Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun
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Trepang2 review: It’s an indie F.E.A.R.
Here’s a move I pull in most gunfights in Trepang2: slidekick into an enemy, grab them out of mid-air, briefly hold them in front of me as a human shield, only to pull the pin on their vest’s grenade and hurl them into a group of their pals, who do try to scatter before this meaty bomb bursts but sadly forget that they also need to avoid me and my chunky shotgun. Often this is all in slow-motion. Trepang2 is unashamedly aiming to be a new F.E.A.R. and does a pretty great job of it for a game made by a core team of only four people (plus external artists and such). Give me a shotgun, a slidekick, and slo-mo, and I’m happy.
Yes, video game loading bars are fake, indie devs admit
Indie game developers decided to shatter one of the worst-kept secrets in gaming this week, after admitting that loading bar progress is faked. But, they insist, you really wouldn’t have it any other way.
A Diablo 4 necromancer took 15 seconds to destroy a world boss designed to be beaten in 15 minutes
Diablo 4’s latest patch recently buffed every class, but it seems that at least one class is doing just fine without the helping hand, thanks.
The narrative outranks you in The Pegasus Expedition, and it works
Alright, sure, so we technically assassinated your leader, and detonated a populated planet, and wiped out the first clan we ever met. But that was all self defence and we’re not here to cause trouble. We just… have a lot going on okay.
The Pegasus Expedition is one of my favourite kinds of game. I’m not sure if it quite comes together enough, but it’s trying something so original that even its partial success is worth celebrating. You’re leading a 4X-ish effort to establish a power base in an unfamiliar galaxy. But you’re not doing it to conquer everyone or win victory points. You’re doing it so you can go back home and save Earth from annihilation.
Shout out to Game Gengo, my new language learning obsession
As some of you might be aware, I went to Japan earlier this year and had a great time. Off the back of the trip, I’ve finally decided to get my act together and pursue a long, arduous road to some degree of fluency. It’s always going to be a work-in-progress, but I think I’ve settled into a language learning routine which leaves me with plenty of time for Love Island in the evening. DuoLingo’s owl has been punted to the curb, too, because the bird is awful.
Naturally, I’ve turned to a textbook: Genki I. At first I thought there was no getting past it being a bit dry – I mean they aren’t meant to be thrillers, are they? Until, that was, I discovered Game Gengo, a YouTuber who takes each lesson from the textbook, breaks them down into manageable chunks, all complete with loads of examples from video games. I spend most of my evenings with the guy, and what a treat it is.
Cassette Beasts gets even more Poké-like with an update adding caves and a unique monster
Just when I thought my longtime love/hate relationship with Pokémon (and all of its off-shoots) was over, the recently released Cassette Beasts pulled me back down the rabbit hole. The newest creature-collectathon is only getting better, though, as developer Bytten have announced a new expansion and an upcoming multiplayer mode. In the meantime, you can check out the 1.2 update called Catacombs which is out right now.
Everything that happened in the final day of court between Microsoft and the FTC
Five days of verbal jousting and juicy internal documents later, the court battle between the US Federal Trade Commission and Microsoft is over. The FTC have worked to prevent Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard in court, and now the overseeing Judge will look back on the proceedings to make their final decision in the next few days.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective review: a glorious remaster that’s still to die for
Over a decade on from its Nintendo DS release, there’s still nothing quite like Ghost Trick. In this smart murder mystery detective game from the creator of Ace Attorney, you play the recently deceased amnesiac Sissel as he attempts to piece together his own demise. Who killed him? And why? And what’s the deal with these newfound powers he has to turn back time and manipulate inanimate objects in his vicinity? That definitely wasn’t in the ghostbusting 101 manual. Alas, he doesn’t have long to find out, as he’ll cross over to the afterlife in the morning. Thus begins a frantic night of whodunnit puzzling at its finest, with director Shu Takumi showing us exactly what he’s made of outside the courtroom dramas he built his name on.
Everything announced at the Annapurna Interactive Showcase 2023
Tonight’s Annapurna Interactive Showcase brought us 30 minutes of fresh game announcements, putting a lovely (and hopefully final) full stop on this year’s notE3 / Summer Game Fest period. While most of the announcements were updates on games we already knew about, there are a couple of cool new things in there that I’m personally quite pumped for, including a new Blade Runner game being developed internally at Annapurna Interactive, a new Keita Takahashi joint about a kid stuck in a T-pose of all things, and a new ghostly biking game from the team behind Nidhogg. I’d highly recommend watching the showcase in full if you can, but in case you need a quick refresher of what happened, or are just short on time, we’ve rounded up every announcement in order below.