A2F
Instead of making you wait until Friday for the first A2Z of 2025, I thought I’d chop it into five roughly equal portions, and post a portion a day every day this week.
Category Sims
Win THC’s favourite drone sim, Liftoff: Micro Drones
Already deep, my affection for Early Access Liftoff: Micro Drones is in danger of turning into an obsession now I’m weaning myself off H-ALT mode with the help of a new controller. Bedtime seems to come around awfully quickly when…
Speed-date ravishing vintage pinball tables in Zaccaria Pinball
I’ve just discovered Zaccaria Pinball’s ‘story mode’ and I love it. Drawn back to Magic Pixel’s stunning sphere slapping sim by an unexpected announcement (yesterday, after a lull of over two years, the Hungarian devs released an update that included…
Review dilemma: jazzy footwear or niche hardware?
A quick show of hands, please. I’ve decided that the first proper Friday feature of 2025 will be a review of one of my Christmas presents, but I can’t decide which present to assess. As Simon Bradley’s The Railways is…
Year Four
Apologies, I was too busy glugging Lemsip and mopping up snot in late December to put together the usual end-of-year digest. As my sinuses no longer feel like treacle-soaked sponges, my throat like a frogspawn-filled flute, here’s a belated look…
Praise the Titanic?
What the ongoing struggle between RMS Titanic and the Atlantic Ocean lacks in kineticism and pyrotechnics, it more than makes up for in atmosphere and pathos. While Early Access ROV sim, vROVpilot: TITANIC only managed to distract me for around…
Look, Mum, no hands (games that make great screensavers)
Your gaming room is so perishingly cold, removing hands from pockets is unthinkable. You’re cradling a dozing infant or pet and don’t wish to wake them by operating a keyboard or controller. You’re cohabiting with a petulant poltergeist who’ll trash…
If I show you mine…
…will you show me yours? My Steam ‘Year in Review’ for 2024 contained a few surprises. For instance, I was somewhat taken aback to discover that I’d fired up Tabletop Simulator 208 times last year, and, for 49 consecutive days…
Railway modelling for the cash-strapped and space-poor
Mean old Santa Claus didn’t bring you that longed for train set? Dab away those understandable tears and download the demo of 3D Train Studio V9. Deutschland’s answer to Rolling Line has just pulled into Steam Central, coupled to an…
Dusty But Trusty: Deer Hunter 2005
To qualify for a Dusty But Trusty article, a game must be old enough to vote in Nicaragua, buy tobacco in Djibouti, and make the beast with two backs in Nepal. More importantly, it must be demonstrably super, smashing, great,…
RIP Game-Labs?
Recent forum posts and Steam news items indicate Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts and Ultimate General: American Revolution will get no further updates. As eagle-eyed genre analyst The Historical Gamer noted in a Boxing Day video, the fact that pivotal GL personnel…
Review Reprise: aerofly FS
Of the hundreds of reviews, previews, and retrospectives I wrote during my time as a PC Gamer games inspector, few were punnier than this 2012 double-page spread on aerofly FS.