Be Excellent To Each Other

A game I'm looking forward to is gory beat em up Mother Russia Bleeds.

The pixel art is looking bloody (Ho Ho) sweeeet, as per this gif off twatter.

https://twitter.com/russiableeds/status ... 1352672256

The bodies you leave behind aren't a loss for everyone. #intoTheRussianWild pic.twitter.com/JcLebLHGnG

— Mother Russia Bleeds (@RussiaBleeds) March 11, 2016

Pity it's not out sooner, that would've been ideal for MypMeet.

Hey, Myp, there's this great PC game you should buy. It's called Unepic. The protagonist reminds me of you.

2009 me it seems!

It's the misogyny that really does it.

Super Hot's endless mode is brilliantly frustrating. Getting 40 kills in a row is currently elusive and 120 kills feels like a maddeningly impossible task.

Need For Speed. OK so even after the tepid reviews for the PS4 version I still wanted this. I managed to get it from CDKeys for £22 which was worth the gamble.

I tried playing it on my 4k rig but once again Crossfire refused to work. I was expecting this, but tbh it's a poor show because the game uses Frostbite by DICE which is a known "Good engine" so to speak for Crossfire and SLI to work properly. It doesn't though. Any way I am a lucky boy, because I have three gaming rigs in the house and one of them is what I call my 1080p bruiser. It's furnished with a Titan Black that I had left over from my previous 4k rig. So I installed it on that and so far I am enjoying it. The story is a bit, how do you put it? lame, but the driving seems good so far.

AMD released a new driver today that has enabled Crossfire but it's terribly jerky. Thankfully the Origin cloud save seems to be working brilliantly so going from one rig to the other is seamless enough. This means I can just continue playing on Mrs JC's rig until Crossfire is fixed properly and then enjoy the proper full on 4k textures that EA has put into the game

I wouldn't pay £50 for this game though.

Well I'll be.. When I saw the review of this (Need for Speed) last year on the PS4 I was kinda crushed. I'd been hoping for a decent Underground game for years but nothing happened. Then when I read the "leak" thing (some disgruntled ex EA employee) that went on about how they were doing a proper Underground game I got really excited. The thing is I've been playing it all day and I really hope I'm not speaking too soon but it's been bloody fantastic ! I started out in a Honda Shitvic and pimped it just a little (everything has been done including a nice big Supercharger) and I've just been having masses of fun with it. Here she is here, I call it the puke wagon.



There's only one slight problem. It's a Shitvic so it's front wheel drive, and the massive rims I have on there with the huge tyres make it really hard to drift in. You can "pseudo drift" sorta thing but it's really no good for scoring decent points. So, after about three hours of racing and saving up money (and not being led straight into an hour long police chase where if you get caught you lose it all like in the last NFS game) I now have this.



With twenty grand left in the coffers to "poke the porker" with. Bring it on.

Well I'm amazed to say this but I'm still playing Need For Speed. I've done about twenty hours now which is quite miraculous given I hardly game at all now.

It's really good though. It's almost like playing NFSU II in HD. I will admit it is kinda easy but then so was NFSU II there was just a lot of it (which is good too). Not sure I would want to play it at 30 FPS though as it kinda defeats the whole point. But I'm getting between 48 and 60 FPS with it maxed out at 1080p on a Titan Black.

If and when I do game I usually do it during the day and then shut all of the PCs down around 5pm for the day. However, for the first time in ages I actually returned to it once the TV was done for the day and played til gone midnight.

It's a bit of a shame that the drag race bit has gone (I loved that) but the rest of it seems to be mostly intact. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous though. Easily one of the best looking games I've ever played.

Why is the Porsche on the cover facing in a different direction to all the other cars?

I have enjoyed NFS games in the past (NFSU was fantastic) but the reviews for this haven't much endeared me to it, especially at Origin's amusing prices.

If it's grabbable for £22 I might be a bit more interested though.

It annoys me that they're advertising it with 'unlocked framerate' like we should be grateful or something, when they capped the last one at 30FPS on PC for no reason whatsoever other than being asshats, so they're generously giving us something we'd traditionally take for granted anyway.

