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Almost five years since it launched – and two years after Epic revealed they hoped to gobble up half of all PC gaming revenue – the Epic Games Store is still yet to turn a profit.
Resurrected TimeSplitters developers Free Radical Design could be the next Embracer-owned studio to be shuttered, according to recent reports. The rumoured closure comes just two years after the veteran British label were resurrected by their original founders to work on a new TimeSplitters game.
Hallowe’en may be over (just), but for this month’s Reality Frights, I’ve got a wonderfully seasonal game for you. It’s the brand-new remake of the grand old mystery puzzler The 7th Guest, a game which Bill Gates notably referred to as “The new standard of interactive entertainment.” In fairness to ol’ William, he said this seven months before Doom blew out the new standard’s insides with a 12-gauge shotgun, shunting PC gamers’ tastes away from kitsch adventure games and toward grisly murder-fests. But The 7th Guest is nonetheless fondly remembered for its spooky atmosphere, alongside its blend of pre-rendered backgrounds and live action cutscenes you could call ‘pioneering’ had it not proved such an evolutionary dead end.
Today, the original 7th Guest looks more dated than Henry VIII, which is probably why this remake replaces everything but the very skeleton of the 1993 original. The game still takes place in a creepy mansion belonging to a murderous toymaker, and still involves six eccentric guests to the house searching for a missing boy named Tad. But it’s otherwise been completely rebuilt, with whole new puzzles and whole new mechanics, all designed to be experienced in first-person VR.
If there’s one genre I’ve never quite had the reflexes or spatial awareness for, it’s the bullet hell shooter. I’ve long admired their intricate dances of orbs and criss-crossing laser fire, but I have long resigned myself to merely being a spectator of such games, rather than an active ship pilot. Cobalt Core, however, is exactly my kind of speed. It’s not a bullet hell shooter, but it is about two spaceships facing off against each other in an eyes-locked duel of incoming cannon fire, and sliding side to side to avoid getting exploded as you attempt to unravel the mysterious timeloop your crew of weird space animals appear to be stuck in. Just, you know, in a neat, turn-based fashion, where your opponent’s attacks are flagged up in advance, and you must use your randomised deck of cards to weave and dodge your way to victory. It’s very moreish, and very Into The Breach. I love it.
Last time, you narrowly decided that soulslike bloodstains are better than ghosts walking through walls. That sounds to me like the decisions of cowards who not only don’t want to be got by ghosts, they want to be warned about the presence of any danger. Maybe I’m being ungenerous; maybe what you truly enjoy is watching other people get extremely ghostgot. I cannot deny it is great to watch someone absolutely stack it. Onwards! This week, I ask you to choose between two automatic assists. What’s better: auto-level up, or auto-detect graphics settings?
Paratopic was a muddy, blood-filled VHS cassette of a game, a game of midnight highways, pinched, pixellated faces and acidic service station lighting. The next game from developer Arbitrary Metric, Roman Sands RE:Build, is… very different, at least on the surface.
The first Act of the new Steam demo sees you staggering onto the beach below some kind of tropical resort. You wander up past the pools to the cavernous lobby and are immediately set upon by haggard guests, who appear to think you’re a member of staff. So you become a member of staff, fetching margaritas, tracking down the check-in ledger and running downstairs to adjust the boiler settings. You earn XP from quests towards employee ranks that unlock useful items at vending machines. And you try to work out what you’re doing here, or why everybody’s so terrified of the sun. I haven’t deciphered the mystery yet.
Years of anticipation finally became reality last night when a videogame company posted a video of somebody in a sharp trench coat and mirror visor walking down a dim hall, swivelling dramatically to eyeball the viewer, then casually drawing a pistol and walking into a roomful of unfocussed Potential. This is Mass Effect 5, actual title possibly Mass Effect: Epsilon – “epsilon” being the Top Secret Codename of this hidden page on the Mass Effect website. What does it all mean? I don’t know. It’s a nice coat, though, isn’t it? I like those padded red lapels.
Mechanical gaming keyboards used to be premium options available to very few, but now they often go on sale for extremely low prices – even from big names. Today HyperX joins that list of big-name bargains with their Alloy Origins full-size mechanical keyboard dropping to just $32 when bought from GameStop in the US, versus its original price of $109.99. That’s a great bargain for a keyboard with red (soft linear) mechanical switches, optional RGB lighting and a high-quality metal chassis.
Revenant Hill was to be the first game from The Glory Society, the new studio founded by former Night In The Woods developers Bethany Hockenberry and Scott Benson. Unfortunately due to “recent serious health issues” affecting several members of the team, the team have decided to “suspend operations” and end development.
