dawned on me, I knew this guy... I'd killed him.

These neat tricks don’t mean the quests are simple. Larian loves its headscratchers, populating Rivellon with riddles, moral conundrums and ancient mysteries. They’re great, fat with unexpected turns and rewarding character moments, but keeping track of them is hard work. The journal quickly becomes impossible to parse, and directions from NPCs can be vague, but it’s another otherwise welcome feature that really complicates things: the connected nature of the world.

Many of the NPCs you’ll meet have relationships and allegiances that affect more than one quest, and seemingly unrelated events can collide, cutting adventures short. These ripples of consequence result in a world that feels alive, and even give NPCs agency, but they also inspire hesitation when decisiveness is required out of the fear that one or more of these choices will kill another quest. It’s daunting, but it’s also a fair price to pay for the weight it gives to decisions.

One of the first places I hit up in any new RPG village is the local watering hole, so when I arrived in Driftwood during the game’s third chapter, I immediately headed to the Black Bull. Its owner was an affable, chatty woman and proud mother. As she gushed about her son, it dawned on me, I knew this guy. He was a monster of a man I’d met hours ago. I’d killed him. And there was his mother, boasting about how good he is, how clever he is, and how much she loves him. I never told her, though I could have, and nothing came of the conversation, but it did matter, making the fight retroactively more memorable. And there are more of these moments than I could reasonably count.

Companions not only assist you while undertaking their own personal quests, they are ultimately your competition.

Original Sin 2’s main quest calls to mind Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, both being races to godhood. The world’s a mess, you see, with monstrous beasties rampaging wherever there’s source magic. And you just so happen you be a sourcerer with a divine calling, born with the ability to wield this powerful magic, talk to the dead and feast on souls. So of course you’ve been hauled off to jail by the corrupt Magisters—the game’s fanatical villains—ostensibly to stop you from ruining the world. What starts off as mission to escape prison spirals into an quest involving gods competing for survival and an evil poised to swallow up the world.

What could have been your typical, high-stakes fantasy quest is elevated by strong writing and voice acting that effortlessly jumps between whimsical and brutally grim. It can be surprisingly touching, too. As tempting as it can be to play the evil arsehole in a game that offers this much freedom, there are a lot of heartfelt moments that you’ll only see if you’re not an arse. That’s why I keep Lohse around. Out of my three companions, she’s the good cop, talking to people like a thoughtful human being instead of an evil undead necromancer.

Larian has also subverted the party dynamic quite a bit. Companions not only assist you while undertaking their own personal quests, they are ultimately your competition, each the chosen hero for their respective divine sponsor. This has an even greater impact in co-op, with each player capable of screwing over their three allies. While you’re shopping or fighting, they might be growing in power, waiting to betray you.

The tools are simple enough to use, but flexible enough so that you can create brief 20 minute campaigns or massive roleplaying romps that will take your group days to finish.

In my own co-op campaign, I’ve been mostly content with blowing everything up. Literally and figuratively. My pal wants to chat to an NPC? I throw a massive boulder at them. He wants to avoid what will clearly be a fatal fight with some teleporting crocodiles? I run up to them and set them on fire. Obviously you should never play with me, but I’m having a blast.

Beyond the co-op, there’s a Game Master mode, letting you use the game’s assets (or your own) to craft tabletop-style adventures. The tools are simple enough to use, but flexible enough so that you can create brief 20 minute campaigns or massive roleplaying romps that will take your group days to finish. Unfortunately I’m still yet to make something as impressive as Larian CEO Swen Vincke’s recreation of the start of UItima 7.

When you want to blow off some steam, there’s also the Arena mode, pitting players against each other in structured PvP. What might have been a simple diversion is instead a really great reason to keep playing once you’re finished the campaign. The deep and often chaotic tactical combat is a high point, and the opportunity to get into more scraps is very welcome.

Rivellon is a violent world, and while many of the turn-based fights can be avoided, you’re still going to spend a lot of time brawling. These battles consistently take place in tactically interesting places, filled with choke points, explosive barrels and multiple levels, which is especially impressive considering you can start a fight with any NPC. But like the rest of the game, it’s the vast number of choices you can make in each encounter that make them so compelling.

