In Darkest Dungeon, you’re normally kitting out for the long haul. Your hapless adventurers need some fight in ’em, sure, but they’re also gotta hold out for the duration of a dungeon, dodging traps and scares in the bowels of the earth. In The Butcher’s Circus, though, it’s kill or be killed. Darkest Dungeon’s PVP DLC adds gladiatorial fights via a new location in the Hamlet. Rather than risk losing your main adventuring party to senseless bloodsport, the Circus lets you recruit a gang of professional murderfolk....

And now it’s 85% off this week on Steam, meaning you can pick it up for £2.69/$3. The Remastered Collection is this week’s Steam Midweek Madness deal and the discount runs until January 23rd. You can pick it up from the Steam store page. The Remastered Collection includes Command & Conquer with The Covert Operations expansion and spin-off Red Alert with the Counterstrike and The Aftermath expansions. Beyond that, it really does contain almost every feature you’d want from a modern remaster: upscaled cinematics, a redesigned UI, multiplayer replays and spectator mode, a map editor, and so on....

The Cycle: Frontier is an extraction shooter, which means running about a lot across the alien world of Fortuna III in search of loot while fragging extraterrestrials and other players alike. Strictly for profit, you must understand. All progress made during the game’s pre-season is carrying over to season one, so just keep shooting and looting and you’ll be reet. You can read the full patch notes here. The Fortuna season pass will set you back about $10 for the premium version, which offers XP boosters and skins, including ones that make you look a bit like RoboCop apparently....

There’s a Cavern Of Lies to test Nate’s coolness, and we check in with Henry “The Vit” Cavill, but first, of course, we must litigate the different kinds of cool we feel, what counts as cool, and which games make us feel the coolest. You can listen above, or on on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or Pocket Casts. You can find the RSS feed here, and you can discuss the episode on our Discord channel, which has a dedicated room for podcast chat....

Aside from that, there are surprisingly few digressions this week. Us, staying on topic? Armageddon must be upon us. But there is a moment where Matthew reveals that he basically thinks he should never be punished for anything, and Nate provides a bumper Mortal Kombat-themed Cavern Of Lies. You can listen above, or on on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or Pocket Casts. You can find the RSS feed here, and you can discuss the episode on our Discord channel, which has a dedicated room for podcast chat....

B is for Bloody Kriegsmarine! And bloody Luftwaffe! Here I am struggling to take London, Aldershot and Southampton in Unity of Command II’s first add-on largely because Raeder and Goering have failed to secure my cross-Kanal supply lines. The little I’ve seen of the £7 Blitzkrieg thus far is reassuring. The 13-scenario 1939-41 German campaign manages to feel fresh despite ludologising operations I’ve overseen countless times before. New units, specialists, and HQ capabilities zhuzh without disturbing UoC2’s beautifully judged mechanics....

Every year Graham opens the secret panel in the back of all our heads (with a little screwdriver) and removes our batteries so we don’t cause any trouble over the break. On January the 4th he’ll put new ones in, but to keep you amused until then we’ve left you a little Christmas cracker with a joke inside. There’s one for every day of the break! You can find articles you might not have read, or help cover the cost of fresh batteries, with the RPS supporter program....

Still, there’s a reason Bethesda fill their games with monster-shaped loot-piñatas and mysterious quest-givers. If you’ve any experience with long-haul travel in real life, you’ll know it’s often the kind of journey that plays out quite unlike the experience most games want you to have: boredom, insomnia, a severe lack of personal space, and the odd chafed arse. So how do you capture this feeling in a video game, a medium simultaneously uniquely suited to simulating travel, but deathly afraid of boring players?...

Ninja Gaiden Sigma was originally released on the PS3 back in 2007, followed by Sigma 2 in 2009, while Razor’s Edge initially launched on the Wii U in 2012 (before hitting other consoles). Each of these games are the updated ports of the original Ninja Gaidens 1, 2 and 3, letting players go through Ryu’s adventures with new game modes and updated graphics. From the sounds of things, the Master Collection is simply a port of Razor’s Edge and the Sigmas too, as there’s no mention of more updates or improvements....

