ARKHANGELSK, USSR — Soldier Iakov Makarov expressed confusion at his order to stand guard in a men’s room stall on the second floor of Arkhangelsk’s chemical weapons facility, sources report.
“I really don’t understand why I’m stationed here,” Makarov said. “As an incredibly effective soldier who excelled in both basic and special training, I can be of much better use at any other position in this facility. So far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special about this bathroom, and even if there was, there are three other soldiers already here. I can’t even see what I’m supposed to be guarding because I was also ordered to keep the stall door shut. I’ve been standing here for the last three hours just staring at it. This just doesn’t make any sense.”
Makarov’s commanding officer Ioakim Nikitin admitted to having erred in issuing the orders to Makarov.
“Yeah, in retrospect, that wasn’t the smartest allocation of my soldiers,” Nikitin conceded. “The chemical weapons we create in this facility are incredibly important to the Motherland, and the gas tanks in the main bottling area are especially integral to production. They definitely could have used a strong defensive presence, so I really should have placed more soldiers there instead of grouping so many of them in the men’s room. I’ll try to do better next time.”
British Secret Service agent James Bond noticed the strange positioning of the soldiers upon breaching the facility.
“I infiltrated the building through the vents, and just happened to drop down in the men’s room,” Bond commented. “There were four soldiers randomly standing guard throughout the room. I followed my assignment and met up with fellow agent Alec Trevelyan in the bottling area, where we detonated the gas tanks. It seems like these soldiers who were in the bathroom for seemingly no reason would have been much more productive near these tanks, but I’m not going to argue with them making my job easier.”
At press time, Nikitin was also second-guessing his strategy of placing so many units of body armor throughout the facility.
My original plan for this week’s column was to end the year by breaking out the pile of shame: the games that I’d meant to cover in the column, but for whatever reason, did not. That turned out to be an unrealistically ambitious plan, both because I’ve been on the road for the holidays and because I spent all week playing Tactical Breach Wizards.
It’s likely that if you care at all about indie PC and/or turn-based strategy games, you’re already aware of TBW. It’s reportedly sold very well, has just over 7,500 reviews on Steam at time of writing, and is the latest project from Suspicious Developments, the studio that made Gunpoint and Heat Signature. This column is ostensibly about putting a spotlight on lesser-known games, but TBW is already at least a sleeper hit.
I want to write about it anyway, if only to highlight its elegance. That’s an odd word to use about TBW, which is a half-serious game about foul-mouthed wizards who solve all their problems by throwing people out of windows, but nothing else fits.
There’s a flow to TBW that immediately jumped out at me. From the start, it’s very careful to only give you as much information as you actually need. It sets up both its mechanics and worldbuilding at a careful pace, with natural conversations, great comedy writing, and bite-size introductory levels that introduce each new feature. It’s a master class on both in-game tutorials and narrative exposition.
TBW, as the name suggests, is basically turn-based Rainbow Six, but everyone in the squad is some kind of spellcaster. Its world is a sort of 20th-century western Europe with magic, set in several feuding nations on the brink of war.
You play as Jen Kellen, a storm witch and private investigator who was hired to find a missing person. She did, ten seconds after a doctor shot him through the head. Jen heads to the police station to find out why.
Subsequently, a strike team abducts the doctor, with Jen’s old acquaintance Zan on their heels. Zan wants to know why his old partner Liv, who vanished two years ago, has resurfaced as a commander for a shady PMC, and why they’re sending her to attack random police stations. With no real leads, no backup, and no money, Zan and Jen team up to find out what Liv and her new employer are doing.
Each of your characters in TBW is a different sort of wizard, and you gradually unlock a suite of different abilities as you progress. Jen is a storm witch, who does little direct damage but can knock enemies around with gusts of wind.
The combat really revolves around Zan, however, who has the ability to see one second into the future. Mechanically, you can use Zan’s foresight to rewind and fast-forward through each turn, to see the consequences of your actions and undo them as required.
You only have so many actions you can take in any turn, but Zan is essentially a mechanically-justified quicksave button. It’s easy to make a stupid mistake that gets a character killed, but you can always rewind to the start of your turn and try something else.