A classless system means that you can create a mind-boggling array of weird heroes, from warriors who can sprout wings, horns and spider legs, to preternaturally gifted archers who can command the weather. Some skills confer flight. Others make enemies bleed fire. Battlefields are really laboratories primed for madcap experiments, where magical and martial skills can be combined with the environment to create anything from a wall of fire that heals to demonic imps made out of pools of blood.

You can lose yourself in these burning, bloodsoaked arenas.

They’re tough, though. Fights are brutal and the broad range of skills makes it hard to create plans until after you’ve already lost once. They’re puzzles that you need to keep working at, attempting to come at them from different angles, learning enemy patterns, pinpointing the major threats. You can lose yourself in these burning, bloodsoaked arenas. It’s easily one of the best RPG combat systems, but there’s no denying that it requires more patience and practice than most.

That’s true of the game in general. Its scope can be intimidating, but not overwhelming, and there’s usually a way to fix a mistake. If you murder someone you need to talk to for a quest, for instance, there’s a good chance that looting their corpse will send you in the right direction. So it can be punishing, certainly, but never cruel.

And it’s that intimidating, ambitious scope, that dedication to player freedom, that makes Divinity: Original Sin 2 so impressive. There isn’t another RPG that lets you do so much. Larian promised a lot, and it has absolutely followed through, crafting a singular game that juggles a bounty of complex, immersive systems, and never drops them.

Sep 21, 2017

This PC footage of The Evil Within 2 features two fights against monsters made of limbs

The Evil Within 2

The Evil Within 2 is the sequel to a throwback survival horror game, which means it’s a refined take on a old genre. It feels like a game made for people that miss foggy towns and writhing heaps of low-poly limbs.

I miss those things too, but in trying to make something so familiar, jump scares aside, my time with The Evil Within 2 was without surprise. Then again, I was playing one of the more 'traditional' linear sections without having tried some of the open environments that "force you to make tough choices" Joe checked out back at Gamescom. My experience was all quite tense and surreal, but in the same ways all the games The Evil Within 2 draws from—Resident Evil and Silent Hill—have demonstrated many times before. See for yourself in the video above.

The Evil Without

This was my first time playing The Evil Within 2, and getting thrown into a mini-boss encounter right off the bat wasn’t the best way to familiarize myself with the combat. Thankfully, it plays like any third-person shooter, so I was able to scrape through the encounter without too much trouble. The key is to run and shoot, and with an enemy as fast as the saw-wielding corpse pile, that meant running a lot to shoot once, maybe twice before dashing away to reload, run, and fire again.

Without explanation (that might come with complete context) there were tripwires scattered around the environment, placed there by someone with more time and caution than Sebastian. It was possible to knock over an errant red barrell (because videogames) to create a shallow pool of flammable gas as well.

Lure the creature in, shoot it, and it sets the thing on fire for some extra damage. It wasn’t a particularly memorable or interesting fight, but I suspect it serves to introduce the player to these creatures before throwing them in as regular enemies in stealthy or open environment scenarios later on. It was a tense fight, but one I felt I’d experienced many times before.

What followed was a bizarre but quite rote sequence where I walked down warping hallways with foreboding messages scrawled on the wall in blood. "Appreciate the art" says one, and, as commanded, I couldn’t help but appreciate the silly art of blood scribbling. It’s back and here to stay, it seems. There was also a small interactive sequence where I found a rose and necklace, placed them on a manikin, and then arranged them to imitate a nearby photo. As simple as it was, I hope it’s the easy introduction of more complex, classic item placement puzzles we’ll encounter further into the game.

If cheesy, grotesque absurdity becomes The Evil Within 2’s charm, and the combat stays playful and tense even if it feels one-dimensional, then it will at least tickle the feet of classic videogame horror enthusiasts. Though I doubt it’ll make anyone looking for genuine scares tear at their scalp or call out in their sleep.

There aren’t many games where we battle sentient, moaning limb piles anymore, and for good reason. But hey, maybe the limb piles are all leading us somewhere new.

