Why, hello there! Perhaps you’re here for another helping of conveniently digestible reading material to peruse over yo…
Why, hello there! Perhaps you’re here for another helping of conveniently digestible reading material to peruse over your weekend cornflakes? In that case, pull up a chair and settle in as we head for darker corners. This week, Eurogamer has been celebrating the spooky season with an informal gathering of horrors, from 19th century detective yarns to truly shocking revelations (that’ll be Tom again).
But all is not lost for those of a more delicate disposition; away from Halloween, we reminisced about Command & Conquer, satisifed decades-old curiosity with Simon the Sorcerer Origins, had some chat with Final Fantasy 7 Remake director Naoki Hamaguchi, some shooty fun with Arc Raiders and Battlefield 6, plus a whhole lot more. So to catch up on the highlights you might have missed over this busy week on Eurogamer, read on!
Sorry to start with something likely to bring a bit of extra creak to the bones of Eurogamer’s more mature readership, but Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is officially 25 this year. That’s a quarter of a century since developer Westwood’s real-time strategy sequel launched to critical acclaim – “definitely the best game to date in the series” is what the mysterious “Ben” said about it when he reviewed it for us all the way back in 2000. And to celebrate Red Alert 2’s big anniversary, Eurogamer’s Alex Donaldson this week went on a journey of reminiscences, in particular raising a glass to what he called “greatest opening movie of all time”.
“A masterwork of pre-rendered full motion video storytelling”, Alex wrote, “it’s simultaneously strangely well-shot and unmistakably cheap. These were the days when C&C was proudly presented by Westwood, not EA, and so the big-splash play of getting people off Battlestar Galactica or WWE Wrestlers hadn’t emerged yet. You instead get jobbing actors, usually known for relatively thankless work on telly (RA2’s US president later played the Vice President in 24, for instance) instead undertaking equally thankless work in the realm of video games.”
We might now officially be in November, barrelling ever more rapidly toward the dark heart of winter, but this week saw Eurogamer celebrating the final throes of October in traditionally spooky fashion. Yes, Halloween was looming, heralding an outpouring of discarded pumpkin guts and far too many sexy Pikachu costumes. And what better way to get into the spirit of things than with a good old fright or two? Eurogamer’s fairly relaxed Halloween festivities began on Monday in the time-honoured tradition of a nice long list, this one highlighting some of our very favourite horror games to play as the spirits prepared for revelry once more.
“Sure”, I wrote in my introduction, “you could switch on a movie or stick a pumpkin on your head, but neither’s quite the same as immersing yourself in a carefully crafted, deliciously malevolent digital world – lights off, sound cranked up, and a sallow face watching you unseen through the window. Which brings us to Eurogamer’s own pick for the season: 21 one of our favourite horror games; some properly scary, some just a little bit spooky, others completely different again, but all available to play on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch right now.”
There was plenty of chatter following last week’s unveiling of Halo: Campaign Evolved – “a faithful yet modernised remake of Halo: Combat Evolved’s campaign”, as Microsoft put it – not all of it positive. Campaign Evolved marks the first time Xbox’s flagship series will be available on PlayStation, but that fact took up remarkably little of the conversation. Instead, there’s been much talk of the changes it’ll bring, with some members of the original Combat Evolved team offering a thumbs-up, while others took a considerably less favourable view. Amid all this, Eurogamer’s Dom Peppiatt this week couldn’t help but wonder who Microsoft’s “ground up” remake is supposed to be for.
“Even the fathers of the series seem to be in disagreement about the need for such a remake”, Dom wrote, “and a Halo devout like myself balks at the idea of it. Are we here just for the PlayStation fans? If you ask Halo Studios community director, Brian Jarrard, he’d probably say yes: he appeared on-stage at the Halo World Championships wearing a “Halo is on PlayStation” T-shirt, after all… Maybe I’ve gotten more cynical with age, but I just cannot see a world in which this – the second remake of Halo: Combat Evolved – is going to do what Microsoft wants and reinvigorates the series that was once a standard-bearer for a whole console empire.”
As Eurogamer’s informal Halloween celebrations continued this week, editor-in-chief Tom Orry made a shocking confession: his preferred method of playing horror games is to hit the mute button when things get too tough and ride an intermittent wave of silent tranquility all the way through to the end credits. Sacrilege in some quarters most certainly! But while the talented musicians and sound designers of this world continue to formulate their strongly worded rebuttals, why not see if you can find some sympathy for Tom’s predicament below?
“For, what I assume are in-built biological reasons”, he wrote, “when the soundtrack kicks in and the sound effects hit hard, the combined sensation is enough to make me lose all sense and reason. Turn off all sound and it’s like I’m not really involved any more, almost as if I’m watching myself play from outside my body. It’s a way to find some needed tranquility in the middle of a perfect storm. Cheating, yes.
