John might tell you that the highlight of the bargain Humble Bundle is a free copy of Pony Island, an “Oh I’d tell you what it is but even that would be giving too much away” game he declared the smartest game of 2016. Me, I’m here to tell you that the bargain bundle’s highlight is actually Devil Daggers, a deadly fast score attack FPS which feels like it escaped from an alternate timeline where everything’s all skulls and satans – and is RPS’s actual official Bestest Best game of 2016. Mate, you could have both of those — and more — for just a couple of quid. Mega-deal! Read the rest of this entry »

The web people seemed like a good bet. They’d be facing off against a lich and its minions, some triple-shot soldier types, and some windy warriors who can propel their enemies backwards. As it turned out, the web people were not a good bet. Their ability to snare their targets wasn’t much help when those enemies were firing twice as many bullets, could take twice as much damage, and could run rings around them.

Radar Theatre [itch page] is a pay-what-you-want game about placing bets on the participants in a gladiatorial battle and I am terrible at it.

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Join a 1337 warez group and distribute some top bootleg games in b00tl3g kr3w [Itch page], a splendid little free game out now. Fire up your expired trialware IRC client, get chatting with your kool krack krew, read the NFO, slam that warez into an FTP, then have a little play yourself. It’s a short game so I won’t say too much but I laughed like a drain at these bootleg games. It’s funny and it’s free so hop to it. Read the rest of this entry »

I downloaded free game Solarium [official site] pretty much entirely on the strength of the following negative Steam review: “I didn’t play it very long, but it’s literally all about plants. I guess I should’ve read more reviews about it prior to downloading, but unless you’re really interested in learning about plants, I wouldn’t suggest playing.”

Literally all about plants! Learning about plants!

What I found was a kind of Encarta ’95 Mind Maze-ish style of game as a kind of odd fusion of slightly stilted graphics and educational information. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s something nice, but also depressing. I started playing The Evolution of Trust [official site], a short browser-based game, expecting it to show me why trusting other people is a good thing. Ten minutes in, it’s taught me that I need to cheat more.

It has you playing a quick ‘Game of Trust’. If you stick a coin into a machine, the person at the other side gets three coins, and vice versa. So, should you co-operate and play the slot, or cheat, withhold your money and hope the sucker on the other side is feeling generous?

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Since every other games site is ecstatic to discover this week that the original Shadow Warrior is free, hey, we’ll post it too. I’ll ride that #trending content, blitz the bandwagon, disseminate to the viral limit, and zonk that zeitgeist until the SEO bursts. I know that Shadow Warrior has been free for four years now — a fact other sites seem to have missed — but I also know quite a few folks dig Shadow Warrior so sure, it’s helpful to remind people that it is free. Read the rest of this entry »

Spider-Man, they say. Spider-Man, they repeat. He does whatever a spider can, they tell us. Alas, spiders are incapable of releasing games on PC, so we’re not getting the Batman-lookin’ Spider-Man PS4 game that Sony flashed around at E3. Nope, our fanciest modern-day Webslinging™ option is a new virtual reality doodad promoting that there new movie Ian Hollywood has made. Spider-Man: Homecoming – Virtual Reality Experience [Steam page] is out now, a little doodad free for gogglenauts, and its launch mostly reminds me how much I like other games about swinging around. Read the rest of this entry »

I should’ve posted about an hour ago but, to be honest, I was too distracted by It Is As If You Were Doing Work [official site] to do actual work. Pippin Barr’s free browser-based game offers a virtual desktop with all the thrills, chills, and Windows alert trills of actual work – but purely for funsies! Mash your keyboard to fill out nonsense e-mails, click buttons, watch progress bars, and feel the real satisfaction of a job done well. Take your fake job seriously enough and you can even earn promotions. Ah, work! Read the rest of this entry »

Against all odds, a new Bubsy game is coming this autumn. Some cynics might say that such a rubbo ’90s platformer series apparently reaching ‘retro icon’ status is yet more evidence that video games mistake recognisability for merit, but me, I know this is proof that Arcane Kids saved Bubsy with their 2013 bootleg game Bubsy 3d: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective [official site]. After the bobcat rode a coffin luge into the afterlife, how could he not life forever? Well! Aging plugins made the browser game a bother to play, but Arcane Kids have now released a standalone downloadable version with an added epilogue chapter. In it, Bubsy reflects on his career as an artist. Read the rest of this entry »

Life of Tar [itch.io link] is an itch.io game which caught my eye because of a) its art style and b) it lists the La Brea Tar Pits as an influence. It’s a short cycle where you potter around environments gated by portals of sticky tar. It made for a really pleasant short game walk too so I made a little video! Read the rest of this entry »

Modern warfare is so passé. As video game trends turn again, the Call of Duty series is off back to World War 2, Battlefield is currently larking about in World War 1, and Electronic Arts have dug up an old game from the previous WW2 fad (whose dying embers lit the inferno of the modern warfare craze). 2004 first-person shooter Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault is free right now through Origin, letting all and sundry romp around battles from the Pacific Theatre. Read the rest of this entry »

Colour Clash [itch.io page] is a little game about firing projectiles to make artworks. There’s a Missile Command-ness where you’re using limited reserves to stop these alien blobs from reaching the ground, but here it’s more about the visual effect you’re creating in tandem with staving off the swarm. When you’re done the level is presented to you as an artwork and your high score is presented as the number of visitors it’s had. Read the rest of this entry »

It is the end of E3 week and I am playing That Blooming Feeling [Itch page], a game starring a water golem who lives in a desert oasis and can help seeds and plants grow by bursting. It is delightful. I’ve enjoyed planning my planting, rolling around as a drop, mucking about with the other creatures who lives nearby, puzzling over mysteries like what appears to be a dragon rising in distant fog, and watching the desert bloom.

Also, I have been singing. Sometimes the randomised pitch-shifting and distortion makes it sound like I’m singing the end of the world. After this long week, it feels right. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, you. Do you own co-op heist FPS Payday 2 [official site]? If not, go to Steam, click ‘Install Game’, and it’ll be yours for keepsies. It’s a steal!

This comes as developers Overkill Software stop selling Payday 2’s DLC, in preparation for the launch of an ‘Ultimate Edition’ including its 40-odd paid DLCs. Overkill haven’t announce a release date for that yet. For now, do swipe a copy of the base game. Read the rest of this entry »

EEEEE! The Google Doodle celebrating the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy [link] is such an adorable little cricket game! You control a pair of little crickets who have ventured out to bat while the fielders are all snails! Read the rest of this entry »

The humble gecko is a magnificent creature. Have you heard them scream? Well now you might, because Gecko Ridimption [official site] is a free frenzy of colour featuring sticky lizards with the ability to puke whole kayaks onto the wall and shoot lasers from their faces causing massive explosions. I’d give you a reason for all this reptile chaos, but the best I can come up with is: “Adult Swim”.
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