Baldur’s Gate 3 Launches To Overwhelmingly Positive Reception On Steam

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4 August, 2023

RPG players’ cult darling series have gotten an all-new installment yesterday. Having spent a better part of two years in Steam’s Early Access program, Baldur’s Gate 3 launched to scarcely credible 96% positive player reviews. It has beaten Sons of the Forest and trails Hogwarts Legacy as the second biggest Steam launch so far this year. Wholehearted congratulations to Larian are most definitely in order.

We are not yet sure if we’ll find the time (or hard drive space, ha ha) to hop in any time soon, but Baldur’s Gate 3 sure as hell seems like a mighty exciting proposition. Feel free to go ballistic in the comments section to tell us all about it and have us turn red with envy!

Halls Of Torment Is Diablo 2.5 And You Must Play It Now

By

Dee

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2 August, 2023

Say, do you like Diablo? Do you like damage numbers, lots of damage numbers going up, up, up? Do you like tinkering with character builds without having to turn your action RPG game into a full-time job? Do you like pre-rendered sprites? And do you like Vampire Survivors? Ah, who am I kidding, of course you bloody well do.

Sitting pretty at 96% positive reviews out of some 10.5k, Halls of Torment is making significant both AoE and DoT to Steam’s Early Access bunch. In the interest of fairness to its developers, don’t expect a review until Early Access is over. Do however expect an absolute blast of a bullet heaven ARPG romp with unexpected depth, more than a few clever twists, and essentially infinite replayability. I’ll be hearing your screams of ecstasy and agony from the Halls of Torment where price of admission is EUR 5 (yes, five). And your soul.

Steam’s Stealth Fest Is Now On, Here’s Some Useful Intel Before You Dive In

By

Dee

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25 July, 2023

There isn’t a whole lot spanking new in the stealth genre I happen to love dearly. Which is why events like this week’s Stealth Fest on Steam come in very handy to talk about the good old, and perhaps the obscure too. Here are my top tips on what to grab with juicy discounts.

Sniper Elite 4. Why fourth? The latest, fifth, installment in the low-tech WW2 stealth series is just more of the same and, in my humble opinion, not as well executed. Plus, one can’t argue with fat 90% off the normal price here. My GOTY 2017 nominee clocks in at some 40 hours and is well worth checking out.

Far Cry: Blood Dragon started off as an April Fool’s joke. In mere six months of development, it’s grown into an unusually refreshing entry in a franchise hopelessly stuck in a rut, devoid of any passion or invention, a poster child of Ubisoft’s pathetic for-profit copy-paste map icon hunts. You are going to have to deal with the unbelievably crappy proprietary launcher I like to call Udon’tPlay, but at Stealth Fest’s 75% off it’s an absolute bargain. It’s got Michael Biehn‘s voiceover, it’s got a banging synthwave aesthetic, and it’s got dinosaurs with lasers, okay?

Matt Dabrowski’s indie community darling Streets of Rogue (2019) is imaginative, fabulously varied, witty, chaotic, and funny. It’s to be had with 80% discount bringing its price to laughable EUR 3.90 or your regional equivalent. Buy your friends some copies whilst you’re at it too, no need to thank me!

Next up between the stalls of Stealth Fest, we have something oddly familiar here. If you call yourself a video game afficionado, 2021’s Unmetal will ring a bell. Or two. Or it’ll set off a concerto like you may come across over Florence on a Sunday noon. Definitely not inspired by or hilariously parodying any 1987’s game you’ve ever heard of, Unmetal is 60% off, 64 if you’re eyeing the soundtrack bundle too.

Indie pixel art is where we linger on for a little while before the usual suspects and heavy hitters enter the stage. Stealth Fest sees Intravenous at one third of its normal price. The top-down Hotline Miami-like sports some truly hard core stealth mechanics that you can take for a spin in its demo.

Show of hands who knows Deux Ex. Every entry in the immersive sim series is to be had at absolute daylight robbery prices, but let me pick out the best one. And yeah, I know I’ll probably gather some flak for this, but I won’t budge and happily die on this hill. I don’t think Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut just beats the ground-breaking original, I think it’s one of the best video games ever made. And you can get it at 85% off, for EUR 2.99. That’s two euros and ninety nine cents.

Now. Remember when I said that there’s little truly new on the stealth front? That’s because it’s true. My final Stealth Fest tip is when the genre saw proper innovation last, and that’s just a straight-up fact. It also happens to be the best video game adaptation of film material that’s ever saw the light of day. Not that you’ll be seeing much of light, or day, in the immaculate Alien: Isolation. With a hefty 80% discount, there’s never been a better opportunity to witness what could have been in stealth games since 2014. Diapers not included.

This year’s Stealth Fest runs on Steam now, all the way through to 31 July 2023. Plan your tactical approach carefully.

Yet Another Zombie Survivors Twists Bullet Heaven A Bit

By

Dee

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24 July, 2023

Yet another is right. If you thought we’ve had enough of ‘bullet-heaven‘ Vampire Survivors clones (with Vampire Survivors itslef being a clone of mobile-only Magic Survival, by the way), you’d be sorely mistaken. The indie manufactorium isn’t letting up any time soon, even Deep Rock Galactic (!) is getting one of its own. The catch of course is, what’s the twist? What’s the added value to the tried and tested genre?

Well, I got good news. I have just gotten fresh off its demo, and I am happy to report that Yet Another Zombie Survivors looks pretty damn good in the added twist regard. On top of not-too-shabby presentation and a variety of little bits and bobs, it lets you ‘rescue’ other character classes during the course of a run! The resulting squad remains controlled as a single entity and has collective health, but with the rescued other class’ abilities instantly available. How cool does that sound?

You can try Yet Another Zombie Survivors‘ demo for yourself before you decide to participate in its Early Access for an admission fee of EUR9.75 or your regional Steam equivalent. PC only.

Reddit Watch: Diablo 4 Isn’t Going Well

By

Dee

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20 July, 2023

Bobby “Perpetual Frat Boy” Kotick’s latest triple fuckin’ A live service Diablo 4, having seen a massive 1.1.0 patch recently, has found itself on a slippery downward slope. Its Metacritic user scores are taking a beating on all platform fronts, and its subreddit is booming and blooming with negativity. Nerfs all around pretty much nuked player agency and creativity in character builds and caught the game finally up with the triple fuckin’ A live service trend, turning it into a full-time job. All that comes sprinkled with stealth changes, which, I mean, one’s just gotta love.

But wait, it’s even worse, as Reddit poster u/Shin_yolo puts it beautifully on a single page. I don’t play Diablo 4, and never will, so I’ll resort to quick-fire paraphrasing. This is the first major patch Activision-Blizzard have released and it’s a complete and utter disaster. They haven’t got the first clue what they want out of the game (aside from all of their customers’ money, that is) or where the game is headed. They are either grossly incompetent, deliberately malicious, or infinitely stupid. My guess would be a little bit, or rather a lot, of all three.