October 2020

Getting an unexpected education in Oblivion

4 years 1 month ago

It never occurred to me that the herbs might be real. Why would it? I was used to picking things like Ghost Mushrooms and Dreamfoil, and I'm pretty sure they're not real. And so to me, walking around the wilderness of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion - what a lovely game that was, and what a lot of walking I did, like some kind of possessed rambler in plate mail - there was nothing particularly notable about ripping handfuls of St. Jahn's Wort and Bergamot out of the ground while I explored. Just another made-up herb, I thought. And who came up with the name St. Jahn's Wort anyway? It sounds disgusting. What is it, shavings?

Chokeberry, Cairn Bolete, Elf Cup, Lady's Smock, Monkshood: they all sounded made-up to me. I mean Elf's Cup for Christ's sake! (It'd be a good cup to toast with, though, wouldn't it? "Here's to your good elf!" and that.) They're all straight from the pages of fantasy, surely?

Then one day everything changed. I was in a health store, don't hold that against me, when something caught my eye: a packet on a shelf claiming to be able to heighten my mood. St. John's Wort. I practically fainted into the Rescue Remedies. It's real?!

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Have You Played… Borderlands 2?

4 years 1 month ago

The Borderlands series is aesthetically and tonally consistent. Borderlands 2 has the same exact mood as its predecessor, and its sequel, and whatever you’d call Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel in that scheme of reference. It’s one of those series where even though there’s only four main installments (admittedly with near-infinite DLC), it becomes very difficult to remember which particular bits or characters appeared in which games, without spending time thinking about it.

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Author
Nate Crowley

Astro Gaming's A03 earbuds are designed with handheld and mobile in mind

4 years 1 month ago

Back when I used to ride the train to work every day, having a good set of small headphones could make or break my commute. They were the difference between enjoying my ride or having to listen to whatever music the dance tropes would blast between Embarcadero and West Oakland. Unfortunately, most of the earbuds I owned didn't have enough bass to let me fully enjoy the full depth of the sound from my Switch or mobile phone. Clearly, they could have benefited from a second driver, like those found in the Astro A03 In-Ear Monitors.

Designed with mobile and portable gaming in mind, the Astro A03s come equipped with two drivers in each earbud. One is for the bass, and the other covers the mids and highs. The earbuds are compatible with all major consoles and any phone or tablet with a headphone jack, as well as the Astro MixAmp Pro TR.

Astro Gaming's A03 earbuds are designed with handheld and mobile in mind screenshot

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Author
CJ Andriessen

Best MP5 loadout in Warzone [Season 6] – plus in-depth MP5 stats

4 years 1 month ago

The MP5 is a contender for Warzone Season 6's strongest SMG, particularly when kit out with our best MP5 loadout described below.

The MP5 has been one of the strongest and most popular weapons in Modern Warfare and Warzone from the start, with its blisteringly high damage and rate of fire allowing players to shred their enemies at close range. Below we’ll walk you through the detailed stats of this masterful SMG, along with the very best MP5 loadout we’ve found for Warzone Season 6.

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Author
Ollie Toms

The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk review

4 years 1 month ago

An ogre lies dead

In the classic opening move for the type of review some of you might typify as “the classic 7/10”, I’ll say this: I liked The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos far more than I expected to. It’s XCOM by way of Order Of The Stick, but with the battles connected by wandering about in the ‘gather your party and venture forth’ tradition of Baldur’s Gate.

Author
Nate Crowley

Best FiNN loadout in Warzone – plus in-depth FiNN stats

4 years 1 month ago

The FiNN LMG is a strong contender for Warzone Season 6's strongest weapon, particularly when kit out with our best FiNN loadout described below.

The FiNN was Season 6’s mid-season addition to Call Of Duty: Warzone’s weapons arsenal, and it’s absolutely phenomenal. Some might say it was – and still is – a game-changer. And our in-depth FiNN Warzone loadout guide will not only walk you through the very best loadout for this incredibly customisable gun, but also break down the inner workings and stats of this S-tier lead-spitter so you can see what all the fuss is about.

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Author
Ollie Toms

Housemarque's Returnal is a bullet hell, third-person roguelike

4 years 1 month ago

Housemarque has offered up more details on its unnerving sci-fi adventure Returnal, which made its debut back in June as part of the PS5 Future of Gaming presentation.

