The highs
Tom Marks: Swing and a Pit
Pit People let me use a sentient cupcake, a dude with a WW1 mortar, and a dancing dinosaur playing bagpipes to raid a castle full of armor-clad cyclops knights, before they tried to escape and I had to finish them off on the wing of an in-flight space shuttle. Simply put, it's one the greatest games I've ever played.
Castle Crashers is a favorite of mine, and developer The Behemoth really hasn't lost its touch for making absurd games that are a whole lot of fun with friends. As I said in my preview earlier this week, Pit People has tapped into the sort of unexpected "anything can happen" vibe that I love about Rick and Morty, and then built a simplified but fun strategy RPG around it. It's a blast to play couch co-op, and now I just have to find the patience for it to make it out of Early Access and get some more missions.
Tom Senior: Living for the weekender
In the UK we’re preparing for our second weekend-long live gaming event in London. The PC Gamer Weekender is heading to the Olympia, and once more we’ll have rows and rows of PCs showcasing some exciting upcoming games. Our stages will host more great developers and we’ll be running tournaments throughout the event. You might be able to pick up a graphics card for a good price too.
It was a great day out last year for everyone, even Chris Thursten, who ran our livestream for a million unbroken hours without sustenance. For us it’s a great chance to meet readers of the site and PC Gamer magazine, and for visitors it’s a chance to play games like Dawn of War 3 and Tekken 7 before anyone else. If you can make it to London on the 18-19 of February, come along and say hello. We promise not to bore you with our endless Mass Effect opinions, promise.
Wes Fenlon: In the Warhammer mood
My home PC's motherboard gave up the ghost over the holiday break, which means I've mostly been playing lightweight games on my laptop in recent weeks. Once I rebuild, though, I know exactly what I'm jumping back into: Total War: Warhammer. Jody updated our guide to the best mods this week, and there are so many damn high quality mods for the game already, less than a year after release. I guess that's pretty typical for Total War, but I was worried the Warhammer license might somehow impact the modding process. I was very wrong. I'm going to pick out a few mods and start a co-op campaign with a friend, and maybe give that new wood elf race a whirl.
Tyler Wilde: Back out of reality
In 2016 a spider made a home in the spot where one of my HTC Vive sensors goes, and that was pretty much that as far as my VR use went. But to start the new year I dusted away the web, updated all the Vive's firmware, and got back to it. First I tried Raw Data. Scary robots coming at me from all directions was too intense for me and I wound up tangled in the wires. It was a pitiful sight. But then I tried Thumper and found my place in the virtual world: being endlessly bombarded by beats. I could play Thumper in VR for hours if it weren’t for the inevitable headache. James puts its appeal best in his 2017 Staff Pick.
Joe Donnelly: Highland beaus
What’s that coming over the Hill—is it a Scotsman? It is if you’re playing World War 1-set FPS Verdun which added The Highlander Squad this week in a free update. Otherwise known as the "ladies in kilts", the Scots take to the battlefield donning their nation's iconic tartan attire equipped with Pattern 1914 Enfield rifles.
I'm Scottish myself so this week's high entry was a shoe-in for me. While I'd heard of the ladies in kilts nickname previously, Verdun has now taught me how it came to be via this handy explanation: "Wearing their traditional kilts, they performed many aggressive scouting maneuvers, often finding themselves in the thick of savage battles such as Loos and Arras. They suffered a staggering number of casualties as a result, but were nevertheless undeterred and soon earned the nickname the 'ladies from hell'."
The more you know. As I mentioned in the above-linked news post, I personally could take or leave kilts, however I know better than to take the mickey out of a Scotsman or woman for wearing one. On your head be it if you choose to do so in Verdun!
Samuel Roberts: Not writing a high
Being the vigilant editors we are at PC Gamer, we quickly noticed something was amiss with this week’s highs and lows: While Sam had written a low, there were no words where his high was supposed to be. We assume this is because he was desperately trying to pre-order a Nintendo Switch. Classic Sam!
