Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Skyrim: Anniversary Edition comes out next month, and it's quickly becoming the fishiest version of the RPG yet. Bethesda have announced it will let you add aquariums to your Skyrim homes. We already know this edition will let us go fishing too, so I'm hoping we'll be able to yank those suckers straight out of the sea to put on display in our homes. Can't believe I'm going to buy yet another version of Skyrim just to have pet fish.

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It occurs to me now that "best songs" is probably not a great topic for the podcast, given that we do not perform any of the songs, or put them in the show. But on this week's episode of The Electronic Wireless show, we talk about them songs real good. Plus, we are joined by Randy Newman, who sounds a surprising amount like Matthew Castle.

Matthew himself has a new awkward food related story to share, Nate has been watching Squid Game, and a listener has sent in a very special musical theme for Sweeten The Deal!

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Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service is getting a new, ultra-premium subscription tier powered by its GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. While one of the best graphics cards around, especially for higher resolutions, the RTX 3080 has remained frustratingly hard to find in stock since it launched last year – for many, this GeForce Now tier could be the best chance of seeing what it’s like to play with one, even if is simply streaming from a server rather than a dedicated gaming PC.

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Hello folks. Sorry to be writing this letter so late into October. This time two weeks ago I was walking the halls of London's ExCel on my way to host the first RPS Presents panel at EGX 2021, and all the planning and organising I had to do for it rather cut back on my available writing time. I then took some time off to recuperate a bit, and here we are, three weeks into October and I'm only just getting round to doing my monthly editor's letter. I do apologise. But! We are here now and there's plenty to talk about. A lot of it is EGX-related, but you'll hopefully have noticed some new site features being introduced these last few weeks as well, which I'll explain below.

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2010 tower defence game Toy Soldiers has two big neat ideas: it looks like a toybox upended onto battlefield dioramas built on bedroom tables; and you can take to the battlefield yourself to control units and vehicles. It's a good'un, and today it relaunched with an 'HD' version. I liked the original enough to buy it on both Xbox 360 and PC, but wasn't interested in getting it again until I heard Toy Soldiers: HD offers more than the usual high-res texture overhaul.

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I have a real soft spot for Supermassive Games. Until Dawn was a knowingly schlocky teen slasher horror film made into an interactive adventure game, and it was great for at least two thirds of its runtime. I've also felt the same about their more recent project, The Dark Pictures Anthology, which began with Man Of Medan in 2019. Every time a new instalment comes out I believe it's in with a shot of being well good - although each one has since made me doubt the "knowing" part of my interpretation of Until Dawn. The latest entry, House Of Ashes, comes the closest yet to recapturing the daft thrills of Until Dawn, with a classic survival-horror setup that's half The Descent and half Aliens.

The five playable protagonists you flit between are trapped in an ancient Sumerian temple that leads into an even deeper cavern, and then an even deeperer, ancienter ruin. The turducken of potholing. But instead of delicious stuffing, the surprise in these layers is a race of vampiric monsters whose vision is based on sound, and whose spit is LSD. Your job is to get your goons out alive, and the main problem is that the goons in question are - instead of a busload of teens on a field trip gone wrong - a small team of US marines searching for WMDs in 2003 Iraq. Wakka wakka.

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The geth have begun launching seemingly random attacks on human colonies. Rumours are circling that ancient machines will soon emerge from darkspace. There is only one man equipped to deal with these threats: Intergalactic Man Of Mystery, Austin Powers. Someone has made a video editing Mike Myers' 60s spy into Mass Effect and I'm astounded at how well it works. I don't know what else to say. This is Mass Effect in its ultimate form. Please watch it, it's the best minute I've spent all week.

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Into The Pit is a fast-paced roguelike shooter with hints of Doom, and excellent hands that shoot magical bullets. It's not the first occult-themed game to turn hands into guns (and I sure hope it won't be the last), but is inspired by one. I spoke to Into The Pit's creator, Tom Betts, who told me about the game's Devil Daggers influences, from weaponry to aesthetics, and why the occult setting works so well for the roguelike genre.

