SSR Wives is a sparky throwback survival horror with romantic intentions and iMacs for save points

SSR Wives: The Murder Of My Winter Crush is Silent Hill 3 for people who like the chibi proportions of Final Fantasy 9 and also, people who hoot in adoration when they see a low-poly model of an iMac. I am both of these people. Created by Hen Studios with a demo on Steam, it’s a sour and sugary blend of survival horror and romantic visual novel. You play one of several anime characters with names such as Tradgirl and Chudboy, all trapped in The Town That Time Forgot.

Those mouth-wateringly chubby iMacs? They are save points, the local equivalent for Resident Evil’s typewriters. Excellent work, game. You have reminded me of my advancing age in a way I actually enjoy.

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In acid-bright office shooter Gossamer Matrix you have to reload while managing a deskful of junk

If I’m interpreting the press materials for Gossamer Matrix correctly, this is an FPS in which you might accidentally stuff a chocolate bar into your AK47 while trying to reload. The result will not be a fusillade of chocodrops. Instead, you will be gunned down like the miserable office slob you absolutely are. So keep your workspace tidy, chief.

I’m looking at my desk as I type these words. It contains: a piece of paper with “gel” written on it, purpose unknown; a stolen Cafe Nero mug, never cleaned; Vikram Chandra’s memoir Geek Sublime; and a bag of raisins. I do not own a gun, because this is the UK and one of the UK’s few advantages is that the vast majority of people don’t own guns, but if I did own a six-shooter and were lured into a gunfight right now, I guarantee I’d be stuffing raisins into the chamber while choking to death on my own bullets.

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EA let Battlefield 6 players lock weapons to classes in latest scuffle over how much Battlefield should enforce teamwork

EA and DICE have decided to let players choose between locking weapons to classes in the forthcoming Battlefield 6, or being able to equip any weapon to any class. It might sound like a throwaway technicality, next to the existential terror of reports that EA want the new shooter to find a following of 100 million players. In practice, the decision to give players the option of locking weapons to classes is Serious Business. it’s the latest manifestation of a debate that goes back to Battlefield’s formative squabbles with rival FPS Call Of Duty in the noughties.

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Campaign asking EU to stop publishers “destroying” online games hit by anonymous transparency complaint

The Stop Destroying Videogames citizens’ initiative, the EU petition that’s part of the Stop Killing Games campaign, has had an anonymous transparency complaint filed against it.

That’s according to Ross Scott, the YouTuber who’s become the figurehead of Stop Killing Games, which in case you’re out of the loop aims to stop publishers rendering online games unplayable when official support ends. Instead, the movement wants companies to be required to put concrete end-of-life plans in place if they elect to do things like turn servers off.

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Anti-porn group who tried to ban GTA 5 claim credit for Steam’s sex game crackdown

Valve recently changed Steam’s rules and regulations to give banks, payment processors, and internet service providers some control over the definition of acceptable “adult content” on Steam, in line with their own respective policies. As Valve suggested to RPS in a statement, it was either that or risk a credit card firm or bank blocking Steam purchases at large. Alongside all this, Valve also delisted a bunch of sexually explicit games, including a number of games that depict incest.

Valve have yet to specify which games they’ve delisted as a direct result of the policy change, or which particular institutions prompted them to make this rather momentous shift. But it looks increasingly like the result of an anti-violent pornography game campaign directed at Valve, Mastercard, Paypal, Visa, Paysafe Limited, Discover and the Japan Credit Bureau in early July, carried out by Australian pressure group Collective Shout. This is the conclusion offered by Collective Shout themselves, anyway – they’ve described the Steam delistings as a “victory for child safety campaigners”, while commenting that they are now being sent misogynistic abuse and threats by players in retaliation.

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Greedfall 2 studio Spiders set for layoffs that’ll affect “most” of their animators and riggers, dev claims

Greedfall 2 developers Spiders are going ahead with a layoff plan that’ll see “most” of their animating and rigging team affected, according to a post from a lead animator at the Nacon-owned studio.

This LinkedIn post by Erwan Perrin, whose profile cites him as having been a permanent Spiders staffer since 2021, has been reposted by at least four other workers at the the studio.

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Ubisoft CEO responds to Stop Killing Games, and casually mentions a new Ghost Recon game’s coming

Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot has responded to a shareholder question about the Stop Killing Games campaign – and in a very newsworthy corporate question and answer session, revealed that a new Ghost Recon game’s in the works.

To quickly recap, Stop Killing Games aim to stop publishers rendering online games unplayable after the cessation of official support. They were inspired to take action by Ubisoft themselves ‘sunsetting’ online racer The Crew.

Ubisoft’s response to their campaign comes around the time the group’s petition to the EU to take action against the mass extinction of online games hits 1.4 million signatures. Despite some doubts about potential signature spoofing, the petition’s recently attracted support from EU politicians and industry trade bodies, so it’s no surprise Guillemot’s fielding questions about it from moneyfolk.

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Hell Clock review

There are lots of games in the same way there are lots of crisps. Many of those games are good, in the same way that many crisps are shaped a bit like Jesus. But even a crisp shaped like Jesus ceases to delight after you’ve seen a few. Great, you think. Another bloody Jesus Dorito. Hurl it on the pile. You crave something transcendent. Like a Möbius strip Wotsit. Or a Salt ‘n Vinegar Disco inscribed with the Corpus Hermeticum. Something that changes the way you look at crisps forever.

Anyway, Hell Clock is not that, but it does has a wicked sick knife spin attack, so carefree in its centrifugal flesh mangling that I resented every screenshot I had to take for making me move my finger off the funny spin button.

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