Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Meta have announced their much-teased new VR headset, the Meta Quest Pro. It promises a swankier virtual reality experience over the Meta Quest 2, with higher resolution displays, a lighter headset, and new Quest Touch Pro controllers included. It's also launching imminently, on October 25th, with pre-orders open now.

The downside: it'll cost you £1500/$1500 versus the Quest 2's £400, with Meta saying the headset is designed for business and not gaming.

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2K Games have confirmed that personal data was stolen during a security breach last month. The game publisher had previously announced that their support services had been hacked and asked users not to open any links received from them via email. They're now contacting users whose information was accessed and made available for sale by the hackers.

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EA have released the teaser trailer for their first golf game since 2015, EA Sports PGA Tour. It will reportedly feature all four major golfing championships, as well as several of the world's most famous courses. You can find the thirty seconds of footage of grass and sandpits below.

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I picked up the Romancelvania demo at Steam Next Fest on Alice Bee's recommendation, and she was quite correct when she described it as "extremely relevant to [my] interests". So relevant, in fact, that I'm starting to wonder if this wasn't an attempt at psychological sabotage disguised as a friendly gesture. (You wouldn't do that to me, would you, Alice?)

Romancelvania is exactly what it sounds like: dating sim meets Castlevania. No idea how I missed it during my own perusal of the demo list, because unsurprisingly it's immediately become my favourite thing I've ever played at a Steam Next Fest. I was so drawn in, in fact, that I've been having a tough time putting it down, even when I really need to — hence my suspicion that this was some sort of test on Alice's part. No idea if I've succeeded or failed.

The demo starts on a promising note, awakening you in the persona of a comically brooding and exaggeratedly shirtless hunky Dracula. (The final game will include the option to play as a Lady Drac, if you prefer, who will not be shirtless, but not by a large margin.)

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I was underwhelmed by Prime Day’s lack of compelling desktop RAM deals, and Amazon’s follow-up – the Prime Early Access Sale – is also pretty quiet for good memory discounts. However, there are some intriguing offers on DDR5 RAM, which is perfect timing: AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs have just launched, and unlike their Intel 13th Gen/Raptor Lake rivals, won’t be compatible with older DDR4 at all.

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Oh my word, I'd forgotten about Sharkey's 3D Pool. What a grand old game. Apparently it was quite technically impressive for its time, as one of the very first 3D pool or snooker games. I wouldn't have known anything about that as an eight-year-old playing games after school. Much like I knew absolutely nothing about how to play pool well. I mainly just liked the noise it made when a ball was potted. Whether it was my ball or my opponent's ball: that was just extraneous detail.

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Not keen on the snazzy driving effects in recently announced racer Need For Speed Unbound? That’s okay, because devs Criterion Games have confirmed that you don’t have to play the game with great big puffs of colourful smoke dredging up from your car’s wheels, or cartoon wings popping out when you drive up a ramp and get some air. I’m into the effects myself, but it’s good to know you have the option to turn them off if you’re not.

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We’ve never ran a full review of the Logitech G915 Lightspeed Wireless TKL keyboard – my bad – but all you really need to know is that it’s the G915 Lightspeed Wireless, one of the best gaming keyboards ever, without the number pad. That, and it’s currently a lot cheaper than usual in the Amazon Prime Early Access Sale, which runs until midnight tomorrow (October 12th).

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Coral Island self-describes as a "reimagining of farming games", but if we're being real it doesn't reimagine the Stardew Valley template totally differently. The titular island, and your overgrown plot of farmland on it, has almost the same layout as Stardew Valley, and the tasks you do - growing stuff, keeping animals, making friends with locals, exploring a mine five levels at a time, and appeasing local spirits by giving them bundles of different crops - will also be very familiar to any DewHeads (that's what we call ourselves).

That's not to say Coral Island isn't good. It's all in very beautiful bouncy 3D, for one thing, and I found the island setting (which impacts the flora, fauna, and architecture in general) made everything feel less like work. Combined with a thread of environmentalism weaving through the game, and the fact that Coral Island is slightly easier than Stardew Valley, and you feel like you're doing more progress in less time. If you loved the vibe of ConcernedApe's smash hit, but found the need to hand-write your own almanac a bit intimidating, this is the game for you.