The last one was shit. I bought it for £24 IIRC on Amazon and I enjoyed it immensely for a while (even though it was locked at 30 FPS and broke quite badly if you hacked it). However, it was terribly flawed. I probably got about ten hours of enjoyment out of it before it turned into a cunt. However the main flaw ended up ruining it for me. Basically as the game got harder you would start a race and during the race you would earn points and cash. However, toward the end of the race the police would join in and then you could spend an hour trying to get rid of them. If they caught you you lost all of your XP you'd built up during the race *and* all of your cash. The problem with this was the game expected you never to get caught so the difficulty (and speed of the rival cars) would progress but with no XP and no cash there was no way to upgrade your car, meaning the game basically fucking left you behind.

I don't like cop chases in games AT ALL. The AI will never be good enough and it will always be fucking stupid. I just want to race and upgrade my car. Now so far (and I'm progressing through the new one nicely) I have only had to lose the police three or four times. And it wasn't hard, I just get on a nice straight and hit the gas button and before long I'm doing 200 MPH. Bye !

So yeah, so far in this one I have managed to avoid all of that shit and have just been racing and drifting (which is also very good, think GRID's mechanics). I do wish it had drag mode in, but as I say most of it is there. There's circuit, sprint, time trial, drifting, and something akin to Street X (from Underground II) where you race around a tiny little circuit trying to score better lap times.

I think this is about as close to Underground III as we are ever going to get from EA. They haven't listened and that's really annoying, but this game does at least have a good aura about it. And as I say, the graphics are really truly lovely.

Edit. A couple of pics.

Samorost 3 has just been released on Steam, with Android and iOS versions to follow at some point later on. If that means nothing to you then maybe you've heard of the developers other more recent games Botanicula or Machinarium which were both very well received. All of their games are basically 'point and click adventure' games but done with such style that they transcend the otherwise boring genre. It helps that all their games--but the Samorost games especially--are incredibly funny and absolutely gorgeous. Don't just take my word for it though, go and play the entire first game on it's own website. Though do note that one is looking a bit creaky these days given that it's about 13 years old now, the newer games are much prettier.

Looks nice but I found Machinarium really dull.

If it helps I thought Machinarium was by far the weakest of their games myself; it's the one that hews closest to the traditional point-and-click blueprint and it was missing the spark of madness that permeates the others.

Oh wait, I've played one of the Samorost games before, I thought it looked familiar. That was actually good fun.

Games of my wish list include two extras:

1) Deadbolt

Not A Hero/Hotline Miami/2D/gory/shooter/puzzle-thingy that looks a bit like that slightly-disappointing Gunpoint.

http://www.destructoid.com/review-deadbolt-349254.phtml

2) Hyper Light Drifter

Zelda-esq tough as nails pixel art game from those people that did that mobile game that had a magnificent art style and glorious music (Super Brother: Sword and Scorery EP) but was a bit lacking. It's got some decisive reviews because it's so hard so, of course, everyone is clambering for the Dark Souls comparison which is getting a bit yawnsome.

http://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/hype ... er-review/

So apparently I'm two years behind in this thread and I now want to play Papers please!

Yes you do, it's incredibly bleak.

This War of Mine is going to win and "bleak" competition.

Is it bleak and hilarious though?

Fuck no.

Party Hard is currently £4.99.

I played a bit at EGX and it was fun but not really the type of game you can get much from with people standing around you. You play a neighbour who gets pissed off with his neighbours throwing a loud party so you do what any sane person would do and sneak in and murder everyone at the party without being caught and in lots of imaginative ways. It's all pixel art too but it looks decent. I'm going to drop some dollar on it and see whether some quality time improves or diminishes my initial thoughts that it was "pretty good." Because I'm a real deep thinker, init.

£4.99 until 8 April if anyone else has been interested in it.

I was tempted to get this but I fear that it looked a little too bleak. This only goes on to confirm that.

I didn't like This War of Mine. The night sections are tense and fun, but during the day is completely boring, doing the same shit over and over again.

