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 the place unless distracted 24/7 by moving images… There are many reasons why you might want to ‘play’ a video game without actually playing a video game. Here are four current THC favourites that double as splendid animated screensavers.

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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 during the summer, played something Steamy every day.

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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, ace, wizard, bonzer, the knees of the bee, the testicles of the dog, and the whiskers and pyjamas of the cat. You don’t need rose-tinted pince-nez or a cutting-edge pixel pump to enjoy 24 karat golden oldies like… Deer Hunter 2005.

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Friday Foxer #209

Every Friday, Tally-Ho Corner’s cleverest clogs come together to solve a ‘foxer’ handcrafted by my sadistic chum and colleague, Roman. A complete ‘defoxing’ sometimes takes several days and usually involves the little grey cells of many readers.

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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 posted unexpected farewells just before Christmas, and owners Stillfront announced in September that it intended to “address low performing games” and focus on “key franchises” suggests that the studio that gave the world Naval Action and Ultimate Generals Gettysburg and Civil War is on the verge of extinction.

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