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It seemed like Helldivers 2 was unstoppable but midway through 2024 it has fallen down to where Bloons TD 6 and Fallout 76 rest on the charts. This fall from the top wasn’t really from any single incident, but a collection of decisions that consistently drove player counts down from the unexpected hype of its release. You may think the account linking fiasco is what destroyed the player counts, but the game was actually in free fall long before then: HELLDIVERS™ 2 – Steam Charts. The problems were not only fundamental to the game’s design but the developers and publisher both didn’t rectify the obvious game issues rapidly enough before they lost the vast majority of players due to attrition. Note: This is only notable due to the anomalous nature of Helldivers 2 holding a strong player population for an extended period of time and then losing it, not specifically…

In Five Nights at Freddy’s Help Wanted 2, there are two endings. The first ending occurs once you finish the mini-games within the game. The second ending requires finding a variety of secrets within the game world and then being able to witness some additional lore in the game. Original Ending The original ending has you take the Vanny Mask and end up, somehow, handing it to Cassidy at the start of Ruin via the mask bot. Secret Ending Explained In this ending, you go into Princess Quest 4 and continue the “quest” which has you wandering around the game. Eventually there’s a perception change and you’re now within the Princess Quest 4 game, following along in the quest. At the very end, you trade the “Vanny Mask” for a “Glitchtrap Plushie” and then go into the elevator from the trailer. The elevator reveals a large claw machine with the…

Beyond Sunset is a fairly decent retro cyberpunk shooter and a fantastical journey through the story and sound, provided by Karl Vincent of a wild cyberpunk world. The world is bleak but so full of character, embodying the idea of synthwave / cyberpunk aesthetics weaved with a lot of DOOM. This review covers the November 2023 Early Access Build. This is one of the few games where the smooth door animations actually impress me. A world built around a strong cyberpunk theme waits for players to jump and slide their way through its streets and towering mega-skyscrapers. If you’re at all into the music or the gameplay of DOOM, this is a definite purchase. If you need some more details, let’s dig in. What is Beyond Sunset? Built on GZDOOM, Beyond Sunset is a retro DOOM-like FPS with multiple hub maps, a full story driven campaign, inventory, RPG elements, side…

Railgrade is the latest in a short line of train simulation games that put you in the seat of managing not only the train paths but the economies of running the train system, routes and resources. You’ve got to be profitable and, on many missions, do so within a certain time to get that S rank. This guide is both for new players and to help you get S Rank on each stage. It takes a combination of the following tips to really shine in Railgrade. Understanding the Game Mechanics In Railgrade, exporting and delivering goods to a consumer yield the same money reward. You should always prioritize delivery over exporting, except in cases where you lack the funds to clear produced goods. Cities have a storage limit for growth materials, but they will continuously accept all growth quantity. If their storage is full, they will pay only half the…

Inkulinati is imaginative, playful and strategic as it builds on colorful ancient memes to provide a strategy puzzler that has the most artistic vibe of any game we’ve seen in awhile. While the art isn’t uniquely rendered, gorgeously deep or unique in any way beyond its ability to While in early access, Inkulinati has impressed us since launch with how beautiful the art is brought to life and the artistic style of how the game plays out. There’s a lot to like here and the early access game is on PC Game Pass (as of this early review) so definitely worth a look there if anything in this review interests you. This review is of the early access version, update 3 (late August 2023). Art to Life The fun of the game is the art style. The characters are all drawn beautifully with rich color and really respect the roots…

Star Citizen is a game that still kindly asks you for your money for some reason unbeknownst to anyone. Chris Roberts himself at this point likely is included in that list, although we’re past half a billion in funding now and Star Marine still is dead. I wrote in early 2016 that Star Marine was canceled which was, looking at the last decade, quite right. It languishes today not as a separate FPS game but a broken buggy module within Star Citizen with three maps and no players and soon to disappear altogether as a separate mode. Much like someone who is trying to convince you that their AI product, coded by ChatGPT is going to be the one, Star Citizen continues to languish as a cult around a product made of dreams and sunk cost fallacy. At this point even just removing Star Marine would probably be good for…

Diablo IV has a very anticlimactic ending that may leave you scratching your head if the game is really over or what has occurred. It may not make a lot of sense at first, but there’s a few things at play when it comes to the ending. We’ll go first over the ending itself literally then take a figurative look at what all of this means for Sanctuary. Quick Note: For the backstory on Lilith, Inarius and Sanctuary see sort of “Part 1” which goes over the events before the game. We’re going to dive right into the ending, which kicks off towards the very end of Diablo IV. How Does Diablo IV End? Inarius and Lilith were both, from the player character’s point of view, insane from their time exiled. Inarius had been in hell for a few millennia per Lorath (which holds the canon from the books still)…

Players can be quite confused at who Inarius and Lilith when they have almost no exposure to either of them before Diablo IV’s launch. Inarius is a rogue angel and Lilith is a rogue demon who created Sanctuary as a means to escape the Eternal Conflict between angels and demons over the Worldstone (the focus of Diablo II). They birthed the nephalem which eventually over time became humanity. That’s everything. We have a ton of technical lore history below, but if you’re just curious who they are that’s about the best summary I think you can have. When they introduce themselves in the game as the mother and father of Sanctuary, they’re not lying. There’s a lot more technical info on the situation than that, but we first need to talk about what came about to cause them to create Sanctuary. We’ll then go into a mixed bag of topics…