That’s one of multiple ways in which TBW feels like it was made for me specifically. I play a lot of turn-based strategy games, but bounce off many of them for one reason or another: big difficulty spikes, poorly-explained mechanics that suddenly become crucial, how a displayed 90% hit chance usually results in a miss, and so on.
As it turns out, I’m not the only one with that list of grievances. According to the developers, TBW is essentially an attempt to address issues that annoyed them about XCOM 2. They started with a laundry list of complaints about a game that they loved, then made something that systematically addressed them.
There are features of TBW’s gameplay and world that deal with problems that I didn’t know I had, like how you aren’t forced to bench half the squad at any given time, or how your team defaults to non-lethal tactics. It does help keep TBW’s overall tone intact when you know you aren’t actually dropping 10 to 16 bodies per map.
Naturally, I could point to a couple of things that annoy me. There are a couple of rough levels in the campaign and I’m not crazy about every character in the lineup. Dall in particular feels like she’s missing some crucial elements in her kit, especially as you close in on the endgame.
Despite that, Tactical Breach Wizards simply does most things right. It’s one of the most compulsively playable strategy games I’ve tried in years, and it navigates what could’ve been a worldbuilding nightmare with a casual confidence that I actually find a little inspiring. It’s an easy recommendation.
[Tactical Breach Wizards, published and developed by Suspicious Developments, is now available on PC for $19.99. This column was written with a copy of the game purchased on Steam.]
ADVENTURE BAY — Following a decade of crime fighting, the Paw Patrol has been defunded and its members have been put down. Recently elected Mayor Humdinger says it’s all part of an aggressive new vision for Adventure Bay.
“The Paw Patrol has been disbanded and replaced with a more sensible and obedient human police force,” Humdinger said, surrounded on stage by his little kittens. “For too long, Ryder and his pups have run amok in Adventure Bay. You gave them a tower and vehicles, they asked for mobile bases and bigger vehicles. You asked for their protection, they ran off to Barkingburg on an all expenses paid trip, that you paid for. This unchecked spending must come to an end. Adventure Bay will no longer pay. Say it with me everyone: Adventure Bay will no longer pay.”
Humdinger continued a few more times before realizing no one in the crowd was shouting along. Following an awkward silence, the mayor opened up for questions, most of which related to the fate of Ryder and his pups.
“Ryder has been shipped off to a Foggy Bottom orphanage. The pups have been rounded up and are going to be put down,” Humdinger said to a chorus of gasps. “What?! It’s the humane thing to do. Once a pup gets a taste for civil service, it never stops being a civil servant. We’ve already ‘taken care of’ Zuma and Rocky since they were underused and we figured that news would sting you a little less. Skye, Marshall, and Chase, on the other hand, will be publicly executed in the coming days.”
Members of the press displayed anger and outrage at the news as Humdinger smiled down from his podium. Several reports asked about the fate of Rubble, the construction pup on the Paw Patrol’s payroll, who had not been mentioned in the mayor’s plans.
“For those of you wondering about Rubble, yes, he has been spared from my wrath, er, I mean plan,” Humdinger said as he stroked one of his kittens. “Aside from him being an adorable bulldog, I can’t bring myself to order the execution of a contractor who is not only forklift certified, but is timely as well. Do you know how hard it is to find a timely contractor?”
At press time Adventure Bay’s new police force had been gifted a Cybertruck, a Dodge Charger, and a brand new battle tank, all from the office of Mayor Humdinger.
AUSTIN — Since its announcement, fans of Legacy of Shane: Blood Reaper and its deep mythology have been eager to jump back into the remaster of the classic 1999 game. Upon release, not everyone is as thrilled.
“Where in Christ am I supposed to find the fire temple?” asked Sam Bradley, an employee at the mall Wetzel’s Pretzels. “I don’t remember any of this stuff. I worked three dozen jobs, had two kids, and one divorce since this originally came out,” said the braggart.
