Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Have you ever woken up and thought to yourself “I’d like to be a bear, or perhaps a moose, just for like, a little bit”? Oddly specific thing to think about first thing in the morning, but Striden has you covered at least. It’s a looter shooter, yes, it’s a survival game, sure, it’s a team-based game, why not! Except sometimes, for some reason, you can just turn into different animals to fight your opponents, like a radioactive bear, which I think is very silly, but in a wonderful kind of way. And, as developer 5 Fortress announced today, it’s getting an open beta this weekend so you can see what it’s like for yourself.

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GeForce RTX 4090 might be yesterday’s flagship, but it’s still faster than nearly every GPU on the planet—unless you’ve somehow tracked down an RTX 5090 at MSRP, in which case, congratulations on your black-market wizardry. For everyone else, Alienware currently has the cleanest way to get a 4090 system right now without jumping through flaming eBay hoops.

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I’m a small-time drug dealer from the south, says the hypnagogic text hovering before me as I start Schedule 1. It says I’ve arrived in town with no cash, no product, and no contacts. I only know one way to make money, the text implores, and it’s time to get to work. Stuff that.

It’s time to turn over a new, cannabinoid-free leaf. I’m going to begin again as a productive member of society, earning an honest living, fully cooperating with any esteemed law-enforcement officers who decide to detain me in the course of their duties. What could possibly go wrong?

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It’s rare that a video game pumps actual joy into my shrunken, leathery heart, but I definitely felt a certain springtime stirring when I first jumped in 3D platformer Demon Tides. Hit the button again exactly when you land and you’ll be rewarded with a higher, twirlier jump. Hit it a third time and you’ll be treated to a triumphant, arcing somersault. Yes, this is the stuff! This is the old N64 Mario magic I’ve been missing.

Nostalgia is the enemy of critical thinking, you say? The games industry is a flat circle of corporate iteration, is it? A stifling quAAAgmire from which not even moderate oddballs like New York-based developers Fabraz can escape? I know, I know, but please, let me have this. Let me do the “let people enjoy things” meme, just this once. Look, I can turn into a bat as well. I can turn into a fat little frisbee with ground-pound functionality. I can turn into a spindash-capable snek.

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When you shoot your beginner pistol in action RPG Hell Clock, it feels like someone slapped the foundations of the catacombs you’re standing in with a pork chop big enough to decapitate god. There is beefy gun feel, and there is this: a gun chutney so chunksome and tactile I had to check my mouse hadn’t suddenly sprouted haptics. As a single player, single class genre entrant, it’s not quite fair to compare it to more sprawling mainstays like Diablo 4 or Path Of Exile 2. But I woke up feeling unfair today: even in its demo form, I’d much rather play Hell Clock than either of them.

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Jokes aside, you’d have to be a pretty big dork to think that the world isn’t wide enough for both handheld PCs and traditional consoles like the Nintendo Switch 2 (even if the latter is hogging a new FromSoft game). Partly because they are, to an extent, ingrained in each other, via the classic hardware marketplace of borrowed ideas: there’s probably no Steam Deck without the original Switch, and I’d bet my own mousing hand that the Switch 2’s optical sensor-packing Joy Cons are inspired by the Lenovo Legion Go.

No doubt the manufacturers behind portable PCs watched the Switch 2’s Nintendo Direct showcase and began furiously scribbling notes on what they could crib, be it the magnetic clip-on peripherals, the fan-equipped dock, or whatever internal wizardry that seemingly lets it run Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at 1080p. Fine by me. Just please don’t, whatever you do, follow Nintendo’s lead of trying to plaster over games with the gurning, disembodied heads of our friends and families.

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The most influential game of all time is Yu Suzuki’s 1999 proto open world Gashapon ’em up Shenmue, according to a public poll held by BAFTA. To claim that top spot in the top five, it beat out Doom, Super Mario Bros, Half-Life, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Minecraft hovered around the winners table laughing loudly at everyone’s jokes at number six. At number 11, Tetris had to sit on a bin because all the chairs had been taken. Dark Souls paced up and down the corridor complaining that everyone had nicked its outfit idea in 18th place, tailed in 19th by Grand Theft Auto 3. Full results below in descending order.

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I’m not sure I’ve seen people swing back and forth on a game so rapidly like they have with Helldivers 2. It’s had a few hiccoughs here and there, which has made for some tough times for developer Arrowhead, at least in terms of battling the accursed “mixed” rating on Steam (and lower). In a recent interview with The Game Business, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani quite accurately noted that it’s been “one heck of a roller coaster year” for Helldivers 2, and also went on to speak about what it was like clawing its way back from low ratings – all the while having to explain to Sony about summer holidays in Sweden.

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I’m not sure I’ve seen people swing back and forth on a game so rapidly like they have with Helldivers 2. It’s had a few hiccoughs here and there, which has made for some tough times for developer Arrowhead, at least in terms of battling the accursed “mixed” rating on Steam (and lower). In a recent interview with The Game Business, Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani quite accurately noted that it’s been “one heck of a roller coaster year” for Helldivers 2, and also went on to speak about what it was like clawing its way back from low ratings – all the while having to explain to Sony about summer holidays in Sweden.

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Back in 2022, when Project Rene was first announced, everyone quite fairly assumed that it would go on to become The Sims 5, given that The Sims 4 was quite old by that point. Then, last year, EA actually said no, they’re not making a Sims 5, they’re just going to keep making things for The Sims 4, and Project Rene will be more of a multiplayer game. While bits and pieces of the game have been shared here and there, some gameplay of Project Rene now appears to have been shared online, which looks like it very much wasn’t meant to be seen by many eyes.

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