The Resogun developer has stated that Returnal is a third-person roguelike adventure, with recurring gameplay specifically designed for "extreme replayability." This gameplay loop is borne out through Returnal's narrative, which will see intergalactic explorer Selene crash land on a strange, physics-defying planet, where every death only finds her reliving her hazardous and intriguing adventure over and over again.

Housemarque's Returnal is a bullet hell, third-person roguelike screenshot

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Author
Chris Moyse

We need to talk about the cost of next-gen video games

4 years 1 month ago

Next-gen video games cost £70 - this is something that has become apparent in the last month.

Sony, with the in-demand PlayStation 5 near launch, has decided Demon's Souls, Destruction AllStars, and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition all cost £69.99 each. On ShopTo, Gran Turismo 7 costs £69.85 - 14 pence cheaper than RRP. So does PS5 game Returnal. Clearly, if you want to get into PS5 gaming, the true cost of next-gen is £70 games.

But Sony is not alone in selling £70 next-gen games. I've had a look around, and I can't help but feel we're being shafted. PS5 launch title Godfall, published by Borderlands developer Gearbox, costs £70 on Sony's console. The PC version, exclusive to the Epic Games Store for now, costs £50. I know PC games, which are downloads not discs, tend to be cheaper than their console counterparts. But why is Godfall £20 more expensive on PS5 than it is on PC? That doesn't seem right. I asked Gearbox for an explanation for the cost of Godfall, but it has yet to comment.

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After Yakuza, Dirt 5 has now said PS4 saves can't carry over to PS5

4 years 1 month ago

Earlier this week, the developer of Yakuza: Like A Dragon confirmed PlayStation 4 save files can't be transferred over to the PS5 version.

Now, Codemasters has said the same is true of Dirt 5 - and Microsoft has noticed.

"Currently on Xbox, all progress can be carried over between generations," Codemasters wrote. "On PlayStation, your Playgrounds creations can be carried over, but other game progress (Career, currency, saved liveries) cannot. If that changes, we'll let you know!"

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Star Wars: Squadrons Single-Player Review

4 years 1 month ago

[Editor’s Note: This review is just for Star Wars: Squadrons’ single-player campaign. We’ll have a review of the PvP multiplayer once we’ve had a chance to properly try it out after launch.]

[poilib element="accentDivider"]

Like the Force itself, the Star Wars: Squadrons single-player campaign is a balance. The balance between playing as both the New Republic and Empire, between arcade and simulation-style controls, and between fun and flashy action and blunt exposition dumps. It’s full of great references for fans and charming (if ill-used) new characters alike, all crammed into a series of cockpits that are accessible to jump in and pilot without dogfights feeling mindless.

Squadrons has found a sweet spot between the point-and-shoot simplicity of the classic Rogue Squadron series and the insanely detailed simulation of Elite: Dangerous. You can, for the most part, just pick up a controller and start chasing down enemy ships – but there’s also a nuance to adjusting your throttle for better turning, swapping power between engines, weapons, and shields in the style of the grand old X-Wing games, and countering missile locks. Things like that make flight more engaging and give good pilots a chance to shine without requiring you to literally learn how to fly a spaceship in order to play.

Author
Tom Marks

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Podcast episode 111: the death special

4 years 1 month ago

A screenshot of What Remains Of Edith Finch.

Alice is on holiday, which means it falls to me to lead Nate and Matthew in cheerful conversation. Unfortunately I’ve been playing a lot of Spelunky 2 over the past two weeks, which means all our cheery conversation in this week’s Electronic Wireless Show is about death. We talk about our favourite deaths in videogames, whether they be the systems-driven demise of a Crusader Kings king or a shooter protagonist permanently snuffed out by a scripted sequence.

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Author
Graham Smith

Congratulations to the 2,000,000th RPS comment!

4 years 1 month ago

The bringing-in of the 2,000,000th comment, as captured in an illustration from 'The Popular History of England'.

Rejoice, fans of big numbers and digital discussion, for we have received our 2,000,000th comment. Two million comments on RPS! At 3:57pm on Wednesday, we hit that milestone thanks to reader “EdgeObscurity” and their thoughts on Terra Invicta and X-Com. A small comment for them, a big number for us. And I cannot tell you how glad I am that we’re not gathered here today to celebrate a pun comment. Yeah come at me, punsters.