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I'm fighting off a real Bethesda itch right now. I know I'll hate myself if I start yet another Skyrim playthrough, and I'm too fussy to decide on a Fallout to sink another fifty hours into. But now there's a new Starfield trailer, and it's making me pine for those damned RPGs all the more. The developers have dived into Starfield's history, and revealed a handful of factions we'll come across on our space travels. It's mostly concept art, but hey, it's very nice concept art.

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Server transfers opened up in New World overnight, letting players shunt their explorers from one world to another. This is a desirable feature in many MMOs, and particularly in this one because servers were so overloaded at launch that Amazon recommended players join any old server then transfer to their desired home later once things settled. All players get one transfer for free, but only one, with Amazon planning to start selling that service later.

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There is no mouse cursor in Evertried. You control everything with the keyboard, from the hops and scythe attacks of your cute otherworldly hero, to the settings in the pause menu. It's a strange omission but one that is representative of the feeling this roguelike evokes throughout your time climbing its purgatorial tower of baddies. That is to say, a feeling that there's something important missing. In fact, there seems to be a lot missing from this tile-based timewaster, small touches that could have given its solid foundation the polish it needed to excel.

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The Razer Viper is one of my favourite mice of all time, whether we're talking about the wireless Ultimate version, the compact Mini model or the vanilla Viper. It's this OG model that is on sale today at Amazon, who have marked it down from £80 to just £40 - an incredible bargain for an ultralight mouse with a high-end optical sensor, optical mouse buttons, flexible cable and low weight of just 69 grams.

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The Asus Tuf Gaming A15 is a great value gaming laptop that attracted warm reviews for its design and performance, and today it's also the cheapest RTX 3070 gaming laptop we can find*. The A15 FA506QR-HN006T specification, which includes a Ryzen 7 5800H processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD, is down to just £1250 at Overclockers after a £150 reduction.

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The update adding raytracing and other mod cons to The Witcher 3 will not launch this year, developers CD Projekt Red announced today. They've been fancying up their fantasy RPG for the latest console generation, and those 'next-gen' additions are headed to PC in a patch too. But not this year. Instead, look to be blinded by the light in spring 2022. They've also delayed the next-gen version of Cyberpunk 2077 for consoles.

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As was rumoured, the dadtastic godstabber God Of War is indeed coming to PC. Sony today announced that the PlayStation-exclusive action-adventure game will launch for PC on the 14th of January, 2022. Good game, that. It'll have support for assorted PC technical fanciness too.

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Subnautica was a game I spent a lot of time just living in. It was a rare combination of survival and relaxation. I loved the base building, crafting what amounted to a reverse aquarium clinging to an underwater sea cliff. It grew from a small bulb of oxygen into a proper little sanctuary. When I picked it up, it was fairly late into its life, and a number of mods were already waiting to be installed. I quickly dialed down the game’s frustrations and made my time under the sea all the more enjoyable, so here are our picks for the best Subnautica mods available today.

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Activision Blizzard's initial response to allegations of workplace harrassment and discrimination was disappointing enough that thousands of current and former employees signed an open letter condemning it then hundreds staged a walkout in July. With several legal cases against the Warcraft and Call Of Duty owners underway, they've now admitted they haven't done enough. Yesterday, Along with laying out their next steps, they confirmed that over 20 people have "exited" Activision Blizzard in connection with reports against them.

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There was a time, not so long ago, when the WD Blue line exemplified that “good but boring” quality that sees many a budget SSD damned by faint praise. Fast enough yet rarely eye-catchingly rapid, even when the WD Blue SN500 ditched SATA for the much quicker NVMe interface, they’ve always been sensible purchases that nonetheless lived in the shadow of the WD Black lineup. That all changes with the latest WD Blue SN570: it’s not just an excellent M.2 drive for the money, but quite possibly the single most compelling SSD for anyone sticking with PCIe 3.0.

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I don't know what I was expecting to take away from co-op FPS Back 4 Blood. A greater sense of comradery between myself and my friends? An appreciation of the weighty guns and how magazines snap into place with each reload? The sheer amount of blood that splashes on your person with each wave of zombies you cut down? Yes, all of these things.