While longtime fans are thrilled to re-enter the lore-heavy world of their youth, new players are frustrated by the nonsensical map, poorly lit areas, and all the game-breaking bugs that remain from the original release.
“I know everyone thinks my generation just plays Fortnite but this is legit frustrating,” said Thora Birch, an employee of Auntie Anne’s Pretzels further down the mall. “All the winding hallways lead to rooms that look identical to the last. How did anyone finish this game?” asked the idiot who clearly doesn’t understand the revolutionary disc-streaming technology developed before they were born.
Gamefaqs.com celebrated the highest traffic they’d had in years as players try to understand ancient block puzzles and why the fire sword is in the water temple. Hardcore fans praise the third party that developed the remaster since all they did was port the GoG patch to Steam, upscaled the textures, and left the bugs intact.
“This is how you remaster a game!” half a dozen YouTube thumbnails exclaim, the hosts all in front of identical Funko Pop walls. One YouTuber, Jman85, stood out as his review was done at his job working at Philly Pretzel Factory.
At press time, the developers announced plans to modernize the game by introducing a series of game breaking patches all released within the coming months.
NEW YORK — After 38 years of unsuccessfully pursuing the criminal mastermind, Carmen Sandiego, The Chief of ACME Detective Agency has offered the world’s top GeoGuessers $100,000 if they can locate the villainous crook.
“Greetings Gumshoes! Carmen Sandieo and her gallery of rogues have struck again! This time they have David Copperfeild-ed Lady Liberty herself!” bellowed the chief over a closed circuit broadcast. “It is up to you recruits, I’m told you are the cream of the crop when it comes to sleuthing on the internet, and I need to sleuthiest of sleuths in order to apprehend the wicked thief, Carmen Sandiego. Your mission gumshoes, locate Lady Liberty, return her to New York City, and capture Carmen Sandiego!”
Since the mid 1980s, Carmen Sandiego has had a knack for fleecing foreign dignitaries and usurping the world’s most iconic monuments and wonders. Her deplorable endeavors – all carried out in her iconic red fedora and overcoat – have always been one step ahead of ACME, an agency that, up until now, was employed entirely by children.
“It was cheap labor,” said one producer of the beloved 90s game show, ‘Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.’ “We thought if we made it seem like a game, with simple math and geography questions, we could squeeze all the information we could out of these kids. 115 episodes later we were no closer to catching that devious devil, Carmen Sandiego.”
The three GeoGuessers tasked with this mission have made a career of identifying hard to find places, locating the setting of iconic memes, and making blind geographic assumptions based on minimal vegetation.
“I could show you where your grandparents got married just by seeing a snippet of the marble floor,” said one of the world’s top GeoGuessers, 360GeoScope. “I know every inch of Siberia just based on the shade of gray everything is, but nothing could’ve prepared me for…Her”
The vibrantly colored villain has been a sort of White Whale to the GeoGuessers pursuing her. A frame of red fabric and a chunk of oxidized copper is all they could locate after years on the case. Some have even gone mad in the endless pursuit, hallucinating crude animations of the felonious fugitive walking onto their screen and stealing their cursor.
At presstime, all three professional GeoGuessers have been institutionalized with early onset Rockapella.
CHICAGO — Marvel Rivals playerJerry Parker has been putting up insane numbers as a healer in an futile attempt to make up for his failure to heal his marriage, Parker’s friends have confirmed.
“Whenever we play, no one on our team ever dies because he’s just always healing, it’s incredible,” George Kaminsky, one of Parker’s friends and teammates posted to social media. “I’ve never seen anyone doing healing numbers like this in any game ever. It all started the day after his divorce papers were finalized. He did everything he could to stop Kim from leaving but if this is the end result, I’m okay with it. We’re gonna dominate comp this season.”
Frank Harris, another of Parker’s friends, confirmed that he took over Parker’s previous role as a DPS main since Parker switched to healer in the wake of his divorce.
