The offside rule is the least of your problems I often regret that I didn’t get into football as a kid (note for people across the pond: football is what we call soccer in these here accursed, eternally post-imperial isles). The trouble was, all my friends liked football and I have an abiding hatred of popular things, a hatred that has obviously served me well during my later career as an online news journalist....
A word from uncle Reedpop, who hasn’t sold us off just yet Stand by for a missive from RPS corporate parent ReedPop. Transmission begins! Ah, it’s about gaming events. So, Reedpop’s EGX expo and MCM Comic Con are joining forces. They’ll both take place side-by-side in the ExCel London this year, on 25th-27th October. EGX, of course, will feature a bunch of classic and upcoming games, while Comic Con is laser-targeted at our respected allies in the world of on-paper image-based storytelling with speech bubbles....
ESA oppose allowing libraries to offer scholars remote access in recent hearing Last week, a government hearing took place between representatives of theVideo Game History Foundation, theRhizomeproject, and theSoftware Preservation Networkamong others, with legal representation for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and theAACSamong those in opposition. The hearing was a follow-up to the SPN petitioning the US copyright office, last year, for a DMCA exemption that would allow researchers to access games in libraries and archives....
Don’t laugh Royale-battler Fortnite will soon allow players to hide a handful of emotes the developers concede are “sometimes used in confrontational ways”. This includes the emote reported as the most-used in Fortnite’s seven-year history. That’s either a worrying indictment of the game’s players, or a (more?) worrying indictment of universal human psychology. What is the offending animation? Well, turns out people don’t like being laughed at. “Laugh it up” is the emote that stands out among those being quietly hidden, often deployed as a post-kill taunt....
Actively hostile to my attempts to not put it straight in the toaster Sometimes, I hear critics describe something as ‘actively hostile’ to the act of playing it, but with something close to admiration in their voices. I’ve always felt that I, too, would like to one day find an artwork that I could describe in the same way. Partly because it sounds like an interesting experience, but mainly so I could steal that line and feel like one of those elite, urbanely perceptive, multiple trouser-owning critics....
Something need doing? I’m the kind of awful person who looks at the background actors in TV shows and wonders what life is like for e.g. the old woman who sells birdfeed in Trafalgar Square in Mary Poppins when said upper-middle class domestic isn’t singing about her. What fate the Warcraft grunt when he is too old to work work? It’s probably pretty bad, right? Now let me slopInnkeepdown in front of you like a big bowl of rat stew....
Nvidia Reflex, you’ve bested me for the last time Nestled within aseemingly ho-hum patchforHorizon Forbidden West’s PC edition is a change I’ve been crossing fingers and ritualistically sacrificing metal dinosaurs for since release. At last I can behold those glorious words: “Resolved performance regression when enabling Nvidia Reflex On+Boost.” Finally! Thus ends a truly baffling, and annoying, performance mishap that some players of theexcellentopen-worldsequel may not even have known was afflicting it....
Why being dumb is good, actually So far, my main problem withLethal Company– this month’sRPS Game Clubgame – is that I’m getting better at it. I’m more efficient at clearing up scrap, less prone to fear-spasming inside out when amonsterattacks, and have become wise to most of the haunted houses’ deadliest tricks. All of these, it turns out, make Lethal Company a worse game. A less enjoyable one, anyway. As a work ofhorror, many of Lethal Company’s emotional peaks are engineered by the game itself – the unity-breaking mind games of a Bracken, for instance, sidling into view of a single player and vanishing before their teammates can verify it....
Atlus' latest showcase reveals a whole lot more As one of the Treehouse’s resident Atlus sickos, I was incredibly happy to wake up to 25-minutes ofMetaphor: ReFantazio’s director Katsura Hashino talking us through some new footage. We get a look at a new rural town and the activities you can get up to, like bounty hunting. Travel on your magic mech is compared to “camping”, which I wasn’t expecting. And there’s lots of combat on show, with transitions from real-time to turn-based battles outlined in a bit more detail....
Need a hint for today’s Connections? Read our guide for help with Connections #317 This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today’s solution? Check out theConnections hint and answers for Thursday 12th December! Want a hint for Connections today?Piggybacking off the monumental success of daily puzzle gameWordle, the New York Times has another fantastically popular word game out now. It’s calledConnections, and if you haven’t played it before, now’s the time to start....
Paying HOMMage Songs Of Conquestis a strategy-RPG with some of the most handsome pixel art around. Steam tells me I’ve played its Early Access release for 0.7 hours, which was long enough to know that I wanted to play more and would wait for version 1.0. I won’t have to wait much longer. It’s now got a May 20th release date. The 1.0 release will add a fourth and final campaign to the game, which will feature “the mercenary tinkerers of Barya....
You choo choo choose me? Afternoon, conveyor belt fans! Good news, I think I may have discovered the first genuinely cosy automation game. Attempts have been made at cosy automation and automated cosiness in the past –Satisfactoryis on the sunnier side, providing you enable the right settings, andShapez 2has lots of rounded edges. But IDK, there’s something about the ravages of mass industry that doesn’t quite gel with zoomorphic raccoon baristas and other such wholesome trappings....
Impressions of the “technical test” Were we to pluck up a passing stoat, or wandering pigeon, and inspect their entrails for omens as regards the quality of mythical roguelikeHades 2, we would find ourselves covered in blood and perhaps a little wiser. But I have been given strict editorial directions not to kill any more small creatures for gambling purposes. So let us instead use the semi-public"technical test"as a portentous looking glass from which to discern whether this hell-hopping sequel seems promising....
