Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

For someone so skeptical of taxonomy, I sure love a good subgenre dive. That’s partly because it’s so easy to find a healthy one now, and there’s a joy in shearing down multiple times and still finding material. You can start from “strategy games are in a good state” and go all the way down to “Turn-based strategy wargames that balance detailed simulation with accessibility and are set in World War 2” and still find several strong entries from the last few years.

But it’s The Troop that grabbed me most. It’s a little surprising, given its modest look, and the stiff competition. I think what clinched it is that The Troop has revealed to me something that I already sort of knew, but hadn’t quite caught hold of: that a tank warfare game is all about the pause.

Read more

This week League Of Legends teased a PvE Vampire Survivors-like mode, and recently World Of Warcraft revealed a limited time PvEvP battle royale with pirates. What’s going on? Is chasing trends a bit of a risky click? Should Age Of Empires II get a battle royale mode? All these questions and no more, just these ones, are discussed in this week’s episode of the Electronic Wireless Show podcast.

Plus: I am cursed by scaffolding again, and we recommend some lovely things that aren’t video games, as is our way.

Read more

It’s been lovely to see Thatgamecompany bring the likes of Journey and Flower to PC, following their debuts on other platforms long before, and oh look here comes their latest too. Sky: Children Of The Light is now available free-to-play in early access on Steam, inviting everyone to explore a pretty world full of pretty sights and sounds in this “peaceful” MMO. Having installed it and started playing it myself, the important part is: yes, you can slide down hills in this one too.

Read more

Amazon and Bethesda’s Fallout TV show is now available to stream over Amazon’s Prime subscription service. Picture it: the post-apocalyptic America of Fallout, radroaches and stimpacks and all, except that this being a TV adaptation, the first hour doesn’t consist entirely of trying to persuade Bethesda’s face editor not to make you look like your character’s soul has been sucked out. Instead, you you can kick back with a can of Nuka Cola and watch flesh-and-blood stars Ella Purnell, Walton Goggins and Aaron Moten rove the wasteland. I caught the first couple of episodes last week, and while I find the show’s aesthetics off-putting – it’s kind of a Fallout themepark, rather than a convincing world – I do think there’s the makings of a fun tale here.

Read more

The $70 release day price for standard AAA titles is both unsustainable and on the way out, claims Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch, via an interview with IGN reporter Rebekah Valentine.

Speaking to Valentine, Karch reckoned in public that the $70 game is “going to go the way of the dodo” because it isn’t “sustainable”. Here’s the full chunk:

Read more

The legally distinct Cheerios in Tiny Tires, the upcoming miniature racing game that looks to be a loving homage to Micro Machines, have their own physics. This delights me. So does the milk, actually, leaving trails on the checked linoleum tablecloth as the infinitely minute driver tries to compensate for its skidding effect on those titular Tiny Tires. There’s pool balls, too! And floppy disk ramps! Floppy disks were probably still useful the last time anyone thought about Micro Machines, but now I’m reminded of it, I’m suddenly very excited again!

Read more

Last time, you decided that shopkeepers annoyed when you don’t buy anything is better than security cameras following your every move. So rather than an implied surveillance which doesn’t actually have consequences, you wish to be actively scolded for things you’ve not done. Alright reader dear, I’m noting that in your psychological profile. Onwards! This week I ask you to choose between soaring through the sky or making something else soar. What’s better: gliding powers or Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s Unmaking Arrow?

Read more

Revealed at the Triple-I Initiative just now, Vampire Survivors is getting another cool DLC, this one a crossover with classic Konami run ‘n’ gun Contra. It’s called Operation Guns. Get on board. Trailed with, as is now traditional, a cool animated trailer that suggests the game is a Saturday morning cartoon and not a top down pixelated nightmare that will flush out any latent photosensitivity lurking in your skull (complimentary), Operation Guns is arriving on May 9th, so about a month away.

Read more

Last week I went to a screening of Amazon and Bethesda’s Fallout TV show, a spin-off yarn starring Ella Purnell (who voiced Jinx in the Arcane Netflix adaptation) as a recently surfaced Vault Dweller, scouring the irradiated wastelands for [SPOILERS REDACTED]. It’s early days, but the show’s first two episodes didn’t make a massive impression on me, though I will concede that the sight of Amazon’s branding on Fallout’s infamous Please Stand By emergency broadcast titlecard makes a dangerous amount of sense.

Read more

Drop Bear Bytes, the studio behind post-apocalyptic RPG Broken Roads, are named after Australia’s deadliest creature. The Drop Bear might look like a normal koala, but they’re actually dangerous predators, fond of jumping from trees to maul unsuspecting chumps who forget to take adequate precautions, like urinating on themselves. Really, the story is a wind-up the aussies like to blag tourists with. If it looks like a koala, it’s just a koala. But it’s this sort of character, inspired by love for Australia’s unique landscape, culture and good-natured mick-taking, that forms the heart of the best bits in Broken Roads. I say ‘best bits’, but I should probably say ‘the only bits that I actually enjoyed’, unfortunately.

Bombs wiped out 80% of Australia’s population, and left the remaining nail-hard Nancys and tough Tobiases to fend for themselves in a world short of resources, but shockingly plentiful in both guns and pre-made Vegemite sarnies. You’ll pick one of four character classes – I went with ‘Jackaroo’ (cattle hand), because it was called ‘Jackaroo’ – before tackling a short tutorial section. You’ll then be thrust into some events, where you’ll meet the rest of your starting party and kick off the game proper.

Read more