Fine, let’s write about the stupid Banana game

You might have noticed that the second most played game on Steam right now is Banana, which released back in April, but has seen an explosion of popularity over the past couple of weeks. What is Banana? It’s a free idle clicker in which you click on a picture of a banana to make numbers go up. If the number goes up enough, the game drops additional pictures of bananas into your Steam inventory. Actually, it’s not even an idle clicker – simply leaving the game open all day is enough to generate a slow but steady supply of these banana pictures.

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Call of Duty follows Fortnite in adding Fallout skins, out this week

Look, who knows when we’ll see Fallout 5 – there’s an increasingly less-than-zero chance we’ll all be living in a real post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland by the time Bethesda get around to revealing anything, if their deliberately slow approach to The Elder Scrolls 6 (it’s been nearly THIRTEEN years since Skyrim) is much to go by. Still, even without a full sequel, Fallout is all around us – in multiple seasons of a television show, in Fortnite, and now in Call of Duty.

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Marvel vs Capcom collection brings a fighting game GOAT, plus six more arcade classics, to PC with rollback netcode

When it comes to the ultimate showdown of all-time great fighting games, Marvel vs Capcom 2 might well take my personal bet for being the best of the best. I spent countless hours throwing down with housemates, friends and random passers-by who looked like they were up for a brawl during my teenage years. Yet the arcade classic has – as far as I can tell – never been given a proper PC release before the recent announcement of a new bundle of the comic-book crossover series headed to Steam this year.

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Life By You devs spent “a month in purgatory” prior to closure, says laid-off designer, despite their sim-like exceeding Paradox’s expectations

Yesterday, we learned that Sims-like Life By You had been canceled, and its developers Paradox Tectonic had been shut down by parent company Paradox Interactive. Later the same day, game designer Willem Delventhal shared more a detailed account of his experience working on the game through to its cancellation, via LinkedIn.

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Hobbit life sim Tales Of The Shire is so jolly and joyful it creeps the hell out of me

Tales Of The Shire unfolds in a world without shadow. There are shadows, technically, but they’re so mellow and fuzzy they might as well be stray pools of sunlight that have forgotten to glow. In this latest chunk of Lord Of The Rings memorabilia from developers Wētā Workshop and publisher Private Division, you are a custom-created hobbit who has just taken up residence in the charming Tellytubby town of Bywater, there to spend your days foraging, fishing, feasting and fraternizing with your fellow halfings, all of whom wear expressions of rosy-cheeked humour so intense in their winsome affability that your own face soon forms a merry rictus in response – like that terrible smile from Disco Elysium, but cosy. Oh god, no. Oh god, get it off me.

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You can turn on Scottish slang in the subtitles, reminds Still Wakes The Deep developer

When I wrote our Still Wakes The Deep review I mentioned the true-to-life Scottish slang used by the oil rig workers of this North Sea horror. It was wonderful, but all these slang terms were being translated in the subtitles for some reason. “Gobshite” became “bastard”. The “polis” were localised as the “police”. And every “yersel” sneering out of the machismo-ridden workers became “yourself”. Well, turns out that’s the result of the game defaulting to “International English” for its captions. But if you want to immerse yourself in Scottish vernacular as deeply as protagonist Caz McCleary immerses himself in hazardous chemical spills, good news. There’s another option, says one of the game’s developers.

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Square Enix are remaking a classic 90s RPG about defending an empire from a bunch of spiteful ancient heroes

Japanese role-playing game enthusiasts are eating good this week, as Square Enix announce a 3D remake for 1993’s Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge Of The Seven. It’s a high fantasy RPG in which you must shore up an empire and defend it from generation to generation against a group of legendary adventurers, who were trapped in another dimension many moons ago and are positively livid that people don’t talk about their sacrifices enough. It’s out 24th October 2024, and springs from the turbulent brains of the team behind 2020’s Trials of Mana remake, which was well-received. I’ve got a trailer’s worth of rabble-rousing orchestral music and sparkly tag-team finishers below.

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Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is headed to PC in November

Classic RPG Dragon Quest 3 is getting a remake in Square Enix’s now familiar HD-2D style, which blends high-resolution 2D sprites together with 3D worlds. It’ll land on November 14th. “Waitaminute,” you might be saying, “Shouldn’t they remake the first two games beforehand?” No, you numpty, you nyaff, you roaster; within the internal chronology of Dragon Quest, 3 comes first.

Plus, they are remaking 1 and 2 as well, for release sometime in 2025.

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