Ales@GSC

Lastly, a few photos from my 2-days exploration of Dresden! Never been in this city before, so I was impressed with how many of historical buildings they've restored. In case you are interested, I've uploaded a few more photos from this trip on my Instagram - www.instagram.com/inquisitoral...

Here's a clip of performance of headliners of this show, Swedish futurepop pioneers Covenant. Sadly, I accidentally botched audio while recording it on my phone. Definitely going to look into options to improve the quality next time.

Absurd Minds

Leæther Strip

Covenant

KaS Product

Last weekend I was at Dresden for another industrial music gig, this time with 4 bands - Covenant, Leæther Strip, KaS Product, and Absurd Minds. Well, KaS Product actually playing punk/coldwave and were last-minute replacement for another band. But I still enjoyed this show a lot!

#industrialmusic

Finally!

Playtime is officially over, kiddies!

Dino Crisis and Dino Crisis 2 have finally stomped their way on to Steam. Celebrate this prehistoric occasion by getting both games for 50% off until February 26.

🦖 bit.ly/DinoCrisis1Steam
🦖🦖 bit.ly/DinoCrisis2Steam

Save 50% on Caravan SandWitch on Steam Embark on a journey across vast landscapes in Caravan SandWitch, a captivating narrative-driven exploration adventure.

It has demo and currently on -50% sale btw - store.steampowered.com/app/1582650/...

Finally continued my playthrough of Caravan Sandwitch - a charming open-world indie game that I discovered on one of the past Steam Fests. It's a prime example of the right use of UE5 - the art-direction in this game is absolutely stellar. There are some flaws, but I'm enjoying it a lot so far.

In 1995, Sega was moving swiftly into the PC space, hence this keyboard-blasting U.S. print ad promoting games like Ecco the Dolphin and Comix Zone. (Scan via the VGHF Library.)

This is ridiculous. I bought Armed and Dangerous, but I forgot to buy Afterlife because Disney weren't giving it the historical low discount for years. I've been saying this for decades - unless it's DMCA removal, companies should NOT be able to remove their games just like that without any notice.

DRK|MODE, by Julien-K 10 track album

Also want to add a few words about my personal favorite music of 2025. Julien-K - DRK|MODE is one of the most sublime albums I've heard in years. A perfect mix of electro-industrial and rock, with excellent melodies and complex sound. So please check it out, this band deserves more recognition.

Top 20 albums of 2025 Julien-K - DRK|MODE (182 scrobbles) Warkings - Armageddon (137) Various Artists - Electronic Saviors: Industrial Music to Cure Cancer, V... (119) Enemy Inside - Venom (113) Eisbrecher - Kaltfront! (111) Freaky Mind - Gradient (103) Destroy Me Again - Cold By Design (101) Centhron - Liebe ist Krieg (97) Dunkelsucht - Pyramid [[ We Make You Rich ]] (81) Three Days Grace - Alienation (80) Starset - SILOS (74) Ultra Sunn - The Beast In You (73) Dominum - The Dead Don't Die (71) Ghost - Skeletá (71) HIGHSOCIETY - DATAMOSH (70) Blutengel - Dämonen : Sturm (67) Julien-K - Night Mover (66) Käärijä - Disko Balls (66) The Funeral Portrait - Greetings from Suffocate City (From Beyond the Abys... (66) Hämatom - Für Dich (65)

Top 20 songs of 2025 Julien-K - NIGHT MOVER - 101 Dunkelsucht - Pyramid [[ We Make You Rich ]] - 81 Käärijä - Disko Balls - 66 Enemy Inside - Let Me Go - 65 Ghost - Peacefield - Single Version - 52 Warkings - Genghis Khan (feat. Orden Ogan) - 47 Ghost - Lachryma - 42 Starset - SILOS - 42 Xenturion Prime - Within Reach - 42 Dead Lights - The Algorithm - 41 Eisbrecher - Zeitgeist (feat. Joachim Witt) - 39 HIGHSOCIETY - Burn - 34 Freaky Mind - My Heart Goes Ouch - 31 Warkings - Troops of immortality - 31 Xenturion Prime - Moonstone - 27 Disco Lizard - See You in Paradise - 26 Julien-K - Fractured - 26 Dunkelsucht - In Control - 25 PRIMESHOCK - Unforgettable - 25 Centhron - Concubitus - 24

While Last.fm understands when the year actually ends, I find their 2025 breakdown very lackluster - had to fetch my top 20 of albums and songs manually! No yearly playlist either, so I'm sharing the one from Spotify, even though it's missing over a month of data - open.spotify.com/playlist/37i...

