Sin's column

04 Nov 2026 By Sin Vega Sin's column

Slayer Shock's rough simplicity makes it oddly timeless

Boom and dust

A likely recurring element of this column is studying what has changed in games and (hiss, spit) the games "industry" over this 300-year-long decade. But going back to those games you meant to cover, meant to revisit, or never quite played, often prompts thoughts about the currents of other culture, too. Since Slayer Shock's budget love letter to Buffy the Vampire Slayer was released in 2016, that show's creator has been vaguely taken to account (insofar as they ever are) for being, among other things, "a dick". Buffy's gleefully silly and queer "monster hunting friends" descendant Wynonna Earp has been and gone. Twilight's sparkly misogynist nadir, already passing, is practically Old People culture even as Ann Rice vampires make a welcome comeback.

And yet, instead of an uncomfortably outmoded Game Of The Show, Slayer Shock endures, by asking a simple question: What if a vampire jumped out and went BLEAAARGH?

Looking from a slightly raised platform down on a grassy path through the woods at night, holding a wooden stake. Minion vampires slumpily wander around in the middle distance — The smart play is probably to avoid the mooks. But I'm not the Avoiderer. Well, not in the game.

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21 Oct 2026 By Sin Vega Sin's column

Adaca could drop its whole campaign and still crush any other FPS

Get in here, stalker

Adaca's campaign mode is "What if Half-Life 2 was good", and that's fine. It's great, in fact. I'd much rather go back to it than listen to everyone fawn over how amazing Gordon Nothing is again. It deserves more credit than this token paragraph.

But it's nothing to me compared to Adaca's B-side: Zone Patrol. This mode sends your penal conscript into a mysteriously forbidden zone, where scripted encounters are mostly abandoned, and all manner of hostile beings and oddities could appear at any time. Your initial goal is simple: reconnaissance. And you actually have to do that, using initiative, curiosity, and judgement, because it respects you enough to assume you have those.

You are here to explore, to learn, and if you've any wonder in your heart, to savour.

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07 Oct 2026 By Sin Vega Sin's column

Be a weird, racist, weird guy in Jey's Empire

Co, don't tel

Please, allow me the benefit of the doubt when I say how amusing it was to read the headline "Dr. King Murdered!", and think, genuinely unsure: "...was that us?"

Jey's Empire is not an FBI simulator, but a satirical, narrative sort-of simulator of a weird, paranoid racist struggling to contain his flamboyant urges while guarding the USA against the agents of immorality. Which of course means hippies farting about in the woods, a film where someone says "damn", or a Black person doing anything at all.

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This is Sin's column about the games of yesteryear. Not old enough to be retro, not shiny enough to be new. This is the hinterland of PC gaming. And the first of our subscriber goals!

It's crucial that everything is filtered through this horrible buffoon. J. Edgar Hoover will do anything to anyone questioning the status quo, but also make a twat of himself by personally phoning a Black Panther and pretending to be "ghetto", because he just can't help himself. He's doing awful things but the game ridicules him in text and design.

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23 Sep 2026 By Sin Vega Sin's column

Emperors work a gruelling 12-minute day in Stellar Monarch 2

Return of the macro

The trouble I usually have with 4Xeses is the fiddling. Shuffling units around, optimising the workers, replacing outmoded armies, making sure everything is building something useful. It's why a war kicking off is usually the point at which I give up.

The main ways to prevent this are delegation, and restricting the player's capacity to intervene. Stellar Monarch 2 combines both in a curious arrangement of massive scale and limited scope. It is a monarch simulator, after a fashion, wherein you're responsible for specific duties, but the rest are someone else's job. The empire won't grind to a halt without you, but it absolutely will not act on those things that require your instruction, like which planets to claim or what to research. Conquering and building three planets is a matter of clicking a few times to authorise it, then waiting. Fleets are regularly built and retired, applying research bonuses, and optionally redesigned in composition. The most complex bit of the game, but rarely needed.

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09 Sep 2026 By Sin Vega Sin's column

Northern Journey still feels like a secret

Fool of the wild

Summarising Northern Journey feels like a transgression. Maybe it feels so secret because we haven't covered it enough. Maybe it's because The Gaemars are liars and hypocrites who yearn for the gruel. Maybe it's because playing it gently awakens some ancient feeling that the world is vast and unknown, and full of dark and strange things instead of just more goddamn humans doing the same thing as every other human because that's what the other humans are doing.

Of the three things I know about Finland, probably the most relevant is that it borders Norway, where Northern Journey is set. But not really. Nobody names this region, nobody explains more than where to go next and what to look out for. Its setting is that place. The world before "the world" meant a list of countries and buildings and certainties and fucking adverts.

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26 Aug 2026 By Sin Vega Sin's column

House Of The Dying Sun rescued space from the nerds, but we let it go again

This machine kills traitors

This is not a war. There is no glory or prize to be won, no victory to be had. There are no gods to satisfy or rewards to covet. There is nothing to gain. You are not here to save the galaxy or prevent the apocalypse. There is a truth, but it is not holy. It is beyond holy. It is this:

Twelve traitor lords remain.

House Of The Dying Sun begins with an imperative tolling bell, and can only end in ruin. That is your explicit purpose. It tells you upfront, not with a cutscene or Sim Cameraman prologue, but in black and white, with intoxicating immediacy.

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.

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