Leila is a dreamy puzzle adventure with shades of Gorogoa

I’m not sure how to classify Leila, a hand drawn, sort of point and click, sort of puzzle adventure out this summer. I’d say it’s maybe a Gorogoa-like, but the demo is also a series of little vignettes that sort of reminded me of Edith Finch, but way less in depth. It’s about a middle aged woman navigating her past and present by taking a closer at her mind, which means sorting through a load of magical realist meldings of memories. It’s very pretty, and I liked the demo a lot.

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This bodycam mech shooter has a slick rainy day look and Zelda-like vehicle construction

Got some nice rain for you today. Second-Loop is an upcoming sci-fi shooter featuring mechs, physics puzzles, and at least one freaky umbilical-corded being struggling against the confines of a horrific laboratory womb. Video games! All of that sounds interesting. But it’s the moody reflections on the rain-slick surfaces and the game’s bodycam-style presentation that’s really got me going “oooooo”. Don’t you want to say “oooooo” too? C’mere and see.

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Hades 2 is another Steam Deck banger, early access or no

I’ve been sampling Hades 2’s early access build on the Steam Deck, and my only complaint – besides the smooching frog having eluded me for hours – is that it’s giving me very little to write about, performance analysis-wise. Honestly, it fits the dinky PC so well you’d have thought Supergiant had decided to make this roguelike sequel a Steam Deck game that just happened to run on desktops by accident.

Hades the first was much the same, taking to the Deck like Hercules to Augean shit, but Hades 2 barely even gives away that fact that it’s unfinished. It doesn’t crash, stutter, or hang, and there’s no point in talking about settings when it runs at a practically perfect 60fps on max quality. Make that 90fps on the Steam Deck OLED, too. It’s just a fabulous game for handhelds, even in its earliest of early access days.

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What’s on your bookshelf?: Borderlands, Life Is Strange, and Horizon Zero Dawn actor Ashly Burch

Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome to Booked For The Week – our new Sunday feature where we ask a selection of cool industry folks questions about books! The very first book was famously written in the 1200’s by notable scholar and six-time wrestling world champion Booker T, a fact you’d know if you simply read more books. This week, it’s voice of Horizon Zero Dawn’s Aloy and many others, writer, singer, and endless other cool stuff, Ashly Burch! Cheers Ashly! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?

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Star Wars arrives in Fall Guys this week, alongside major changes to bean physics

I need to take all the opportunities to write about Fall Guys that I can get, given how much time I spend playing it with my son. This is a pretty good opportunity, too: a set of Star Wars skins are coming to the bean battle royale, as announced yesterday on May 4th, and they coincide with some major changes to Fall Guys’ platforming physics.

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UK government responds to petition asking them to regulate publishers into keeping games “in a working state”

The UK government has responded to a petition asking for “government intervention” to force the industry to keep video games “in a reasonably working state when support ends”, rather than allowing them to become unplayable such as when online servers are shut down. The petition was prompted by the closure in March of ten-year-old Ubisoft racing game The Crew.

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Helldivers 2 has received 100,000 negative reviews since announcing players must link Steam to a PSN account

Earlier this week, Helldivers 2 players on PC were told that they’d soon need to link their Steam account to a PlayStation Network (PSN) account. Two days later and the game has received 100,000 new negative reviews on Steam.

What’s more, developers at Arrowhead have made several statements to say that they’re on the players’ side.

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SteamWorld Heist 2’s new job system brings a whole scrapheap of customisation to the charming 2D XCOM-a-like

The original SteamWorld Heist was an absolute treat, slamming the charming robotic world of the SteamWorld series together with a 2D take on the turn-based strategy of your XCOMs and Valkyria Chronicles and such. With SteamWorld Heist 2 recently revealed for an August release on PC, developers Thunderful have teased some more details on the sequel’s shiny new job system.

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