The Resident Evil Showcase aired today with new footage of Resident Evil Village, a release date announcement, and a brief glimpse of a new multiplayer game called RE: Verse that will be bundled with Village. You can watch the trailers and full livestream below, as well as read about a few extra details.
On Tuesday, I reported on game development tool Game Maker being acquired by Opera, makers of the Opera internet browser. Opera have now officially announced the acquisition, saying that Game Maker would be paired with Opera GX, their dedicated gaming browser, in forming the basis of a new division of the company called Opera Gaming.
Puzzle Quest is returning after a ten year absence. Puzzle Quest 3 will again combine match-3 and RPG mechanics together with the original designer Steve Fawkner at the helm, but this time it’ll be – possible uh-oh – free-to-play.
Maybe you miss Hollow Knight, or you’re dead tired of Dead Cells. Then Skul: The Hero Slayer might appeal. It’s a side-on stabrawler roguelite that’s just left early access in which you can swap skulls to swap skills, and also lob your noggin at enemies. It’s nice, from my brief play of it, and there’s an announcement trailer below.
2016’s point ‘n’ click adventure game Kathy Rain is returning this year with a new, rebuilt, expanded Director’s Cut. Along with more puzzles and chat, it’ll have touched-up looks and bonuses like controller support. I quite liked it, as far as I can remember, and have forgotten enough that I’m game for another go when the revamp arrives later this year.
When you want to marry an NPC in Skyrim, you propose using an Amulet of Mara. In real life, you can now buy an official 10-karat gold ring based on the amulet’s design. For $1000, you can make your proposal hella Skyrim. I have previously heard of at least one person proposing with a custom ring based on the amulet, and one who proposed with an actual replica amulet.
Nvidia’s new RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti GPUs may still be impossible to get hold of right now, but if you’ve been thinking about upgrading your graphics card recently and aren’t sure which one to go for when they eventually come back in stock, then you’re in the right place. To help you decide which graphics card is the right one for you, I’ve put together some handy benchmark graphs to show you exactly how they stack up in all of today’s biggest and best PC games at 1080p, 1440p and 4K.
Welcome once again, gentle listener, to the Electronic Wireless Show podcast. This week’s episode demands that you tread carefully and quietly, in case you disturb Nate, or awaken the Ken Loach he has trapped in a shipping container in his garden, for we are discussing the best sneakings in games. Our favourite stealthy-me-dos.
We also bring you a long tangent about zoos, a brief discussion on the wonderful lack of complexity in the baddies in Indiana Jones, and a lot of anger at Matthew because he likes banging on the glass at aquariums because he is a monster. Nate threatens to bury him in the desert. Also, there’s all the aforementioned Ken Loach stuff, which goes on a long time. Plus, I bring you a Cavern of Lies that becomes, alas, a Cavern of Sadness.
Two weeks ago, Twitch announced they were suspending former US president Donald Trump from their platform, after he incited a violent attack on the US capitol. At the time, Twitch said they would “reassess” his account after his presidency ended. Well, now he’s been booted from the White House, Twitch have banned him for good too. They’re also updating their policies to crack down on those who encourage violence on the streaming platform.
Hades
is packed with far more content than you might expect, even for a roguelite. There’s romance, there’s decorating, and – perhaps most exciting of all – there’s a fishing minigame where you can catch all sorts of underwater underworld inhabitants and sell them for valuable items and resources.
Our Hades fishing guide will walk you through how to get the Rod of Fishing and use it to catch all sorts of different fish. Below you’ll also find a full table of every fish in the game, where to find it, and your reward for catching each one.
Devouring an entire solar system with industry is, at once, both frightening and highly appealing. Well, sci-fi management sim Dyson Sphere Program is now out in early access, if you’re curious as to how it feels transforming stars and planets into cogs for your mechanised empire.
Do you ever play Valorant and just do a little sigh when you see what map has been picked from the pool for your next match? For me, that’s Split (and also Icebox actually, but this post isn’t about that freezy fiend). Split’s always been a tough one for attackers, with its annoyingly tight choke points you’d need to funnel down, and far too many 50/50 angles for defenders to hide in. But last night, Riot Games released a patch with tons of little changes that should make Split a whole lot less frustrating to play.
Officially, Hitman 3 launched yesterday. In reality, uh, some players still aren’t really getting to play. The servers which imported progression from the previous two games have been overloaded, an issue Io Interactive scrambled to fix yesterday. Server woes are also causing some players to have the game interrupted by error messages prompting them to reconnect or play offline. Io’s most recent statement said they were working on servers.
