I wracked my brain over the past few weeks, trying to think of games I played in 2018. This seems to happen every year around GOTY time much like when someone asks you what your favourite movie is, and you forget whether you ve actually ever seen a movie. Did Did I play any video games? Did any games even come out? Surely there must have been at least one.

In the precious little free time I scraped together during term (like coins from sofa cushions to get a snack from the office vending machine), I managed to discover (or re-discover) a handful of games this year. They re a bit covered in lint, but I promise they re still good.

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On a bus recently, amidst the sea of glum, blue-lit faces of dispossessed commuters and shoppers searching for hope in their black mirrors, I glimpsed a familiar sight. A flat green backdrop, overlaid with stacks of white rectangles. It’s as recognisable to me as any member of my family: Solitaire. For those of us of a certain age, it was our gateway drug to PC gaming. The first game we ever played on the first computers we ever used.

To unexpectedly see it again, on the screen of a tablet belonging to a woman perhaps two or three years older than me, made me feel first scornful, then sad, then overwhelmingly envious.

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It’s day 23! We’re almost at the finish line, and– hang on. This isn’t right. No, no, we need a do-over. Sorry everyone, we’ll nail it next time.

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It is terrifying to be an independent developer right now. Before, small teams might compare themselves to a soulless billion dollar industry built on games where Very Large Men shoot other Very Large Men (regardless of the merit of that claim). Now, those same big studios are bringing their absurd levels of manpower and polish to titles that are more empathetic and experimental than ever — often hiring the very indies that used to compete with them. As remasters, re-releases, and long-awaited ports hit every platform imaginable, the time of a game s release has lost all meaning. Katamari Damacy, a title originally released in 2004, can finally be played as God intended — with the power of a NVIDIA Titan RTX. We are lost in a sea of games, and Epic aims to be our new Poseidon.

…I m supposed to say my five favourite games of the year at some point, right? (more…)

After some delays and an embarrassing false start last night that left many of Twitch’s biggest streamers and their audiences staring at a blank server list for hours, Atlas is live in early access. The ambitious player-run (rum?) fantasy pirate MMO from the makers of Ark: Survival Evolved is out at a slashed launch price for the holidays. Looking like a low-tech, mega-scale take on Ark, the developers (now flying the Grapeshot Games flag) hope to cram 40,000 or more players into a single huge shared world.

There will be separate PvP and PvE servers, and both will have NPCs to give quests, crew ships and monsters to fight, but the long-term plan seems to be for players to establish their own empires, built from the first bricks upwards. Check out the launch trailer below.

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It’s day 22 and, uh, maybe we shouldn’t open this door. Let’s just bolt it closed, even. We’re safe out here and whatever is in there should probably just be left alone.

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I have not, to this day, managed to be in the same place at the same time as a white Christmas. If you have, please, let me know. Is it still possible to snow on Christmas day anywhere south of Duluth, Minnesota? I have many happy memories of building snowmen, tobogganing, and ducking under snow-laden boughs in the backwoods of Virginia. But none of them on Christmas. I don’t want to say that Bing Crosby lied to me, but. You know.

This is not to say that I have some sort of romantic notions about snow. I know the pain of the DC area’s 2009 Snowpocalypse 1 AND 2. That snowstorm shut down the government! Snow is annoying, cold, ultimately useless and everyone loves it for some reason. Wait. Is that… the dream? Never mind, I’ve come back around on snow. Here are some games for you about snow.

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Ho ho ho! A merry Christmas to one and all. I hope you have a lovely time, or at least get a few days off work. If you don’t do Christmas, pardon my exuberance: what I’m mostly excited about is that we’ve now passed the solstice and daylight will start returning. I have missed daylight so very much.

RPS are now officially on holiday until January 3rd, though we have plenty lined up to fill your eyes before then. Some of our favourite freelancers will share their game picks of 2018, articles about subjects from seas to smooching are scheduled, Have You Played will continue, and oh god help me I’m told the Christmas cracker jokes will return. I want you to know the cracker jokes are not my fault.

What are you playing this holiday? Here’s what we’re clicking on!

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It s well known that games are an awful mistake that should have never been unleashed on an unsuspecting humanity. That said, here s five that hushed the howling primates that reside in my skull just long enough for me to consider them a worthwhile investment.

Honorable mentions go to Cultist Simulator (For it s alchemical harmony of theme and mechanics), Vermintide 2 (for being the second best Lord of the Rings game ever made) and Prey: Mooncrash (For being more Prey). Not in order of goodness: (more…)

Here’s a free little something to raise a smile before I (mostly) disappear for the holidays – it’s a new Nathalie Lawhead game-o-thing! Desktop Love Story is sweet way to spend ten minutes – living on your desktop in two folders are two files. They’ve never met in person, but the ambiguously_shy_file.exe has a bit of a crush on cute_file.exe, and it’s your job as admin of all the files in your domain to help them. Go on, grab it from Itch and lend them a hand. Or read Lawhead’s design notes on how something as simple and small as this was a headache to create. Love ain’t easy.

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