Nathan Grayson

Solarix Wants To Be A Scary Deus Ex, But Something’s Missing

Should I care about Solarix? Yes and no. I really love what Solarix tries to achieve—a new game in the mold of the original Deus Ex or System Shock 2—but it lacks their spirit, their soul. What’s it about? Here’s a general overview of the game, via its Steam page: “Solarix is a science-fiction stealth-horror…

Valve Finally Fixes Years-Old Steam Bug

Oh thank goodness. The latest Steam beta update includes the following note: “Fixed bug where in-game overlay could take two screenshots for a single hotkey press in some games that process input via DirectInput and Win32 input messages.” This is a bigger deal than it sounds like. Some bugs get squashed, others don’t. And sometimes,…

What Are You Playing On Steam This Week?

Steam releases approximately one hundred million billion (give or take a zillion) games every week. So let’s help each other out: tell me what you’re playing on Steam this week and whether or not it’s any good. Let’s recommend games to each other. Me, I’ve been splitting my time between Power Ranger strategy goof-’em-up Chroma…

Grand Theft Auto V Mod Makes Guns Fire Cars Instead Of Bullets

There have been many games with guns. There have been many games with cars. But guns that fire cars? Welcome to a new era. Remember when we thought things couldn’t get any crazier than the chainsaw gun? Or the guns in Ratchet and Clank? Or Duke Nukem? Oh how naive we were. Here, today, we…

Here Are Some Animated Mountains That Will Read Your Tweets

Twitter is kinda terrible sometimes. It enables people of all types and backgrounds to come together and get really, really angry at each other, and somehow many of us lose hours to the damn thing every day. These talking mountains, though? They brighten the place right up. In short, Mountains of Mouthness is a bunch…

A Strategy Game Where You’re Basically The Power Rangers

Should I care about Chroma Squad? If you’re struck by devastating waves of nostalgia every time you think about Power Rangers, Japanese super sentai series, or, er, Backstreet Boys lyrics, then yes. Definitely yes. What’s it about? It’s a Power Rangers (sans the license) strategy game, but that’s not all it is. See, there’s this…

If Deus Ex Were A Horror Game: The Steam Stream Plays Solarix

On a very special Friday installment of The Steam Stream, I’m playing Solarix, a new sci-fi horror game with open-ended Deus-Ex-style gameplay. Watch me get embarrassingly frightened below. This week’s stream will probably be a little short, but if I get around to it I’m hoping to also stream a little of Chroma Squad, a…

One Man’s Quest To Bring Back Killing Floor’s Nipple Rings

Yes, nipple rings. A rather large group of Killing Floor 2 fans thinks that nipple rings are very important. Specifically, they think that one of the game’s characters should have them, and they’ve spent nearly a year campaigning to get them added. First, some background. In popular Steam horror shooters Killing Floor and the new…

The Half-Life Game That Never Was

An official Half-Life game from the creator of Deus Ex? Oh to live in the alternate universe where it actually happened. Once upon a time, Warren Spector, one of the principle creators of cyberpunk masterpiece Deus Ex, began work on a Half-Life game that never saw the light of day. At the time he was…

Months Later, YouPorn’s Pro Gaming Team Looks Kinda Dead

Late last year, gigantic porn site YouPorn announced that they’d acquired a pro DOTA 2 team, and every publication on Earth—probably even Highlights Magazine—gave them a headline. But was it anything more than a marketing ploy? Curious, I decided to look into what’s happened since. Once upon a time Team YP’s plan was to compete…

A Game Where You Can Punch Anyone, Anytime

Should I care about Will Fight For Food? Yes and no. Conceptually, it’s pretty cool. You can punch anybody whenever, even if they’re important to the story. But the combat isn’t great, and the concept quickly breaks down. What’s it about? Here’s the game’s description, via its Steam page: “Jared Casey Dent was a wrestler…

Steam ‘Review Bombing’ Is A Problem

In recent times, people have taken to flooding games’ Steam pages with (typically negative) reviews and tags to protest, well, lots of things. New features, viewpoints of creators, messages in the games themselves. But why? And does it actually work? Recently, games like Skyrim, with its controversial paid mods, Titan Souls, after a beef with…

Now You Can Win Achievements While Playing… Tic-Tac-Toe

Tic-Tac-Toe has achievements and a progression system now. Thanks, the year 2015. Yes, the Tic-Tac-Toe, that most ancient of gentlemanly playground sports, dating all the way back to the Roman Empire by some estimates. It might seem a bit odd, but Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe actually sounds, dare I say it, kinda interesting. See, you’re not just…

Have you ever taken part in a Steam review bombardment? Or whatever else you might call a concerted effort to leave a negative or positive mark on a game’s Steam page via reviews, tags, etc? I’d love to hear why. Send me an email at [email protected] or, if you’re comfortable with it, leave a comment.

Some People Are Pissed That Skyrim‘s Paid Mods Are Gone

The era of paid Steam mods ended almost as quickly as it began. Some people are pleased. Others are even more upset than they were before. It is often the moments after the indecipherable cacophony of controversy that are most telling. People calm down a little, stop spewing steam from their ears and enraged garbage…

Classic Star Wars spaceship shooters X-Wing and TIE Fighter are now available on Steam. Revered as two of the best Star Wars games of all time, they’re joined by X-Wing Alliance and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter in Valve’s voluminous game hangar. Grab a joystick and blast some imperial/rebel/womp rat scum.

The First Big Killing Floor 2 Mod Is… Pepsi Man

This is certainly one way to break in a game’s modding tools. Once upon a time, there was a superhero named Pepsiman. He appeared in a Japanese video game and a number of commercials. It was all very… odd. So of course, everybody fell in love with him. Now, thanks to the soaring creative spirit…

Steam’s Most Popular Skyrim Mod Is A Protest Against Paid Mods

The best way to critique Steam’s new paid mod section? Turns out, it’s making mods. The most popular Skyrim mod on Steam right now is a sign. It’s a crude, almost sad little thing, with two whole sides of sizzling outrage dedicated to paid mods. “FREE THE MODS,” shouts one side. “No paid mods,” whispers…

Kerbal Space Program, one of the best-loved Early Access games ever, is officially “complete.” The wacky spacecraft construction sim just hit version 1.0, bringing with it a complete flight model overhaul, a heating simulation, and resource mining, among other things. It’s the game’s biggest update to date, apparently.

Remember when Codemasters pissed off fans with a “new” Colin McRae Rally racing game? Well, it seems like they’re making up for it in a big way with DiRT Rally, a rally racer that looks excellent and, according to early reports, plays nicely too. It’s still in Early Access, but it’s come roaring out the…