As for the game itself, it's a timeless masterpiece I can't recommend enough. To this day, I still consider it the best bullet hell ever made. I strongly suggest switching to Legacy mode before playing tho - updated graphics are nice, but for some reason Enhanced mode completely nerfed sound effects

I was going to post about -90% sale of a shareware 1997 classic DemonStar - store.steampowered.com/app/2577180/... But apparently, this discount was set by hackers who stole dev account?! Dev has restored access now and don't mind people buying it at such low price, but its still such a crazy story.

The Steam Awards Vote for the 2025 Steam Award nominees during the Steam Winter Sale

Congratulations to Hollow Knight: Silksong for winning Game of the Year in the 2025 Steam Awards!

store.steampowered.com/steamawards/...

Visit the page to see the full list of winners, including Arc Raiders, Hades 2, PEAK, Dispatch, Clair Obscur, and more.

Yep, they had massive marketing campaign and even pre-orders opened for it through 2004, but then it's just suddenly crashed and burned even before the release. Curiously enough, I never heard about it back then, it was never mentioned in our local press despite pretty active online gaming scene.

Bonus curiosities from this issue. Article about There, one of the first "metaverse" games. Editors having a meltdown because The Sims dominated charts again. Preview of unreleased Ultima X: Odyssey MMO. And salty writer somehow tangling "Xbox fanboys" into a news about the rise of prebuilt PC sales

Reading January 2004 issue of PC Zone magazine, and damn, what a year it was. It's also impressive to see Stalker: Oblivion Lost listed among such a heavy hitters (even though it ended up releasing only in 2007).

#PCGI

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl (PC, own Universal Unreal Engine Unlocker for camera/engine tweaks/post processing/atmospherics, Reshade)

So yeah, I hope to at least partially catch up with what I've missed. But despite the lack of time for gaming, for many reasons, it was an exciting year for me (including my work, of course, but can't reveal it yet). I'm positive about 2026, and I hope you guys would have a much better year as well!

It was a busy year for me (not just work), so I often had no time to play anything at all. And with prolonged breaks, keeping up with narrative games can be a huge pain. "Endless" games are designed the way you can easily hop in and back at any time, so I missed out on majority of big recent games.

Happy New Year, guys! My new year's resolution would definitely be to play more different games. Too many "endless" games like The Finals and Against the Storm took most of my free time. So I ended up finishing only 1 (one) game in 2025. Just a few years ago I was completing 50+ games in a year...

This is such a sad news. Back when I was still making documentaries for my YouTube channel, Computer Chronicles was one of the main sources for my research about early days of computer gaming. Although my project never took off, Stewart's work significantly expanded my understanding of that era. RIP

I haven't tested it myself, but it's claimed that it supports emulation of "thousands" of games available on Atari 8-bit computers, including Atari 400, 800, XE/XL, and 5200.

No, only USB sadly. Cartridge cover at the top is fake, just as a keyboard.

Most of the pre-installed 25 games, unsurprisingly, didn't age well, but there are some timeless gems like Yoomp! and Boulder Dash 2. But I probably won't play on it often because the controller has directional issues and feels too stiff for me overall.

Got Atari 400 Mini on a deep sale, a replica of one of the first home computers ever. Disappointed that it doesn't have an actual membrane keyboard, but it is what it is. Selection of games is weird (Star Raiders 2 over the original is a travesty), but it supports 8-bit ROM emulation from USB.
#PCGI

YouTube video by GSC Game World S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl — New Year Teaser

👀

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGCy...

Steam Charts Top selling and top played games across Steam

Steam's Best of 2025 Chart is now available! Sort by top sellers, new releases, player count, and more - how did your favorites stack up against the rest?

store.steampowered.com/charts/besto...

Michał Kiciński, one of the co-founders of CD PROJEKT, and the co-founder of GOG, has acquired GOG from CD PROJEKT

FAQ: www.gog.com/blog/gog-is-...

I was JUST thinking about suggesting such filter to you yesterday lol. Thanks a lot, should be very useful!