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Capcom are making literal big bad Lady Dimitrescu a wee bit shorter for Resident Evil Village’s The Mercenaries Additional Orders DLC, out later this month. Game director Kento Kinoshita told Polygon that although playable Lady D is still taller than any other character in Mercenaries, she’s been shortened to “a little under nine feet tall” from her canon height of around nine feet six inches. Kinoshita also went into some detail about Additional Orders’ other characters, including punch-maestro Chris Redfield.

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Update: It looks like the UK's 512GB deal and the US's 1TB deal are no longer available. Boo, but also, the 400GB model is now on sale, so I've replaced the former with this mid-sized card in the lists below. I've also updated the 256GB SanDisk Ultra's price, as it's dropped slightly further. The otherwise original version of the article is as follows...

In case you missed the mega-guide that went up earlier, today marks the start of Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale: a two-day buffet of discounts that’s exclusive to Prime members. That includes loads on PC gaming hardware, though my eyes were most immediately caught by something not very desktop-grade at all. The SanDisk Ultra, one of the best microSD cards for the Steam Deck, is on sale across a choice of capacities – with the 1TB model getting especially juicy >50% savings in both the UK and US.

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You could see world-famous ballkickers Messi, Pogba, and Neymar battling in Modern Warfare 2 later this year if a Call Of Duty leaker’s claims are on the money. TheGhostOfHope has tweeted a list of what they say are upcoming operators for the military FPS sequel, launching later this month. Among the other spots are a potential return for the controversial Roze skin, and Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s protagonist Nick Reyes.

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If you're a fan of MOBAs but aren't a fan of battling other human beings over the internet, then Vela Games' Evercore Heroes may pique your interest. It's a competitive PVE game where teams of heroes fight it out to finish a dungeon run the fastest. And having seen a brief presentation of it behind closed doors, it looks like a good time - albeit one taking heavy inspiration from its main competitors.

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Welcome, prospective hardware acquirers, to the second and final day of the Amazon Prime Early Access Sale. Like Prime Day, this sale requires a Prime membership to access all the best deals, but so far those have included some tempting savings on some quality PC gaming kit. It therefore marks a good chance to replace any worn-out peripherals or make a component upgrade, especially if it can't wait until Black Friday 2022. I’ve rounded up a few dozen of the choicest deals, from Amazon UK and Amazon US, below.

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A DDoS attack on Blizzard caused issues for Overwatch 2 players earlier today, following on from similar attacks on the company during the free to play shooter’s launch last week. The latest attack came just after Overwatch 2 had finished a period of emergency maintenance. Although Blizzard have confirmed the DDoS attack has now ended, the recurring attacks aren’t exactly a good sign for a game already beset by technical issues.

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Time-bending sci-fi shooter Deathloop is one of the possible futures of the Dishonored universe, Arkane’s Dinga Bakaba revealed during a recent episode of the Xbox podcast. Bakaba was the creative director on Deathloop, and lead designer for Dishonored 2 and Dishonored: Death Of The Outsider. He’s finally spilled the tea, confirming players’ suspicions that the two Arkane series beginning with a D and featuring magical abilities are linked.

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Over at Walmart in the US, you can pick up a set of Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 Bluetooth PC speakers for $59, rather than the $95 they normally cost. This is a better deal than I expected to find for this model, which offer a small but powerful 100W subwoofer and two speakers with 'exclusive horn-loaded tweeter technology'. No, I don't know what that means either.

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If I remember correctly, Action Man: Raid On Island X dropped out of a cereal box. This was back when cereal had that Happy Meal generosity, and you'd look forward to that thump as a gift caked in dust landed in your bowl. You won't find any game demos in those wheat crunchie crumbs anymore.

Definitely not one on the level of Action Man: Raid On Island X at least. It was the absolute business.

