I played so many Disney games as a kid. It wasn t really on purpose, it s just that I was an avid reader of Disney comics, and sometimes they were bundled with games. Most were simple minigame compilations, parts of the Disney Hotshots series. Others were more elaborate, though they all felt nearly identical. Aladdin, The Lion King, The Jungle Book: the same impossibly hard platformer, starring a different Disney character each time. My favourite one wasn t a movie tie-in, though. The cover featured an unusual protagonist, familiar and unknown at the same time: a Donald Duck lookalike dressed like a ninja.

(more…)

Warcraft may now be a well-regarded name in cinema, but it actually began life as a video game. Cinephiles can explore these origins today in re-releases of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and Warcraft II, two games seminal within the genre we ludophiles call ‘click on men to tell them to go fight the other men right now’. Welcome to the world of video games, filmfaces, you’re in for a wild ride.

(more…)

XCOM-inspired strategy games are common now, but We Are The Caretakers – unveiled today – stands out from the crowd with its afrofuturist stylings and environmentalist bent. Developed by Heart Shaped Games (formerly of Hero Generations), it has players managing a high-tech response force, protecting the massive, energy-generating animals that power your civilisation. As well as strategic management and turn-based tactical combat, players will have to act as diplomats as well, trying to keep the people as happy as the turbo-rhinos. Below, a short teaser trailer.

(more…)

Outward is the first game I ve played to capture a feeling I remember from childhood. Waking up so early it’s still dark outside, and being wide-eyed with wanderlust. I ve always loved the hour before dawn, simultaneously blessed with twilight tranquility and electric with promise. It feels like stealing something from the sun, enacting some celestial heist to gain a foothold on the day. In this survival RPG, it s the perfect time to start a journey.

(more…)

Memories are just one way you can upgrade your attack in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. You can also upgrade with the help of the Mask. Unfortunately it’s split into three pieces and requires you go for a bit of Shinobi style fishing, and the merchants are particularly picky about how many scales are needed to buy the pieces from them.

There is now a dedicated [cms-block] where you can find tips for the many bosses of the game.

(more…)

Status effects are easy to ignore in The Division 2 – until you come across them, that is, and realise just how powerful and debilitating they can be. Different forms of skills and ammunition can cause you to bleed, burn, become poisoned, and just generally die in a magnificent variety of ways, so it’s important to know what’s what when it comes to all these different debuffs. Our The Division 2 status effects guide will walk you through every status effect we know about, and how they can be used against both NPC enemies and other players.

(more…)

Tip-top throwback action-RPG Grim Dawn yesterday launched its second expansion, Forgotten Gods, venturing into a fictional fantasy land that’s not at all Ancient Egypt nuh uh to click on new monsters until they explode in showers of gold coins and new loot. The base game and the perquisite first expansion are on sale right now too. Given that our Grim Dawn review noted that Titan Quest seemed as much an influence as Diablo II, hey, nice to see it in more Titan-y lands (I’d say it looks more Egypt than Lut Gholein?).

(more…)

Livestreaming site Twitch now lets up to four folks form a ‘squad’ to stream together in one window, so viewers can see the perspectives of all their imaginary cyberpals at once rather than having to pick just one. Squad Stream, Twitch call it. Perhaps these four folks are playing Apex Legends together and you want to see what everyone’s doing, or speedrunners are racing each other in a singleplayer game, or… whatever it is, you can now watch ’em all at once. That’s handy.

(more…)

Few games get me hyped on their concept alone, but Generation Zero did. A promising cross between games like DayZ, Left 4 Dead and Dear Esther that draws comparisons to Simon St lenhag s stunning sci-fi art, you say? That sounds great! Robots roaming the wilderness? Co-operative tactical shoot-n- splodes? 1980s fashion? Heck yes! Has it lived up to its potential? Sadly, no.

The set up looks like this: It s 1980s Sweden. You re a teenager on your way home from a vacation with buddies in the archipelago. But when the ferry docks at an island by the mainland, there s no one to greet you. You head to a nearby house and find it abandoned, except for a gun and ominous machine bits strewn on the living room floor. From there, you stumble upon a police car, also abandoned. It seems that everyone who lived here has left, replaced by hostile robots armed to the teeth, roaming the vast, untamed Swedish countryside. You re lost in an derelict world, trawling across the landscape in search of answers to your questions. Questions like: “What happened?” and “Where has everyone gone?” You know, normal teenage stuff. We’ve all been there.

(more…)

Tom Clancy’s open-world rendition of Washington D.C. in The Division 2 supplies players with a wide variety of activities and objectives besides the plethora of Main Missions and Side Missions to conquer on your way to Level 30. At any given moment you’re likely to be only a street or block away from some sort of altercation with an enemy faction; a Public Execution, perhaps, or a contested Control Point. Our The Division 2 activities and world events guide will walk you through each of these objectives one at a time, so you know what to expect and how best to deal with each one.

(more…)