Sep 21, 2017

The best games like Stardew Valley on PC

Stardew Valley

In the time since Stardew Valley was originally released, I have played it into the ground. I've reached year 10 in my first save, pushed myself to complete the community center upgrades in a single year for my second save, and supported Jojamart just to give myself an excuse for a third save. Like many others, I was obsessed with Stardew Valley for bringing the casual farm and life sim genre to PC where I thought it was destined never to take root.

Over three years later, games blending farming with life and town simulation are flourishing. There's no shortage of games like Stardew Valley on PC now, with even more in development. Some focus more on building relationships and revitalizing a town while others are all about crafting. Whichever end of Stardew Valley you prefer, there's another game like it in our list to keep you playing for just one more in-game day. Now that there are plenty of options to choose from, some are inevitably better and worse than others. We've collected a list of the best Stardew-style games available so you can choose which homestead to put down roots in.

Doraemon Story of Seasons

Released: October 10, 2019 | Developer: Marvelous Inc., Brownies Inc.| Steam

Like Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons had never made its way to PC until it paired with the most unlikely of companions: a young manga protagonist from the '70s. Doraemon Story of Seasons takes the pastoral life adventure into a setting full of distinctly Japanese setting unlike Harvest Moon and most of its derivatives that go for a more "anywhere" rural vibe. This incarnation of Story of Seasons has Noby and his friends doing all the usual rural life activities like planting fields of crops, making friends, cooking, and attending festivals in the town of Natura. Its adorable watercolor visual style is a welcome change from past Story of Seasons games that had retained Harvest Moon's chibi-style 3D aesthetic.

Plenty of town sim fans will tell you that Story of Seasons is the true inheritor of the Harvest Moon series after the developers best known for the HM series lost the rights to continue using its name and subsequently rebranded. Doraemon Story of Seasons' routinely higher review scores than Light of Hope suggest that the talent has remained, even if the title hasn't.

My Time At Portia

Released: January 23, 2018 | Developer: Pathea Games | Steam

My Time At Portia is the rare 3D town sim of the bunch that ends up feeling like Stardew Valley by way of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. On the little island of Portia, your father leaves you the deed to his old workshop. Instead of just growing crops, you'll be collecting and refining resources from all over the island to fulfill contracts requested by the locals. Its crafting system is heavily nested, with most recipes requiring a suite of special machines to be built and placed in the workshop yard.

Eventually you're able to build garden plots as well, though you won't be running a full-size farm operation like your neighbor Sophie, the actual local farmer. Portia has quite a bit more combat than Stardew, with dungeons to go spelunking through for loot and crafting components. It does have plenty of interaction with all of Portia's residents as well. Over the course of seasons and years you'll make friends with and be able to eventually marry one of your many eligible townsfolk by going on dates and delivering them gifts.

Graveyard Keeper

Released: August 15, 2018 | Developer: Lazy Bear Games | Steam

In Graveyard Keeper you'll be planting corpses instead of crops. Your protagonist has become the new caretaker of the medieval graveyard by way of potential death and amnesia and will need to clean the place up to discover his origins. You'll spend time collecting resources and building new devices for your graveyard to refine materials and exploit the bodies dropped off in your yard. Graveyard Keeper is much more of a grindy crafting simulation than other Stardew-like games, but it shares that "one more day" lure. You'll just be coming back to chop a few more trees and refine more materials rather than harvest your pumpkins. Graceyard Keeper also recently added a new DLC called "Stranger Sins" that lets you build and manage your own tavern in case you needed some extra simulation with your crafting.

Fantasy Farming: Orange Season

Released: Early Access| Developer: Tropical Puppy | Steam, itch.io

Orange Season has been in Early Access for over two years but is already cut from the same cloth as Stardew Valley. You can raise crops and animals on your farm as well as tame wild animals and bring them home to raise. All the other usual suspects are here as well: Changing seasons, tool upgrades, building relationships with townsfolk, and farm customization. There are a few neat little changes to the recipe like being able to have an NPC friend follow you around as a companion.

Orange Season has been in Early Access for plenty long but does seem to be continually in flux, with a big rework to the map occurring at one point in development and improvements to other systems coming frequently as well. Currently, Orange Season is on update 0.5.1 according to its Steam news posts, with the awaited dating system coming in the next update.

