Brendan: Hello, Alice. I ve just been dandering along a quiet highway in Life Is Strange 2. There s no time-travelling gal pals in this one (at least, none so far) but there is a sad psychic pre-teen and his hoody-wearing brother. I don t know why I m telling you all this, you just played through it too, and we re gonna have a chat about each episode as it comes along – what we liked, what we thought was dumb, who we think is secretly a murderer – rather than wait until the whole game is out to review it. I guess I m explaining all this for our stinking readers. Hey readers. SPOILERS AHEAD.

(more…)

Spoiler warning: This article includes spoilers for the entirety of both Life Is Strange and Life Is Strange: Before The Storm.

Life Is Strange: Before The Storm is, in its own right, a very good game. But it can t avoid the fact that it s a Life Is Strange game, specifically a prequel to the original. And in the original, one of its central characters is dead. (more…)

It’s time to say goodbye to Chloe and Max again, at least for a while. They’ve had their ups and down over the course of episodic adventure Life Is Strange and its prequel, and today they’re getting a final send-off in one extra episode, out now for owners of the Deluxe edition of Before The Storm.

Expect heartstrings to be tugged on with great gusto. While the stakes may be low this time around, heartbreak seems inevitable as the two childhood friends take one last adorably dorky walk down memory lane before they have to go their separate ways, as Max’s family moves away from Arcadia Bay.

(more…)

Life Is Strange: Before the Storm‘s third and final chapter arrived in December, bringing the teen trauma prequel full circle, but that isn’t quite the end. Still to come is a “bonus” episode set even earlier than Before the Storm, visiting teensy Chloe and teensy Max before they were pulled apart. Square Enix today announced that the bonus ep, named Farewell, will launch on March 6th. It will only be available in the game’s various deluxe editions, which is a bummer. New deluxe editions are coming, mind, including one with the soundtrack on vinyl for those who enjoy forcing squished dinosaurs to do karaoke. (more…)

We’ve already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin’ and a-shakin’ in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding pre-release expectations and most head-messing-with. Vintage cartoon-themed reflex-tester Cuphead leads the charge with two gongs, but ol’ Plunkbat and The Witcher series also do rather well – as do a host of other games from 2017’s great and good.

Full winners and runners-up below, with links to our previous coverage of each game if you’re so-minded. Plus: I reveal which game I’d have gone for in each category. (more…)

Welcome back, gentle human bean, to another year of PC gaming thrills, spills and ambient anxiety about the correct deployment of the term ‘roguelite’ here on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. As our beleaguered forms struggle to cope with the sudden shift away from Chocolate Oranges for breakfast, now is the time for our time-lost minds to reflect upon how we occupied ourselves over the past ten days.

To wit: what videogames did we play, when time, relatives, bloating and demanding pets allowed?

(more…)

Tragic teen tale Life Is Strange: Before The Storm has concluded with the launch of its third episode last night. Before The Storm is the prequel to 2015’s wonderful third-person coming-of-ager, doing away with the time-travel powers as it focuses on wild rebel Chloe and her gal pal Rachel Amber. It’s a story whose final ending was already known, but I’m told life is about the journey not the destination. A bonus episode is still to come, reuniting Max and Chloe and their original voice actors for a prequel to this prequel, but that’s separate from Before The Storm’s story – and only for Deluxe Edition owners. For now, let’s see what Chloe and Rachel are up to in episode 3: (more…)

The voice actor behind spunky punky teen rebel Chloe in the original Life Is Strange, Ashly Burch, will reprise her role in the bonus episode of prequel series Life Is Strange: Before the Storm. While Chloe is the main character in Before the Storm, Burch couldn’t play her because of the voice actor strike so publishers Square Enix replaced her with another actor, Rhianna DeVries. Oh dear oh dear. But the strike is over now and Burch will voice Chloe once more in ‘Farewell’. Life is strange but business is stranger. (more…)

The sale event to end all sale events is here. That’s right, folks, Black Friday 2017 is here, and this year’s sales frenzy is set to be bigger than ever as we head into the Christmas shopping period. In all honesty, they should just rename it Black November, as there have been deals going on throughout the month in preparation for the big day.

To save you trawling through the web in search of a good bargain, we’ve created this handy guide containing everything you need to know about Black Friday 2017. If you’re on the hunt for a new graphics card, a bigger and better monitor, want to splash out on a fast SSD or upgrade your gaming headset and get a more reliable mouse and keyboard, this is the place to be. We’ll be updating this hub page on a regular basis as new deals get announced, too, so make sure to keep it in your bookmarks if you fancy grabbing yourself a bit of a bargain before Christmas. We’ve also got tips on the best places to browse, and how to find out if those hot discounts are really as good as they seem.

(more…)

The sale event to end all sale events is here. That’s right, folks, Black Friday 2017 is here, and this year’s sales frenzy is set to be bigger than ever as we head into the Christmas shopping period. In all honesty, they should just rename it Black November, as there have been deals going on throughout the month in preparation for the big day.

To save you trawling through the web in search of a good bargain, we’ve created this handy guide containing everything you need to know about Black Friday 2017. If you’re on the hunt for a new graphics card, a bigger and better monitor, want to splash out on a fast SSD or upgrade your gaming headset and get a more reliable mouse and keyboard, this is the place to be. We’ll be updating this hub page on a regular basis as new deals get announced, too, so make sure to keep it in your bookmarks if you fancy grabbing yourself a bit of a bargain before Christmas. We’ve also got tips on the best places to browse, and how to find out if those hot discounts are really as good as they seem.

(more…)