Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Disney are taking out a $1.5 billion equity stake in Fortnite publisher Epic Games, and have announced “an all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences”. According to Disney CEO Robert A. Iger, it’s “Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games”. Friends, we are witnessing the birth of a franchising megamoeba of titanic proportions – a new, Unreal Engine-driven “persistent universe” of playing, watching, shopping and other content-tickling opportunities, featuring characters and stories created by Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar “and more”. Where are your puny gods now?

Read more

Homeworld 3‘s release date has been pushed back from March 8th to May 13th 2024, in order to build on player feedback to this week’s Steam Next Fest War Games demo, which will be available till February 12th, 10am PT or 6pm GMT. The associated joint statement from developers Blackbird Interactive and publishers Gearbox arrived within hours of me posting about said Homeworld 3 demo and saying that while I am fully onboard with many aspects of the new space strategy game, I do have reservations about its controls.

Naturally, and self-flatteringly, I’m now petrified that I’m single-handedly responsible for the delay. Please come back, Homeworld 3! I didn’t mean it! I’m pretty sure I’ll acclimatise to the control scheme with practice! True-3D starfleet management is always a bit fiddly! Besides which, I might not get to review it now!! I’m moving flat in May!!!

Read more

If you’re on the lookout for a powerful yet inexpensive CPU cooler, this discounted option from Thermalright might be a good shout. It’s down to £15.90 from £18.90, turning an already good value CPU cooler equipped with two fans into an absolute bargain.

Read more

League Of Geeks’s remake of cult strategy game Solium Infernum is having its release date pushed back by a week, the studio have announced. It will now launch on February 22nd, instead of its original date of February 14th – which is a damn shame, if you ask me, as nothing screams “romantic Valentine’s night-in” like trying to backstab your other half in a bid to rule hell in Satan’s absence. Alas, we’ll just have to make do with the altogether more pedestrian date of a regular Thursday in February, as the team need just a bit of extra time to ensure it’s “as polished as possible” before release.

Read more

A PC version of Dreams, the PlayStation 4-exclusive toybox-slash-game creation platform from LittleBigPlanet makers Media Molecule, was nearly completed before being cancelled late last year, according to a new report.

Read more

Visual Concepts Austin, the 2K Games studio behind sports franchises including WWE and NBA, as well as last year’s kart racing game Lego 2K Drive, has reportedly laid off a number of employees. The cuts come fewer than six months after the last round of layoffs at the Texas outlet.

Read more

After years without a new The Sims game, it seems like three are likely to land in fairly close proximity – sort of, anyway. We know that Paradox’s ambitious competitor Life By You will arrive this June (assuming no more delays), while EA’s own free-to-play evolution of the OG life-sim series – currently codenamed Project Rene rather than The Sims 5 – is probably still a while off yet. Dropping somewhere in the middle will be Paralives, the promising Patreon-funded up-and-comer led by indie dev Alex Massé, which has been given a fresh look and confirmation of a release date sometime next year.

Read more

Good news, star admirals with decent CPM! Gearbox and Blackbird Interactive’s strategy escapade Homeworld 3 has a demo on Steam. It’s been live for a few days, actually, but whether due to the bombardment of other Steam Fest goodies or my being led astray by the similar-but-nerdier Nebulous: Fleet Command, I didn’t try it till last night. The demo includes a tutorial mission, four maps and the War Games mode, a one-to-three player affair which essentially turns Homeworld into a roguelike – pitching you up against unpredictable opposition while unlocking new fleets and doling out Artifacts that augment your vessels.

Read more

If you played and liked last year’s excellent slice-of-life adventure A Space For The Unbound, stop what you’re doing and go and download the Steam Next Fest demo for Until Then. Go on, I’ll wait. Right, sorted? Let’s continue. Like A Space For The Unbound, Until Then is a coming of age story where the ups and downs of everyday high school life start intermingling with strange, supernatural occurences.

Read more

The latest Counter-Strike 2 update re-introduces Arms Race, a beloved multiplayer mode from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in which players level up and are handed new guns as they moider each other, with victory going to the player who levels all the way up and performs a final knifekill.

I’ve played many variations of this mode – which was originally a mod, Gun Game – over the years in other games, and it’s always a laugh, for the simple reason that it can be tuned to allow less proficient FPS players to catch up with their brethren, by introducing less powerful or harder-to-master weapons at certain levels as “speed bumps”.

Read more