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Author
Alice O'Connor

Family follow-up Rivals brings you more lovely musical detection

4 years 1 month ago

A screenshot of the investigation board in Rivals, including a poster for a launch party for a music label called Bad Mole and an invite to a school prom, with music by a band called Pony Parade

Only a month ago I wrote about Family, a free investigation game about plotting the movements of musicians across a (fictionalised) ’80s London music scene. By placing the right people in the right bands at the right times, you’re drip fed more clues so you can then place more names, and so on.

Well, turns out that was just warming us up. Meet Rivals, broadly the same thing but longer, tougher, and about tracing 20 years in the careers of two school friends who formed a high school band and then almost immediately broke it up to do their own separate bands.

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Author
Alice Bell

This new Bakugan Switch trailer explains the gist of the universe in five minutes

4 years 1 month ago

Bakugan: Champions of Vestroia was revealed several months ago, much to the chagrin of folks who anticipated a big new WayForward IP (Nintendo was quick to walk back expectations there!). 

Alas, Bakugan is headed for the gaming plane once again, this time with the creators of Shantae at the helm, under the publishing guidance of WB Interactive. If you don't have a kid, you might be wondering what the hell Bakugan even is. Well, this video is here to the rescue.

In roughly five minutes, this extremely Saturday-morning-cartoon-narrated video gives you an overview of the universe, as well as how Bakugan work in general and the gist of the game. In short, the planet Vestroia was destroyed and the Bakugan species came to Earth, creating all sorts of conflicts: kind of like a more aggressive Pokemon. The battle system vaguely replicates the real-life experience (gathering BakuCores to power-up the Bakugan).

Champions of Vestroia is out on November 3 on Switch; which could serve as a respite for kids who aren't entering the "next generation" a week later.

This new Bakugan Switch trailer explains the gist of the universe in five minutes screenshot

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Author
Chris Carter

Switch hack seller to pay $2 million in damages to Nintendo

4 years 1 month ago

A lawsuit filed by Nintendo against retailer Uberchips has reached its conclusion, with the Ohio-based Switch hack seller ordered to pay damages to the Switch manufacturer.

Nintendo filed suit against several retailers back in May for the re-selling of "jailbreak" devices such as the SX Core and SX Lite, which facilitate the playing of pirated games on Switch hardware. In the case of Uberchips, the retailer is to pay $2 million USD in damages and must guarantee the destruction of all remaining stock that infringes upon any Nintendo copyrights. Nintendo has also filed a permanent injunction to prevent Uberchips from selling similar products in the future.

Nintendo has also filed suit against eight other retailers in similar cases, but due to the general "underground" nature of hack-selling and video game piracy, the publisher is yet to identify the individuals behind each of these outlets.

Nintendo's lawsuit against hack seller to land it $2 million in damages [Gamasutra / TorrentFreak]

Switch hack seller to pay $2 million in damages to Nintendo screenshot

Author
Chris Moyse

Star Wars: Squadrons Review – Aerial Ace

4 years 1 month ago

Star Wars Squadrons on PS4

Speeding through the vast emptiness of some distant galaxy far, far away, tracking a troublesome TIE Fighter as the New Republic defend a prized possession, I glance around my X-wing’s HUD. Different instruments are illuminating on my dashboard, casting green, blue and red hues across the cold metal structure of the ship. A crack in the windscreen obscures my view, but unfazed, I lock on to the TIE Fighter’s helpless wailing body, and let the missile go. It bursts into a ball of flames tumbling into a nearby asteroid field.

Star Wars Squadrons is the most immersive Star Wars space combat experience there is. It made moments like the one described above make a kill –what would normally be an insignificant notch on my belt– these overwhelmingly satisfying, epic examples of my aerial prowess. It’s a continuation of the great form EA struck with the Star Wars license since the The Last Jedi last year, and my chief complaint is I wish there was more of it.

While Squadrons has been predominantly seen as a multiplayer-centric experience, there is a campaign packed in to boot and it’s a far more polished experience than I expected, especially given the $40 price tag.

Author
Chris Jecks

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Bossa makes Surgeon Simulator 2 free for NHS staff

4 years 1 month ago

UK game developer Bossa has made Surgeon Simulator 2 free for NHS staff.

"At Bossa, we've always envisioned Surgeon Simulator 2 as a valuable training tool for NHS workers to hone their healthcare skills!" Bossa boss Henrique Olifiers said.

