At its very best, two player co-op game A Way Out explores a counterintuitive truth: that conflict is a necessary step towards good teamwork. It s a prison break game about two men, Vincent and Leo, incarcerated in an American prison. Vincent is a cool-headed strategist who solves problems using his words rather than his fists, while Leo is a young hothead who would rather strike first and ask questions later.

The most remarkable thing about this second game from Josef Fares, writer/director of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, is how it encourages both participants to roleplay as those strong personalities. Vincent and Leo are set in stone; unlike in games such as Telltale’s The Walking Dead, you cannot affect their character through in-game choices. You and another player surrender to the narrative, while the game aims to involve you through action rather than intent. It s a game that sacrifices freedom for character work. Here’s wot I think.

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Minit is that most rare of joyful things: A really good idea, done really well.

In Minit you play a little bird-like pixel character who lives in a black and white pixel world, and is cursed with only ever living for a single minute. And yet despite this limitation, it presents a little RPG. HOW?! you ask, in your belligerent way. Hush, I shall tell you. (more…)

Got a mountain of resources stocked up, but nothing to do with them? Now you can just buy firepower direct as part of Fortnite‘s v3.4 content update. Vending machines have popped up across the Battle Royale map, ready to accept your scavenged savings in exchange for weaponry on demand, and offering a somewhat more static and predictable new facet to the otherwise chaotic shooter.

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The awards ceremony at this year s GDC was fun. At least, that s what John told me from his seat in the crowd, where he saw the winners mount a stage some would consider too colourful for this planet. The Independent Games Festival Awards and subsequent Game Developer s Choice Awards saw a range of trophy-grabbers, from indie students to adventure game veterans. Unfortunately for them, I was hiding backstage, skulking behind a black curtain and holding a voice recorder like a cudgel. I had one question to ask them all: If they had to give their award away, who would get it?

It s like re-gifting, except you worked really hard for the gift and now you have to hand it over three minutes after your acceptance speech. Life is pain.

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In their early access mission to fill Sunless Skies with strange new worlds, new life, and new civilisations, Failbetter Games today added their creepiest creation yet: a city named London. Located in the new region of Albion, this London place is ruled by an emperor from a sacred bloodline and loomed over by a vast clock tower reminding its downtrodden denizens that their time is running out. Outrageous stuff, how do Failbetter come up with it? The new region brings with it nine new ports including the hub city of London, new Spectacles, enemies, Discoveries with such exciting names as Squirmings and Well of the Wolf, equipment, and so on. Have a look: (more…)

It’s not news that Slay The Spire is great–we’ve written about that oh so very much–but you might have missed how great its ‘Daily Climb’ daily run mode has become. On the deck-building roguelikelike’s journey through early access, developers Mega Crit Games have kept adding daily modifiers that change the game in strange ways, and it’s become my favourite way to play. I’m not even in it for competing on the leaderboards, I just like these strange variants – especially after Friday’s patch added a Draft modifier that makes spire-climbers build their own starting deck. (more…)

The fascinating 1v1 sniper vs. spy game SpyParty will enter Steam Early Access on April 12th, creator Chris Hecker has announced, bringing it to a a wider audience after years of coveted betas and its own early access scheme. SpyParty players have developed devious tricks of deception and detection over these years, so I’ll be fascinated to see what happens as fumbling newbies arrive, myself included. I’m Maxwell Smart and everyone else is Agent 99. You’re Vasily Zaytsev and I’m one of those goons who can’t even hit the A Team van driving straight towards them. (more…)

Dell’s Alienware aesthetic may not be to everyone’s tastes, but there’s no denying that their gaming laptops are seriously beefy bits of kit – especially the dinky Alienware 13 I reviewed earlier in the year. The larger Alienware 15 and Alienware 17 laptops, however, are about to get even more powerful, as Dell’s just announced it’s bringing Intel’s souped up Core i9 Coffee Lake CPUs to both ranges.

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Rocket League is just a little bit more social, a little bit louder and a tad better moderated today. The much-hyped Patch v1.43 has officially rolled out for the surprise Esports mega-hit, adding automated tournament play, an option to actually listen to the game’s built-in soundtrack (fancy that) and some developer-level chat moderation features, allowing them to globally gag unpleasantly noisesome players.

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Jumping off buildings and stabbing Romans is all well and good, but wouldn’t it be nice to command a phalanx of turbo-charged hippos? While its official season pass may have ended recently with a nice chunky expansion, Assassin’s Creed Origins is still growing. Its next update is putting the power of the Animus control panel in your hands, allowing you to tweak and mutate the experience to your own whims, no matter how silly they may be.

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