Same for Papers Please. Good concept, boring game.

Considering the fact that my main gaming PC is out of action (damaged monitor arrived and has to go back) I was on the look out for something I could play whilst using this PC (Mrs JC's).

This.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/282560/

But get it here for £13.99

http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/rollerco ... n-world-pc

Is tons of fun. There has been the odd moment where it's asking me to do something without explaining it (hence some cursing before I find it myself) but yeah, really liking it so far.

Jem was looking at that on Steam the other day, and the reviews (and Early Access bollocks) put her off it.

We're just going to wait for Planet Coaster once Frontier finish that.

Eurogamer gave it quite the kicking in terms of its performance:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016- ... coon-world

I didn't read the review and jumped in head first

I don't agree about the performance issues, but then I wouldn't given I am running a Titan Black overclocked under water. I do notice a slight stutter when I pick a new ride but that's to be expected seeing as they are massive lumps.

Instead I got to around four hours (and all was going really well and I was really enjoying myself) and then my rides started to break down. I had already built three mechanics huts so pretty much had a mechanic for every ride, but for some reason they were all walking up to a broken ride and then getting stuck at the entrance. If I picked them up and dropped them back on the ground they would pick themselves up, dust themselves down and then walk back to the entrance where they would do the moon walk. Four mechanics all did the same thing.

Mind you I got four hours out of it for £13.99. I guess that's better than paying £50 for a Modern Warfare game and completing it in the same amount of time.

*makes loads of car noises*

Wooo just found Drag ! I thought they hadn't put it in.

I am waiting for this to go cheap on Origin.

Is that CD key thing you bought it from legit JC? I don't understand how you can buy an EA game for like, half the price that they're selling it for on Origin. How do you install it with the key you buy?

It's an Origin code dude. So you just load up Origin and insert the code the same way you do with Steam. Sadly the game has rocketed in price and is now over £40 on CDkeys and G2A want £43 for it

When buying from key sites just make sure they do not specify Russia, so you would need worldwide. Basically some guy in Poland buys a shat load of them and then sells the keys. You used to be able to use Russian keys (they cost about £12) and just activate the game using a Russian proxy. I only ever did that once, and sod's law Steam changed the rules so that you had to be in Russia all of the time to play it so I got a refund from G2A (who use Paypal so you're safe).

I've probably bought 50 or so games from G2A Kinguin and CDkeys and only ever had an issue with Borderlands TPS which I knew was Russian. I just contacted Steam and asked them to remove it from my game list after getting the refund from G2A.

http://www.kinguin.net/product/340003/n ... in-cd-key/

£34.64 on Kinguin. There's a small charge for Paypal (surcharge) and remove their buyer protection (you have Paypal). I would say the game is worth just over £35 tbh. I rarely get any pleasant surprises in gaming these days but this one has surprised me.

I know people have griped about the always online and it being annoying to upgrade your car (because you have to go through all of them to see what is available) but my only gripe with the game is that you really do need to set up the car properly for drift, meaning you need to go back to the garage and change the handling around so it's best to pick them all off at once.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Need-For-Speed- ... 1_1&sr=8-1

£39.99 on Amazon.

Ever wondered what Superhot and Hotline Miami mashed together would be like? Superhot but overhead of course.

SHOOTER INC.

You can download it for free/name your own price here: https://albatr.itch.io/shootout-inc

But if you're wondering what it's all about then play it in a flash game here! https://albatr.itch.io/superhotline-miami

Surprisingly difficult but also awesome for a flash game.

The developer behind Paper Please has released a very early demo for his new game 'Return of the Obra Dinn'. I don't know anything about it myself but the Eurogamer article bills it as, "a little like the first-person mystery of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture transplanted into a different era with a unique aesthetic". You can grab it from here:

https://dukope.itch.io/return-of-the-obra-dinn

Ta!

Reading through this week's releases on Kotaku, a game called Jalopy caught my eye.

A procedurally generated roadtrip. As Kotaku describes it:

"Take your beaten up old car and try to drive hundreds of miles across the former Eastern Bloc, repairing its engine and fixing its tyres all the way."