"The Surgeon Simulator 2 community is frankly rubbish at saving Bob, so we think our players need to be shown how it's really done."

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These new Nintendo Switch bundles include Super Mario 3D All-Stars

4 years 1 month ago

A selection of new Nintendo Switch bundle deals featuring Super Mario 3D All-Stars are now available at various retailers, offering savings of up to £20.

Both the standard Nintendo Switch and slimmed-down Switch Lite are both included, with the more minute console offering the bigger saving. Considering the Switch Lite would normally be £200 on its own, this adds the latest collection featuring Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy for just £30.

Not bad for a game that's - for some reason - only going to be made available until March 2021 and outsold Marvel's Avengers in the space of two weeks.

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Keanu Reeves Wants You To Buy Cyberpunk 2077

4 years 1 month ago

Click here to watch embedded media

Cyberpunk 2077 needs no introduction if you're plugged into the gaming world; you probably already know that it's the latest the open-world RPG from CD Projekt Red, the studio behind The Witcher 3. But what about people who don't follow upcoming releases closely? Who will ensure that they know more about this exciting game? The answer is simple: Keanu Reeves.

The Hollywood actor known for starring in Point Break (1991) and The Lake House has a featured role in Cyberpunk 2077 as the character Johnny Silverhand, and he steps into the spotlight to promote the game in the commercial above.

Author
Joe Juba

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's Next DLC Fighters Are Minecraft Characters

4 years 1 month ago
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will add Minecraft's Steve, Alex, Zombie, and Enderman as upcoming DLC fighters. Revealed in an online presentation today, the fighters will be the second Challenger Pack in the Fighters Pass Vol. 2 (following Arms' Min-Min), and will appear alongside a Minecraft-themed stage that can seemingly change each time it's loaded. Steve's abilities seemingly include the use of in-game crafting to create swords, pickaxes, blocks and other familiar elements from Minecraft. It appears as though Alex, Zombie and Enderman will be echo fighters for Steve. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/10/01/super-smash-bros-ultimate-minecraft-reveal-trailer"] Series creator Masahiro Sakurai explained that the process of creating Minecraft characters is more difficult than you'd expect, explaining that while the design, look, movement and sound were simple enough, but that the programming work is a "massive challenge". All the existing stages were also reworked to allow blocks to be placed in them. Sakurai will present a second broadcast, 'Fighting with Steve & Alex' on October 3 at 7:30am Pacific / 10:30am Eastern / 3:30pm UK. That broadcast will include the characters' release date. We're not claiming anything, but IGN's Brendan Graeber came up with his own take on how a Minecraft character could work in Smash last year, and looks to have predicted most of the moveset. We see you, Mr.
Author
Joe Skrebels

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Fan Gets Skyrim to Run on a Keyboard's Tiny Display Screen

4 years 1 month ago
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been playable on many, many formats, but a fan has managed something new, by getting the game to run on their keyboard's tiny display screen. Courtesy of Reddit user Mr_Murdoc, you can see how the iconic opening scene of Skyrim looks when rendered in monochrome on a keyboard's OLED screen. Mr_Murdoc used a SteelSeries Apex 7 TKL keyboard to achieve the feat, which comes fitted with a small OLED display that can be modified using the SteelSeries Engine app. [caption id="attachment_2415091" align="alignnone" width="1920"]A shot of Skyrim running on the keyboard screen. Watch the video on Reddit. A shot of Skyrim running on the keyboard screen. Watch the video on Reddit.[/caption] Mr_Murdoc added in a reply that the game itself is running on a connected computer, using a script from GitHub that mirrors the user's desktop screen to the keyboard's OLED display to achieve the effect. Skyrim running natively on a keyboard seems absurd, of course, but given Bethesda's penchant for ports... never say never. Bethesda boss Todd Howard famously said in 2018 that if fans want the studio to stop releasing Skyrim ports, they should "stop buying them." In other Bethesda news, Zenimax Media was recently acquired by Microsoft, bringing franchises like Dishonored, DOOM, Wolfenstein, Fallout and The Elder Scrolls under the wing of Xbox.
Author
Jordan Oloman

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Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time Review

