There’s nothing quite like the first time you play Dark Souls. Sure, you can go back with new builds, try a new weapon or go for a no-hit run, but you’ll never quite recapture the feeling of not knowing what’s around the next corner. That’s why a group of modders have decided to go and make their own Dark Souls “sequel”, Nightfall, offering a whole new adventure with a completely new world.
Who is Jack, anyway? And why, once again, has he delivered another box of play-on-your-phone party games for us to scream and laugh and have a merry old time with? While I still don’t know Jack (geddit?), I do know that his latest batch of games has arrived on Steam, with The Jackbox Party Pack 7 bringing us a fresh batch of 5 new excuses to laugh, cry and curse at our mates all over again.
Come, one and all, to mess with every last lovely little pixel in the excellent action roguelite, Noita, which leaves early access today. Nolla Games’ witchy adventure will take you through procedurally-generated levels in which every pixel is part of a simulation. It really is a wonder watching all your spells alter and, let’s be honest, destroy the landscape. The full release comes with a big update, adding even more spells with which to demolish levels. Excellent.
Spaceships, it turns out, are kinda hard to operate. NASA aren’t sending folks up in shuttles all alone, after all. Released today, Bomber Crew follow-up Space Crew is a tactical management game that tasks you with the smooth operation of an interstellar starship, daring you to keep the lights on with slightly too-few crewmates while aliens remind you how desperately thin the hull plating is.
Go fast and leave a beautiful car crash. That’s how you win in Cyberpunk 2077 – at least, according to the latest episode of trailer-filled dev stream Night City Wire. Tonight’s stream was all about sharp suits and roaring engines, touring a behind-the-scenes look at Cyberpunk’s near-future car parks, and going into the future history of why folks in the future are painting themselves in chrome and neon.
And if that doesn’t do it for you, there’s an extended bit where Keanu talks about motorcycles for like 10 minutes. What a lad.
Autumn. Nature renews itself. Green shades turn to warm reds. The air gets chiller, the days get shorter. Kids return to school. Columns come and go. Games journalists become narrative designers. It’s the circle of life.
But autumn is also the season when the laws of nature gets tweaked, and the dead wake up again to haunt the living for a day. Let’s salute this column with an act of impromptu necromancy, then. One freshly resurrected Kieron Gillen, to talk about his un-life after games journalism. He’s always been the goth-est of us, after all.
By all accounts, the Oculus Quest 2 is a lovely bit of kit. Resident hardware buff Katharine reckons it’s the best low-budget VR headset you can get your hands on in her Oculus Quest 2 review, with the caveat that you don’t mind creating a Facebook account for it. Turns out, that last part may be more of a dealbreaker than first thought, with some new owners reporting that the social media monolith’s overzealous account moderation is barring them entry to their shiny new headsets.
If you’ve been watching your mates play Raji: An Ancient Epic on Switch and feeling a bit jealous, fear not, because it’s out on PC today. Inspired by Indian mythology, it’s an action-adventure game where you set out as Raji on a quest to save your brother Golu from some horrible demon hordes attacking Earth.
remains one of the most demanding games you can play on PC right now, but having taken a closer look at Ubisoft’s recently released PC requirements for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, it looks like Eivor and the rest of their Viking pals will be sticking a much heavier boot into our PC’s performance than even Kassandra’s mighty Spartan kick. In short, they’re proper demanding these Valhalla specs, as what once passed for Ubisoft’s recommended 4K spec in Odyssey is now only suitable for High at 1080p in ye olde England.
Yesterday Nate observed that he is increasingly becoming a single issue voter and that single issue is “beasts”. This week, therefore, the podcast is about the best dinosaur games. There is, of course, some haggling over what constitutes a dinosaur (does it include all birds and some robots?).
Expect a lot of discussion of various incarnations of Jurassic Park, as you might expect. There is also a long tangent at the start about toilets because Matthew signed in to the recording as ‘Toilet Lawyer’, which is probably less expected, and a pretty credible impression of the Queen from Nate. Nate also recommends a bunch of early access or indie games that will be of interest to dinofans, although one of them is “I can’t remember what it’s called.”