Sounds like it will be up a few people's alleys here.

Some videos on RPS.

Yessssssss

Sounds good!

Currently stress testing my resolve to not buy more games is the new Humble Bundle which is one of the best they've put out in a while with quite a few things I had my eye on plus a voucher for 50% off The Talos Principle. With that voucher and stuff like Shadow Warrior currently sitting at £40 on Steam it's pretty bargainacious. Full list of currently included games:

Pay what you want

A Fistful of Gun
RONIN
Gods Will Be Watching

Pay more than the average, currently $4.48

NOT A HERO
Shadow Warrior (Special Edition)
Dropsy

Pay more than $10

Titan Souls
Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star

Classic 1998 PC game Battlezone has had a redux version put out. Pretty much the same as the old, only with some-what souped up graphics. By no means a bad thing, as the original was pretty excellent. Basically it's a first person RTS with you flying around on the moon or Mars or Venus in a tank, building base defences and factories and leading charges against those meddling Space-Ruskies. Lots of thinking about terrain, good combat and pretty good enemy AI. The re-mastering job is odd as it makes you think it always looked like that, and then you see the before-and-after shots. It's currently £11.99 on Steam, which I feel is slightly too much, I'd call it a £7.99 game. But I loved the original and after playing the three surprisingly tough opening missions last night, I'd say it's still very much a winner. Just make sure you save frequently mid-mission if you play it, the game has a habit of sometimes throwing scripted events at you that make a mockery of your planning, forcing your unexpected defeat.

Woo-hoo!

Battlezone '98 was an absolutely brilliant game! As well as great gameplay there was a really good story that was revealed mission by mission. (There was at least one nice easter egg in there, too.)

Fun fact: I bought the big-box version of the original from a department store when it first came out. When the lady scanned the barcode the till said "£1.20", so that's what I got charged for it! An almost-literal steal!

It's endlessly brown. It makes Quake look like the most colourful experience in gaming.

Just a heads up. If you are on Windows 10 you can get a couple of free games from the app store. First up is Killer Instinct, which was a Xbone game. I've downloaded and installed this (20gb or so) and it runs wicked and looks stunning. You can also get Forza Motorsport 6 : Apex beta for free too. It too is around 20gb or so.

Not tried that yet, think I will do that now

Stellaris is out today. I looked at some of the videos on the Paradox game website. It looks like Iain M. Banks the game. And awesome.

Really buying more PC games this year than I originally anticipated.

Humble Bundle is selling a "Narrative Bundle".

Her Story

Read Only Memories

Cibele Cibele

Pay more than the average of $3.56 to also unlock!
Broken Age

80 Days

Sorcery! Parts 1 and 2

Pay $10 or more to also unlock!
Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition

Deep Silver have just released Dead Island Definitive edition and Dead Island Riptide Definitive edition. They both have massively improved graphics, which sounds good seeing as they were some of the best looking games even on the old engine.

I bought both in a pack from CDkeys for £18. I'm a big fan though and have played the original through three times. Also a great co op romp if you get into it with a chum

No other Dead Island fans then?

I've now played it for about six hours and I gotta say, hats off to Deep Silver. They've improved the graphics enormously and I like how they have refined the combat so it feels smoother and more responsive. The upside is that I die a lot less than I used to which is fantastic, as some of the enemies in DI were so hard I would die a few times just to take one out. The graphics are not all for show though, the improvements in steam and transparent things is so much better now. In the original game they were rather blocky and a bit of a mess so when a zombie was hiding in the steam you could not see the shadows. Now you can

Obviously the graphics are what makes up 99% of this but another reason I'm happy I bought them was that it gives me a good insight to what Dead Island 2 will look like. It seems to use the same new engine that Dying Light used (which was also fantastic btw) only even better.

I wish all devs would do this. I would love to play through Fallout 3 using the Fallout 4 graphics engine or better. I'm sure that like these Dead Island games the difference would be so massive that it would almost be like playing a new game. I know there are the Redux of the two Metro games but the improvements are absolutely nowhere near as massive as this.