Looking back at some iconic action roles from the star of Everything Everywhere All At Once

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You’d be forgiven for getting excited about the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT. A brand new RDNA 2 graphics card, with ray tracing support, that’s both easy to find in stock and available at a comparatively approachable £200 / $230? In the midst of a years-long components shortage, exacerbated by all manner of price-gouging bollocks, it’d be entirely understandable if upgrade-starved PC owners went for this like my cat goes for unattended crisp packets. Especially if they’re happy to stick to playing at 1080p.

Alas, the RX 6500 XT isn’t just an inferior low-end option to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 (one of the best graphics cards, and perhaps the outright best for budget builds right now). It’s an offputtingly slow, sometimes bizarrely-designed GPU in general; instead of providing long-overdue relief to a truly fudged hardware market, it ends up feeling like more an attempt to just sell any old second-rate kit to an audience that’s been left desperate for something, anything that’s new and somewhat affordable.

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When it comes to PC gaming, RAM is an oft-overlooked part of the equation. Your graphics card and CPU are the most important determiners of performance, but fast RAM helps speed up anything CPU-limited - including PC gaming on a 1080p monitor. If you're running slow or high-latency memory from a few years back, then upgrading to a faster kit can be worthwhile.

That's why we wanted to let you know that Crucial is currently selling a 16GB kit of their Ballistix DDR4-3200 CL16 memory for £46.79, compared to £58.28 for the same kit on Amazon. It's rare to see 16GB of RAM below £50, especially some from a major manufacturer like Crucial, so this is a pretty outstanding deal. The lowest price we can see for a similar spec RAM kit is £56, and that's from a much less well known brand.

Rated at 3200MT/s CL16, this kit is precisely in the sweet spot when it comes to price versus performance. When going below 3200MT/s, you tend to lose performance pretty rapidly, whereas going beyond around 3600MT/s you start running into diminishing returns, with very marginal gains and much higher prices. There are still tons of PCs operating with 2133MT/s, 2400MT/s or 2666MT/s memory, and they're leaving a bit of performance on the table. To check your memory speed, you can use Task Manager's performance tab, or programs like Speccy or CPU-Z.

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Lego and Fortnite maker Epic Games have today announced a "long-term partnership to shape the future of the metaverse" with a focus on building a safe space for young players.

"The family-friendly digital experience will give kids access to tools that will empower them to become confident creators and deliver amazing play opportunities in a safe and positive space," the pair announced in a joint statement today.

Details are thin on the ground, but it feels like a major commitment for Lego's digital future, and a huge win for Epic Games to be entrusted with the notoriously child-safe brand.

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Best Buy's Spring Video Game Sale , offering new discounts each day until April 10. Each day will see a new set of products go on sale, and the discounts will grow by $5 daily until maxing out at $40 on Sunday. The selection rotates out every 24 hours. Today's deal is arguably the best yet, as you can get Cyberpunk 2077 for just $5, which is 25 bucks off retail price.

Going Deeper Underground Warner Bros. Interactive and Turtle Rock Studios have released a blood-pumping trailer for the first major DLC...

The post Back 4 Blood opens its Tunnels of Terror DLC on April 12 appeared first on Destructoid.

Tunnels of Terror trailer shows new characters, monsters, and underground hives

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Warner Bros. Games and Turtle Rock Studios have released a launch trailer for Tunnels of Terror, the first post-launch expansion for Back 4 Blood. The trailer showcases the DLC's new playable Cleaners, enemy Ridden, and Ridden Hives PvE activity.

Tunnels of Terror adds two melee-focused Cleaners: the defensive Sharice and aggressive Heng. Sharice is a former firefighter who wields an axe--her passive buff strengthens armor plates. She also has extra trauma resistance and provides increased health for the entire squad.

Heng utilizes his knife against the Ridden with the skills he learned when he owned a restaurant. He can sense gear through walls and nearby Hive entrances, while also providing a team buff that allows anyone in the squad to reuse their accessories and keep on the offensive.

Seven new weapons will be added that should be helpful in further perfecting your ideal loadout. And when you're ready, you can dive into the new No Hope difficulty, which launches alongside Tunnels of Terror.

Ridden Hives offers a new way for folks to play Back 4 Blood if you and your buddies have already completed the campaign a few times and don't feel like playing it again. The PvE activity sees your squad of four navigating a sprawling cavern of interconnected tunnels that are filled with Ridden.

Have you ever encountered something that you know some people are going to absolutely love, but others will hate to their very core? What's a good metaphor for that? If only there were a food product that had built an entire brand around the concept. I guess we'll never know. But Chinatown Detective Agency, a beautiful, pixely, point and click puzzle game set in a cyberpunk future Singapore, has what I predict will be a pretty polarising central feature, and that is real time historical research.

