Half-Life: Alyx’s store page on Steam specifically mentions the Hammer editor. “A set of Source 2 tools for building new environments will ship with the game, enabling any player to build and contribute new environments for the community to enjoy,” they say. “Hammer, Valve’s level authoring tool, has been updated with all of the game’s virtual reality gameplay tools and components.” Alas, the Hammer editor did not launch with the game and Valve have yet to share any details on when to expect it....

The VR Mod version of Half-Life 2: Episode One will be available to anyone who owns Episode One already. It should play the same as the Half-Life 2: VR Mod, which entered public beta back in September, letting you move around freely, pick stuff up with your hands, and cycle through weapons with a snazzy floating radial menu. The whole project to convert Half-Life 2 and its episodes into VR is a voluntary one, but I gather the Source VR Mod Team are accepting donations in the form of coffee....

343 broke the news in their July development update, outlining plans to begin limited flighting (testing) for Halo 3’s late-night special. Like its blockbuster predecessor, this’ll be ODST’s first drop on PC. Never thought I’d see the day, honestly. Released two years after Halo 3, ODST was surprisingly experimental. Traditional, linear Halo missions were accessed via labyrinthine semi-open-world of New Mombasa, itself littered with enemy patrols, lore dumps, and hidden caches of vehicles and weapons....

If your previous Halo visits are patchy, you may have a hard time understanding what’s going on. Master Chief’s ship is attacked by a faction of alien misfits called the Banished, and he is promptly thrown into space. He wakes up above a new Halo ring with two new friends. A pilot who has spent the last six months alone, and an AI who is basically Cortana formatted to factory settings....

We’ll get to customise our own wee wizard, craft potions, learn spellcasting, make pals, and generally run around shooting “ZAP!” while throwing fireworks. “Your character is a student who holds the key to an ancient secret that threatens to tear the wizarding world apart,” WB said in today’s announcement. “You have received a late acceptance to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and soon discover that you are no ordinary student: you possess an unusual ability to perceive and master Ancient Magic....

About 10 years ago, the crisp maker and the Windows maker ran a competition where people could submit game ideas, with the best ones being turned into free XBLA games. And Doritos Crash Course was head and shoulders above the rest. The 2D manual runner saw you legging it from left to right, as fast as you could, leaping for trampoline platforms and avoiding hazards like large swinging hammers. While simple in premise, some of those later levels provided a proper challenge....

They didn’t try to reinvent the wheel: Hotline Miami 2 has that one-hit kill quick restart flow that people loved in the first one. Few games are able to keep you hooked after your 11th death in the same level, but every failure is a learning experience. Next time you’ll know there’s actually two enemies behind that door, not one. Accruing and acting on that knowledge is a joy… most of the time....

Playing as either Athens (white beard lads), Corinth (money boys) or Sparta (fightoes), you start off in the year Ages Ago BC, and with a bunch of eight idiots sitting around in a field looking for worms to eat. All you have on turn one is a slider, determining how many of your idiots will spend their days looking for worms, and how many will spend their time dreaming about what life would be like if they didn’t have to spend all day looking for worms....

Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth are my favourite couple. The dynamics are beautiful, going back and forth from their time as classmates to the present day, getting through challenges and each establishing a begrudging understanding for the other. They go to war in the courtroom over their conflicting ideas of justice, but when it all comes down to it, they both have the same goals. At the end of it all, they come together in a loving union, which I assume is consummated off-screen....

At first, the silly, simplistic CBeebies art style is merely eye-catching. Bright, bold colours and surreal characters are everywhere in this world, as they are in most TV shows vying for your kid’s attention. But, as you progress, you learn that everything isn’t as it seems. This isn’t a game that revolves around frivolities like making a tit out of Daddy Pig. It’s about a town coming together to make things better....

On the surface, River City Girls is remarkably similar to other River City Ransom games. They’re more standard beat-em-ups where punching an enemy enough makes them barf money which, in River City Girls, you can spend on new moves and accessories as well as recovery items. You also get to make alliances with enemies that grovel at your feet, giving you an assist that drops in at a push of a button....

And then he let me down. Well, Sonic Team let me down. While I love the spiky, little bastard, I’m pretty sure that he himself didn’t make the games. The series just couldn’t keep up with platforming rivals, and the move to 3D brought all the momentum built up in the early ’90s to a screeching halt. And I say this as someone who refused to let the dream die for a very long time....

Origins’ main protagonist is Bayek, a genuinely charming would-be assassin out to avenge the death of his son. Sad-dads are nothing new for games of course, but there’s something about the way Bayek dreams of past nights spent teaching his son about the stars that gives the game an emotional weight not often found elsewhere in the series. These brief stargazing asides are scattered throughout Origins’ modestly-sized map and when you complete one Bayek stands up, places a nearby pebble in his pocket, and then continues on his quest....

Comix Zone was a 1995 Mega Drive game that got ported to Windows 95 in November of that year - and only in looking that up, have I realised just what a fresh release it was, when I first played it that Christmas. Its story was that of a man with small circular spectacles and a very 90s ponytail, who is sucked into the comic he’s drawing, and… nope, can’t remember the rest....

I think of them all as a single game, really, that just gets bigger and wiser as it gets older. Like an elephant. Although, you know, a really refined elephant. This elephant, in fact: But I met this fellow when he was a much younger ‘phant, back before he got a taste for fine wines, and still lumbered around bashing into trees occasionally. He was called Europa Universalis 2 back then, and I spent many, many hours in his company during my final year at university, when I was meant to be preparing for my exams....

Words For Evil is a very simple and casual RPG where you do everything by typing words to connect letters in a grid. You use it to deal damage to enemies, avoid damage from devious traps, open up locked chests, and save party members from a killing blow. The grid of letters fills from the top as you peck away at it, attempting to find words by linking together adjacent tiles....

Geralt’s Mentor, Vesemir, however, is well up for it. He’s the focus of Nightmare of the Wolf. His beginnings as a Witcher are explored in this anime prequel to the live action series. I watched it through my fingers, not because I was scared, but because I’ve yet to watch the main series and was preparing myself for spoilers. I don’t think I spotted any. Vesemir’s tale starts off fairly typical of the mercenary life of a Witcher: he beards up, hunts things, and lounges in bathtubs....

IOI have committed to finding a solution, and now say that it’ll be ready before the end of February. They shared the update yesterday via the official Hitman forums, saying that it’s “definitely a case of sooner rather than later”: Hitman 1 and 2 were both released on Steam, and it was impossible to import locations from the first into the second if you owned both. Doing so carried across your progress, unlocks, and Hitman 1’s levels had been retrofitted with the handful of new features added by the sequel....

Introduced in Hitman 2 (and apparently staying there), Ghost Mode pits two Ians Hitmen against each other in a competition to murder the most targets. You’re not trying to kill the other Ian, you can’t even touch him - both players exist in separate versions of the world with identical but separate targets. You can see what’s going on with your rival but not influence them or their world, beyond successful assassinations putting your opponent on a timer to finish theirs....

Hot Wheels Unleashed’s Batman expansion, featuring a handful of cars and a Batcave? To me, meaningless licensed tie-in. But my kid… My kid must never know this exists. The Batman expansion features a Batcave environment to race around and build your own tracks inside, as well as five vehicles based on characters from Batman. That includes a Joker car, Penguin car, Robin car, and a Batman Rebirth and Armored Batman car....