PC So here’s another game I didn’t know was in the works. I know I’ve been gone for a couple months but I’m starting to feel like I just woke up from a 20-year coma. The game is Warhammer Underworlds which is apparently the full title of a tabletop game I simply knew as Shadespire all this time. It’s coming to Early Access in January and, holy crap, does it look amazing.
PC/Mac/Linux I’ve been playing the hell out of Slay the Spire, first on PC and now on my Switch, for months now. You’d think it would get old but it’s still my go-to when I sit on the couch and grab a controller. Starting today, however, StS has some strong competition. Nowhere Prophet from Sharkbomb Studios is a just-released roguelike deckbuilder that adds a ton of story and tactical doodads to differentiate it from other solo deckbuilders on Steam.
PC, Xbox, PS4 • Listen up, nuggets. You should all be familiar with Black Lab Games‘ dark horse tactical gem, Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. Quite possibly the best licensed game this side of, heck, Dark Forces. A terrific tactical starship game based on the paradigm-shifting show of the 2000s, one that I’d put in my top five — count ’em, five — games of all time. Well, there’s a new expansion coming out very soon, and it sounds all manner of tasty.
iOS Universal, Android • The wonderful folk in our forums directed me to some questionable reviews posted on the just released mobile strategy title Chaos Reborn: Adventures. One of them gives the game one star on the sole basis that Julian Gollop, the creator of the original XCOM, created this game and it’s nothing like XCOM. I found this funny as hell because we usually criticize when creators keep redoing the same thing over and over but now Chaos Reborn is being flogged because it’s not just like another game that the designer created 23 years ago. What’s even better is that Chaos Reborn: Adventures is actually a remake of a game that Julian Gollop designed well before the idea of cryssalids ever entered his brain. Anyway, I’m rambling here. The major point to take from all this is that Chaos Reborn: Adventures is now available for both iOS and Android.
Tabletop • Many years ago the folks at Ares Games created a miniatures game so easy that even non-miniature gamers, like me, could figure them out and play them. Even better, they sold the games with pre-painted miniatures and all the stuff you needed to play. No searching for a tape measure or blistering your fingers prying plastic off sprues. Even, even, better the theme was World War I and II air combat. Of course, I’m talking about Wings of War (now Wings of Glory) and, for a short time, I was hooked. This was followed up by Sails of Glory which takes the basic premise and moves it onto the high seas. All was well and good and then Fantasy Flight used a system that was…similar…in their blockbuster hit X-Wing and then followed that up with capital ship combat in Armada. Who wants to shoot shells when you can fire laser cannons and make pew-pew sounds as you play? Don’t count Ares out yet, however, as they just announced their own sci-fi miniatures combat game, Battlestar Galactica-Starship Battles.
PC • Huge insectoid monsters of doom and destruction burst forth from the earth and turn their monstrous eyes upon a futuristic human civilization for a snack. “We’re all screwed,” the people exclaim, but you know better. See, there are equally giant mechs in the future packed with explosive fly swatters (not literally) at the ready, all you need is a little time travel which also comes in handy if they fail. Just zip forward, grab some more mechs and try again.
PC • Bipedal cupcakes and mushrooms, spiders with knee-length socks, and rainbow-colored unicorns…sounds like a fantasy zoo straight out of the mind of Lewis Carroll or Dr. Seuss doesn’t it? These are just some of the many odd creatures that populate the fantastically bizarre, apocalyptic world of Pit People. Pit People is a strategy role-playing game that features tactical turn-based combat and a heaping portion of humor. It’s been incubating in Steam Early Access for a little over a year and is getting close to breaking free of the beta stage, so I figured now was a great time to give it a go.
PC • The original Ogre was designed by Steve Jackson way back in 1977, nearly 25 years before his own publishing company would become synonymous with a little card game called Munchkin. It’s had several editions since it’s days with long lost publisher, Metagaming Concepts, culminating in a ridiculously gigantic new edition (seriously, this thing weighs in at over 30 pounds) funded a few years ago, with the sixth edition hitting shelves in 2016. Part of the Ogre revival includes a digital version which was just released for PC.