Lego Worlds is hoping to be Lego’s answer to Minecraft. The game was supposed to be releasing in February but the studio behind it, Traveller’s Tales have announced that it’s going to be slightly delayed for – polish. What else?

In an announcement via the Steam page for Lego Worlds, they said that they “weren’t happy with a few things keeping us from entering Certification”, so the game is going to be pushed back slightly to make sure it’s fit for release and up to the standard that Lego fans expect from their Lego titles.

Lego Worlds has been in Steam Early Access since June of 2015, which is quite a while. To make up for the slight delay, Traveller’s Tales are going to be rewarding all their devoted players with a free copy of the Lego World soundtrack as well as a special in-game hat that will be available to players once the full game launches in the character customiser.

As mentioned above, Lego Worlds aims to be like Minecraft, with big procedurally generated worlds filled with bricks and Lego models, as well as mini-figs. There’s a big multi-tool which allows for the forming of large chunks of land at once, something that you can only do in Minecraft with help of mods. Mind you, who doesn’t play Minecraft these days without at least one mod installed?

Lego Worlds is available on Steam for $14.99/£11.99.

Before you watch the video below, please note this footage represents a game that is in beta and not final, and there are audio syncing issues due to the game crashing repeatedly. We have done our best to align the audio of the conversations between Digmbot and Movian, but this has resulted in some game sounds being out of place. The purpose of this video is to demonstrate gameplay, not serve as a first impression. Large portions of the raw footage were unusable, and this video represents a small slice of a multi-hour play session with the game.

Sometimes people have a drive in mind when they make their game. They may want to make a spiritual successor to a game they enjoyed when a child, or seek to create a game that they’ve always wanted to play themselves but no one else ever made. Or, sometimes they just want the world to know how much they love one particular make of car.

Russian Car Driver is a racing game that challenges the player to “Drive like Russian”. A big thing is made in the game of how ‘wonderful’ the VAZ 2108 car is, with characters in the story mode saying how good it is and the promos talking about the car as if getting to drive it is a huge deal. The car itself can be kind of customised, with the body colour and hub colour being the main two options, with special unique ‘styles’ available for unlock when you complete certain tasks in the game’s modes.

Speaking of which, there’s about five modes with four of them being racing or driving challenges of sorts and the fifth being a freedrive mode with optional story mode. However, upon launch some of these modes are locked and you once again need to complete a task to unlock them. Racing is what this game was sold upon being, and with a standard race and a rally you at least have options there.

The freedrive mode with story is where I spent a lot of time though, driving around and trying to discover what would (cows, deer, road signs, fences) and wouldn’t (buildings, bears, other vehicles, some larger trees) be flattened under the wheels of my tires. Every now and then the story would advance by the next mission quest text being sent via texts on the phone, in slightly broken English. I’m giving that the benefit of the doubt though, as we’re apparently in Russia and English is not the first language there. Hell, it adds a little charm for me. What confuses me is that even when the quest giver is standing next to you, they will still text you rather than talking. I didn’t think everyone was that plugged into their phones. You also gain experience by driving around, but every level up is rather sudden, with the game suddenly coming to a pause as the ‘level up’ attributes menu just pops up without a sound. Choose which attribute to improve and then suddenly you’re back in the game. It’s rather jarring, and what’s worse, picking up the 25 special information manual pickups on the car’s history will trigger the same jarring silent cut from the game.

This game does not look good, it doesn’t handle crisply although not bad at all, and frankly the races were a pain to try and win. The control system was a bit fiddly and even when I got comfortable with it, I’d still sometimes be losing control. This game is in the ‘so bad it’s good’ category for some and I can see why.

It’s not for me though.

3/10

After a period in beta, the update that allows for Steam’s controller mapping features are now live for all in the latest client update.

This means that a great number of controllers for consoles now work with the ‘advanced mapping features’ that are a part of the Steam Controller Configurator, without the need for third-party programs to bridge the gap. This includes a number of third-party controllers for the PS4, although not all of them. It’s likely that if you have official controllers they’ll work perfectly fine with no issues from now on.

Here are the controller patch notes:

• Added XBox 360, Xbox One, and Generic X-Input controller configurator support. This allows all recognized controller types to use the advanced mapping features of the Steam Controller Configurator. Note that because X-Input currently lacks per-controller means of unique identification, all controllers of that type will share personalization and configuration settings. As they share the same inputs, Xbox 360/One/Generic controllers will all see each-others configurations when browsing. Automatic conversion will be attempted when loading configurations from other controller types.
• Unrecognized Generic X-Input gamepad style controllers will be recognized by the Steam Controller Configurator once their buttons have been assigned to match a generic gamepad layout.
• Recommended configurations specified for a game by the developer will now attempt to assign based on Controller Type.
• Added option to disable Guide Button issuing a Steam focus change. This is available through the Big Picture controller options menu. This allows better interoperability with other applications which use the Guide Button, such as PSNow.
• Added Single Button simple button mode for trackpads. This allows a trackpad to be treated as a single giant button.
• Fix for free-floating on-screen keyboard running very slowly if a game was open but did not have focus or was running windowed.
• Added independent horizontal/vertical scaling to joystick move and joystick mouse.
• Joystick Move mode no longer shows mouse sensitivity option unless mouse output is selected.
• Added additional support for third-party PS4 controllers, including some HORI, MadCatz, and Armor pads and fight sticks.
• Fixed a bug with PS4 triggers where they were being scaled incorrectly, leading to maxing out of the value too soon.
• Added ability to change X-input controller order from the Controller Options menu – so in multi-controller setups of X-input games, the mapping of physical controller to X-input index can be swapped around. Note that this currently only applies to controllers that have opted into Steam Controller Configurator support.
• Fixed Configurator Switch Controller interface not showing controller icons.
• Re-enabled Gamepad outputs for desktop configurations for users of third party programs which hook into applications via the desktop configuration.
• Added Xbox Controller Rumble Support
• Added ‘Turn Off Controller’ Support for PS4 Bluetooth and Wireless Receiver
• Added Open Big Picture controller action binding.
• Fixed a bug where Steam Chords wouldn’t work reliably when multiple controllers were connected and disconnected in a single session.
• Fixed volume being muted when connecting a Sony Wireless Receiver in Windows
• Fixed analog stick on-screen-keyboard interactions not working inside of Big Picture
• Fixed Guide Button not switching into Big Picture when Steam has focus but Guide Button Focus option has been disabled.
• Add support for Emio PS4 “Elite” controller