Rock, Paper, Shotgun

If you enjoy the novelty and challenge of fiddly first-person shooter controls, do check out the free new "experimental survival horror game" Neural Parasite. Can you fight your way out of a Nazi bunker when everything is controlled by clicking? Even simply moving involves clicking on pictures of your left and right shoes, moving faster as you alternate shoes faster. Neural Parasite is short and it's free, so hop to it! Or, click on one of your shoes to hop to it, I suppose.

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If you enjoy the novelty and challenge of fiddly first-person shooter controls, do check out the free new "experimental survival horror game" Neural Parasite. Can you fight your way out of a Nazi bunker when everything is controlled by clicking? Even simply moving involves clicking on pictures of your left and right shoes, moving faster as you alternate shoes faster. Neural Parasite is short and it's free, so hop to it! Or, click on one of your shoes to hop to it, I suppose.

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Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, my eye has been caught by games with mechs, games set in space, games with aerial action, a game where you take photographs of draculas, and many more. Check out these attractive and interesting indie games!

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Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, my eye has been caught by games with mechs, games set in space, games with aerial action, a game where you take photographs of draculas, and many more. Check out these attractive and interesting indie games!

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An unnamed former Activision executive is taking the Call of Duty publisher to court in California, accusing the company of age discrimination and violating the state's whistleblower protection law. Said executive is a 57-year-old who worked at the company from 2014; apparently, he and six other men aged 47 or older were cut from a team of 200, as part of broader Activision Blizzard restructuring efforts last August.

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An unnamed former Activision executive is taking the Call of Duty publisher to court in California, accusing the company of age discrimination and violating the state's whistleblower protection law. Said executive is a 57-year-old who worked at the company from 2014; apparently, he and six other men aged 47 or older were cut from a team of 200, as part of broader Activision Blizzard restructuring efforts last August.

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Even with the rising power of integrated graphics, the prospects of getting high-quality, high-rez gaming capability in a laptop of ultrabook proportions is still years from becoming a feasible reality. Until then, slimmer gaming laptops like the HP Omen Transcend 16 remain the closest approximation of that dream, cramming discrete GPUs – the Nvidia Geforce RTX 4060, in this case – into lighter, narrower chassis designs.

The usual catch with such devices, sadly, is an overeagerness to appear aspirational. Which is, to be clear, the nicest thing I can say about a Razer Blade 16 costing £2500 for its own RTX 4060 model. Despite the name, however, the Omen Transcend 16 is much more down to earth – it still offers enough premium trappings to feel like a step up from chunkier laptops, but at its current pricing of £1199 / $1429, it’s a fair trade as well. And it supports Nvidia DLSS 3, dash of futureproofing tech that might just soothe any worries about buying a 2023-spec PC in 2024.

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Even with the rising power of integrated graphics, the prospects of getting high-quality, high-rez gaming capability in a laptop of ultrabook proportions is still years from becoming a feasible reality. Until then, slimmer gaming laptops like the HP Omen Transcend 16 remain the closest approximation of that dream, cramming discrete GPUs – the Nvidia Geforce RTX 4060, in this case – into lighter, narrower chassis designs.

The usual catch with such devices, sadly, is an overeagerness to appear aspirational. Which is, to be clear, the nicest thing I can say about a Razer Blade 16 costing £2500 for its own RTX 4060 model. Despite the name, however, the Omen Transcend 16 is much more down to earth – it still offers enough premium trappings to feel like a step up from chunkier laptops, but at its current pricing of £1199 / $1429, it’s a fair trade as well. And it supports Nvidia DLSS 3, dash of futureproofing tech that might just soothe any worries about buying a 2023-spec PC in 2024.

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Welcome to another instalment of the Maw, our weekly live round-up of all things New and videogame-flavoured, as we continue our eternal efforts to appease the festering dark god of gossip and reportage. I asked the Maw if it had any 2024 resolutions last Friday, and it responded with the brain-splitting clamour of a million fell voices crying out in anguish. I have run this through our Chthonic Translator and the short version is that it wants to get down the gym now and then.

Some new game releases we are tip-toeing towards with our shields raised this week, in case they turn out to be Mimics: Allison Road-inspired horror Supernormal (8th Jan), free turn-based dungeon crawler Buriedbornes2 (10th Jan), medical management sim War Hospital (11th Jan), feudal Chinese spin-off Reigns: Three Kingdoms (11th Jan), pleasingly nonsensically-named retro RPG Crystal Story: Dawn of Dusk (13th Jan).