For good or ill, it feels like puzzle platformers are a dime a dozen these days. Stand on a thing, jump up to another thing, bounce off a trampoline - oh whoops, there was a circular saw in the way. Try doing the jump slightly differently this time, idiot. They’re like the kind of fitness benchmark tests that all PE teachers secretly dream they could do. After so much of this, The Pedestrian is very refreshing....

Capcom don’t specify what kind of issues they’re experiencing with getting the beta live on PC so it’s hard to say when we’ll be able to jump in. Presumably they’ll announce when things are ship shape over on Twitter so you can keep an eye there. The 4 v 1 multiplayer mode Resident Evil Resistance pits a group of teenagers against one mastermind. As mastermind you’ll be “watching the Survivors progress through cameras as you attempt to thwart their escape by placing traps and creatures while manipulating the environment to your advantage,” Capcom explained in a past announcement....

Developed by Seth Robinson, a teenager with a bare minimum of programming knowledge, Legend Of The Red Dragon was an extremely popular example of the “Door Game,” a sub-genre of social gaming that grew out of a desire to cultivate a community around online bulletin board services. BBSes were a fixture of the pre-internet days of the 1980s and early 90s, a place to gather, play social games, and download new demos....

One more box down! That’s right, it’s Unpacking! Alice Bee: Most people who play Unpacking really enjoy it and think, you know, it’s a fun, cute game about unpacking boxes each time you move house. Until they reach one bit. It’s the bit with the diploma. You’ll know it when you see it. And you’ll go, “Ohhhh. Oh no. Oh nooooo.” And chances are you’ll recognise a moment like that from your own life....

Get ready to flex all your knowledge of how Google search terms work with Chinatown Detective Agency! CJ: It’s a the rare game that tasks you with periodically putting it aside to stretch your book learnin’ and search up some real-life information. That’s exactly what Chinatown Detective Agency does, though, posing stumpers such as identifying stamps from around the globe, or figuring out a message using number sequences and library books....

Everyone was off work for a fortnight, so there weren’t many information snacks for Matthew’s news gob. So, while not necessarily news, we’ve decided to lump our chat on our most anticipated games of 2021 in the Headlines and Hot Takes bit. From Far Cry 6 to Ghostwire: Tokyo, Hitman 3 to Gotham Knights, if it’s out this year, and one of us saw it on Wikipedia’s 2021 in video games page during the recording, we chatted about it on this week’s episode....

In this case, a fast USB-C flash drive can be just the thing, with the newfangled connection allowing use on a wide range of devices like phones, tablets and games consoles too. Case in point is Samsung’s 128GB model, which is reduced to £12 today from its usual price of £20. Get a 128GB Samsung USB-C flash drive for £12 (was £20) The general advantage of these sorts of drives is that your initial outlay is far, far less than a portable SSD, as you’re getting slower flash memory and a smaller capacity....

You can see it in information broker Donna Nightshade, who’s done up to the nines in diamond earrings and pearl tiaras as she prepares to open her nightclub for the evening. Before she can do that, though, she needs to deal with you, the player. You’ll be stepping into the shoes of rookie PI Doe for most of Mato Anomalies, and Nightshade has strong-armed you into investigating some shady goings on down in Immortal Harbour....

A shadowy viking by the name of “flippyflip3” has created the Necromancy mod, which lets you summon up to eight friendly skeletons using a Convoking Wand. This spooky staff siphons your health in exchange for abilities that summon, heal, or teleport your rickety companions. You can also mix and match between warrior skeletons and bow skeletons. I’m particularly impressed by how the warriors will actually charge in front of the archers to protect them....

Here’s the catch, which maybe you guessed already: Torchlight Infinite is free-to-play, and in the closed beta of the mobile version, the in-game shop offered cosmetics, inventory slots, revival tokens and pets. The real money values were switched off, so it’s anyone’s guess what things will cost or whether the PC version will be the same. XD are best known for free-to-play mobile games, however, including MMORPGs such as Ragnarok Mobile....

Lü Bu’s faction will become playable in the DLC, starting out scrapping with Cao Cao’s army. He’s powered by points from defeating enemies himself, and can get some big bonuse from taking down legendary warriors of the era. Sun Ce’s faction will start as a vassal but could rebel, and can get bonuses from ticking off personal ambitions including avenging his father’s murder. They both have new story events and units of their own too....