“I used to be healer. I was a Mantis main. Jerry was a Moon Knight main and we did really well. He was really good at DPS because he said it helped him take out his frustration. Kim and him got pretty rocky there by the end and despite his best efforts, she left him for some french guy. We all figured we’d play a bit to cheer him up after he finally signed the papers and he just asked us if he could try healer. It was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen. First game as Cloak & Dagger and he was putting up insane healing. I wish he’d have gotten divorced sooner.”
Marvel Rivals Community Manager James Ng has revealed that Parker has put up the highest healing numbers of any player in the world.
“We’ve gone over the data and it appears that Mr. Parker is indeed the top healer in the world. His healing numbers are actually higher than all the other top 5 healers combined. We didn’t even think it was possible to heal this well but it seems that his mind, spirit and heart are so broken over the dissolution of his marriage that he has nothing left except to heal other players just to feel something. It’s kind of beautiful in a way.”
At press time, Parker’s friends have revealed that he intends to see a therapist and try to restart his love life but they plan on preventing him until they reach One Above All rank.
SHINJUKU, Japan — SquareEnix has released an exclusive sneak peek at the pre-announcement concept artwork and gameplay for the highly anticipated fourth entry in the action RPG Kingdom Hearts franchise made in partnership with media giant Disney.
Along with the reveal, Director Tetsuya Nomura shared his thoughts and insights on the direction this new game will take.
“Recently Disney films have adopted a more realistic visual style,” Nomura said “and we really want to capture that aesthetic. It’s very important to us that our Final Fantasy and original characters look like they are a part of the Disney worlds they travel to in the game. So we’ve removed any semblance of interesting design and just made them photorealistic lifeless creatures.”
The conceptual artwork for the redesigns of Sora, Donald and Goofy were shown featuring a combination of photographs of real-life actors and animals, meticulously recreated in breathtaking accuracy in 3D.
“As you may know, using real actors as models for our games is not new. In Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core, we introduced a new character named Genesis who was based on the real life J-Pop singer Gackt. The only difference this time is that all of our characters will have to be made in a similar way. We ran into some real problems with the anthropomorphic characters like Donald and Goofy, but ultimately we chose to match Disney’s approach and adapt them to be talking animals with empty expressions like in The Lion King remake.”
When asked about which movies and worlds Kingdom Hearts 4 would be taking players to, and how revisiting them would affect the story, Nomura was a bit tight-lipped.
“I can’t spoil too much, but I have been given permission to reveal that we will indeed be returning to at least three worlds we have visited previously, this time in their Disney remake forms. As to the implications of that, and the how and why of these massive changes to the worlds well … you’ll just have to wait until obscure spin-offs explain everything!”
At press time, SquareEnix could not give a solid release date for the game but Nomura confirmed that he intends to get at least 6 years deep and spend a minimum of $200 million before the project is ultimately reassigned to Naoki Yoshida.
CHICAGO — Recovering Diablo addict Samuel Ross, who just recently completed his 12 Step program, has reportedly fallen off the wagon according to sources close to him.
“He’s back to his old ways. All he does is talk about min/maxing and he clearly hasn’t slept in days,” wrote Ross’ friend Jason on social media. “His eyes are bloodshot and he keeps muttering ‘uncut gems’ over and over again under his breath. He’s been doing so well, sober for a year. I don’t know what happened. I check his system and Diablo isn’t even installed so I thought it was delayed withdrawal at first but it turns out he got hooked on Path of Exile 2”
Gaming psychologist Gerald Willbourghy weighed in on the situation, saying this isn’t an isolated incident.
“I’ve seen this happen to many of my patients and I expect in the coming months it will happen to many more. Much of the last year of my career has been dedicated to helping Diablo addicts recover and it comes in waves. A Diablo game comes out, they get addicted for a while, then they overcome it until a new Diablo game comes out. Unfortunately I fear that Path of Exile 2 may have an even greater hold on Diablo addicts who snapped out of the hypnotic hold the series held pretty quickly after 4 was released.”
Blizzard spokesperson Nathan Helmsley has hit back at claims Path of Exile 2 offers a stronger gamer high than Diablo 4.
