This month's Game Club Pick is the wonderfully cosy puzzler Unpacking, so as is Game Club tradition we'll be doing another liveblog chat with you lovely lot Friday 28th at 4pm BST / 8am PDT. If you have opinions about Unpacking, we wanna hear them.
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I played a lot of demos during this year’s Steam Next Fest, but my favourite was the fabulously flamboyant En Garde! The fast-paced, swashbuckling fights are endless fun, and the sun-kissed towns were a treat for the eyes, but it was honestly swoon at first sight when I first saw Adalia de Volador.
What can I say, folks? I'm in love. Let me list everything I adore about Adalia like this is my high school diary. She’s an amazing sword fighter; her acrobatic and graceful nature lets her outwit anyone who crosses her blade. She’s got panache, cheek, and a sharp wit to boot. And speaking of - her boots! Her hat! Her cape! She’s got endless style! And when she punts a soldier off a dock ledge and into the sea, my heart skips a beat.
Sundays are for descaling your kettle. Before you watch the fizz, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).
Here's a TV recommendation for you: Deadloch on Amazon Prime. A dark comedy cop show set in a small Tasmanian town where traditional culture clashes with artsy newcomers, and there's murder, and it's funny, and the characters are such delights. It's a bit like Top Of The Lake with jokes. But what are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!
With the news that Assassin’s Creed Mirage won’t get any post-launch DLC, we of the Electronic Wireless Show podcast are wondering: what are some good games that only need playing once? Not out of a lack of enjoyment or interest, but because they were so satisfying that they left nothing else to want. Or because it would be too hard to recapture the joy of a first playthrough. Or maybe because they just ended really damn well. Whatever the reasoning, join us as we ponder our favourite games that we’ve never returned to.
Plus! We chat about the games we have> been playing, from Nate’s eel-dense management adventures in Clanfolk to my wilfully patch note-ignorant return to Minecraft. I also explain Team Fortress 2’s new seal mode, and Nate hijacks my thrilling hardware section on EU battery legislation to improvise a new trip up the Tower of Jocularity.
Crime O'Clock is a game that should (apologies in advance) tick (sorry) a lot of boxes for me. There's a time-travelling detective story at the heart of it, in which you and a very Minority Report-style AI work together to stop crimes that will disrupt the one true timeline throughout history, and it's all played out on gorgeous black and white tableaus like Adriaan de Jongh's wonderful Hidden Folks. You'll rewind and fast forward time to plot suspicious movements, track stolen objects as they move across town, and work out who (or what) is causing all this chaos. I'm having good fun with it, but I do wish it would stop whisking me away from its lovely maps to go and complete yet another tedious mini-game.
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It is a truth universally acknowledged that when aliens threaten to exterminate your home, only the world's most insufferable, unhinged scientists can help you save the day. XCOM knows it, and now Xenonauts 2 is following suit. Case in point, yer man up the top there. Look at that smug mullet and his unimpressed raised eyebrow. He doesn't give two hoots you're here to save the world from extinction, leading (probably several) teams of nine (unwitting) brave souls into the unknown (i.e.: repeated death by alien overwatch). He's got research to do. Organs to pickle. Dead alien carcasses to splice. Yeah, the same ones you literally strapped into your troops' tactical belts in the last mission so you could bring them home. We had stinking brain monsters wrapped round our torsos, guy! The least you can do is deign to make us a nice cuppa when we get back. Honestly. You can't get the staff these days...
Last time, you decided that breech-loading grenade launchers are better than creating construction blueprints. Ruination over creation. Mayhem over order. Destruction over structure. This week, I ask you to choose between joyous trespass and canny preparation. What's better: going on the roof, or one in the chamber?