The skeletons don’t care about the storms I’m lobbing around the place. They’re marching onward, through the maze of walls and gates I’ve constructed, and a little bit of rain isn’t going to deter them. I was hoping for skull-splitting bolts of lightning but instead I’ve just made everyone a bit damp.

Rise to Ruins is a village-building simulator that’s somewhere between the complexity of Dwarf Fortress and the relative simplicity of The Settlers or Banished. I’m currently preparing to watch my latest creation collapse.

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Researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (an actual real institution) have released a Civilization V mod exploring the hot new apocalypse everyone’s talking about: unchecked AI casually wiping out humanity in the name of efficiency. If you’ve already clicked through the universe as a single-minded AI in Frank Lantz’s ace Paperclips, you might fancy this mod. Trapping a brilliant mind in a metal box does also have its benefits, you know. (more…)

It s half past seven in the evening and I m scraping rust off a greenhouse. I hate scraping rust off greenhouses. It s noisy, it s boring and it takes up time that could be spent doing other tasks in Farmer s Dynasty. Activities like driving through your neighbours field with the thresher turned on, or dumping all the grain you ve collected onto the head of Steve, the local shopkeeper. Don t worry, Steve doesn t mind. Steve s not human. (more…)

BAM. A sound captures your headphones and holds you hostage. It’s the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. We’ve been lying in wait for the past three weeks, consolidating our strength and preparing to kidnap you by the ear canals. “Listen up, 2018!” we shout out from atop this metaphor. “We have a list of demands and we’re not releasing this poor listener until you’ve delivered! Or until the one hour playtime is up, whichever comes first!”

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Following yesterday’s Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance post, we have received a number of letters wishing to know more about the “rules of nature” that I–and so many others–shout about any time someone mentions the game. What are these rules? Must we all follow them? Seeing as 2018 is the year of Revengeance, it’s only sensible to brush up. Here are the RULES OF NATURE! (more…)

The Battle Royale genre brewed for a few years, shifting and gurgling trying to find a stable form until Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds burst out the barrel and engulfed the world in its murderous foam. Now everyone’s drunk on last-man-standing murder and–watch out!–here comes Paladins stumbling down the digital alley, announcing plans to mix its class-based shooter action with a new Battle Royale mode. It’s shamelessly named Paladins: Battlegrounds but might at least turn up something different, as the different classes (sorry, ‘heroes’ or ‘champions’ or whatever) and team compositions mean everyone should bring more variety than the usual Royale ’em up blank slates.

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

Furi is a game about killing weird and imaginative cyber-monstrosities in one-on-one battles. I had a nightmare about it last night.

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We’ve already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin’ and a-shakin’ in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding pre-release expectations and most head-messing-with. Vintage cartoon-themed reflex-tester Cuphead leads the charge with two gongs, but ol’ Plunkbat and The Witcher series also do rather well – as do a host of other games from 2017’s great and good.

Full winners and runners-up below, with links to our previous coverage of each game if you’re so-minded. Plus: I reveal which game I’d have gone for in each category. (more…)

The singleplayer and cooperative story campaign planned for Insurgency: Sandstorm, the sequel to 2014’s mod-turned-standalone Insurgency, might not actually happen. Developers New World Interactive announced last night that the campaign is “cancelled for release” so they can focus on the multiplayer that the series is known for, then the story “will be considered again at a later date.” Which sounds like we probably won’t get to play it. I’m sorry to hear that, as Insurgency’s serious multiplayer action didn’t click with me but I was interested in a road trip with two female Iraqi fighters and two foreign fellas. Though the fact that I didn’t dig Insurgency’s core multiplayer means I’m not really part of their audience so sure, I get it. (more…)

Even though we’re back there’s still a Christmas cracker to pull! 12 days and all. Oh, and of course, if you’re after more posts you might have missed, why not join our Supporter Program, and unlock dozens of new posts from the last year!

Meanwhile, you provide your own party hat, and we’ll provide the groaner of a gag.>

Q. Why did Heihachi lose his seat at the King of the Iron Fist Tournament?

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