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Remember when Overwatch 2 launched last week and people were struggling to register their pre-paid, or pay-as-you-go, numbers so they could play the game? Well, now Activision Blizzard are planning to insist people sign up for two-factor authentication to play the upcoming Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, too. They’re also warning that players with pre-paid plans might not be able to get the process to work.

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Wild Hearts is Koei Tecmo and EA Original's effort to muscle in on Monster Hunter's monopoly on video games where your primary goal is to make nice pants from gigantic fire geckos. I was lucky enough to go hands-on with an early build of the Wild Hearts's opening hours to see how it stacks up against its age-old competitor, and whether it has any chance of melting down Monster Hunter's trophy cabinet and forging itself a golden crown.

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Owners of Valve’s handheld PC Steam Deck have been fiddling about with creating and sharing their own ten-second animations for the machine’s new custom boot video feature, implemented in a client update last week. Some pay homage to Valve and Steam, while others nod towards games in general, or even classic telly and film. I’ve had a rummage around to help give you some ideas, and found the batch below.

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Here comes the pain train, next stop: you. Locomotive-themed survival horror Choo-Choo Charles brings its twisted take on Thomas The Tank Engine to PC on December 9th. A new trailer for the game shows some more of the mysterious island that freakish spider-legged Charles calls home, and the helpful people you can meet there. Fumble in fear for your rail pass as you watch below.

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A release window for Nightdive Studios’ long-in-development remake of sci-fi immersive sim System Shock has popped up on Steam, like a rogue AI on a futuristic space station terminal. Nightdive now appear to be aiming for a March 2023 release for System Shock, according to the game’s recently updated Steam store page. Although there’s nothing more than that, and Nightdive haven’t announced anything themselves, it’s a step forward for the game.

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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 sikk skateboarding faking, a good flying kick, and more than a few spoOoOoky games for the season.

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The director of an upcoming movie based on Konami’s survival horror Silent Hill series has seemingly confirmed that more than one new game is being worked on. Christophe Gans, who directed the iffy 2006 adaptation of Silent Hill and is working on a second film, spoke about his involvement with Konami on the series in a French language interview. The interview was picked up by fans on ResetEra, who translated Gans’ comments.

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NZXT's awesome H1 v2 small form factor case, complete with 750W SFX power supply, 140mm AiO water cooler, fans and PCIe 4.0 riser, is down to $200 at Amazon. That's half-price and the best deal we've ever seen for this critically-acclaimed (and Will Judd approved) ITX case.

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Microsoft's official Xbox controllers, whether from the Series or One generations, are an awesome gamepad for PC gaming too. By default though, your options for connecting the controller are Bluetooth (on later models) or a wired USB connection - rather than the low-latency 2.4GHz wireless you get on Xbox consoles, which requires Microsoft's $25 Wireless Adapter for Windows. That adapter is down to $18 at Newegg today, and is well worth picking up while it's discounted.

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Sundays are for slapping your knees and saying "Right!" just before you leave. Before you announce your exit, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).

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There being no actively updated Overwatch game has meant there's been no Overwatch animated shorts in recent years. Now Overwatch 2 is live, there's a new nine-minute, fully-animated short introducing the hero Kiriko, one of the free-to-play sequel new characters. You can watch it below.

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Modern Warfare 2's remake edges ever closer and the day after the launch trailer brings a dedicated PC trailer. It crows about, well, all the things my PC isn't powerful enough to run, frankly.

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One of the things you can do with a Steam Deck is use it for emulation. Someone at Valve is evidently aware of this, given the recent Steam Deck video - which we wrote about two days ago - contained a shot of a Steam library with a Nintendo Switch emulator in it.

Oops. Valve have since deleted and re-uploaded the video with the emulator removed.

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It's easy to take backwards compatibility for granted on PC, so much so that we rarely even use the phrase "backwards compatibility". Most old games will simply run, and for everything else there's usually a compatibility mode built into Windows or DOSBox to get it going.

This didn't happen by accident, as an old blog post by a former Microsoft programmer explains. When Microsoft wanted users to switch to Windows 95, for example, they went so far as to add specific code that looked for SimCity and, if it was running, changed how memory allocation worked so that the game wouldn't crash.