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Welcome to another instalment of the Maw, our weekly live round-up of all things New and videogame-flavoured, as we continue our eternal efforts to appease the festering dark god of gossip and reportage. I asked the Maw if it had any 2024 resolutions last Friday, and it responded with the brain-splitting clamour of a million fell voices crying out in anguish. I have run this through our Chthonic Translator and the short version is that it wants to get down the gym now and then.

Some new game releases we are tip-toeing towards with our shields raised this week, in case they turn out to be Mimics: Allison Road-inspired horror Supernormal (8th Jan), free turn-based dungeon crawler Buriedbornes2 (10th Jan), medical management sim War Hospital (11th Jan), feudal Chinese spin-off Reigns: Three Kingdoms (11th Jan), pleasingly nonsensically-named retro RPG Crystal Story: Dawn of Dusk (13th Jan).

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Sundays are for coming back from Christmas and New Year in a stupor. Let's wake up with the week's best writing about games and game-related things.

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Sundays are for coming back from Christmas and New Year in a stupor. Let's wake up with the week's best writing about games and game-related things.

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Arthur 'Mr. Podunkian' Lee, one-time contributor to the megalithic Stardew Valley, is now working on a life sim of his own. It's currently unnamed, but it's set in a city, it's got bikes, and it's got a tentative intention to release in 2024.

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Arthur 'Mr. Podunkian' Lee, one-time contributor to the megalithic Stardew Valley, is now working on a life sim of his own. It's currently unnamed, but it's set in a city, it's got bikes, and it's got a tentative intention to release in 2024.

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Portal: Revolution is an eight hour fan-made Portal 2 prequel, with 40 new test chambers, voiced characters and new puzzle mechanics. It looks seriously impressive and it's out now, with a trailer below.

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Portal: Revolution is an eight hour fan-made Portal 2 prequel, with 40 new test chambers, voiced characters and new puzzle mechanics. It looks seriously impressive and it's out now, with a trailer below.

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Persona is one of the most stylish video game series around, which means it's a pleasure just to watch the games in action whether in one of its lushly animated cutscenes or during its in-game combat and dialogue. Persona 3 was no exception and its imminent remake Persona 3 Reload seems only to be pushing it into the modern era.

As proof, Atlus have released the opening movie for Reload - that is, the two-minute intro sequence that'll play at the start of the game.

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Persona is one of the most stylish video game series around, which means it's a pleasure just to watch the games in action whether in one of its lushly animated cutscenes or during its in-game combat and dialogue. Persona 3 was no exception and its imminent remake Persona 3 Reload seems only to be pushing it into the modern era.

As proof, Atlus have released the opening movie for Reload - that is, the two-minute intro sequence that'll play at the start of the game.

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Reigns is a kingdom management game which boils narrative choice down to its simplest form, by presenting the player with a long series of binary choices they swipe left or right on. From that basic interaction, it spins enjoyable yarns with some strategic underpinnings.

It's had several followups and spin-offs since, and it's about to get another. Reigns: Three Kingdoms, which lets you swipe your way through anccient China, will launch on January 11th.

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Reigns is a kingdom management game which boils narrative choice down to its simplest form, by presenting the player with a long series of binary choices they swipe left or right on. From that basic interaction, it spins enjoyable yarns with some strategic underpinnings.

It's had several followups and spin-offs since, and it's about to get another. Reigns: Three Kingdoms, which lets you swipe your way through anccient China, will launch on January 11th.

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All aboard 2024, my dudes! Let me tell you, I have started off the new year anxious as heck, and despite insisting I wouldn't watch the Hootenanny (never the Hootenanny) I once again watched the Hootenanny. Jools loves his boogie woogie. I can't say for sure the two things - the angs and the boogie woogie - are related, but I wouldn't rule it out. You know what definitely soothes anxiety? Staring at a screen for hours and hours and not going outside or regulating your breathing! Here's what we're playing this weekend.

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All aboard 2024, my dudes! Let me tell you, I have started off the new year anxious as heck, and despite insisting I wouldn't watch the Hootenanny (never the Hootenanny) I once again watched the Hootenanny. Jools loves his boogie woogie. I can't say for sure the two things - the angs and the boogie woogie - are related, but I wouldn't rule it out. You know what definitely soothes anxiety? Staring at a screen for hours and hours and not going outside or regulating your breathing! Here's what we're playing this weekend.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is crammed full of memorable, moving stories. At least one of those stories extends far beyond the Forgotten Realms into the real world too, as a fan has revealed the heartfelt tribute that developers Larian included to their father - a long-time CRPG player - diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is crammed full of memorable, moving stories. At least one of those stories extends far beyond the Forgotten Realms into the real world too, as a fan has revealed the heartfelt tribute that developers Larian included to their father - a long-time CRPG player - diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

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Having marked its 10 year anniversary last year, survival shooter Rust is seeing in its second decade by adding the long-awaited ability to boost your inventory with a backpack. The update will continue what developers Facepunch Studios say will be even more updates and improvements throughout 2024, even as other long-requested additions slide back to 2025 or later.