I honestly don’t know where to begin with this pair of trainers that PC manufacturer NZXT and fashion outfit Artifact Studios announced last night. At first, I thought it was merely a fancy sneaker with an RTX 3080 ground into the heel – a feat that, during a global graphics card shortage, would have made my soul cry big salty tears of bitter discontent. Upon closer inspection, though, it seems they’ve built an entire PC inside this enormous piece of footwear, with an NZXT cooler, motherboard and fans all visible through the transparent purple side panel. It’s an impressive feat, to be sure, but I also have so many questions. How does it run? How many feet per second can you travel in these things? And will the fans help keep my toes nice and cool, or will they tear my soles to absolute shreds?
Update 21/01/2021: Valve have responded to the European Commission’s claims, saying they disagree with the Commission’s findings and the fine they’ve been issued. Read their full statement below. Original story from 20/01/2021.
Valve and a handful of game publishers have landed themselves in hot water with the European Commision for geo-blocking Steam keys in certain regions in Europe. The Steam owners, along with Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax (Bethesda’s parent company), have been collectively fined €7.8 million (around £6.9 million) for “breaching EU antitrust rules”.
Hong Kong has a popular snack chain called Aji Ichiban. Despite the name, it’s not actually Japanese, but I do recall going to these stores a lot whenever my family and I visited, where we’d fill our suitcases with its giant pack range of Chinese pork jerky and dried mangos.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s Ichiban Confections is also a snack shop, albeit one that specialises in Japanese rice crackers. It’s also unfortunately on its last legs – unless someone with the right business acumen can turn it around.
OK, I know this is my second Have You Played…? to find an excuse to start by talking about Age Of Empires 2, and I imagine Alice Bee is making a proper wolf noise out of frustration as she edits this. I am almost sorry. But like a smug schoolboy proclaiming he’s “home” in a game of “it” by touching a tree, I’ve got a cast iron excuse here. Because Offworld Trading Company‘s lead developer Soren Johnson told me himself that this cracking solar-system economics-’em-up was directly inspired by the simple yet robust supply/demand modelling behind the market building in AoE2.
Bright and colorful platformer Balan Wonderworld isn’t too far away from its March release date now but you can try it out next week if you’re keen. Square Enix have announced that you can hop in and give it a go on January 28th. You can even try out the local co-op bits if you’re planning to play along with a pal when it launches.
It’s been years since I’ve played Minecraft on a regular basis but I still really enjoy when new features and creatures start showing up in game. Without fail, it means that the always creative Minecraft players will come up with unexpected ways to use them. The newest Minecraft snapshot adds some more parts of the upcoming Caves & Cliffs update including the pretty glow squids and their glowing ink.
While he’s spending quarantine in New Zealand, the national news channel has gotten Valve guy Gabe Newell to sit down and pointedly not answer some of his very favorite questions. They did their best to ask about all the games that end with threes, but Newell of course declined to say anything on the subject. He was willing to say that the company has games in development currently and also mentioned that launching Half-Life: Alyx had created the despire within the company to continue creating singleplayer games.
The magic of AI-powered text to speech continues as Skyrim modders get their hands on an application that generates speech from text based on voice samples from Bethesda games. It’s already inspired a trailer with AI-only voice acting and a new mod that gives Skyrim characters lines to compliment your dragonborn’s naked figure. Oh, the things modders will do.
Having played a fair bit of the godlike roguelite that is Hades, you may have found yourself wondering where you can get your hands on more Nectar, or even Ambrosia, Nectar’s rarer and more valuable cousin. Both these resources play a large part in forming deeper relationships with the various characters of the underworld. So in this guide to Ambrosia and Nectar in Hades, we’ll walk you through the best methods for gaining these resources, and what to do with them once you have them.
If you’ve sunk any time at all into Hades, the magnificent roguelite from Supergiant Games (and our favourite game of 2020), you’ll know by now that it’s a pretty challenging game. But one size does not fit all, and Supergiant have given you the ability to make the game either easier or harder for yourself with the God Mode and Hell Mode settings. Learn everything you need to know by reading our Hades God Mode and Hell Mode guide below.
Launch day log in issues aren’t a thing I’d expect to hear about surrounding a single player stealth romp but hey, it’s 2021. There are no rules. Hitman 3 is out today and it seems that the website meant to import your prior hitmaning progress into the newest murder fest is having a bit of a struggle. That wouldn’t be so bad, except waiting to make that import is effectively keeping players from starting in on Hitman 3. Io Interactive say they’re on the case.
became a surprise smash hit in 2020. The hidden-role murder ’em up was originally released in 2018, and managed to burst its way to fame late last year thanks in large part to lots of Twitch streamers. Alas, this success brought with it a fair few challenges for the developers at Innersloth. Yesterday, they released a dev blog explaining why development and updates have been taking so long, and telling fans a bit about what’s been going on behind the scenes.
Ian Hitman’s current trilogy of sandbox stealth-o-murder games wraps up today with Hitman 3, which launched just a few minutes ago. As he fights a vast conspiracy, he’ll do murders in new levels everywhere from England to Dubai, and get into a few of his trademark daft situations. One mission is just a murder mystery potentially starring Ian, an actual murderer, as the detective. Unfortunately, the promised ability for owners of the previous two games to connect and play them inside 3 is delayed.
