There's not many games coming out in March, but those that are seem to all be revivals of old and beloved PC series. I'm thinking Startopia, I'm thinking Evil Genius, and I'm thinking Stronghold: Warlords, which is out now.
It's a strategy game about building beautiful castles and embarking on siege warfare, and it's the first major new game in the series since 2014.
Forza Horizon 4 has arrived on Steam today after a couple of years of being solely available on the Microsoft store. Meagre news, maybe, but I'll take any excuse to evangelise this supremely silly, beautiful, joyful racing game. And I've never played a Forza before it, and I don't even really like cars.
Valve are out of control! Not content with ceasing development on Artifact this past week, they seemed to delete one of their other multiplayer games, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, from the Steam store earlier today.
Thankfully, it looks like it was a mistake, and it's back now.
Reader, I come bearing news. It is information of such magnitude, I'd advise you to pick this article back up once you've safely retreated underneath a table. Safe now? Alright, here goes: I, Sigmund, Ragnar the Red, and Dunder Mifflin have planted carrots in Valheim.
The Carrot Age is upon us, and it is crunchy, with notes of wood, hints of earthiness, and a delicate sweet undertone. Hey Odin, want a bite? Yeah, I bet you do, you rascal. Want a bite of our sausages now too, do you? Steady on. Yeah, that's right: we have meat products now as well.
After receiving the green light from financial authorities, Microsoft announce that today they officially complete their acquisition of ZeniMax, the family of studios including Bethesda, Id Software, Arkane, and more. One immediate bit of news: more Bethesda games are coming to Xbox Game Pass this week. One bit of distant news: some future Bethesda games will indeed be exclusive to PC and Xbox.
If you wanted to get your pal an awkward personal video greeting from a celebrity for their birthday, who'd cost most: Al off Home Improvement, Carlton out Fresh Prince, or Kimmy Gibler from Full House? This question and more are posed by Comparatively Famous, a free browser game which asks you to guess prices for messages off the weird celebrity store Cameo. It's trickier than you might think.
Having recently kickstarted the race toward the best PCIe 4.0 SSD with the launch of their super fast 980 Pro, Samsung are finally expanding the rest of their 980 NVMe family. Much to my surprise, though, this isn't the long-awaited 980 Evo. Instead, Samsung appear to be diverging from their traditional Evo / Pro series with this latest NVMe drive, simply calling it the Samsung SSD 980. It's also a PCIe 3.0 drive, too, not the budget-friendly PCIe 4.0 you might have been expecting, so those looking for a cheaper way to get the latest and greatest of what SSDs have to offer might be disappointed. It is, however, quite a bit cheaper than previous Samsung drives, with UK pricing coming in much closer to my current favourite NVMe SSD, the stupidly good value WD Blue SN550 - and that alone is reason enough to be excited.
Game prices: they're going up. Or at least that's what a lot of big games companies seem to want them to do. During a recent tech conference, Take-Two Interactive said they reckon players are ready for games to jump up the $70 (about £50) price point, and want to focus on justifying why their games, like NBA 2K21, are worth that much. Which opens my question to you, dear reader, what makes a game worth $70 to you?
I reckon viking survival sim Valheim can be a very cosy and peaceful game. That is, until the bleating of the deer kicks in, and your ears are imprisoned by their high pitched mews. Thankfully there's now a mod which silences their cries for good, and maybe, just maybe, I won't hear them in my sleep anymore.
If you need a bit of stress relief, it's time to pick up your feet. This goofy game Anger Foot lets you take it all out with the power of your soles. It's all about kicking down doors to kill goons with baseball bats to the tune of thumping club music. It's a blast. The arcade-y sort of classic FPS and Hotline Miami mashup is made by some of the team behind Broforce. You can download it and kick your way out of the club for free.