Theme park management sim Park Beyond is getting a new closed beta test, ahead of its full launch on June 16th. It’s a whacky-looking game that lets you build impossible rollercoaster rides that are just begging to be sued, all while you try to turn a profit running your park. The closed beta is completely free and begins on May 9th, so if you want a test ride, you can register at this link. In the meantime, publisher Bandai Namco have also released a new, more in-depth gameplay trailer, giving us a closer look at some of the minutiae involved in running a theme park.
In the world of turn-based strategy games, it’s probably fair to say that we’ve been waiting a heck of a long time for Jagged Alliance to make its next move. Almost a quarter of a century has passed since the last numbered entry in the series, and the many attempts that have been made to recapture its tactical, mercenary magic since then have been mixed at best, and reviled at worst. Haemimont Games, the devs behind Tropico and current custodians of the upcoming Jagged Alliance 3, know this, and their publisher THQ Nordic said as much back in September 2021 when it was first revealed, assuring players they were going to create a game that “really does justice to the Jagged Alliance legacy”.
But in an era where turn-based tactics games are now increasingly defined by genre titans such as XCOM and Into The Breach, I’m not sure that legacy means all that much anymore. I’ve been playing a substantial early chunk of Jagged Alliance 3 over the last week or so, and its decision to pare back crucial information such as chance-to-hit and other modern conveniences has mostly left me feeling frustrated and annoyed rather than daring and excited. The writing also made me cringe so hard at times I think even the neighbours heard my groans of despair. It certainly looks the part of a modern strategy game, its detailed African landscape, top down perspective and interactive objects calling to mind Mimimi’s excellent Desperados 3 and Shadow Tactics games, but the rest feels like it’s been lifted straight out of the late 90s where we last left Jagged Alliance 2 – and not necessarily to its benefit.
Ray tracing is coming back to the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 remakes on PC, according to Capcom. That’s after the graphical option was quietly removed from both games this past week, following a recent update. Fans had been wondering if the move was deliberate or not, but Capcom’s announcement seems to confirm that it was just a mishap. So, zombie slayers should be able to go back to running around in realistically lit corridors full of shadowy corners very soon.
Pentiment director and long-time Obsidian developer Josh Sawyer has shed some light on the Aliens RPG that was in production at the studio and sadly cancelled by publisher Sega. Looking back at cancelled games is always a fun “what if” exercise, especially in this case. Obsidian’s role-playing chops in an Aliens game? Were our charisma stats going to protect us from the ever-murderous Xenomorphs?
Hello folks. I come bearing a reasonably sensitive question for you today, and that’s how the current cost of living crisis has affected your day to day gaming habits. We know times are tough for a lot of people right now, but if you can spare five minutes to tell us about it in a new reader survey put together for us by our corporate uncle Reedpop, we’d be very grateful.
As one of the very best survival games on PC (according to us andRPS readers), Valheim is getting even more ways to play around in its Norse sandbox. Developer Jonathan Smårs took to Twitter yesterday to tease a bunch of difficulty presets and customisable sliders, letting you modify the Viking experience to your liking. The options include both a creative mode (a là Minecraft) and a more ‘immersive’ option.
The first-person puzzler Firmament is releasing on May 18th, developers Cyan have announced. The studio behind the influential Myst first teased the game back in 2018, before turning to Kickstarter a year later to fund their steampunk mystery, and now it’s ready for release, playable in both VR and “2D” – or flatscreen displays.
The Samsung 870 Qvo is one of the best large-capacity SATA SSDs, offering up to 8TB of storage in a classic 2.5-inch form factor. It normally retails for around £452, but now it’s 10% off, bringing it to the lowest price we’ve seen on Amazon UK: £408. That’s a great price for a tonne of game and media storage.
1979’s Akalabeth: World Of Doom, eventually renamed Ultima 0, is the first commercial game by Richard Garriott (himself aka’d Lord British), and one of the very first roleplaying video games to enter the market. It’s also a precursor to Garriott’s Ultima series, introducing many elements that formed the core of the following games. But everything that Akalabeth invented would eventually be abandoned, first by its sequels and then the entire RPG genre.
When I think of quintessentially British games, a few highlights come to mind. Fable‘s fairytale world of stocky goblins and poverty-stricken orphans with Victorian-era voices is definitely very British, as is Banjo-Kazooie’s dry wit and sarcasm. A decent bucket of contenders, but the crown has to go to the Greggs Simulator, a free shop sim that tasks you with managing a Greggs pasty shop that’s a staple of every UK high street.
