Top Secret [official site], a game about whistleblower Edward Snowden that you play in real time via email, was released at the weekend. It lurked on Kickstarter back in 2015, when Joe leaked his thoughts on it, delving three days into a demo where he met a cryptanalyst who made him genuinely encrypt all future emails he would send. It s all generated by clever machines of course, but the delay between sending a message and receiving a reply is there to make it feel real. … [visit site to read more]

The murderfields of For Honor [official site] are busy – despite the god-awful networking and it has become a place where all sorts of foul multiplayer deeds occur. It s obvious now that Ubisoft called the game For Honor as a joke, because I have seen (and done) all kinds of dishonourable acts. Here, in handy visual form (warning: many GIFS!)> are just some of the terrible or stupid things that can happen in any hard-fought battle. Things you can do to your foe, things you can do to your mates, things that can be done unto you… … [visit site to read more]

Huh. Big day for blue people. I’ve long wished that venerable Britcomic (and home of Joe Dredd) 2000 AD would take another shot at sticking its best characters into videogames, and I say so no merely from wishful thinking, but also because they did it rather well the last time they tried in earnest. Rogue Trooper was a Good 7/10 third-person action game developed by 2000AD owners Rebellion back in 2006, starring a vengeful blue dude with a talking hat, gun and rucksack. I’ve always been fond of it, and now it seems I’ll get to play it again as whatever a ‘redux’ version turns out to be. … [visit site to read more]

Gosh, we re living in brilliant times for interesting games. It seems barely a month goes by now without something novel and fascinating appearing, pushing at the edges, upcycling old ideas for new minds, and messing with our brains. The latest that fits all these categories is the really very splendid Stories Untold [entirely pointless official site], ostensibly a collection of four novella-like adventures linked by an opaque theme. It s part parser-based text adventure, part horror peculiarity, part 80s TV show… It s unlike anything you ve played before, despite being built from the half-remembered remains of a childhood of gaming.

So a familiar caveat to accompany such a review: if you trust me, if you want to experience the game with as little information as possible so everything s a surprise, then take the above paragraph as everything you need and spend 6 on this. If you want more details (wonderfully written and spoiler-free), then read on. … [visit site to read more]

Any time I read that there are four more Avatar movies on the way, I involuntarily ask the air “FOUR?” You can add another video game to the list of things starring James Cameron’s spacesmurfs, as Ubisoft have announced one coming from their Massive studio – the mob behind Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment’s Tom Clancy’s The Division. Ubisoft already released a mediocre Avatar game alongside the first movie so hey, maybe they’ll make a good one this time. … [visit site to read more]

The third paid expansion for The Division [official site], The Last Stand, has launched today alongside a big free content update for all players. Last Stand adds a new 8v8 point-capturing PvP mode (you’ll never guess what it’s named), while additions and changes in Update 1.6 include adding new areas to almost double the size of the Dark Zone. That’s not a bad pair of launches. Also out today is a demo, letting all and sundry play through the start of the shooty action-RPG. Not a bad trio! … [visit site to read more]

It’s still weird to me that the company behind the revival and resumption of System Shock is also giving us re-releases of games like Turok 2: Seeds of Evil [official site] but hey, that’s the rich tapestry of the 1990s. Now Nightdive have announced that they’ll release the remaster of Iguana Entertainment’s 1997 shooter on March 16th. This is Turok 2 expanded and rebuilt in a new engine, which means that yes, the claustrophobic distance fog has lifted. See for yourself in this new trailer: … [visit site to read more]

Blimps. They re big, they re full of hot air, they re historically prone to crashing to earth in an unstoppable blaze. If you like blimps then we have good news for you. The physical manifestation humankind s hubris can soon be added to your bustling metropolis in Cities: Skylines [official site] as part of the Mass Transit DLC pack, which is also adding ferries, monorails and cable cars. This is so that your commuters can get to work more efficiently. I don t know what right-thinking member of the public would get the 7am zeppelin every morning, but the mayors of Cities: Skylines have never been ones to indulge sensible policies. … [visit site to read more]

Last week I asked you: which of the games I had installed should I play and write about? The overwhelming winner was Death Road To Canada [official site], a zombie shooter that I’ve been listening to RPS staff talk about for months but that we’ve never written a feature about before.>

Things were going pretty well. We had wheels, fuel, food, our health and morale was high. A recent scavenging trip had turned up a shotgun with plenty of shells, which was my first experience at killing the undead with something other than frying pans and wrenches. Perhaps things would have continued to go well, if Gina, our leader – me, in other words – hadn’t decided it was a good idea to try to steal from one of the traders at a rest stop.

… [visit site to read more]

Yooka-Laylee [official site] is designed to feel like getting into a warm, foamy bath of nostalgia. The characters and world are new but the industry veterans behind this 3D open-world platformer know exactly which buttons to hit to ease you into comforting familiarity. Everything from the colours to the font transports you back to the 1990s. While playing I half-expected the Spice Girls to break down the door and throw a Tamagotchi into my hands.

Nostalgia is a tricky thing, however. Although the wildly successful Kickstarter (raising 2.1 million from 80,000 backers) shows that there is obviously a huge appetite for it, many people won t have familiarity with games like Banjo-Kazooie. I have a strange third-person nostalgia for these games, as I never had the consoles growing up but did watch friends play them. Because of this, I wondered if Yooka-Laylee would grab me when I played it in the same way the mere idea of it had grabbed others. … [visit site to read more]