Zombies, you say? Aren’t they incredibly played out at this point? What’s left to say on the shambling hordes? If The Walking Dead is anything to go by, very [insert meandering mid-season break] little. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t getting creative in siphoning that near-empty pop-culture tank. Enter Screwfly Studios, rolling up the sequel sleeves and continuing to develop their distinct brand of strategy in Zafehouse Diaries 2.
Two years ago the arrival of a new Hearthstone expansion would have been major news worthy of getting a certain Faraday out of bed to give us his thoughts on what was (and maybe still is?) the biggest game on mobile. Today it’s a bit meh. Sure, Hearthstone is still a pretty great game, but with this being the umpteenth expansion I find it hard to jump up and down and holler when a new one is released. That said, we still have at least one major Hearthstone fan chained in the manor’s wine cellar and I’m sure there are some of you who still pick it up and give it a go every once in a while. Today will be a good day to delve back in as Mean Streets of Gadgetzan was unleashed this morning.
Frozen Synapse. The Samaritan response to Earl Grey going cold during CS 1.6 matches. A dignified serving of tactical WEGO that kept the brew hot and the neurons firing. It was the firearm surgery of Counterstrike, but field-stripped to core components and removed from the Hindbrain for proper turn-based deliberation. Every action you’d pull in a regular realistic shooter could be replicated in fastidious detail. And ruminative sipping. When Frozen Synapse 2 was announced earlier this year, I wondered how Ian and friends could possibly improve upon an already proven clutch of systems. Turns out Mode 7 like to dream a little bigger.