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Having marked its 10 year anniversary last year, survival shooter Rust is seeing in its second decade by adding the long-awaited ability to boost your inventory with a backpack. The update will continue what developers Facepunch Studios say will be even more updates and improvements throughout 2024, even as other long-requested additions slide back to 2025 or later.

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Over the Christmas holidays, I had very good intentions to finally tackle some of the big games from 2023. I still haven't played Resident Evil 4, System Shock, very much of Baldur's Gate 3 or Assassin's Creed Mirage, and I really wanted to play a bit of Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora. You know, just for a little look after the quite interesting preview I did back in October. Admittedly, I wasn't anywhere near my PC for at least one of the two weeks I had off, as I was away doing the inevitable family roulette of Christmas visiting. I also knew that, even if I had spent the whole time at home, there would be no way I'd finish or get through all of them. I knew I was sort of setting myself up to fail, but as I said. Good intentions. I did have my Steam Deck with me, after all, and even went to the trouble of loading it up with around 50 games, including some of those biggies that I have on Steam.

What did I actually end up playing though? Teeny games. Six of 'em, which were all four to six hours long. And some of them I didn't even enjoy very much! Why? Why do I do this? In some respects I'm pleased I managed to clear a bit more of my backlog, but man alive, I always fall into exactly the same trap. I play the shorties, and always leave the biggies, like I'm allergic to anything over four hours - and I don't like it.

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Over the Christmas holidays, I had very good intentions to finally tackle some of the big games from 2023. I still haven't played Resident Evil 4, System Shock, very much of Baldur's Gate 3 or Assassin's Creed Mirage, and I really wanted to play a bit of Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora. You know, just for a little look after the quite interesting preview I did back in October. Admittedly, I wasn't anywhere near my PC for at least one of the two weeks I had off, as I was away doing the inevitable family roulette of Christmas visiting. I also knew that, even if I had spent the whole time at home, there would be no way I'd finish or get through all of them. I knew I was sort of setting myself up to fail, but as I said. Good intentions. I did have my Steam Deck with me, after all, and even went to the trouble of loading it up with around 50 games, including some of those biggies that I have on Steam.

What did I actually end up playing though? Teeny games. Six of 'em, which were all four to six hours long. And some of them I didn't even enjoy very much! Why? Why do I do this? In some respects I'm pleased I managed to clear a bit more of my backlog, but man alive, I always fall into exactly the same trap. I play the shorties, and always leave the biggies, like I'm allergic to anything over four hours - and I don't like it.

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Seemingly not content with having raised over $650 million for a game in development for over a decade without a full release date in sight, Star Citizen is now offering a new way for those with too much money to spend it: a bundle of digital ships costing £46,000.

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Seemingly not content with having raised over $650 million for a game in development for over a decade without a full release date in sight, Star Citizen is now offering a new way for those with too much money to spend it: a bundle of digital ships costing £46,000.

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This past Christmas marked the anniversary of me playing Overwatch 2. 7 years of my partner and I swearing at seemingly impenetrable enemy teams, then whooping in victory when we finally pull together a plan that cracks them apart - or just as our chill W+M1 game while we chat about our days.

For the uninitiated, Overwatch is a bright, colorful, and very funny team v team FPS that ditches the dour gunmen for a cast that doesn’t all require raw aim skill. Spider-themed snipers and six-gun slinging cowboys share space with winged angelic healers and a talking gorilla with a Tesla cannon - characters who reward positioning and timely ability usage just as much as one’s ability to click on heads. When the game went free to play and slapped a 2 on the end in 2022, it got a more muted reception, but the dev team have displayed a great willingness to experiment. In fact, there's never been a better time to give Overwatch 2 a go.

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This past Christmas marked the anniversary of me playing Overwatch 2. 7 years of my partner and I swearing at seemingly impenetrable enemy teams, then whooping in victory when we finally pull together a plan that cracks them apart - or just as our chill W+M1 game while we chat about our days.

