When the embargo lifts and the discourse begins, I'm pretty confident the only thing developers are looking for is a Bestest Best from Rock Paper Shotgun. It is, after all, the highest honour that can be bestowed on any video game.
Some video games publications like doling out numbers, though. And, like the MSR that focused on games with Metacritic scores of 60 or lower, I'm very thankful for them today. We wouldn't have an episode of Mystery Steam Reviews this week without you. So, thanks, number-givers.
After dropping onto countless islands to shoot 99 faces off the skulls they once called home, how'd you fancy a different sort of battle royale? You might look at Nakara: Bladepoint, a third-person fantasy action game with zippy movement, grappling hooks, wall-running, big swords, stealth, and magical transformations for up to 60 players. It's due to launch this summer, and everyone is invited to have a go in an open beta weekend starting today.
Lush sandy beaches, bright blue skies, a cool fort to take sweet photos next to and show off to all my pals: man I wanna go on holiday, but my excursions these days don't go much further than the local supermarket. I'll be able to get a small taste of such a lovely location in Valorant next week though, because the game is adding a new map named Breeze, which is set on a gorgeous remote island in the Carribean.
Okami celebrated its 15th anniversary this week, and it got me thinking back to a series of articles I wrote about ten years ago (lawd) about the game's underlying myths and folktales, back when I was all young and pretentious and used phrases like "literary allusion" in posts with a straight face. I know better now (hopefully), but I still look back on that series fondly, and I'd like to share some of those stories here today in honour of the birthday of our favourite sun goddess. You might be surprised just how many characters are drawn from Japanese mythology, because lemme tell ya, Okami pretty much did the whole Wolf Among Us fairytale-characters-all-living-together schtick waaaay before old Bigby was even a speck in Telltale's eye.
The Oxford English dictionary describes a bug as: "a sort of computer oops". It is the result of errant coding, mismatched texture, wonky physics or (sometimes) a briefcase. Developers must fight bugs day and night to safeguard the digital realms we call our playgrounds. Sometimes they lose that battle and a bug comes stomping ravenously into our game, ready to upset us. But sometimes that bug is not an annoyance or a game-breaker, but instead the funniest thing to ever happen. Here are 9 of the best bugs in PC gaming.
If you've longed to experience the original NieR RepliCant's chaotic story of robots, shades, and humans then I imagine you've woken up with a spring in your step. The RPG's remastered version, NieR Replicant Ver.1.22474487139 is out today.
As a dedicated Destiny 2 fashionista, I have been keenly awaiting the arrival of the transmogrification system with Season 14 in May. I have so many looks planned for my spacewizards. But even though I know full well that it often takes Bungie several attempts to get a feature right, I hadn't expected Armor Synthesis to sound so miserable. Bungie have now explained how it will work, and it's a sprawl of different crafting materials and bounties and limits and god, I just want to play dress-up with my wizards.
Fit For A King is, very simply, one of the funniest games I’ve played. “Marry everything, execute everything, spend it all, go mad”, runs the tagline for this so-called “Henry VIII simulator”, and I couldn’t put it better myself.
My hunt for a JRPG that doesn't bore me into uninstalling it within two hours continues. This time, I'm casting my eyes across Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, an action-RPG in which you explore a prison city and hack up monsters with a sword. Something tells me that it won't be the JRPG to hook me, but I'll give it a try when it releases on PC on July 6th.
Samurai Gunn 2 has resurfaced with a new trailer and a planned summer release date, three years after first being announced. The quicker-than-quick arena fighter sequel introduces online multiplayer and a story mode, but otherwise its blades-and-bullets ballet looks as stylish and slicky brutal as the original.