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Throughout my time playing Hollow Knight: Silksong, I mostly didn’t actually miss the first game’s not-so-titular Knight. I do love that bug, it’s just Hornet made for quite a compelling protagonist (even if I think that the game has a number of issues that go further than just it being potentially unfairly hard). I doubt this will be a universal feeling however, which is where this handy mod where you can once again play as the Knight, but in Silksong, comes into play.
There are many words that could be said, and I’ll attempt to say a few of them here, on the gamification of both menial labour and tasks, but it is always fascinating to me when a new game crops up that somehow makes me go “oh, sure, why not!” Today that applies to a game called Leaf Blower Co., which is a simulation game about exactly what you’d expect (blowing leaves) and I suppose not what you expect (blowing paper boats and coconuts).
It has not been a good time for Simmers recently, and that’s not even touching the recent controversial private buyout that has led to a creator exodus. The Sims 4, for a while now, has been riddled with bugs that simply make it difficult to play, prompting Maxis to outline a quality of life roadmap in September. Part of said roadmap was delivered yesterday in a big update that introduced more than 150 community-voted fixes, as well as some free goodies!
I called out sliding as one of my favourite aspects of Arc Raiders in a launch-day write-up. It lends the looter shooter a gambolling giddiness you might not expect from its heavily laden packmule characters. In more practical terms, it makes you harder to hit and allows you to flank or retreat while regenerating stamina, the catch being that you might slide into somewhere you’d rather not be, like directly beneath a bunch of Hornets.
After a few hours spent doing migrant penguin impressions in Buried City and Blue Gate, a thought occurred: hang on, this is almost like the hypermobile ski shooting in Tribes: Ascend. I mean, not really, but perhaps if they made friction a setting on custom servers, this crouch-walking pillage ’em up could be a bona fide movement shooter.
Like an asteroid touching down in a freshly shaken martini, Europa Universalis 5 is now available on Steam, and some players have been having trouble playing it. I don’t mean the people who don’t understand inflation or why they can’t make friends with Greenland. I mean the people who can’t even get the new 4X strategy game to launch, because their PCs are too pitifully puny for this behemoth of history. Don’t fret, those people. The hardware Popes at Paradox are blessing your meagre graphics cards with a sneaky workaround.
Awooga, awooga, the bomb’s about to be dropped. Well, the anniversary edition update for Fallout 4‘s about to arrive at any rate. As with its next-gen predecessor, the question is how it might affect whatever established mod load order you’ve got in place. Helpfully, Bethesda have now specified any mods which change the game’s home screen as ones you’ll certainly want to disable ahead of the update’s arrival.
That’s right, time to kiss farewell to the image of Paladin Danse in a risque pose you’ve had lurking behind the start new game button. At least temporarily.
In ‘Yeahhh, probably should have had that already’ news, the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED are getting a new low-power mode that will let the handheld PCs continue any active downloads with the display switched off. It’s part of a SteamOS update that’s available right now on the Beta and Preview channels, at last closing a longstanding feature gap that’s had us all downloading games to our Decks with the screens chewing up precious battery life. Like savages.
How to describe Sorath’s Hyper Demon, other than by labelling it an arena score-attacking FPS from the developer of Devil Daggers? Well, imagine you’re a caveman, the descendant of a forgotten tribe miraculously preserved in the remote wilds. You accidentally eat some fermented berries one day and stumble upon a billionaire’s wilderness Halloween fancy dress party.
Delirious and appalled by the teeming lights and faces, you trip and wedge your head inside the giant, Cirque-du-Soleil-supplied crystal ball the guests are using to predict each other’s net worth fluctuations over the next year. Then you’re chased into the middle of a firework show by flunkeys dressed as vintage heavy metal album covers, while the jet setters throw jewelry and bioluminescent canapes. There you go, this is approximately the experience of playing Hyper Demon. If you don’t believe me, there’s now a free 1v1 multiplayer version of the game on Steam.
“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay,” Austrian journalist and Marxist Ernst Fischer wrote in The Necessity of Art. “And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.” I can’t help but feel he’d very much appreciate Wreckfest 2‘s fourth early access update, which has added in a tool you can use to brush detailed rust, dirt, and dents onto the canvas of your old banger. Said tool has been given a suitably glorious name: CRAP-IT.
Ten hours into Arc Raiders, I felt betrayal’s sharp sting for the first time.
The round began with generosity. I met a fellow raider who had dropped me a rare shotgun as well as a damaged heat sink to upgrade my workbench. They asked nothing in return. It was one of many friendly encounters I’ve had roaming the surface of Arc Raiders’ hostile maps, but I also felt my heart rate rise: when you die you lose everything you’re carrying, so I knew I had to reach an extraction point quickly and quietly.
On the way, I met another player. We exchanged “don’t shoot” emotes followed by our actual voices on proximity chat, agreeing to cover each other until the exit. I even dropped him some bandages.
Fool.