Garden Paws

Released: December 18, 2018 | Developer: Bitten Toast Games| Steam

Garden Paws is the animal version of Stardew Valley where you'll take over your grandparents' farm while running a shop, gardening, and raising animals. For the multiplayer-inclined, you can invite up to three friends to your farm to play with you or, for Twitch streamers, integrate your chat so that viewers can have customers in your store named after them. There are currently 10 little creatures to play as while helping to rebuild the town with new shops that can unlock additional quests and areas to explore. It appears to be a combination of Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley with plenty of farming, building, and crafting.

Slime Rancher

Released: August 1, 2017 | Developer: Monomi Park| Steam

As is tradition, Slime Rancher begins with the protagonist Beatrix LeBeau being gifted a property to take over. This time, it's a slime ranch lightyears away from planet earth. As a newly indoctrinated slime rancher, Beatrix must build enclosures for her slimes and grow plenty of crops and chickadoos to keep them well-fed. Along the way you'll explore the Far Far Range, upgrade your spacey vacpack tool, and combine your slimes into new varieties. Slime Rancher doesn't have the same focus on relationships with NPCs that other Stardew-type games do, but it has plenty of exploration and customization.

World's Dawn

Released: January 25, 2016 | Developer: Wayward Prophet| Steam

Only a few PC games follow the Harvest Moon formula as closely as Stardew Valley, and most of them are of questionable quality. World’s Dawn is the exception. It is a bit rougher around the edges than Stardew, but all the same charm is there. You can befriend and marry villagers, grow and sell crops, fish, attend festivals, and bring prosperity back to a stagnating village.

World’s Dawn is more about coloring inside the lines than forging your own path. Your farming plots are predetermined and you won’t be constructing additional buildings on your property. That being said, there are plenty of clothing options, home décor, and cooking recipes. Despite the outdated 4:3 aspect ratio and initially confusing menus, World’s Dawn is full of cute characters that make putting up with a few petty complaints more than worth it. If you want to play the same game in a slightly different flavor, this is the best choice.

Kynseed

Released: Early Access | Developer: PixelCount Studios| Steam, GOG

Kynseed leans more heavily into town simulation and exploration than farming. It has a highly detailed and colorful pixel art style that makes it look like the more magical cousin to some other Stardew-type games. Kynseed focuses less on farming in favor of spreading itself evenly across all elements of a town simulation. You can run a shop, go exploring outside town, build relationships with NPCs, and eventually come home to plant crops on your land. Kynseed is the first game by a studio of former Fable developers and comes with the same quirky and eccentric humor of those old adventure RPGs.

Verdant Skies

Released: February 12, 2018 | Developer: Howling Moon Software| Steam

Instead of a small town in the country, Verdant Skies has you become the newest member of a small colony on the planet Viridis Primus. The colony is small to begin with but after helping build more homes you'll be joined by more residents each with their own expertise to help grow the colony and your operation.

As the new space farmer in town, you'll need to turn native space plants into an agricultural operation. You can even catch and tame wild animal species as well. Both can be turned into the strongest and most efficient specimens with Verdant Skies' genetic combiner machine.

Garden Story

Released: In development | Developer: Picogram | Steam

Garden Story hasn't been released yet, but it's one to keep an eye on for those who like cute and wholesome farming games. Concord the grape tackles all the usual tasks of the Stardew-style game. You'll bring life back to the island, do favors for your fruity friends, and cultivate your garden while investigating The Rot that's destroying the village. Garden Story is planned to release sometime in the spring of 2020.

Ooblets

Released: In development | Developer: Glumberland| Epic

Ooblets has been in development for several years and unfortunately a release date still doesn't appear to be on the horizon. Despite being far off yet, Ooblets is still widely anticipated after making an impression on potential players back in 2017 with its adorably awkward dance moves and Pokemon-like plant creatures. Ooblets will let you customize your character with pastel-colored fashion choices and decorate your house with furniture. You'll spend time exploring town and growing ooblets in your garden before taking them out to dance battle against other characters' ooblets creatures. Ooblets' dedication to wholesome awkwardness is even in the names of its creatures which are burdened with titles like "chickadingding," "dumbirb," and "shrumbo" among plenty others.

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