The main voice cast and composer of LucasArts’ Grim Fandango reunited last night during E3 for a live performance of scenes and songs from the splendid adventure game. The game turns 20 this year, and after all this time it’s just lovely to see them having a lark together, reading through scenes, gabbing about the game, and jamming (and singing!) those top tunes. Watch the hour-long performance, from Geoff Keighley’s E3 show, below. (more…)

The exhibition rumbles on, and so we re back with three free for E3 to suggest some games that you can play while waiting for release dates that seem oh so far away. And, as a bonus, these are all available at no cost whatsoever!

Instead of Forza Horizon 4, play…> (more…)

Mod support will indeed be coming to multiplayer survival sandbox Fallout 76, Bethesda have said, though not in time for its November launch. Mods are a standard feature for Bethesda’s RPGs, of course, filling in all the holes Bethesda leave and adding so many wonderful new things, but the always-online nature of 76 left that in question. Not to mention that some spectators have been concerned that the Creation Club DLC microtransaction store popping up in Bethesda’s recent games might shove plain ol’ mods out. But nah, Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard has said, “We love mods, and so we are 100% committed to doing that in 76 as well.” (more…)

For a long time while watching this Insurgency: Sandstorm trailer, I thought its great innovation was to do with context dependent AI barks that swear at guns a lot. Then I thought I must be listening to actors pretending to be players in that cringingly E3 demo sorta way. Then I realised that devs New World Interactive were attempting to sidestep that by paying actors to pretend they were actual combatants, and creating a strange hybrid of the two. I’ve been listening to people pretending to be people that people in the future might pretend to be, but without the silly pretence.

Game marketing is weird, but Sandstorm itself is the opposite: it’s an upcoming team based shooter that revolves around tactics, realism and impressive sound design. The original Insurgency passed me by, probably because it looked just as generic as this one. Dear old Adam got his hands on Sandstorm earlier this year though and called it a “goddamn work of art”, so my shoulders have stopped shrugging and started quivering with excitement. (more…)

Yup, the neon future of Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person RPG shooter. You can create your own character, drive cars through the streets, shoot gangster s legs off in slow motion, hack their guns, and shag your fellow cyberpunks, among other deeds. All this is based on the 50-minute demo shown to press at E3 yesterday, a demo of asymmetrical haircuts, exposed buttocks, golden prosthetics and plentiful drugs. A demo of street life and futureslang. It was impressive stuff, and it left my brain feeling very fizzy. I ll run through it below in as much detail as possible.

(more…)

The Steam client will stop supporting Windows XP and Vista next year, Valve have announced, meaning it “will no longer run” on those ancient operating systems. Some of Steam’s newer features won’t work on them, Valve explain, so they’re cutting ’em loose. If you want to keep on Steaming past January 1st, 2019, you’ll need to upgrade to a newer version of Windows (or switch to Linux?). Public numbers show only a fraction of one percent of Steam users still using either, though this will suck for them. Valve’s move is not surprising; Microsoft have long since stopped supporting either, and Blizzard already cut them off from their newer games too. (more…)

Bennett Foddy, the fiendish fella behind QWOP and Getting Over It, has shared his own variant of iconic game Pong. It’s named FLOP, and you can probably guess what makes it different. Foddy actually made FLOP years ago, as a secret game hidden in the ace local multiplayer collection Sportsfriends, but now he’s released a standalone version so it’s simpler to play (with events in mind, really, but we benefit too). If you like a bit of jostling on a couch, it might give you some giggles. (more…)

Skateboarding games just haven’t been in vogue these past few years. Ask around, and you’ll find near unanimous agreement that the genre peaked with Skate 3 back on the Xbox 360 & PS3, and has struggled to find its footing ever since. Cre -ture Studios’ Session, shown during Microsoft’s big E3 presentation, looks like a return to form. Unlike the EA-backed Skate series though, Session comes from humbler origins, and was kickstarted just last November to the tune of CA$162,716.

(more…)

The PC debut of Bandai Namco’s Soulcalibur fighting game series will come with Soulcalibur VI on October 19th, they announced today. It’s a stabby fighting game, arming characters with melee weapons rather than sending them in barefisted, and one of the stabbers is quite at home on PC even if the series isn’t. Homegrown hero Geralt Of Rivia is a playable guest character, armed with his sword and signs. Hey, if the makers of The Witcher are busy with Cyberpunk 2077, I’ll take my pirouettes where I can get them. (more…)

For all its gore-drenched mayhem, I’m starting to think that Tripwire’s co-op FPS Killing Floor 2 might not be the most serious of games. Maybe it’s the ridiculous steampunk hats and vengeful zombie clowns that gave it away? Either way, the game just launched its big summer event, and it’s bringing a lot of chunky new (and entirely free) content to the game, including a steampunk airship map which plays host to an all-new game mode. Oh, and Claudia Black voices a playable character now. Y’know – her from Firefly.

(more…)