Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

For too long have our video games been tainted by the spectacle of people moving around using their own feet and legs. For too long have our NPCs been left to rot in the grip of “simple town life”, surrounded by acres of thriving grass that have never known the blessed touch of a Chevron or a Ford, let alone that duchess of the asphalt – the Banana Mobile.

All that changes… well, they haven’t shared a release date yet, but rest assured that Car Park Capital will soon be here to transform all of your awful virtual countryside into a sea of rumbling isometric bonnets. Here is a trailer.

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Ahoy, consumer of PC games! I fear that Void War may be highly relevant to your statistically determined interests. It’s a space combat game in which you steer ancient, crenellated starships through a frightful cosmos of blood cultists, imperial zealots, and ravening corsairs. You will warp from node to node on a roguelite system map, with each node harbouring battles, story encounters, and the occasional friendly or at least, not immediately hostile face such as a merchant.

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I couldn’t offer many Steam Deck-specific insights in my look at Doom: The Dark Ages’ PC performance last week, because a crashing issue was inconsiderately – dare I say, rudely – blocking me from even reaching the main menu. Over the weekend, however, a purpose-built SteamOS Preview update stepped in, making the brawly sci-fantasy shooter playable on the handheld. Just in time for its launch on the 15th, no less.

I’ll confess that as I set about parrying imps between my plastic-calloused fingers, the “playable” part was still dropping minor bombshells. My main complaint with how The Dark Ages runs on desktops is the mandatory ray tracing effects that have, compared to the hardly much uglier Doom Eternal, slowed it right down. The Steam Deck can run many things, but it usually reacts to traced rays by curling up and sobbing until they go away. Still, maybe I should have had more faith in the series that essentially brought functional RT effects to the Deck in the first place, as this most recent, most demanding instalment can still run around a playable 30fps. Without resorting to its lowest settings, too.

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Our regular PC game round-up column underwent further mysterious ructions during my absence last week, when substitute news chief Brendy introduced a list format with subheadings. I can only assume he had been driven mad by terror of being eaten by the Maw. Regardless, I will trust his instincts and follow in his footsteps. Here’s what’s coming down the pipe this week.

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Among the first terrain fixtures you discover on Dune: Awakening‘s Arrakis are moisture seals: puffy wads of fabric that fill cave entrances to create makeshift microclimates, where travellers can escape the constant threat of dehydration. Awakening’s moisture seal are, in practice, the paper lid on a tube of wilderness Pringles: poke through with your dagger to find resources and the occasional hostile NPC. But what if you could place your own moisture seals, rather than just tearing open the ones left by NPCs? I’d love to play a game in which you are constantly reading the barren landscape for the shallowest of shady depressions that can be plugged and converted into shelters. Think of the attentiveness it might teach, the sensitivity to the geometry of a world that can drain your O2 bar dry in moments.

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I want Grand Theft Auto 6 to be good, and if I had to bet money on it, I’d guess it likely will be. The world is weird right now, and I want both you and me to enjoy driving a car into a man. It very much sounds like it’s got Stephen Root from Barry in it! I love Stephen Root from Barry!

But, god, am I feeling some kind of way about it constantly sucking all the air out of the room. It feels less like we’re looking forward to a game, more that we’re in thrall to a captor that knows it can command attention whether it earns it or not. ( I do not believe Red Dead Redemption 2‘s excellence earns uncritical hype for all future projects, lest we forget Cyberpunk). There’s plenty that can be said about the recent trailer, but if I had to sum up my own misgivings with it, it’s that it has an air less of “look at this cool thing we made, we can’t wait to share it with you”, more dick-swinging swagger, a cocksure sense of, well, you’re going to buy this anyway, here’s some absurdly good-looking beer to tide you piggies over.

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I started writing this piece as a sort of “oh, this was cool!” bit of game archaeology after seeing a post from Scott Krol – who shares consistently fascinating bits of ephemera on video and tabletop games – on the physical bits that came with 1984’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy adventure game.

“Infocom, known for their brilliant text adventures, was the first company to put physical items in with their games,” writes Scott. “In fact, Infocom were attributed as the first to coin the term “feelies” for physical goodies that came with the game”.

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Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week – our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! I’m currently reading Dorothy Parker, who did more for the language than I’d previously though. I’m having quite regular moments of “oh, she said that”. More proof, if any were needed, that the soul of wit is as much depression and alcoholism as it is brevity.

This week it’s game city design expert and author of Virtual Cities, Konstantinos Dimopoulos! Cheers Konstantinos! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?

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Right, sorry parents that proudly put their kids’ borderline impressionist drawings on the fridge, there’s a new bare minimum you have to meet. If you’re not turning your child’s drawings into full on video games, then I’m sorry to say you’re not doing a good enough job. This doesn’t apply to Artur Latkovsky, though, who is quite literally doing that with his game Odd Dorable (I’m sure I don’t need to explain the name to you), a game where every single bit of art in the game was made by his four-year-old daughter.

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Horror asymmetric multiplayer game Dead by Daylight is celebrating its ninth anniversary later this year, an amount of time so large it really makes you think “man, most live service devs should have had the foresight to make their game a decade ago, huh?” With that anniversary approaching imminently, developer Behaviour Interactive held a year nine anniversary broadcast where there was one reveal that’ll have you going “yeah that makes sense” and another where you’ll say “ok, sure.”

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