Until recently, anyone looking to buy a 240Hz gaming monitor had to make do with a 1920×1080 resolution. That’s fine if you’re buying a screen that’s 24in or 25in in size, but when many 240Hz monitors stretch that resolution all the way to 27in, many of them become ill-suited to heavy desktop work due to their low pixel densities. Fortunately, the tide’s beginning to turn in this respect, as we’re now seeing an increasing number of 27in, 240Hz monitors with proper 2560×1440 resolutions – a much more agreeable figure for those after a screen that can pull double duties as a work and play monitor. The AOC Agon AG273QZ is one such gaming display, offering a slightly cheaper (and flatter) alternative to Samsung’s similarly-specced Odyssey G7.
Blizzard are shaking up Hearthstone’s update schedule with a crafty new strategy: big expansions that now spawn small expansions. The Darkmoon Races is the first of what they’ve dubbed ‘Mini-Sets’, which shuffles in some new additions to last year’s Madness At The Darkmoon Faire expansion. It contains 35 new cards and arrives tomorrow.
was pretty darn buggy when it came out on PC last year. It was a shame considering it was the first bug PlayStation exclusive to make the jump to PC. But Guerrilla Games have been steadily updating it to fix all sorts of problems, and yesterday the game received its 1.10 patch, adding in a couple more crash fixes and performance improvements.
Notably, this patch marks the start of Guerrilla slowing down on their HZD updates, so they can shift focus to work on the game’s sequel, Horizon Forbidden West.
The Diamatti is a secondary weapon with the power to completely shred your enemies. With its burst capability and Dual Wield option, you’ll be able to run around zapping foes down like you’re using a shotgun, one-bursting people like there’s no tomorrow. The Diamatti can thus be kitted out with a pretty sweet class, designed to maximise damage at close ranges in Warzone and minimise the chance your enemies have to spot you on the minimap. So without further ado, here’s the best Diamatti loadout for Warzone.
The Blackwell series began in 2006, a collection of 5 proper good point and click games featuring a girl and a ghost solving paranomal-ish mysteries. The Blackwell Epiphany is the finale of them, and is actually the first Blackwell game I ever played.
Game Maker is an entry-level game development tool which has been used to create several indie megahits, including Undertale, Hyperlight Drifter, Heat Signature and Katana Zero. Since 2015, its developers YoYo Games have been owned by gambling software creator Playtech. There’s been no official announcement that this has changed, but a report on Reuters states that Playtech have sold YoYo Games for “about $10 million”.
Like Omori before it, Ratropolis is another game we missed because it snuck out over Christmas. This is much like the rats I used to live with in an old house share, who snuck around every trap we laid down for so long they became like friends. Horrible, noisy friends who’d steal our pasta… Much like all housemates.
Ratropolis is also a roguelite tower defense citybuilding deckbuilding real-time strategy game, though. I’ve never met a housemate who can say the same.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
has some of the most famous, popular, and beautifully handcrafted maps of any multiplayer game. But there’s still only a finite number available, so it’s cool that someone has built a procedurally generated level with “tens of millions” of possible layouts.
is out later this week and if Brendy’s review is any indication, it’s great. He calls it “as capable and pleasing as its trilogy-siblings,” and names the trilogy as a whole, “one of the most fun-loving games of the previous decade.”
That got me thinking. What is the best trilogy in PC gaming?
I love the interfaces in complex military simulations. Tiny bulbs, little switches hidden behind flaps, fuzzy polygons bleeping on a low-res display. I don’t actually want to pilot real military vehicles, however, so HighFleet appeals to me a great deal. It’s got the aesthetic of a military sim, but it’s bent towards a physicsy, action-strategy game about piloting enormous flying boats above a “mysterious future Earth”. There’s a trailer and rough release date below.
After an extended Christmas break, video games are most definitely back. All it took was for The Mouse to remember that there’s money in these here hills, and for Ian to return and murder some people in a variety of environments, some of which are very hill-like.
As if a 100-player murderparty weren’t reason enough to fight, Fortnite is adding football to the mix. Epic Games today announced they’re introducing football kits from 23 teams around the world, bringing the beautiful game’s sporting, political, and religious rivalries to the video game. Also I guess you can just take pride in your team, if you want. Local teams represented include Celtic, Rangers, Man City, and West Ham, then worldwide they have teams everywhere from Germany to Australia. They’re holding a 4v4 fortball tournament too.
Microsoft have revealed the next load of games arriving on Xbox Game Pass for PC this month, and I think you Yakuza fans are going to be rather pleased. The Yakuza Remastered collection (containing Yakuzas 3, 4 and 5) will hit the subscription service on January 28th, along with Bloober Team’s brand new horror The Medium. On top of that, Donut County, and RPS fave Desperados 3 are on the way too. Lovely stuff.
