Jank mail: Netflix and kill

It has been a very long week in videogames, between the hundreds of games and conversations about them at Gamescom, and the single billion-dollar game that Rockstar chose to finally show off in the middle of it. As an independent media outlet we didn’t cover either of those things, though, and that’s partially a matter of free-thinking principle and also because Graham and I were both away for work so Brendy had to hold the fort. He did a grand job though, starting with taxi reports from Hell Let Loose: Vietnam. 

Even for seasoned FPS players, it's easy to look at games like Hell Let Loose: Vietnam and dismiss them as a sweaty Call Of Duty for people who take a deathmatch too seriously. It's even easier to reject it for the social discomfort of having to actually talk to strangers over the internet. But this is something I love about multiplayer war 'em ups - the small, temporary friendships you forge in hellish circumstances, the micropals you make during a big push or a desperate last stand. The medic who follows you everywhere. The squad leader who says "good fuckin job boys!" when you storm a position and take it without a single casualty. The chopper pilot who never loses his cool. This is extremely bro shit, but I can't help myself. I meet these people, get a snapshot of their personality, and drift off never to meet them again.  

Thanks to the support of our subscribers we now feature fortnightly Sin Vega, highlighting lost Steam gems starting with 2016’s House of the Dying Sun. 

Levels open with thrumming drums and full engines warping you in to the target, under a beautiful classic font declaring dramatic titles like "Vengeance at Ember Field" and "Slaughter at Horuus Gate", in keeping with its almost 1970s filmic energy. Suns blot out enemies. An ally flies through the fire of missiles you shot down. One HUD marker doesn't rotate with you, and that feels better. Every level is a careful diorama, a stage.

Brendy reviewed breathless parkour game Vholume, following Graham’s infatuation with the beta.

The best levels of Vholume make me feel like a clairvoyant with springs for legs. The worst feel like a brief test of my faith, nothing more. The protagonist of this wall-running platformer will often wheeze as if they're running out of breath. At the end of one run, I realised I had been holding my own lungs for the two full minutes it took me to hit the dark doorway that marks the finish line. This game is such a rush, it will deprive you of oxygen.

Season Two of Text Adventure debuted with Heaven’s Vault, which turns out to be actually good. Much to consider.

Interestingly, the book isn't a canonical playthrough, as it were. It adds more of a mystery hook and strips out much of the translating, as well as nooding around finding artefacts that you do. The order that things happen change, and Aliyah has a personality and point of view, informed by large new swathes of backstory we're treated to. In short: it avoids the pitfalls that most of the other game books we read in series one fell into. 

Outside Jank, Rockstar formally released the first look at GTA 6 that wasn’t a leak being used to shill crypto, and finally admitted that the latter is happening and they hate it. It debuted on Netflix and revealed that it sure is a GTA game only with two people and a much higher level of detail, which is the least you’d hope for after thirteen years and a billion dollars. The main debut was followed by a fairly standard spread of press coverage picking out details like the fact you need an app to evaluate car security systems, the wanted system goes to six stars, and you can throw dogshit at people, alongside more hard-nosed reporting like the nutritional content of the protagonists' fridge. 

The inevitable PC release remains unspoken of, so for Jank this is just a long list of reasons why a bunch of other games aren't going to release this year. I am unsurprised to note that Squadron 42 has joined their number nor that Devolver is choosing to launch its next game head-to-head. If you are craving high-definition violence in the meantime, NVIDIA’s yassification filter seems to have leaked early so you can make your own fun/horror using whatever game you have to hand.

The other main event this week was Gamescom, which opened with another run of digital showcases that I find increasingly exhausting to even contemplate, much less watch. Here’s a commendable compendium of the official show and here’s everything in the Future show. Discernable trends: a lot of single-player RPGs and action games attributable to the retreat from live service, and a lot of anthropomorphic animals attributable to somebody noticing how much people will spend on furry art. The former includes the latest D&D spinoff and a cyberpunk im-sim with Bulletstorm-style kicking, and the latter includes third-person combat, co-op base-building and ropey-looking battle royale. 

It’s still Gamescom, though, so all the action was offset by some hardcore PC-based nerd stuff like post-apocalyptic Paradox grand strategy, a remake of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Rainbow SiXCOM and a Lego Skylines game, which is an exciting opportunity to produce a lot of extremely expensive DLC aimed at ageing millennials. 

Meanwhile the Genshin Impact people are doing a co-op Elden Ring-a-like which is apparently not gatcha, the Savage Planet people are doing an online hockey game with realistic injuries, and the PUBG people are doing an online shooter with roguelike progression and haunted dolls. Post-Mass Effect RPG Exodus is coming out on April 7th but I share Edwin’s fear that the hero has insufficient potential for deformity. Here’s a Hades-style roguelike with Tetris-like inventory management.  

CD Projekt is giving Witcher 3 owners a remaster and all previous DLC for free, and confirmed that The Witcher 4 will come out in 2028 and not make the Cyberpunk mistake again. The final-final bit of Witcher 3 DLC contains Dandelion-based trauma and updated skill trees. 

Konami wants to make Silent Hill an annual franchise [SFX: OMINOUS PIANO MUSIC]. Ubisoft now offers you the ability to formally playtest unreleased PC games rather than just subjecting you to the launch-month patches [SFX: RIMSHOT]. Ikea will do you some Xbox-based furniture and it doesn’t include a red ring light but will almost certainly include painful restructuring [SFX: GUNSHOT]. 

Some things were still permitted to happen outside Gamescom: the people behind Journey are launching their own publisher for “emotionally ambitious games” which they freely admit is because they have more money than they can spend. Kotaku hunted down the folk hero of Big Walk. You can play long-lost Xbox 360 exclusive Blue Dragon on PC.

Here ends a particularly exhausting week; let’s look for some higher energy in the comment section. Rashid Yasin has bad news for Brendy's failure to observe the conventions of war reporting.

The crime of aggression is in certain interpretations considered "the supreme international crime" because all other crimes flow from the polluted source of an unjust war. Just to say those virtual war sins are probably arguably criminal as well. Trips to the Hague all around!

Chip Collar was delighted to see Sin highlight House of the Dying Sun.

One of the most mesmerizing games I’ve played regularly since its release. And one that nobody I know ever talks about or has even played if I didn’t force them to. In VR and on the screen it’s immersive to me. It has always felt remarkable and it has always made me feel inspired to imagine the world outside and beyond the cockpit and my place in it.

Caff has two related recommendations in What You Could Play This Weekend.

I want to thank (someone - sorry I cba going back to find out who) for pointing out that "Lost and Found: A Bed We Made Story" was available. If you haven't played "A Bed We Made" GO AND SORT THIS OUT IMMEDIATELY. It's one of the very best adventure murder/mystery games of the last 5 years. And this mini-sequel-ette is a love letter to both the original game and to life in general. So buy both at once, and learn to love games - and life - again.

That's all for this week. Go and play some PC games.