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5 months ago
Feature: Listen now or don't, see if I care
New year, old friends. The boys and girls of the RPS podcast have not been reborn, they have no resolutions, no ambitious goal to learn German or eat more spinach. They just want to play more videogames. Unbelievable. So let’s listen to them chat about the shooters and RPGs that have them most excited. That’s what they do on these podcasts, you know, they…
9 months ago
Feature: Walking a mile
A good writer should know when to deliver an old cliché or familiar idiom, and when to hold them back. They can give the reader a sense of comfort, a lifeline to cling to in a sea of unfamiliar or complex verbiage, or be the anchor that drags them down into boredom. I knew I was going to like Disco Elysium, because people I trust…
Feature: Don't let us down
As we stare into the weary, craggy face of the final quarter of 2018, there is still a glimmer of hope. The games are not yet done. They will never be done. And the impending release of them, some close, some a little further away, stirs something within us. The delicate, easily crushed butterfly of excitement. We may catch it yet, to keep in our…
10 months ago
EGX 2018 hits Birmingham next week – try out these PC gems at the show
There's just one week left until a borderline-biblical plague of developers descend upon Birmingham to showcase their up-and-coming games to all. This great gathering shall be known as EGX 2018 and starts on September 20th, running until the 23rd. There's going to be hundreds of games on show there across all platforms, featuring developers of all shapes and sizes - both physically and business-wise. While I'll be…
1 year ago
Feature: "Did I just say in an interview that I’m better than China Mieville?"
Disco Elysium (formerly known as No Truce With The Furies) is shaping up to be ridiculously good. It's an upcoming RPG that slips you into the shoes of a detective in a hardboiled urban fantasy world, where combat happens through dialogue and your internal monologue can be both a hindrance and a help. Your skills have their own personalities and sometimes wrestle control away from…
The combat engine is so often the heart of an RPG, even in the tabletop sphere. Characters shuffle around a battle-grid, attacks are tabulated, armour classes are defined, hit points are shaved away until only one side is left standing. Not so for upcoming police-drama RPG Disco Elysium. In their latest development blog, Studio ZA/UM go into detail on combat in the game including why…
Feature: Listen and get Rezzed
It’s a podcast special! Astrid Johnson takes us through the halls of London game show EGX Rezzed, on a search for oddities and weirdness. And she finds plenty of both. There’s Stereopolis, a game projected onto a disc of frosted glass, or Wobble Garden, which is played entirely by twanging a bunch of springy door stoppers (pictured above). It’s an overview of the show for…
Feature: Listen to us with your brain turned off
Oh no. Somebody sound the “journalists discussing journalism” klaxon. Rattle it as loudly and furiously as possible, because the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, is talking about how being a critic changes the way we play. Don’t blame us, blame listener Aleksei, who sent in the theme as a suggestion. But please also forgive Adam, because it’s his last showing on the podcast (he’s…
Disco Elysium is my secret side infatuation in 2018. First the game was operating under the name "No Truce With The Furies" which the devs didn't think stood out enough (!!) and then each new look I get at the game reveals a more complicated and exciting RPG about crime solving and I just want to be playing it now. Not even for first play-though;…
While debate over its recent title-change remains heated, the upcoming alternate-earth detective RPG Disco Elysium continues to be a game well worth talking about for far less spurious reasons. For example, the highly creative skill system at the heart of the game. ZA/UM Studio have already given us a peek at the Intellect skills, defining the mental faculties of your character, from their ability to…
Are you going to the glittering Imperial city of London next month for games show EGX Rezzed? I’m not. I’ve got a stag weekend in Madrid where I’m expected to play Gaelic football with a crowd of storming drunks. Trust me, you’re better off in the bright glass hallways of Tobacco Dock, especially now that six more games have been added to the line-up, including…
The past year has been such an amazing time for RPGs that I had almost forgotten about No Truce With The Furies, a surreal 'procedural cop RPG' that claims Planescape: Torment and Kentucky Route Zero as equal inspirations. Studio ZA/UM reckon that the title - weird as it was - didn't stand out quite enough, so they've officially rebranded the game as 'Disco Elysium'. I…