For the uninitiated, Overwatch is a bright, colorful, and very funny team v team FPS that ditches the dour gunmen for a cast that doesn’t all require raw aim skill. Spider-themed snipers and six-gun slinging cowboys share space with winged angelic healers and a talking gorilla with a Tesla cannon - characters who reward positioning and timely ability usage just as much as one’s ability to click on heads. When the game went free to play and slapped a 2 on the end in 2022, it got a more muted reception, but the dev team have displayed a great willingness to experiment. In fact, there's never been a better time to give Overwatch 2 a go.

Read more

Get ready to infuriate yourself in a whole new way as you swap mistakenly opening the Windows Start Menu with an accidental keystroke for summoning an AI determined to paint you a picture. Microsoft have announced their plans to introduce a dedicated AI button to keyboards for Windows PCs, the first major change to their keyboards since the Windows key was added nearly 30 years ago.

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Get ready to infuriate yourself in a whole new way as you swap mistakenly opening the Windows Start Menu with an accidental keystroke for summoning an AI determined to paint you a picture. Microsoft have announced their plans to introduce a dedicated AI button to keyboards for Windows PCs, the first major change to their keyboards since the Windows key was added nearly 30 years ago.

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Did we put the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Silent Hill 2 remakes on that list of our most anticipated games of 2024? The article is so voluminous I’m not sure I have the energy to check. I get halfway down the page and feel like I need to pitch camp below one of the paragraph breaks, like a mountaineer sleeping beneath a crag in one of those dangling tents. Assuming we didn’t, both have been slated for 2024 release by the PlayStation blog.

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Did we put the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Silent Hill 2 remakes on that list of our most anticipated games of 2024? The article is so voluminous I’m not sure I have the energy to check. I get halfway down the page and feel like I need to pitch camp below one of the paragraph breaks, like a mountaineer sleeping beneath a crag in one of those dangling tents. Assuming we didn’t, both have been slated for 2024 release by the PlayStation blog.

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The first week of January is always one of my favourite times of the year. It's a time for making plans, setting goals, thinking about all the cool new games I'll be playing over the next 12 months (while also looking nervously at the pile of games I missed over the last 12 months and placing them very, very gingerly on the teetering and totteringly tall pile of my backlog). And, of course, making some new year's resolutions. Traditionally, I don't often set myself too many resolutions - I always give myself a reading goal (35 books is what I'm aiming for this year), for example, but the rest I usually play pretty fast and loose with - more 'nice to haves' rather than 'musts', I'd say.

This year, though, I do have a few gaming-related resolutions on my list, and in discussing them with the rest of the RPS Treehouse, it turns out we all have some games-themed goals this year. So I thought it would be fun to share them with you all below. And if you've also made some gaming resolutions for 2024, tell us about them in the comments. We can hold ourselves accountable together, like that big curtain of eldritch eyeballs up there in the header from good game Norco.

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The first week of January is always one of my favourite times of the year. It's a time for making plans, setting goals, thinking about all the cool new games I'll be playing over the next 12 months (while also looking nervously at the pile of games I missed over the last 12 months and placing them very, very gingerly on the teetering and totteringly tall pile of my backlog). And, of course, making some new year's resolutions. Traditionally, I don't often set myself too many resolutions - I always give myself a reading goal (35 books is what I'm aiming for this year), for example, but the rest I usually play pretty fast and loose with - more 'nice to haves' rather than 'musts', I'd say.

This year, though, I do have a few gaming-related resolutions on my list, and in discussing them with the rest of the RPS Treehouse, it turns out we all have some games-themed goals this year. So I thought it would be fun to share them with you all below. And if you've also made some gaming resolutions for 2024, tell us about them in the comments. We can hold ourselves accountable together, like that big curtain of eldritch eyeballs up there in the header from good game Norco.

Read more

Much as I enjoyed Spellcaster University, I was surprised it was so successful. Its dependency on randomly assigning you buildings differentiated it from the kind of full management game I'd expected, and which I assumed most people would want.

Happily, I was wrong: it did fine. Happilyer still, Mind Over Magic is here (though in early access) to provide a somewhat more traditional design, and it's already compelling enough to turn my quick test into a seven hour delve.

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Much as I enjoyed Spellcaster University, I was surprised it was so successful. Its dependency on randomly assigning you buildings differentiated it from the kind of full management game I'd expected, and which I assumed most people would want.

Happily, I was wrong: it did fine. Happilyer still, Mind Over Magic is here (though in early access) to provide a somewhat more traditional design, and it's already compelling enough to turn my quick test into a seven hour delve.

Read more