Feature: A good year for games
2019 was a great year for PC games - aren't they all? - but you might not yet know what the very best PC games of 2019 were. Let us help you.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
2 weeks ago
1 month ago
Feature: Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all Cal
A guide to enjoying Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order when the game isn’t being very enjoyable
Writing guides about a game usually means playing a rather disgusting number of hours of said game every day, until the sight of it compels you to dry-heave over a keyboard whose WASD keys have long since worn away. I remember, for example, a point where I realised that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order had been out for 100 hours, and I'd spent 60 of…
Feature: Only a list deals in absolutes
The 5 best and worst things about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
The Star War is the only thing I have been playing outside of work for weeks now. I am becoming intimately familiar with its workings: the push and pull combat, and also of the Force Push and Force Pull powers. It is a brilliant game that I love, but that I also find full of contradictions. Here are my five best and worst things about…
2 months ago
Feature: A force for good
If you like Star Wars you should play the 22 year old Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2
Star Wars is, for me, first and foremost a video game franchise. I know there are films, I’ve seen some of them (seven of the eleven by my count), but I’m far more likely to tell you that A New Hope took place between the events of Jedi: Fallen Order and Dark Forces II than the other way around. When I see that title fade…
Feature: Forceful fun
Let's not pretend that Star Wars isn't good. Answer me this: if Star Wars isn't good, how come they got away with having BB-8 branded oranges?? Less reliably good are the official Star Wars video games. Despite throwing out some absolute bangers in the LucasArts days, or stone cold classics like Knights Of The Old Republic giving us big Force energy, the more recent quality…
Feature: The fat lady sings
This is, really and truly, the last ever Steam Charts. Which, I realise, is something I've said before. More than once. But this time it's really true! Erk, I'm not really sure how to convince anyone of this. I'm the boy who cried last ever Steam Charts.
Feature: One Off The List
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is out today, letting you follow in the roguish bootprints of young force punter Cal Kestis, played here by Archie of Archie comics. In celebration of his boyish padawan appearance, and the way he uses a deadly weapon like you’d use a torch app with dodgy permissions to find your keys, let’s make a list. A list of the least…
Feature: Forever and ever, amen
The results are in! The links between the longevity of Steam Charts and the decreases in violent crime, the improvement of sanitary water supplies, and sudden global drops in serious health issues, are no coincidence at all! To quote from the paper recently published in Nature, "Causal links have been shown connecting Rock Paper Shotgun's Steam Charts articles to a remarkably number of positive worldwide…
3 months ago
Feature: But yes I am still enamoured with Cal's backpack
I want to explore the worlds of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, but maybe not its story
I want to explore. Like, everywhere. I didn’t expect that to be the main takeaway of my Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order hands-on preview, but here we are: amongst the windswept vistas of Zeffo, or careening down its ice caves, or clambering around the crumbling red stone of a temple on Dathomir. The team behind Titanfall 2 have built some more beautiful worlds for me…
7 months ago
Feature: The games that excited us
We've been drowned by E3 2019 this past week, but maybe you only waded into the river of game reveals and new trailers up to your ankles. If you didn't get your hair wet, there might be some gems among the flotsam and jetsam that you missed. That's what this post is for: we've rounded up our picks for the best games of E3, based…
Feature: It's like a pen knife, but a laser
The mundane use of a lightsaber in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the best thing about E3 so far
Listen, I’ll level with you, I am struggling this year. My hype train cannot currently build up steam. If I were to place myself on Matt and Brendan’s Cheerer-to-Jeerer E3 corporate Kinsey scale of awfulness, I am currently at a “1”: predominantly jeer, only incidentally cheer. Think the “What a piece of work is man?” monologue from Hamlet, but if it were about games instead…
8 months ago
Feature: Go get 'em, BD1
The hero in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is boring but his robot back-pal isn’t
The Jedi from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is bland, but he has a cute robo-backpack and cuts up Stormtroopers real good. Those are my three main takeaways from my 25 minute peek at Respawn Entertainment's upcoming action RPG. He's a nasty one, that Cal Kestis.
Feature: A liveblog with a twist
The Cheerer and the Jeerer – EA’s livestream at E3 as it happened
Brendan: We are in Los Angeles, Matt! And we are doing a fun new thing. We're going to liveblog the heck out of these press conferences, but with a twist. One of us can only be enthusiastic, positive and cheery, no matter what comes up. And the other can only be snarky, grumpy and critical. Who would you like to be today? The cheerer or…
Feature: Listen now and know all the things
E3 is getting started this weekend, otherwise known as the Encredible Electricity Experience, or sometimes simply “Hellweek”. It’s a very busy and exciting time to be a videogame liker, but you might need some help. Allow the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, to be your digital sherpa through this storm of fictional bullets and lightsabers. Let’s talk about what we’re looking forward to…