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Over and above its management and strategy groundings, Big Pharma [official site] shines a light on the billion dollar, often unscrupulous, pharmaceutical industry. While Alec enjoyed his hands-on time with Twice Circled's medicine manufacturing sim last year, he noted it didn't "go for pharmaceutical industry’s jugular". Its first expansion - Marketing and Malpractice - takes a distinguished step towards doing exactly that by introducing dodgy…
When Big Pharma [official site] appeared last year, Alec approved but pointed out it perhaps went a little easy on a severely dodgy target. Today's announced expansion, Marketing And Malpractice, looks like it might add a few more teeth to the management satire. With your drug developed, you now need to ensure doctors think it's the right one for their patients. "Take them to dinner,…
It's been five months since Pillars of Eternity [official site] was released, which is categorical proof that the wheel of time has spun completely off its axis and is careering down a hill toward a cliff edge. Before we're all plunged into the abyss, there's another big chunk of RPG from Obsidian to delve into, in The White March Part 1, a snowy expansion for…
Feature: Online Bots
The Talos Principle [official site] arrived very late in 2014, such that it erroneously missed out on the Game Of The Year accolades it unquestionably deserved. It had puzzles to match the exquisite Portal 2, and a story which fascinatingly and engagingly explored the philosophy of consciousness and existence. But hurrah, it can now return to our attention some seven months later with the addition…
Every faction in Endless Legend [official site] feels like it required as much playtesting and balancing as some entire strategy games. There are eight major factions in all, from the Necrophages, who devour those they meet rather than engaging in diplomacy, to the Cultists of the Eternal End who cannot create new settlements of their own but can convert those that they conquer. Amplitude have…
Forget Big Brother, the real gods of surveillance are ardent fans. A keen-eyed dude(ette) over at the Bohemia Interactive forums recently shared a shocking geographical discovery: a new South Pacific island has been spotted in the waters of Arma III [official site]. It seems a new expansion will be announced real soon.
Feature: RevenAnt farm
Guild Wars 2 [official site] launched with a promise – to fix MMOs. Strident, attention-grabbing, patently doomed schtick that was nevertheless suffused with just enough gosh-shucks-darn-it-I-want-to-see-them-try zest to make it a journey worth tracking. That was two years ago. The mission met with mixed results, as lead designer Isaiah Cartwright admitted to me when we spoke in Brighton during a hands-on with the game's first…
Democracy 3 is a political simulator that works best when treated as a toy rather than a strategy game. Put aside your instinctive desire to win and instead just tinker with its societal web and play out different what-if scenarios. "What happens if the welfare state is dismantled," you ask. And in the game. The last expansion let you push those what-ifs into extremism, and…
Savant Ascent is a simple game, but it feels so good. Controlling Savant - avatar of Norwegian music producer Aleksander Vinter - you ride higher and higher into a tower, pushing your right analog stick to fire and aim and your left analog stick to dodge and jump between prescribed positions. It was a fun diversion when it was released on Steam last year, and…
To my eye, Star Wars The Old Republic was an awkward marriage of BioWare's singleplayer storytelling and World of Warcraft-derived MMO mechanics. It's a marriage which seemed to satisfy no one, dooming SWTOR to a brief honeymoon and a slowly diminishing life of quiet desperation. A sad, science fiction Revolutionary Road. Nice of BioWare to throw the game and its players a little lovin' then,…
FUN FACT: it's quite difficult for two or more people to starve in close proximity, because inevitably one will begin to eat the other. With that cheeriness in mind, I'm here to tell you that sign-ups are now open for the closed beta of top-down survive-'em-up Don't Starve's to-be-free multiplayer component. You don't even need to own Don't Starve to apply, as those accepted will be…
Age of Wonders III! I liked it well enough and keep meaning to play some more and, as is increasingly the case, an expansion may be precisely the excuse I need to do just that. Golden Realms, which is due on September 18th, is a meaty great wedge of new content, spearheaded by the inclusion of tiny little halflings. I'm not one for campaigns when…
Don't Starve Together is the sort of stern instruction that was once delivered by frowning parents to their newly married offspring as they set out to find a partner for life. The ruddy-faced matron wouldn't tell her son to make sure he wooed a girl who always washed behind the ears, and the cracked lips of an aged farmer would not part to instruct his…
I was one of the first to walk to the Path of Exile but one of the last to submit a complete traveller's guide. Of course, the term 'complete' is meaningless when developers insist on releasing new (free) content for their (free) games. Lonely Planet guide writers don't have this problem - it's not as if a country would suddenly expand its borders to bring…
Company of Heroes 2's main point of differentiation was that it took the original game's blend of bombast and squad tactics to the Eastern Front. What is it that therefore sets apart this new multiplayer-only standalone expansion, when The Western Front Armies does as its name suggests and replaces cold climes, Russians and Nazis with grass fields, Americans and yes still Nazis? The expansion came…
While the internet is all a-bustlin' with news of the latest Call of Duty, another maker of military manshoots announced their future plans. Except we like these military manshoots. Arma 3's three-part campaign is out and finished, but a development roadmap posted on the official Arma site makes clear that they're not done yet. Things to come: Steam Workshop support, new DLC and a full…
Path Of Exile has expandamofied. The enormously successful online aRPG has been out of beta since October, with estimates showing approximately 13 billion people are playing at any one time. (These are my estimates, based on my inability to count.) And now there's more of it. Sacrifice Of The Vaal pours in a ton of new content to satisfy hungry, hungry gamers.
Feature: Keep The Faiths
I don't think anyone at Paradox expected Crusader Kings II to spread into India with quite as much gusto as it will this March. The next expansion adds around 50% to the world map, with almost 400 new provinces, three new religions and a continent's worth of new events, including the possibility of chained 'reincarnation' plotlines. As always with these generous chunks of DLC, a…
There used to be famous horses. They ran races, starred in sitcoms, and were occasionally horse-napped. In the 1970s, if you stopped a street urchin and asked him to name his favourite horse I'll bet a fine collection of horse brasses that he'd have too many to choose from. He might even consult his sticker book of famous horses, The Equus Factor. But as much…
There are too many Jagged Alliances all at once! Two! I can barely cope with two of anything, my arms constantly getting tangled as I try to do simple tasks like combing a pony. But be told that Jagged Alliance: Crossfire has nothing to do with Jagged Alliance: Online. Well, not nothing, but you know what I mean. It is, in fact, an EXPANDALONE! to…
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