“Our product has been on the streets for decades. We’ve been the game of choice for addicts since 1997. Many competitors have tried muscling in on our turf and they’ve all been snuffed out eventually and the addicts crawl back to us and beg at our feet for another hit of dopamine that only we can provide. You may say now that Path of Exile 2 is better, tighter and with a more engaging endgame despite only being early access but trust us, you will return like you always do. We’ll make sure of it.”
At press time, Blizzard has announced that in an attempt to get addicts back on their product they will be updating Diablo 4 in a way no one likes.
NEW YORK — Another huge celebrity has come forward to address their involvement with disgraced rapper, producer, and record executive Sean “Diddy” Combs, sources confirm.
“I figured since everyone keeps asking why he had a Kaiju-sized amount of lube in his home, it was time to come forward and tell my story,” the Oscar-winning monster said as he wiped sweat off his brow with one of his five foot talons. “I didn’t even want to do another film, honestly, but my agent was insistent. He convinced me to go international, even though American cinema has a terrible history of butchering foreign classics. I should’ve taken the title of the song ‘Come With Me’ as my first hint to put my tail between my legs and head back into the ocean, but Matthew Broderick is one of my favorite actors, so I couldn’t say no.”
With 120 new allegations reported in the last week, many musicians and other celebrities have scrambled to distance themselves from Diddy and the giant lizard.
“Kong no work with Zilla if Kong knew Zilla’s involvement with Diddy. Kong no like Diddy’s music anyway, Kong prefer Ma$e,” said Godzilla’s longtime onscreen foe, King Kong. “Zilla come back to set greased up like village hog, even during New Empire. This no end in 1998.”
Fans were confused and upset by the kaiju’s confession.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s literally a monster,” said Chad Craddock, a lifelong tokusatsu enthusiast. “I thought he had left that side of him behind him when he defended the earth against Ghidorah, but it turns out that the movies had their roles totally backwards. Godzilla was aiding a predator while King Ghidorah was chilling with MF DOOM. I know which daikaiju I’d be rooting for in that matchup.”
Diddy was not the only problematic musician on the hit track from the 1998 movie’s soundtrack, which was built over a sample of Jimmy Page’s iconic guitar riff from Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” At press time, Jimmy Page refused to comment when asked if he had ever brought his teenage girlfriend Lori Mattix to any of Combs’ “freak-offs.”
MESA, Ariz. — Devoted Overwatch player Daniel Brooks firmly rejected invitations to play Marvel Rivals as its fandom has not yet generated an adequate amount of smut, sources confirm.
“I’m something of a connoisseur of hero shooters, so yes, I have high expectations,” said Brooks. “I’m not even asking for anything hardcore. Sure, I’d love to see Jeff the Land Shark just going to town on Spider-Man’s ripped frame, but I’d be happy enough with some tasteful depictions of Namor teasing. Don’t act like I’m the weird one, here. I mean, come on—no one who has seen the art from this game hasn’t wondered what Peni Parker gets up to with that robot.”
Brooks’ friends were frustrated, but not surprised.
“He does this every time,” said Melissa Perez, friend and teammate of Brooks. “We ask him to squad up, and he goes right to Google. ‘Valorant rule 34,’ ‘Battleborn slash fic.’ He refuses to play unless he can get his rocks off first. Honestly, we’ve come to accept that, but I still struggle with his broader worldview. He keeps claiming that a game’s success is directly proportional to the amount of porn it generates. After Concord, he was strutting around like he had won the argument. I’m just glad that the evidence is back on our side.”
Pop art researcher William Abbott said that the phenomenon is not as unlikely as some might assume.
“Dear Lord, the Rule 34 maniacs,” said Abbot, as he grew visibly agitated. “I can appreciate that their monetary support means that more artists are able to live on their trade, but I don’t know that their culture is worth examining too closely. I personally know of one individual who stopped playing Animal Crossing because not enough artists were creating explicit material of his favorite villager. Does that sound rational to you? Seriously, no one gives a shit about Norma.”
At press time, Brooks’ friends admitted that they had paid a DeviantArt user $400 to produce a significant quantity of explicit Marvel Rivals content, as they really needed a healer.
