Last time, you decided that a level 1 rat is better than Alone In The Dark's jacket inventory. The jacket only just won, and frankly I blame myself for gussying up the rat with fiction. That jacket is unique! Ah well. The hunt continues. This week, I'm asking you to pick between being out of place or being in an amazing place. What's better: going undercover, or a really big unreal place?
Park Beyond, an upcoming theme park management sim in the vein of a juiced up Rollercoaster Tycoon, is trying to balance two slightly opposed teams in its target audience. There are people who love doing the management bits - the bean-counting, optimising the amount of salt on fries to make people thirsty and buy more drinks, paying close attention to demographics and average spends and that sort of kidney*. Then there are people who want to design a park full of cool-ass rides and different themed zones, a true magical wonderland. Inside this Park Beyond are two wolves, in other words, and each needs a different but equally robust set of tools to wrangle.
After some hands on with an early build of Park Beyond, I have a little more faith that Limbic Entertainment are going to be able to pull it off. The toolset for building a rollercoast is, in particular, impressive. It's never been so easy to make a ride that breaks both the laws of physics and the laws of health and saftey. The coasters in this game are an absolute menace. In a good way.
The only Zelda game I've played was Link's Awakening, on the Game Boy. I do not feel short changed by this. In fact I get the distinct impression it was one of the best, if not the one that most distilled the series' essence.
That essence has made its way into Blossom Tales II, a charming light adventure game in the classic "going on an adventure" sense rather than the "rubbing every item on every other item until you're allowed to play again" genre sense.
You're playing out a story playfully told by your grandfather, who's cast you as the wee hero of a village out to rescue your brother from the sinister Minotaur King. Both of you occasionally interject, sometimes prompting a decision that changes the game a little as your granddad amends things to your liking. It doesn't go to the full meta-narrative lengths of a Juarez Gunslinger with it, but it's a cute touch and keeps the framing relevant.
Where Winds Meet is a third-person open-world action RPG set in good ol’ medieval China. How do I know that? Because Gamescom Opening Night Live showed the first trailer today. The game is set during China’s Ten Kingdoms period, and the kind of supernatural abilities you’d only find in a wuxia movie. Watch it for yourself below.
Portable monitors are pretty awesome - they're an easy way to get a dual screen setup going on a laptop, and also work well to expand the Steam Deck's rather modest screen into something a little more co-op friendly. Of course, they also work for desktop computers too - and are much more portable and space-saving than an average actual desktop monitor.
You can even get OLED models now - and a coupon code on Amazon US brings one model down from Innocn from $350 to $200 when you tick the 'coupon' box on the product page. That's quite a bargain for a 15.6-in portable screen of this calibre.
The Samsung Odyssey G5 is a solid 1440p 165Hz monitor, and it has the benefit of being significantly cheaper than other options. It's normally around £299, but now it's been reduced to £209 - and that seemed like as reasonable a reason as any to write up a little blog about it.
Imagine I have a weird alien squid pointed right at you. I need you to tell me what the developers of open-world watery survival game Subnautica are making next. Just, your best guess, or the squid'll getcha with its weird alien ink. Ready? Go!.... Okay, well congratulations to anyone who said "a turn-based strategy game inspired by tabletop miniatures". Unlikely as it may seem you were right, and everyone else was wrong. It's called Moonbreaker and it's hitting early access on September 29. And Brandon Sanderson is at this party, too.
I admit it was a trick question, but look, I'm a genuinely big fan of devs doing a completely different project after a successful game. I also know a whole lotta people who love painting plastic fighters in cool colours, carefuly placing them on a tabletop, and slowly pushing them into other plastic fighters in different colours. I'm absolutely sure that Unknown Worlds will make a very good version of a digital tabletop strategy game. I must admit, though, that whenever a video game like this emerges, I sort of wonder why tabletop-thusiasts would buy it instead of more actual miniatures.
If you've got Game Pass and haven't yet played What Remains Of Edith Finch, do have a go before it leaves Game Pass on August 31st. First released in 2017, it's a first-person explore-o-story about a teenager returning to her fantastical childhood home to explore lushly detailed rooms and secret passages in the hope of understanding a supposed family curse which causes tragic deaths. And what deaths! You witness many of the Finch family deaths firsthand by playing stunning dreamy vignettes, scenes which are often as wondrous as they are harrowing. Do have a go and enjoy being punched square in the heart by grief.
To call the current state of the world today ‘tumultuous’ would be a bit of an understatement. For LGBTQ+ people - and trans people in particular - the increasingly extreme rhetoric and legislation being weaponised against these communities can feel all-consuming. Yet it comes at a time when diverse representation in media, including games, is improving. As the number of characters stated to LGBTQ+ grows, what is more effective representation: making it possible to see your own experiences on screen, or make those experiences understandable to someone who isn't LGBTQ+?
People who know of it would perhaps cite the work of developer and translator npckc, who I recently spoke with at the recent Japanese indie gaming event Bitsummit. They were there to showcase their latest game A Pet Shop After Dark, a departure from visual novels like A Year Of Springs trilogy into horror storytelling ("more spooky than outright horror," as they later clarified) that's set to release later this month. Beyond the trilogy and their newest work, they’ve translated the works of other developers and worked on other smaller games and game jam projects.
The last year or so of Elite Dangerous has been the most dramatic since the game launched in 2014. The most recent update to Frontier Developments' epic space sim, Update 13, saw the conclusion of the story's Azimuth Saga, culminating in a disastrous attempt to stop the incursion of the Thargoids – Elite's hostile race of insectoid aliens. It's an event that has already had a major impact on Elite's universe, and Frontier are excited to discuss the studio's plans for the game and its narrative as it pushes into a new phase for the galaxy, simply known as "Aftermath".
But the drama surrounding Elite Dangerous isn't limited to the game's overarching story. As I gear up to chat with lead game designer Luke Betterton and senior producer Samantha Marsh, the Thargoid in the room is Elite Dangerous: Odyssey. Launched in May last year, Elite's second expansion was, to put it lightly, not well received by Elite's community. Complaints ranged from extensive bugs and performance issues to more fundamental criticisms about the implementation of the expansion's on-foot exploration and FPS combat. Over a year on from release, the expansion still carries a "Mostly Negative" rating on Steam, standing in stark contrast to reviews for vanilla Elite Dangerous (now bundled with its Horizons expansion), which remain firmly positive.