OK, look, it isn’t a Red Dead Redemption 2 edition, because Red Dead Redemption 2 isn’t out for PC yet. But if I keep typing Red Dead Redemption 2 into this Google is going to be SO TRICKED and the clicks will pour in and Graham will give me a promotion!

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Until such time as we can seize the means of production and abolish capitalism, the smoggy skies introduced in Cities: Skylines‘s latest expansion – Industries – are just a fact of life. At least you can simulate it working in your favour, paying directly into your pocket. Released today, Colossal Order’s new expansion lets you define your city’s purpose in the world by creating goods and exporting them to neighbouring regions. There’s a lot of new systems, five new resource-rich maps to plunder and a bundle of new buildings to construct. Greedily ogle the release trailer below.

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My body betrayed me last month, trapping me in my bed when it wasn t sending me rushing to my poor, overworked loo. I couldn t sleep, I couldn t work and so I turned to management games to take my mind off the virus squatting inside me. Juggling budgets, disasters and production chains might not sound particularly relaxing, but there s also a swathe of low-pressure sims that serve as a brilliant panacea for stress.

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In the week that United Nations scientists declared we need to immediately make massive changes to society to avoid catastrophic climate change, Paradox have announced a new Cities: Skylines expansion focused on the smoke and thunder of industry. I suppose that’s a dose of grim reality to counterbalance the utopian optimism of the game’s earlier Green Cities expansion. And, Paradox say, Industries will be good for folks who want more city-management decisions in the largely easy-going and pleasant city-builder.

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We’ve just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It’s a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you’ll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.

2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets. (more…)

Base-building is de rigueur these days, what with all those survival games, Minecraft, Fallout 4 and now Fortnite, but before all that we had tiny top-down or isometric worlds in which we diligently built cities and dungeons and theme parks and rail networks. The central appeal of management games was and is that they give us an idealised sense of what it is like to create a game – to weave new worlds upon our screens, guided only by our imaginations, ingenuity and the limitations of the in-game taxation system. Magic, right there: the birth of your own universe.

For a while there, it looked as though the management flame was fading, choked by the low-grade tycoon games that littered supermarkets’ dusty games shelves. But this is The New Age Of PC Games, which means every near-abandoned idea of yesteryear has been revisited in thoughtful and ambitious new ways. Town sims and theme sims are now healthier and more vibrant than they’ve ever been, expanding. This round-up comprises the very best of the past and the very best of today: the twenty management games which are, by 2018 standards, most guaranteed to to consume your every waking thought.

These aren’t in any particular order, by-the-by: they are, simply, the 20 best management games. (more…)

I’m not sure if Valve’s latest promotional wotsit on Steam knows whether it’s coming or going. On one hand, it’s nice that the Spring Cleaning Event (running until Monday, 28th May) is nudging players into trying out games they may have bought in sales and never touched, but pairing that with nine simultaneous free weekend events does somewhat undermine the message.

Ah well, it’s an excuse to play videogames all weekend. Can’t grumble about that. Plus, there’s an actual free game giveaway running – take a peek within. Oh, and yesterday’s big Steam giveaway is still live until tomorrow, so try that too. Oh dear, there’s just too many games.

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Now that summer is near, Cities: Skylines developers Colossal Order are taking a break from disasters and management to kick back with the Parklife expansion. Released today, it lets builders fancy up their cities with amusement parks, nature reserves, zoos, sightseeing bus tours, and other sources of summertime fun.

As with all the Paradox expansions, so many Paradox expansions, this goes hand-in-hand with a free update adding new features for all players. Expect new props for parks, new models for tourists, and loads of tweaks and fixes. (more…)

It feels rare for a week to go by where Paradox don’t announce another expansion for their growing stable of strategy and simulation sandboxes, but it’s also hard to complain when they look as nice as Parklife, the next expansion for Cities: Skylines. Adding yet another direction for your perfect city to grow in, Parklife – unsurprisingly – spans parks of all kinds, from national forests full of hiking trails right up to cash-guzzling corporate theme parks, and it’s due out next month.

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Cities: Skylines turned three a couple of weeks ago, meaning that it s time to dust off our best Cities: Skylines mods list and see what wonderful community creations we can fill it with. On the day of its launch, Skylines already had pages and pages of buildings and complicated junctions waiting to be downloaded; now there are 1,000 of them, containing a ridiculous 145,948 mods.

That s quite a lot of stuff to get through. And you should absolutely give Steam Workshop a browse — you never know what you might find. If you don t want to faff, however, I ve gathered a bunch of the best, including some personal favourites that I can t live without. Most of these mods will work with the base game, but there are a few you ll need one of the expansions for, and remember to check for conflicts.

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