It s hard to keep your eyes off the horizon in My Time At Portia. Its valleys live in the jagged shadow of broken high-rises, buildings draped with moss and towering factories splitting apart at the seams. I needed to concentrate on the group of adorable pastel coloured llamas ahead. My presence didn t interrupt their frolicking for a second, but I wished they d at least try to maul me a little bit; it would make what I was about to do feel less icky. With tennis racket in hand (it was stronger than my wooden sword) I slaughtered them all, collecting what bits and bobs remained to craft a hoodie in a lovely shade of blue. One commission down, and what felt like a million more to go.

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Roman and Joyce always have a jigsaw puzzle on the go. Their current undertaking is a montage of movie posters sliced into 10k pieces by one of Rooksburger’s razor-sharp punching machines. Below are thirty pieces from that puzzle. Identify all thirty movies to complete the defox.

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A is for Altfuture’s abject apology. From the tone of Altfuture’s last announcement you’d think unconventional, timetable-shunning train sim Derail Valley had run over the last northern hairy-nosed wombat or trumped during an audience with the Queen. Jan 18’s very bad news turned out to be news of a piffling seven-day release delay. The rescheduled ribbon-cutting should happen today. Expect some thoughts on the sim’s 200km fictional rail network, singular 36-resource industry chain, and promising procedural job generator in next Friday’s Flare Path. (more…)

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege has had another huge change that wildly changes a fair few of the operators. These can be quite daunting for players to adjust to. So to get you up to speed, this guide has been prepared with sections dedicated to ensuring you’re playing optimally and know some of the more basic tactics that can be utilised going into each game. There are also some important things to know when specifically playing as the attacking team or defending team, as well as more in-depth stuff on each operator and the specific maps being added as the game continues its long run. (more…)

Close to midnight, something evil was lurking in the dark: Resident Evil 2 launched. Under the moonlight, players saw a sight that almost stopped their hearts: Capcom’s 1998 survival horror game remade with the sheen and glisten that 21 years of technological advancement have brought us. Whether that’s something to scream about or not may depend on how much you want a game playing largely like a 1998 survival horror. Young Matt didn’t quite click with some of 1998’s conventions in his Resident Evil 2 review, though I’m not entirely sure he was even alive in 1998 and ooh the youth of today etc.

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Today in “computer beats human at thing computers could not previously beat humans at” news: Google Deepmind has bested StarCraft 2 pros at their own game. “AlphaStar” was unveiled on a livestream last night, in a show revolving around matches against top StarCraft pros Grzegorz “MaNa” Komincz and Dario “TLO” W nsch. All the games AlphaStar won were actually prerecorded, because GOOGLE ARE COWARDS COME FIGHT ME.

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Ughh, your deals herald has a nasty case of the head cold today, but fear not, for I have risen from my flu-y slumber, steeled myself against the germy wilderness and sallied forth to bring you this week’s best PC gaming deals anyway. I’m crawling straight back into bed afterwards, mind, because this deals heralding malarkey is surprisingly hard work. But the deals never sleep, and thus your deals herald must oblige. Onward we go,

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Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz. That s the sound of your alarm, it s Delay o clock. PlanetSide Arena, the battle royale made from the bones and skin of quite-large multiplayer shooter PlanetSide 2, has been delayed. It was supposed to zip straight to a full release next Tuesday, January 29. But developers Daybreak send word that it s been knocked back a couple of months. To needlessly keep up the alarm clock metaphor, they woke up and slammed the snooze button. But, ach sure, don’t we all?

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The newly v1.0 Slay The Spire, wot I called “a miracle of design” in our Slay The Spire review earlier this week, is just the start of the story. The mod scene hit the ground running when support launched last month, with the highlights being an impressive selection of new playable characters and the truly joyful Marty Feldman mode. Now we can add a whole new act to this menagerie of player-made delights.

‘The Jungle‘ replaces the second act of Spire, dragging you out of The City and into the bestial wildlands. One of the folk behind it is the chap responsible for the brilliant Slimebound and Snecko character mods, which immediately won my attention. Also, it’s got angry lions and fat rats and friendly foxes and a really very large spider. With spider-babies.

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The purest fantasy on offer in open worlds isn’t always discussed. It’s the opportunity to take pleasure in being distracted.

It’s fantasy because, like hurling fireballs, you can’t really do it in real life. Distracted driving leads to fenders in horseshoe shapes around tree trunks. Distraction at work leads to empty-feeling EODs. But distraction in a good open world game is a joy; a chance to take a break from something fun to do another something fun.

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