Civilization- Beyond Earth Review

I am looking at the number 585. It’s below the “hours played” tab for my copy of Civilization V and I…well, I’m not sure I want to dwell on that figure. But I can tell you that for all those hours, I’ve only actually seen a single session with the history-based strategy game through to completion. I’m an absentee world leader: present for my peoples’ first fumbling steps towards agriculture, gone again somewhere between the invention of the compass and the internal combustion engine. I get into these obsessive restarting loops, curious just to see what new permutation the game’s map-making algorithms spit out. Eventually I’ll nestle a few defensible cities into the mountainside, churn through tech advancements until I can fuss over cute little janissaries or hussar units like they’re collectible figurines. Then, in a sudden fit of self-loathing, I’ll wipe the board clean. It’s wonderful, soul-sucking entertainment.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth shifts the series’ br…

Get 5 Star Wars Games For $4 For A Limited Time

An old-school Star Wars bundle is now on sale at Fanatical, offering five classic PC games for just four bucks. All titles are offered as Steam keys, but the discount ends soon–so check it out if you’re interested in adding a few iconic Star Wars games to your library.

Loot Rascals Review

The opening cutscene of Loot Rascals, largely narrated by a teapot-headed British spaceman, establishes the game’s strange tone well. Instead of arriving at a holiday-resort planet to restore a medical unit’s antenna as intended, you crash on an alien moon and find yourself battling against the game’s eponymous “rascals” that have stolen the medical unit. To get it back, you’ll need to trek through five randomly generated levels, battling or avoiding the moon’s many aggressors.

Loot Rascals is wacky in a way that feels genuine; the art style and creature design in particular feel like the work of artists who watched a lot of The Ren & Stimpy Show as kids and soaked up its playful grotesquery.

The action in Loot Rascals unfolds in a turn-based fashion. You move between hexagonal spaces, uncovering each area as you go, and either fight or circumvent enemies you encounter. Your goal is to find the warp spaces in each zo…

Lords Of The Fallen Preorders Are Discounted For PC

Lords of the Fallen developer Hexworks showed off more than 17 minutes of gameplay footage for the upcoming action-RPG. If the gameplay has you excited, you can preorder Lords of the Fallen at a discount for PC. Steam keys are discounted at both Green Man Gaming and Fanatical.

Life Is Strange Dev Announces New Focus On These Specific Genres

Life is Strange developer Don’t Nod has laid out its future plans, and is focusing on a few specific genre of games moving forward. The studio also has a total of seven projects currently in development.

According to its most recent financial report, Don’t Nod is doubling down on action-RPGs, action-adventure, and narrative adventure games. It cites its expertise in AA+ games–those somewhere between mid-sized and full AAA games–mentioning the success of its most recent games such as 2023’s Harmony: The Fall of Reverie and Jusant, as well as the recently released Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden.

Don’t Nod is looking to have a balance between publishing its own IP and publishing games from other studios, and it aims to release, on average, two games per year.

Of the seven games Don’t Nod is working on, five of them are developed in-house while two are in the hands of external partners. Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is set to launch in 2024 and is being developed by …