Firefly Studios’ commercial and critical darling of a real time strategy Stronghold is getting a remaster. No news I’ve found more exciting than it getting full Steam Workshop support along with it. Yay. Get ready to keep your peasants happy on 7 November 2023.
The ritualistic murder of the Star Wars franchise is one sight to behold. One sociopathic corporation after another take turns over its long dead body to have their sick ways with it. The saddest part is, it just doesn’t seem to be any closer to a point where the screaming just mercifully stops. Make no mistake. Star Wars is well and truly dead. What’s not dead is open world live service shovelware manufactorium and a safe haven for sex predators, Ubisoft. Which is bad news for poor old, yup, you guessed it, Star Wars!
Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Far Ghost Creed Recon Cry Outlaws may have a release non-date of “2024” but we have already been blessed with some details on it. They are just as meaningless and underwhelming as one should expect from this video game slopsucker elite, but the one picked out on Reddit really hit me like a ton of bricks. Wait, size of the map? Really? Didn’t we have this conversation around the time No Man’s Sky sucker-punched itself onto the shelves? And wasn’t the outcome of that conversation that the map size means jack squat? Do these corporate hacks understand anything they pretend to be doing?
Nah, who am I kidding. The (meta) story of Star Wars is one of unchecked greed and annihilation of creative arts. Ubisoft and their big maps fit right in.
According to a study conducted by The Video Game History Foundation, nearly nine in ten video games released in the US prior to 2010 are gone. As in, lost. As in, never to be found again. The precise loss rate is 87%. This is worse than that of silent films (around 75%) as claimed by the Library of Congress.
As the current triple A industry chases its own tail slowly drowning in a mud pit of utter creative bankruptcy, video games are losig their very roots. And instead of pulling their heads out of their arse, the bottom-feeding likes of Activision-Blizzard, Square Enix, Micorsoft, EA, or Ubisoft have their hands full desperately trying to ride the wave of, usually dead-on-arrival, always-online live-services. That, and implementing invasive anti-piracy measures. Which, smoothly as a healthy dose of laudanum down one’s throat, brings me to the scummiest scum of them all; Denuvo.
I wonder what happened to Denuvo’s and their trusty sidekicks, the triple A video game industry’s, ironclad defense of piracy harming sales fingues. Ah, I ‘member, it got absolutely destroyed in yet another survey, this time by the EU. Too bad only a handful of industry zealots do actually seem to ‘member. Subsequently, just as every single pork-faced freeloader ever does, Denuvo has created a diversion. Enter their lazy-arse kernel-level aniti-cheat software. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the con men have found themselves on the defense again, this time with a resounding, and nonetheless ironclad, “just trust us”. Cut to present day.
The question over Denuvo’s uttetly pointless existence affecting video games’ performance has never been properly answered. While my arse firmly sits in the club of it indeed does, it remains questionable and extremely difficult to actually prove. That’s exactly where the miserable deadbeat fucks at Denuvo saw yet another opportunity to steer the conversation away from true issues their cow dung of a DRM creates, put some googly eyes on, and embarked on an aggressive attempt to clear their name.
Let me tell you something that’ll surprise absolutely no one. If bullshit and a nothingburger had a kid, it would be Denuvo’s proposed test. Performed on a single video game (it is not yet known which one) and observed in controlled conditions by only a handful of journalists, that’s not a test, it’s a PR stunt. But one would truly be delusional to expect otherwise from the mobster outfit that is Denuvo.
So what are the true issues of Denuvo’s escapades in what we for lack of better words have to call software? Well, in case you didn’t notice, I started this off rambling about video game preservation. And it really is as simple as that. The remote servers that run either the live service or the DRM go down, the game goes down. Not just that, it disappears, forever. And believe you me, the greasy porkers endlessly salivating over the thought of stripping people of all – not just some, or a lot, all – of their money won’t give this level of control up. Ever.
Steam has announced top 50 most played demos during its recent Next Fest, a regular celebration of upcoming indies. Sadly, most of the demos are only up within Next Fest’s running window and you’ll probably find some of the more interesting ones unavailable. Don’t fret though as I am shamelessly grabbing this opportunity to highlight my own tops with demos still up for grabs.
Played from a first-person perspective of Yasna, an astrobiologist, The Invincible is a sort of an atompunk, story-driven adventure of cosmic mystery on a hostile planet. What I’ve seen in the demo is perhaps too linear, but may open up later on in the full game. Nonetheless, I think it looks fantastic and the atmosphere is one hell of a hook. The game doesn’t have a release date outside of “2023” yet, but the demo comes wholeheartedly recommended by yours truly.
Absolutely gorgeous pixel art is what brought me to Hammerwatch 2, a sequel to the excellent action RPG crafter roguelite Heroes of Hammerwatch. Aside from Windows and Linux, the original game has released on Nintendo Switch too and since I have never played it, I am planning to procure it there and may tell y’all all about it later on. Hammerwatch 2 seems to be sticking with the tried formula, but puts on a coat of even more colourful pixels that with its dynamic weather are a sight to behold. But don’t merely listen to my gushing over it, see for yourself. Hammerwatch 2 is slated to release in full on 15 August 2023.
There’s a couple of things about Germany’s one mighty fine development team going by the moniker Mimimi Games. The first thing is, they seem to specialize in heavy on stealth real-time tactics. Think Commandos if you will. The other thing is, whatever the hell they put out, gets almost exclusively overwhelmingly positive reception. Seriously, just have a gander over on to Desperados, or Shadow Tactics. Now, one might think that doing this same thing over and over gets the gears grinding quickly, but it just so doesn’t. Their games feature fantastic stories, stand-out characters, uncompromising tactical stealth play, and are a delight to look at in the process. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, taking on a pirates theme this time around, is no exception and is my personal winner on this summer’s Steam Next Fest. Grab the demo, try it, anticipate its release two days after Hammerwath 2 drops, on 17 August 2023.
The next Next Fest has Valve down for 9 to 16 October 2023. If this trend of ever-increasing quality of titles on display is anything to go by, we are likely to be treated with another salvo of fantastic indie games. Do feel absolutely free to tell me how wrong am I with these top picks, but don’t forget to give us yours. That’s what the comments section is for. Cheerio.
Too long, no space games, eh? The mighty successful and acclaimed Diablo-in-space Everspace 2 will soon be, yeah, more of Diablo-in-space. I’ve had a great time with its 1.00 released this year, albeit the touted endgame is a teensy weensy bit lacking at the moment. Set items, then, may spice it up a little bit.
Although we don’t yet have a set-in-stone (“set”, get it? I’ve done the funny there!) date, Rockfish have teased introduction of set items in Everspace 2 in a usually high quality stream. Hit it on up via that popular video streaming website if you dare.