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Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive
Developer: Turtle Rock Studios
Release: October 12, 2021
Rating: Mature

Warner Bros. Games and Turtle Rock Studios have released a new trailer for the upcoming Back 4 Blood DLC expansion, Tunnels of Terror, and it features a look at two new Cleaners, new Warped Ridden, and more. 

Excerpts from the abandoned Deux Ex: Human Revolution movie script have surfaced online, giving us our best view yet of the project.

Around a decade ago, plans were in place for director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill to adapt Eidos Montreal's popular cyberpunk shooter into a film. But it wasn't to be.

Derrickson and Cargill were snapped up by Marvel to make Doctor Strange, and without the duo onboard, production company CBS Films lost interest and moved on.

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Gran Turismo 7 just received a substantial update, which has added new events to the game and rebalances the in-game economy.

After fans criticized the game for a recent patch that saw race payouts significantly reduced, developer Polyphony addressed the issue in March by promising to make Gran Turismo 7 more rewarding. The new patch's overhaul of the game's economy has increased race rewards for several World Circuit, Arcade, and Custom races, and payouts for Daily Race modes have also been increased.

On top of all that, the maximum cap for in-game credits has been raised to 100 million Cr. More content has also been added, such as the World Touring Car 600 Tokyo Expressway East Clockwise, World Touring Car 700 24 Heures du Mans Racing Circuit, and the World Touring Car 800 Sardegna Road Track A.

On a technical level, expect tweaks to a number of car physics, race tracks, and graphical features. AI opponents should put up more of a fight after switching tires during a wet weather event, the image quality of smoke in race photos has been improved, and the Goodwood track will be more lenient on players if they cut the white line on that circuit.

You can see all of the patch notes and more on the Gran Turismo 7 website, which goes into detail on some of these changes.

Epic Games and The Lego Group have announced a new "long-term" deal to help "shape the future of the metaverse" and specifically make it safe and fun for children and families.

Details are thin at the moment, but Epic and The Lego Group said they will work together to build an "immersive, creatively inspiring and engaging digital experience for kids of all ages to enjoy together."

The description goes on: "The family-friendly digital experience will give kids access to tools that will empower them to become confident creators and deliver amazing play opportunities in a safe and positive space."

Epic's most popular game, Fortnite, was not mentioned in the company's press release, so it appears whatever Epic and The Lego Group are building together is separate from the battle royale title.

"Kids enjoy playing in digital and physical worlds and move seamlessly between the two. We believe there is huge potential for them to develop life-long skills such as creativity, collaboration, and communication through digital experiences," The Lego Group CEO Niels B Christiansen said. "But we have a responsibility to make them safe, inspiring and beneficial for all. Just as we've protected children's rights to safe physical play for generations, we are committed to doing the same for digital play. We look forward to working with Epic Games to shape this exciting and playful future."

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said, "The Lego Group has captivated the imagination of children and adults through creative play for nearly a century, and we are excited to come together to build a space in the metaverse that’s fun, entertaining, and made for kids and families."

AC Milan will put the awful eFootball logo on its training kit, Konami has announced.

The logo, which looks like a rip-off of the euro sign, will be on the famous Italian club's training gear from the beginning of next season.

The players wear the training kit during sessions at the Milanello Sports Centre and before every fixture in domestic and international competitions. They of course wear the proper AC Milan kit while they're playing matches. Konami hasn't got its eFootball logo on that - yet.

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There's a childlike wonder to Two Point Campus. With its collection of fantastical lessons, it indulges those daydreams of 'what would you like to be when you grow up?' and let's you play those out in silly fashion.

"Kids have these great ideas of what they're going to become and you never become that, you never really do become someone who rides a rocket ship to the moon," says Gary Carr, game director at Two Point Studios.

"And in this game we said why not? Why can't you be fighting dragons? And why can't you be flying rocket ships or building robots?"

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A new RimWorld patch has brought "full support" for Steam Deck, updating the interface for Valve's handheld gaming PC. The excellent sci-fi colony-building sandbox is the sort of game I would most like to potter around the house with, maybe play a few minutes on the pot, so that's nice. Not that I would take a Steam Deck to the toilet. But in theory. Look, I'm just pretending this is about me so I don't have to accuse you of anything.

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Today Square Enix released a new gallery of screenshots related to the upcoming updates 6.1 and 6.15 of the popular MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.

We get to see the Somehow Further Hildibrand Adventures side story questline, which will bring back the popular and clumsy investigator and his assistant Nashu.

Alongside the Arkasodara tribal quests and the custom deliveries for Ameliance Leveilleur, they’re coming in update 6.15.

Tataru’s Grand Endeavor and Omega: Beyond the Rift are more side story quests also coming in the 6.1 cycle even if the specific update has not been decided.

Among the features coming in update 6.1 we see Dreamfitting, which is the ability to try on outfits sold on the Mog Station before buying them, Adventurer Plates that will let us display our profiles in new ways in game, the addition of Endwalker’s main story and role quests to the New Game+, and the Unending Codex, which will provide info about in-game lingo and characters.

