August 19, 2022
Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing over the past few days. This time: eternal war, cults and a game that evokes Hungy Hungry Hippos.
If you feel like catching up on some older editions of What We’ve Been Playing, you’ll find our archive here.
Warhammer 40,000: Tactician, Android
Yes, it’s brand to me. Yes, it is a free to download mobile game with microtransactions. And yes, it’s unnecessarily bloated, with more resources to collect and progression gates to grind through that even the Emperor himself could have lost his temper. But I found some fun in Warhammer 40,000 Tacticus, a fast-paced turn-based strategy game in the form of a mobile phone that causes an itch. I am slightly depressed but not surprised to find that it bothers me.
Perhaps it holds the promise of unlocking some of my favorite characters from the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Legendary Ultramarines Chapter Master Marneus Calgar is locked there, on my phone screen. I need 500 character shards to unlock it – I don’t have any. It’s the same dazzling grind to unlock the Warmaster of Chaos himself, Abaddon the Despoiler and Helbrecht, High Marshal of the Black Templars. There are even Death Guard characters here! As Nurgle’s blessing was whispered in my ear by a smallpox riddled daemon, it feels like this Warhammer 40,000 game was made to seduce me alone.
The gameplay is simple, but fast enough to have that ‘one more round’ feeling. I am currently fighting through the Indomitus campaign, a squadron of Ultramarines under my command while confronting hundreds of Necrons. There’s some sort of story, though so far only a bunch of Space Marines on offer declare that they’re going to kill a lot of Necrons, which, well, I think they would.
There’s nothing too heavy here – think about your team composition and your environment, as some tiles offer bonuses. By cleverly positioning my characters and using their special abilities at the right time, I usually succeed. The Fall of Cadia campaign is on sale for the ridiculous amount of £25.99. PvP is available, but of course it’s pay-to-win. I joined a guild and we are currently working on taking out a Hive Tyrant from Tyranid Hive Fleet Gorgon. You get the idea what kind of game this is.
And yet I play a lot. I spent £2 to unlock Imperial Hero Commissar Yarrick right away – or should that be a stolen Ork Power Klaw? He is very handy in combat and can summon up to four Cadian Guardsmen which are surprisingly durable. The Emperor protects! I’m not sure I’ll spend any more money, and I’m having a great time with the campaign. But I also see a progression block looming on the horizon like a rumbling WAAAGH! closer to the front line. I think (and I’m not sure, because Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus has so many progress tracks and things to unlock and items to collect that I’ve yet to figure out how it all works), that improving my characters’ stats really endgame, and to do this at high levels requires items that are hard to get.
Maybe I can buy them… for the Emperor!
Wesley Yin Poole
Cult of the Lamb, PS5
Cult of the Lamb is already off to a great start on Steam and Twitch. That’s because it’s the perfect game to stream.
The top categories on Twitch tend to be action-packed esports titles — Fortnite, League of Legends, Valorant, and the like — but just as important are the relaxing, healthy games that bring people together as a community.
Cult of the Lamb works because it has both aspects. It has the laid-back busy work of building and managing the base, allowing streamers to chat and interact with viewers at their own pace. That’s then punctuated by brief bursts of roguelike action against fuzzy little critters and demonic bosses to keep viewers hooked. It’s a testament to the game’s interlocking systems that this all works so seamlessly.
There’s also Twitch integration, which also keeps viewers engaged: contributing to a cult totem and entering lotteries to have cult members named after them. The game has a wonderful sense of dark, macabre humor that is entertaining in itself. But when a cultist from your Twitch chat suggests that another viewer is a picky eater and therefore has to eat shit literally, forcing you to literally cook a bowl of steaming turds (something that happened to me), it’s infinitely more fun. Your cult isn’t just a collection of cute virtual animals, it’s online and very much alive.
Ed Nightingale
Rod Land, Evercade
Nature must finally heal, because in the past few weeks I have attended more personal press events than in the past two years. During the Covid years, physical press events were a no-go, so entrepreneurial PRs organized virtual hands-ons using streaming and chat software instead.
To be honest, this was a really good way to put demos into the hands of game journalists during those tough times, but I forgot to ever leave my house.
Aside from the simple act of seeing the outside world, one of the main reasons I missed traveling to press events was because they gave me a good excuse to do some good old-fashioned handheld gaming. It’s something I neglected while on lockdown, so I love the fact that I can finally put a few carts in a game system.
Which (finally) brings me to what I’ve been playing this week; the arcade classic Rod Land on the Evercade. Rod Land was a game I’ve played many times in the past on both the ZX Spectrum and the Amiga and so it rightly holds a big place in my nostalgic gaming memories.
The version of Rod Land on Evercade’s Jaleco Arcade 1 cart is one I’d never played before – the original 1990 arcade release. It looks almost identical in appearance to what I remember the Amiga port looking like and that means it’s cute, bright, and just an absolutely enjoyable platformer to spend some time with.
And speaking of nostalgia, I also had serious flashbacks while playing. This was especially true when you faced some bosses like the Hungry Hungry Hippos-esque crocodiles or the cute baby elephant boss who jumps around shooting mini elephants out of his trunk.
Rod Land is probably the funniest game about slaying cute creatures with a wand and even today it’s still a pretty decent game. Oh and most importantly, on the Evercade version, you can add extra credits at the touch of a button, so if your aging reflexes aren’t what they used to be, you can still get Tam and Rit to the top of Maboots Tower without much effort. get hassle!
Ian Higton
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