The rise of Advance Wars-alikes on PC continues later this year with Tiny Metal: Full Metal Rumble. Sequel to Area 35’s original Tiny Metal (released in late 2017), it looks like more of the same – chunky polygon graphics wrapped around a familiar light strategy formula and an overbearingly anime storyline. This time round, they’re adding big stompy warbots to the unit list. Beyond mechs making everything automatically better, the sequel boasts a campaign double the length of the original plus 77 skirmish maps, with details on multiplayer coming later. Below, an awkwardly narrated trailer.

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Last time on Wastes Of Space: The RPS crew managed to firm up their toehold in the alien hills of Horace s World, under the tutelage of their peculiar assistance droid, ODD. Survey Officer Ligz went on an ill-fated mineral-seeking expedition, Science Officer Cox decided he was a god, and the increasingly authoritarian Security Officer Crowley used all the crew s metal to make a hooning great space prison. >

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Codemasters will whip the dust sheet off their Grid racing series in September with a new game named simply Grid (technically, 2008’s series-starting game known commonly as Grid was Race Driver: Grid). It’s been five years since, Grid: Autosport, the last game in their multidisciplinary racing series.

If you want to go parp parp now, hey, 2013’s Grid 2 is free for keepsies on Steam for another few hours. QUICK!

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Fortnite’s Fortbyte challenges have been going for nearly three weeks now and today asks you to get excited about ice cream. Found west of the racetrack, the ice cream shop has been modernised a little bit, but is in the same place it’s always been. If you know where to look, and we will tell you where to look, then this should be an easy challenge to complete, but note that you will need the Battle Pass for this one. New challenges unlock every day or so, requiring some specific conditions to unlock. There are a hundred in total and I will be going over all of them. Wish me luck.

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Last Time on the BoC: After a catastrophic goblin attack slaughtered the entire military (except Id), as well as their bloodthirsty mayor/captain, the Basement began a frantic programme of fortifications. Former mayor Urist, transformed by grief, was re-elected, and pledged to put aside her differences with Lorbam the Founder in order to make the Basement Of Curiosity the finest zoo in the land. >

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Of all the chat clients and apps and sites I use across my professional and personal lives, Steam is the only one that hasn’t been on my pocket telephone because, well, the Steam mobile app is pretty bleh. Reader dear, fret no more about missing Dota invitations or confusing late-night messages from people you used to play a game with but can’t remember which one: Steam Chat has a shiny new dedicated mobile app. Available now on Android and Apple technoslabs, it’s, like, the new Steam client chat but in your pocket.

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Dota Auto Chess, the most popular mod in Dota 2 these days (and which has nothing to do with chess), is becoming a standalone game made by Valve themselves. I had not predicted that this would be Valve’s next game. Valve say they talked with mod creators Drodo Studio about working together and, while dreams of collaboration fell flat, they did agree to each work on their own versions of it. Presumably some money is changing hands too? So Valve are now making a standalone Dota Auto Chess while Drodo are continuing to work on the mod as well as their own mobile game that basically just replaces the characters. So that’s a game based on a mod for a game based on a Warcraft 3 mod based on a StarCraft mod.

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THQ Nordic continue to hoover up studios and games that make many go “Oh huh, yeah, they could be neat,” today announcing they’ve bought Piranha Bytes. They’re the German studio who created Gothic, Risen, and Elex, three open-world RPG series with varying degrees of promise and wonk that make many go “Oh huh, yeah, they could be neat.” Along with the team, THQ Nordic have bought the rights to those three and do hint that a sequel to 2017’s Elex is coming. Perhaps THQ Nordic can give Piranha Bytes the cash they need to exorcise some of their jank.

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Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown features a veteran fighter pilot whose full name is Mihaly Dumitru Margareta Corneliu Leopold Blanca Karol Aeon Ignatius Raphael Maria Niketas A. Shilage. That’s fabulous. It s also got plenty of smashing dogfight action. But you know what it doesn t have? Support for most flight sticks. That s disappointing. However, there are now at least a few more twisty toys functional with the game, the developers have said in a Steam update. The bad news: only joysticks made by Thrustmaster have been added. They are the hardware folks who make admittedly good flight sticks and HOTAS, and who cause untold spluttering as its customers try to explain to their significant others why there is a transaction for something called the Thrustmaster hot ass on the bank statement this month. Well, Gareth? WELL?

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Many years ago, when I traipsed the streets of Belfast city with the menacing incisors of a 15-year-old who did not get braces when he should have done so, I often met with a pal and mentor in sub-criminal activities. Let s call him “Firebastard”. Firebastard was a good friend, and a knower of various clandestine arts. We all have that mate who downloaded The Anarchist s Cookbook. That glorious walking disorder who taught us the value of smashing bottles under the flyover in an idle fugue. Firebastard was that friend. One day, he gave my brother and I another book, a real book. Steal This Computer Book Vol 3. It can teach you to be a hacker, he said. It s full of viruses.

Hacknet is a game that lets me pretend I understood that book.

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