Rock Paper Shotgun – PC Game Reviews, Previews, Subjectivity

It was only a matter of time. Shortly after Half-Life: Alyx's release, modders were already tinkering with ways to play Alyx without VR. Now there's a mod that will actually let you complete the game entirely with a regular display, though it sounds like a slightly finicky experience. This likely won't be the end of the road for VR-less Alyx, but it's certainly a milestone.

Things are looking bleak right now, y'all. Between global pandemics, environmental and economic collapse, and just about everything happening with politics, it's often hard to look on the bright side - let alone start planning for a better tomorrow. But Utopias: Navigating Without Coordinates, released today, is trying its hardest to do just that. A collectivist work from collectivist artists, Utopias wants to explore what it means for games to be "utopian", by way of alien house-parties, anti-bullets and bird emancipation.

For weeks, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord's biggest threat hasn't been some rival army, amassing its forces. No, it's been the nature of the game itself - crashing and crumbling and splintering apart, bringing feudal campaigns to a frustratingly abrupt close. This weekend, developers TaleWorlds decided to strengthen Bannerlord's defences against this existential threat with two new test

Screenshot Saturday Sundays! It might be a weekend for eggs, sun, and supernatural resurrection, but that's not stopped those dang game developers from pushing more fabulous visuals for us to peruse. This week: Unconventional driving, a crowded kitchen, the terrifying vastness of open wilderness, and spiders.

Call of Duty: Warzone's map is pretty big. Massive enough that it's fair to assume you'll be spending a lot of time driving down its byways and highways between firefights. For one streamer, it only made sense to get behind the wheel himself for some Verdansk road trips. Perfect for driving, less so for shooting - but when he finds himself faced with a 1v1 prison brawl, our reckless driver manages to put together a stunning display of improvisational roadkill.

I might only have briefly dabbled in farm work while travelling, but Atomicrops sure ain't how I remember it. I remember wellies and mud, yeah, but mutants? Shotguns? Seems suspect. With the turning of the seasons, Bird Bath Games' farm-person-shooter is ready to bring home the harvest, as Atomicrops prepares to leave early access on May 28th.

Look, Valorant might be fun and aw, but what's the point if you can't make the numbers go higher? Right now, folk are just cycling in and out of wizard gunfights, learning the game and having fun, without the very important business of pushing an arbitrary rank higher and higher. Disgusting. From the sounds of it, though, that may change sooner than expected, with a Riot developer hinting at a ranked matchmaking system arriving in the next few weeks.

Poor Steam Controller. Hanging on long after Valve's efforts to bring PCs into the living room fizzed out, the last batch of the gamepads finally sold out last November, bringing an end to the era of Steam Machines. And that was that, until curious eyes spotted a patent filing for a new Steam Controller - one that's trying to one-up the Xbox One Elite Controller on customisability.

CLACK. CLACK. CLACK. We've all been in that call. Discord, Teamspeak, (god forbid) Skype, or whatever your voice channel of choice, there's always someone hammering away on their mechanical keyboard. This week, Discord pushed a beta for Krisp.ai integration - a machine-learning powered tool for cutting unwanted background sounds out of your call, leaving your friends with only the crisp, clean sound of your sexy vocal chords.

If the sun suddenly shrunk threefold, there'd be consequences. In the real world, that'd be total extinction through global freezing. But in Sizeable, it'd probably just open a new opportunity to solve a clockwork puzzle-box. The work of Belgian student Sander Ambroos, Sizeable's short demo offers four tiny worlds to poke and prod at, each with their own intricately-planned challenges to scale.

Sorry.

Three really is the magic number, ain't it? At least, that seems to be the case in battle royale, as the Call Of Duty: Warzone devs discovered this week. Not two days after bumping Warzone up to Quads, a playlist update rolled three-person squads back into the 150-player deathmatch. How many friends did you think I have, anyway?

The big free update that brings human folk back to Fallout 76's desolate West Virginia is launching next week. Settlers and raiders have moved back into the Appalachian hills to rebuild and hunt for treasure. The new factions are claiming territory too, which might conflict with the C.A.M.P. you've already built. Bethesda posted a handy map so you can make sure you aren't living somewhere that the new wastelanders will kick you out of.

Alright, you've all beat the Resident Evil 3 remake once now, right? Time to add some juicy mods. I've found the perfect one for you to try first. It's a shirtless Carlos Oliveira. You're welcome. It's brought to us by modder "Tzarev"  with the simple but effective description: "Carlos' meaty pecs exposed." Yes, quite.

We know for sure that Final Fantasy VII's remake will be exclusive to the PS4 for a year. After that, maybe Square Enix'll just dust their hands off and never speak of it again, but that seems unlikely. They've still not confirmed a PC version but the repeated emphasis on "exclusive until 2021" sure makes ya think we'll see it this time next year. A new trailer suggests that the PC port could already be in the works.

There's always going to be a cheater where competition's involved, so it's no surprise that Riot's new CS:GO-like shooter Valorant has already seen a few. Just getting into the beta seems to be a competitive sport, let alone actually performing in-game once you're there. Riot say they've banned their first cheater from Valorant's beta and are anticipating more bans to come.

The Procession To Calvary is now out, allowing you to muck you way through Renaissance artwork with the irreverence that I learned to appreciate as a Monty Python-loving teen. It's a point and click 'em up "spiritual sequel" to Four Last Things which was also a silly classic paintings romp.

So I've not actually played Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. It's not strictly because there's no co-op. Given that I've played all three Dark Souls games and Bloodborne, I suppose it's not not because there's no co-op either. Behold! Modders have come to my rescue. Here are three players attempting to fight through a section all playing as the One-Armed Wolf.

There was never really any question, was there? In the hierarchy of fruit popularity, bananas are right up there with apples and strawberries - not particularly exciting, but safe. Reliable. Always there when you need 'em. So when Stardew Valley asked players what fruit they'd like hanging out on their farms in the update 1.5, there was only ever one answer. Passionfruit was robbed.

In a way, I don't blame the fallen wizard antagonising the world of deckbuilding RPG Ancient Enemy. I'm sure I'd be fairly high-strung too if I'd slept in for a few hundred years. Well, the alarm bell's finally rung. It's time for the sleepy sod to get up and start facing an army of card-wielding warriors - Ancient Enemy takes the fight to Steam today.

Business are shuttered. Streets are quiet. Sirens blare back and forth. No, this isn't some piece of post-apocalyptic fiction - increasingly, it's every urban space under the escalating Covid-19 pandemic. With developers, publishers and retailers alike scrambling to get their staff working from home, Cyberpunk 2077 developers CD Projekt Red are keen to remind fans that they'll still get their 21st-century dystopia come September 17th.

Sooner, even, if they look out the window.