We also see new mounts, minions, and emotes.

Update 6.1 will release on April 12, while 6.15 has not been dated yet. If you’d like to read more details, you can check out the recap of the latest Letter from the Producer Live broadcast.

You can check all the screenshots out below.

Overwatch character Zarya has been quietly edited to remove a "Z" logo on her character model.

Developer Blizzard has not yet commented on the change, though fans have spotted the "Z" has now disappeared in the game's most recent update (thanks, PC Gamer).

It's not hard to guess why this change has occured now. The "Z" symbol has recently become co-opted by Putin-supporting Russian citizens and emblazoned on military vehicles currently involved in the country's devastating invasion of Ukraine.

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I won’t hurt you unless you cheat I’ve been reviewing a lot of short-form horror games recently, and that can...

The post Review: Janitor Bleeds appeared first on Destructoid.

eFootball has been an utter fiasco. The game hasn’t been up to snuff and has let down a lot of fans. I know it, you know it, and well, Konami does, too.

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A new Ghost Recon game is reportedly in the works, following news that Ghost Recon Breakpoint has received its final update.

As reported by Kotaku, the next game in the series is codenamed OVER and was originally leaked by Nvidia. Kotaku sources claim it has already been in development for over a year and could be released in fiscal year 2023.

Also reported is that free-to-play live-service shooter Ghost Recon Frontline is undergoing a reset following negative feedback from an internal playtest this year. It's unlikely to launch soon.

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When working your way through Moreau’s watery swamp pit in Resident Evil Village, players were reportedly once set to encounter a range of new creatures, including mermaids. But as is to be expected from a Resident Evil game, these mermaids were not going to be the Disney princess versions akin to the likes of Ariel and her family. Rather, they were going to be a (literal) monstrous pain for Ethan Winters and players.

Reliable Resident Evil leaker Dusk Golem, who has a record of insider knowledge on the series' development, has shared more details on Moreau’s area within the game, as well as the enemies players would encounter there. When discussing the mermaid like enemies that were ultimately cut from the final release, Dusk Golem revealed:

"In the water they could swim for you quickly if [they] spotted you, and you had to get to patches of land or kill them successfully before they reached you.

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Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has only been out a couple of days, but players are already getting creative with some of its quirks.

For example, you can't kill children in the game - and players have found that by chaining lightsaber attacks against these invulnerable younglings, you can essentially levitate and hover to places you'd normally struggle to reach.

Specifically, people are beating up little Episode 1-era Anakin Skywalker, who will simply glow red from repeated lightsaber damage. (Normally, whacking your party members with lightsabers sends them tumbling apart into their Lego components.)

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Mario Golf will be the next N64 game to hit Nintendo Switch Online.

As revealed in a tweet from Nintendo, it will tee off from the service on 15th April.

Originally released in 1999, this was the first instalment in Camelot's Mario Golf series and is considered the first modern Mario sports game, with a Game Boy Colour counterpart later that year. Check out the Japanese trailer below.

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Dune: Spice Wars launches in early access form on 26th April.

The real-time strategy game features four factions fighting each other for control of spice on Dune's iconic desert planet, Arrakis.

Publisher Funcom and developer Shiro Games also announced the fourth playable faction, the Fremen, who join the Atreides, Harkonnen and Smugglers factions. Here's the official blurb:

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Grab your dual Berettas and scrunch your face up real hard, because oh me oh my Remedy have announced they're going to remake Max Payne and Max Payne 2. The remakes are still extremely early in development, so Remedy have little to say and even less to show, but all I need to know is: Max Payne, baby!

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Remedy has announced plans to remake Max Payne 1 and 2 after agreeing a deal with original publisher Rockstar.

The neo-noir action games, known for their bullet-time gameplay, return as a single title for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, and are built with Remedy’s own Northlight game engine.

According to Remedy, Rockstar is footing the bill for development. The studio behind Alan Wake and Control said the remake's development budget is "in line with a typical Remedy AAA-production".

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The first big fix for Gran Turismo 7's launch issues – chiefly its grim grind made all the more unpalatable by the presence of microtransactions – is now live, boosting payouts for campaign and online events and making some other welcome changes along the way.

New events have been introduced, with big races at Le Mans, Sardegna and Tokyo Expressway slotting in alongside other tweaked races towards the end of the campaign that now all deliver bigger payouts. There are new 1 hour endurance events available once you've reached Collector Level 23 – all coming under 'The Human Comedy' banner, which is rather apt for the discipline – while online events will also now offer bigger payouts. Elsewhere the in-game credit cap has been lifted and more legendary cars will be listed in the auction house at any one time.

And there's more! Off-road physics, which were a bit waywards, have now been grounded, some graphical tweaks have taken place and plenty more besides – you can see the full rundown of what's new in Gran Turismo 7 version 1.11 in the extensive patchnotes.

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