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I've not yet started my spooky celebrations but I am enjoying seeing other people get into the spirit. What else are going to do in a rainy early October? Do tell me if you have good ghoulish plans, reader dear. Oh! And while you're at it, what are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!

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Graphics cards are getting bigger, hotter and more expensive - and that first one is more of a problem than you might think. With the RTX 4090 and a whole family of oversized GPUs on the way, those tiny PCIe slots on your motherboard are taking on an incredible amount of weight, such that even mid-range cards can sag and bend over time.

The best way to prevent this is with a brace, which pushes up from the bottom of your case to the far end of the graphics card, holding it level and preventing all that force from affecting the card or the PCIe slot. You sometimes get a support brace like this free with your graphics card, but otherwise you can pick one up fairly inexpensively from a range of manufacturers.

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It's not every day that you see a top-end gaming laptop for £598 off, especially not when it's a 15-in RTX 3080 model from MSI. This GP66 Leopard is one of the fastest gaming laptops on the market, with a Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD and a 144Hz screen - not to mention that flagship-grade graphics card.

It normally retails for a cool £1998, but today Laptops Direct has discounted it to £1399.97, making it the cheapest RTX 3080 laptop we can find right now.

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I keep forgetting Valkyrie Elysium's PC release date is later than its console one. The action platformer came out on PlayStation late last week, but it's not coming to Steam until November 11th. So far, reviews have been quite middling, which isn't wholly surprising in some sense, but having played the public demo the other week, I'm not ashamed to say that I had a pretty all right time with it! Based on two hours of play time, I'd say it's very much in the same kind of vein as your Bayonettas and Nier: Automatas, and I'm 100% down for that.

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It feels odd saying "Overwatch 1", but Overwatch 1 occupies an important place in my personal and professional life. And all things considered, I do not miss it in the slightest. I spent so much time straining against the game's tug-of-war matches that I simply grew tired of trying really hard at it - or perhaps more accurately, trying not to launch my head through the nearest plaster wall.

Clearly, there was a time where I adored Overwatch, though. A time when I'd grind solo-queue most evenings until 3am, in a bid to climb the ranks ever higher. To what end? My own personal satisfaction, I suppose. I'd eventually hit Master (let me brag just once, okay) and then a few months later, I applied for a job at Gamer Network writing guides about Overwatch's intricacies. I moved to Brighton for my first proper job. Now, with Overwatch 2's release, it all feels like it's come full circle.

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Archtower is a roguelike and therefore bad, but... hnnnnnnngggh I like it. I might even come to love it, considering it's already so enjoyable even with a few years of early access left (a fact I forgot until I reached a "work in progress" marker several hours in).

You climb a tower and splat monsters and culty magic nerds. You loot, and avoid traps, chug red liquids, and occasionally die and have to start again. But I enjoyed every moment, and never once hit the usual aggravating points that push me out of the genre. It's good stuff all round, frankly.

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A new experience: Weird RPG is the first video game to make my lips numb. My character in the action-RPG is wearing magic tousers, see, which launch explosive basketball hoops every time I make noise into my microphone. Turns out, the most DPS-efficient noise is continually blowing to trill my lips like a child pretending to be a car. Weird RPG does have some fun ideas but sadly, it's too mundane an ARPG to be truly weird—or good. Still, I was delighted when I found a helmet whose stats get better the worse your graphics card is.

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Scrolling through Twitter, Daniel Griffiths' interest was piqued when he saw a post describing a mysterious phenomenon being shared in the Nier: Automata community: A2 opening a hidden door in The Copied City and strolling into a secret, never-before-seen area. Curious, he decided to pursue more knowledge, and landed in the Nier modding Discord server.

Like him, many other Nier: Automata players who caught wind of the phenomenon sat upright - metaphorically and perhaps literally - and flocked to both Reddit and Discord to check out what exactly was up with the secret area. It was dubbed the "church mystery" or "sadfutago's posts", among other monikers.

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