4 years 1 month ago
Do you ever wish you could wipe a few underwhelming sequels from history and pick up where the last good one left off? You know, like what Superman Returns or Terminator: Dark Fate tried to do? Well, with Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, developer Toys for Bob actually pulls off the half-reboot, half-continuation idea. This is a direct sequel to Naughty Dog’s original trilogy that concluded in 1998, and this team really gets Crash. It’s all the characters and action platforming I loved about the old games but with a bunch of great new ideas mixed in so well that they feel like they were always supposed to be there. Crash Bandicoot 4 makes rapid-fire homages to Crash’s past, picking up where Warped left off and having Crash’s biggest and most delightfully hammy villains, N. Trophy and Neo Cortex break out of prison along with Uka Uka and trot out a typical video game villain plan to take over the multiverse. Crash has always been about the action, but the self-aware, amusing script walks the careful line of winking self-awareness that this sequel has come so many years later while also telling a genuinely funny, personable story. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=every-ign-crash-bandicoot-game-review&captions=true"] And it’s one that Toys for Bob tells well through Crash’s main campaign, which took me about nine or so hours to beat… but with only a 34% completion rating. The other 66% is, among other things, an entire gamut of challenges to complete. (More on that later.) Crash 4 keeps the main story progression linear, reverting to an overworld map similar to Crash 1’s rather than the hub rooms of Crash 2 and 3 that I personally preferred. My initial surprise with that decision aside, the setup works well enough to keep momentum going as I bounced from one pop-up storybook-esque time period map to the next, and Toys for Bob imbues even that overworld map with plenty of charm.
Author
Jonathon Dornbush

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Windows 10 Adding a Task Manager Dedicated to Gaming

4 years 1 month ago
Windows 10 is adding a Task Manager widget within the Xbox Game Bar to help you manage your computer's resources without leaving a game. As spotted by WindowsCentral, the new 'Resources' widget lets you monitor which programs are causing the most strain on your computer, assess why your in-game performance may be hitching and close programs quickly without tabbing out. You'll also be able to see how much load there is on your CPU, RAM, DISK and GPU, much like the traditional Task Manager application. It's a neat timesaver that means you won't have to alt-tab or hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE so often to figure out your in-game issues.   [caption id="attachment_241507" align="aligncenter" width="720"]image (1) The Windows 10 Task Manager Bar in action.[/caption] You can get access to the feature right now by enrolling in the Game Bar - SDK Development app within the Xbox Insider Hub on Windows 10.
Author
Jordan Oloman

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GOG Galaxy client will start selling Epic Games Store games

4 years 1 month ago

Buying Outer Worlds off the Epic Games Store from inside GOG Galaxy.

You’ll soon be able to buy games off the Epic Games Store from inside the GOG Galaxy client, as part of GOG’s plans to expand their launcher’s built-in store. No, this does not mean Epic exclusives will be coming to GOG’s own store. Yes, you will still need an Epic account. Yes, it is a bit weird, but I suppose adding new stores fits with GOG Galaxy’s goal of being the launcher and library encompassing all other platforms and libraries.

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Author
Alice O'Connor

No Man’s Sky's Origins update is almost very nearly the game I want it to be

4 years 1 month ago

The player posing next to their spaceship and also some bubbles, in No Man's Sky.No Man’s Sky

promised the universe, and delivered a video game. At the time, on the game’s initial release in 2016, it looked like it might be a reputation from which Hello Games could never recover. Yet in the four years since they’ve worked and worked and worked, releasing update after update, building an expanding and iterating, even reinventing, without ever charging early adopters an extra penny. Goodness me they’re getting closer to actually delivering a universe.

With the most recent update, Origins, No Man’s Sky is so damned close to being the game I’ve always wished it could be. And perhaps far more importantly, it feels so damned close to being a bunch of other games all manner of other people wish it could be.

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Author
John Walker

Best Grau loadout in Warzone [Season 6] – plus in-depth Grau stats

4 years 1 month ago

Learn how to take a powerful rifle into OP territory with our best Grau loadout in Warzone.

The Grau has long since been the go-to Assault Rifle in Call Of Duty: Warzone, and it’s not hard to see why. Even after the Season 4 nerf, this veritable laser is possibly the most reliable and accurate rifle you can get your hands on. This guide will show you how to craft the best Grau loadout in Warzone for Season 6; and we’ll also explore some detailed stats of this top-tier Assault Rifle so that you can truly master its potential.

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Author
Ollie Toms