Hope you slayers had a relaxing break from demon slaying because Doom Eternal is back with another campaign expansion. Pack a snack and your meat hook because The Ancient Gods - Part Two launches tomorrow. This time you're breaking into a hellish fortress to do battle against the Dark Lord and settle the score for good.
Last week, you decided that dinosaurs are better than drifting. Honestly, I'm shocked. When we eventually decide the single best thing (which I imagine all video games from then on will be about, because why be less than the best?), we'd better hope it doesn't involve driving because it won't be nearly as fun without drifting. You make the decisions, we all have to live with the consequences. So think carefully as I now ask: what's better, leaderboards or mechs?
You know how your parents will invite you over for that one meal that's best when they make it, letting you totally stuff your face before telling you there's dessert too? That's this month on Xbox Game Pass for PC. Microsoft have already packed the service full of some favorite Bethesda games just last week. But wait, they're serving up even more good games for their subscription library before March is over. Please, Microsoft, I can't eat another byte.
You could describe the Teneon as an eel. To be fair, though, you could also describe it as “a quaver with erectile dysfunction”, “some sort of depressing biopunk yo-yo”, or “the result of a tadpole getting in a teleporter accident with a belt”. It is a deeply unfortunate beast, and spends its days paddling glumly around a shallow sea in search of ferns. It does this by thrashing its head constantly up and down, so it appears to be constantly throwing accusatory glances at god.
Alas, however, the existence of this heartbreaking toad-on-a-rope is entirely its own fault; I may have set up the world around it, but I kept my hands out of the machinery of life. The blame for the Teneon’s flailing necktie of a body lies firmly at the door of natural selection - or at least the astonishing simulation of it that lies at the heart of Tom Johnson’s Ecosystem.
I was introduced to this game just shy of two years ago, as I attended EGX Rezzed with the mission of “finding every game on exhibition featuring eels”. It was in a much, much more basic state then, of course. I've written about it since. And yet now, two years on from discovering Ecosystem, and in the week that the game launches on Steam in Early Access, there’s something very fitting about my first go with the new build producing an eel.
I'm typing this right now on a mechanical keyboard. I bought it years ago, when these clacky rectangles first started sporting rainbow lights. It has these Cherry MX Red switches, which feel okay, I guess. But since I've been working from home a lot, I want something that makes my fingers come alive. The hunt for a suitable rectangle has both proven fruitful, and fruitless. I have learned about different switch colours and keyboard sizes, which is great! Unfortunately, I am also trapped in an abyssal plane of clicking noises from which I'm unsure I'll ever escape.
The Razer Raptor 27 is one of the best 1440p gaming monitors I've ever tested. The only problem is that it's usually crazy expensive, with its regular asking price all the way up at an eye-watering £700. It's a difficult monitor to recommend on that basis, but happily, both Amazon and Ebuyer have lobbed £200 off it this week, taking it down to a much more agreeable £500.
Nvidia have announced a new free game bundle for their RTX gaming laptops. It's only going to be around for a short period of time, but until April 15th anyone who buys a qualifying RTX laptop from a participating retailer will also bag themselves a free Steam copy of Outriders, People Can Fly and Square Enix's new upcoming third-person looter shooter. It's not just RTX 30 laptops that qualify for the bundle, either, as older RTX 20 series laptops will be eligible as well.
Grandmaster-difficulty Nightfall Strikes have returned to Destiny 2 and yep, they're still mega-tough missions full of punishing modifiers. It's great. As I've said before, GM Nightfalls turn Destiny into a tactical shooter where every fight is a puzzle to solve and every corner a potential deathtrap. They're difficult in a way that makes them better, not just harder. Last night I completed the season's first GM Nightfall, Devil's Lair, and strongly recommended having a go yourself - if you reach the demanding level requirement.
Loop Hero feels like a mishmash of six different genres, cobbled together into a game that shouldn’t work, but does. Elements of its DNA are pulled from other sources, such as the loot, the base-management and even deck-building, but these are assembled in such a way that makes the final game feel unique. To find out how this was achieved I sat down with the game's co-designer and composer blinch to discuss Loop Hero’s origins and development. Like many great ideas, no one really gave it much thought at first.
Ah, randomiser mods. They're truly some of the most fun you can have with a game you've completed hundreds of times, swapping out enemies, weapons and all sorts of things to make a game feel new - or incredibly chaotic. That's exactly what you'll find in the Deus Ex Randomiser. It's a most that shuffles everything around, and can even add some weird and wonderful effects to the game. The modder recently made the randomiser playable with Crowd Control too, which allows Twitch viewers to decide what interesting and downright unhelpful effects appear in a streamer's game.