PC (now), Mac/Linux (coming soon) • Ever since Owen gushed about how wonderful FTL: Faster Than Light was on an iPad (and he wasn’t wrong), we’ve been waiting to see what Subset Games would do next. Said gushing took place in April of 2014 so we’ve been waiting nearly four years for Into the Breach, which just launched on PC this morning. I’m sure Owen already bought his copy.
PC • You are a mercenary in the deep recesses of space. You take difficult, dangerous, and often downright foolhardy jobs in exchange for that most generic of space currency: credits. You infiltrate unfriendly spacecraft, sometimes leaving with something or someone. Sometimes you leave somebody (or a whole lot of somebodies) dead in your wake. You equip yourself with the best weapons and technology that latinum can buy. These are the tools of your trade, your toys. Using your guns, gear, and skill you make daring and improbable moves to get the job done. Malcom Reynolds, Star Lord, and 007 wish they were you.
PC (now), Mac/Linux (when it reaches Steam) • Did you play with Legos as a kid? Did you build elaborate spacecraft and make them fly around and fight each other? Do you have Legos around now, you know, for “your kids?” If you answer “yes” to those questions (as I do), have I got a game for you.
iOS, Android, PC • As can be seen in our Readers’ Game of the Year nominations, Race for the Galaxy is considered one of the best games of 2017. Temple Gates did a bang up job on it, crafting a wonderful UI, bringing in Keldon’s AI for solo play, and providing a robust multiplayer experience. As great as it is, the thing it’s lacking in comparison to its cardboard ancestor are expansions. It launched with two, Gathering Storm and Rebel vs. Imperium. The third, Brink of War arrived today, just in time to help it get more votes in our end of year polling.
iOS Universal, Android, PC • We’re starting to put together “best of 2017” lists behind the scenes and, to be honest, this year is a tough one. There have just been so many great releases this year that picking 5 or 10 and ranking which are better than others feels like telling one of your kids that you like them the least [it’s the middle kid, by the way -ed.]. There are a couple games, however, that are easy to toss near the top of the list and Race for the Galaxy from Temple Gates is one of them. A simply brilliant digital take on the classic card game, RftG has everything you’d want in a digital port. Well, almost everything. It is lacking the Brink of War expansion, but that’s going to change on December 14th.
iOS, Android • It’s kind of funny that other, better card drafting games keep popping up on mobile making the long-awaited release of 7 Wonders less and less important. We already have Age of Rivals, which I think is a better overall game than the SdJ winner, and Through the Ages, which might be the best card drafting game ever. Over the weekend, the folks behind Brass announced another card drafting title is making its way to iOS and Android, Among the Stars.
iOS Universal, PC/Mac/Linux • With everyone already hip-deep into Warhammer Quest 2, I’d like to remind you there is life outside of the dungeon. For example, I dropped the kids off at school this morning and then went home and fell asleep on the couch. Can’t do that in WHQ2! While meeting my wife for lunch, I ran over a couple traffic cones in a construction area and dragged them under my minivan for about 2.5 miles. Not only did it make my minivan-driving self look cool, but you can’t do that in WHQ2! I also downloaded a new game from the App Store, Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander. That’s something we can all do, but you can’t do it in WHQ2!
iOS Universal, PC/Mac/Linux • We’ve cleared the Stately calendar next week so we can focus on the release of Perchang‘s Warhammer Quest 2. It looks like our focus has been a little too focused, however, as WHQ2 isn’t the only interesting release coming next week. Thanks to our friendly neighborhood journalists (not to mention Touch Arcade), we now need to divide our focus between WHQ2 and something from Massive Damage called Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander which is also releasing on October 19. Oh, woe is us.
iOS Universal, Android, PC/Mac/Linux • The past couple of weeks have been tough ones for me, but this hardship has been completely of my own devising. Instead of going to sleep at a remotely decent time, I’ve been staying up well past 2am nearly every night playing War of the Chosen, the new expansion for XCOM 2. While we’re unlikely to ever see the XCOM sequel on our tablets, there is good news in mobile-land for XCOM fans: XCOM: Enemy Within was just updated to comply with iOS 11’s 64-bit requirement.
Tabletop • I’ve never played a solo game quite like Nemo’s War from Victory Point Games. I went into it prepared for the usual solo/cooperative game tropes–turns divided by a “bad” phase, more fires to put out than you have hoses, a general sense of being completely screwed–but found none of those. Instead, Nemo’s War felt more like one of those open-world video games like the Elder Scrolls series. Do whatever the hell you want, when you want, and have fun doing it. There’s never that moment, as in other cooperatives, where you “beat the game”. It’s strange, yet mesmerizing.