May 2021

Far Cry 6 borrows some obvious visual trappings from the island of Cuba, particularly the cars and architecture, but narrative director Navid Khavari said in an interview last week that the game is not meant to be “a political statement about what’s happening in Cuba specifically.” It’s a reasonable position to take, but it was widely interpreted to mean that Far Cry 6 wasn’t political at all, a pretty wild thing to say about a game built around a revolution against the fascist dictator of a Caribbean island. It was an understandable reaction, to an extent: Ubisoft has never been…

As the sequel to two great local co-op games—Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 1 and 2—it was a bit odd to see that the third game, the simply titled Dark Alliance, was not going to feature a local multiplayer option. If you played the first two games back in the day, then you probably played them with a friend, running around killing rats and marvelling at the impressive water. The original game was recently re-released on consoles, although it’s not coming to PC until later this year. It just felt a bit odd that Dark Alliance’s co-op would be online only,…

If you’ve ever wondered what kind of person has the fortitude and passion for games to play the world’s worst MMORPGs, well, we found him. There’s something special about great MMOs like Final Fantasy 14: they’re the kinds of games that can swallow you up in sprawling stories, months-long quests for the ultimate gear, and communities that inspire lifelong friendships. There’s also something special about terrible MMORPGs. Because when they’re bad, they’re really bad: the MMO genre can be a cornucopia of dull game design, hilarious glitches, and microtransaction bullshit. They’re also notoriously time-intensive to play, and as a result…

There’s a dead end junction, late in Half-Life 2’s airboat segment, that’s fairly easy to miss. It’s nothing special to look at. A concrete run-off with a few shanty houses and a handful of zombies. But this corner, with its distant chirping of crickets and the sunset baking the panelled walls in just the right way, is special enough that I always stop by for a visit when returning to the game. It’s a corner that perfectly captures the fleeting, uniquely melancholy beauty of Valve’s Source Engine.  The Source Engine, the software that drove all of Valve’s games from Half-Life…

In a recent call with Intel’s Ryan Shrout about the performance of its 11th Generation H-series laptop processors, he took some time out to throw some serious shade Apple’s way. Actually, Ryan was throwing shade around as if it was going out of fashion, with AMD, ARM, and Apple all getting some. Maybe Intel simply doesn’t like the start of the alphabet? Anyway, most of the exasperation was reserved for its old bestie, Apple.  According to Intel, it’s the poor gaming experience of a Mac that makes its own devices superior. A sentiment I can definitely get behind, but it’s…

On an average day, about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that’s a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we’ve gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2021 games that are launching this year.  Earth Defense Force: World BrothersSteam‌ ‌page‌ ‌ Release:‌ May 27 Developer:‌…

There are plenty of mods for bringing characters from The Witcher into Skyrim, and we’ve even tried playing as Geralt with Triss and Yennefer as companions. One frontier had yet to be crossed, however. Thanks to the Butcher of Blaviken’s unique physique and scarring, none of the Geralt mods really looked like him with his clothes off. Until now. Modder matthouss is responsible for Unique SOS body type and skin textures for Geralt follower, the mod that gives the White Wolf an appropriate nude mesh. To use it you’ll also need Geralt of Rivia voiced follower and SOS: Schlongs of…

I’ve written pretty regularly on this here website about how much I love Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic, a uniquely comprehensive city-builder, logistics, and industry management sim set in a Soviet republic of your own making.  Well buckle up because I’m going to write more and it’s the weekend so nobody can stop me.  The latest update for  W&R:SR adds helicopters to the game, versatile vehicles which make their appearance shortly after Workers & Resources’ 1960 start date and allow you to haul passengers, workers, and even construction materials via skycrane. That’s fitting for Workers & Resources, which unique among…

Humble Bundle’s recent “Humble Heal: COVID-19 Bundle” raised $1,170,824 (£825,000), it announced in a recent blog post.. While games were at the forefront of the bundle, including indie hits like Superhot and Undertale, books and other software were bundled in. The Humble Heal bundle, which ran in early May, was unique in that a fixed 100% of the money raised will be going to the charities nominated by Humble. The traditional Humble model splits proceeds between the nominated charity, the publisher, and Humble, with buyers being able to choose how to divide their money. With this bundle however, all proceeds…