But none more so than what the zombies wear. They favour comfortable clothing, but mainly the gilet. They love gilets. And they now have me questioning my fashion choices. Should I also join them as a wearer of gilets?

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Want to know more about Fireflies in Minecraft? Whether you call them Fireflies, glowbugs, or lightning bugs, they’ll all occupy the same two pixels when they come to Minecraft and it’s time to get fired up for their arrival. Fireflies were announced at Minecraft Live 2021, which also shared more details on the upcoming Caves and Cliffs part 2 update.

This guide will explain everything that you need to know about Fireflies in Minecraft, including when you can expect Fireflies to come to Minecraft, where Fireflies will appear, and what they do.

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Want to know more about mangrove swamps in Minecraft? At Minecraft Live 2021, Mojang revealed that mangrove swamps - one of the options in the biome vote way back in 2019 - are finally coming to Minecraft. Many of the ideas mentioned back then, including mangrove trees and frogs, will be key features of the mangrove swamp biome.

This guide will explain everything that you need to know about mangrove swamps in Minecraft, including when mangrove swamps will be released, what you will find in the new biome, and how to grow your own mangrove trees with propagules.

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Activision Blizzard have filed an application to halt the harassment and discrimination lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH). This follows an update on the suit last week, which revealed that two DFEH lawyers previously worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), who're also going through legal proceedings with Actiblizzard, creating a conflict of interest. Now the Call Of Duty and World Of Warcraft publishers want the DFEH's case to be paused so they can investigate, and decide whether they want to try and get the case disqualified, or find "other appropriate remedies".

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Gloomhaven’s scoundrel has a custom animation for her flintlock pistol, and I am still jazzed about it. Releasing today in full after lurking in early access for the last two years, there are 17 classes in this digital adaptation of Cephalofair’s tabletop legacy dungeon crawler, hereafter referred to as ‘Tablehaven’. Each class, from psychic rodent Mindthief to basalt shithouse Cragheart, has around 30 ability cards each. And Flaming Fowl, alongside offering Tablehaven’s entire branching campaign, map editors, and a digi-only ‘Guildmaster’ campaign, have animated this single flintlock shot. It’s almost opulent.

All right, so I probably won’t use it much. Five damage at range four is a belter, but that burn hurts for a single target ability. I’ll be smiling when I do, though. Grinning as the scoundrel whips the silver pistol from her hip and deletes a cultist just before he summons a skeleton. Just as I’ve been grinning at these detailed, cel-shaded dungeons and grimy sewers, or the spoken narration before each quest. All Gloomhaven needed to do was not get in Tablehaven’s way too much. Accuracy and usability would have been just fine. But there’s enough passion and pizzaz in this wonderful package that a part of me wishes I was new here, just so I could be surprised all over again.

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Want to know more about Frogs in Minecraft? If you’ve always looked at lakes and rivers in Minecraft and thought ‘those need some slimy little amphibians that leap on lily pads and whip fireflies out of the sky with their tongues’, then you’re in luck! At Minecraft Live 2021, the team shared that we are getting Frogs in Minecraft, and they’ll actually have a lot more depth than you might expect.

This guide will explain everything that we currently know about Frogs in Minecraft, including how to get the different Frog variants and how they act.

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Want to learn how to create the best Hu Tao build in Genshin Impact? As the 77th Director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, Hu Tao has the help of ghosts in battle, where she’ll stir up a fright as she absolutely demolishes enemies. Despite being a bit of a prankster, the Pyro Polearm wielder will make a great DPS addition to your team.

This guide will show you how to create the best Hu Tao build in Genshin Impact. Below we'll cover everything you need to know about Hu Tao, including wishing, weapons, artifacts, ascension materials, talents, abilities, and constellations.

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Want to know more about the Allay in Minecraft? For the past few years, Minecraft Live has included lots of announcements about new updates, as well as a fan vote for a new Minecraft mob. For Minecraft Live 2021, the options were the Glare, the Copper Golem, and the Allay. Ultimately, the Allay came out on top, and will be added to Minecraft in 2022.

Here’s everything that you need to know about the adorable Allay, including when it will arrive in Minecraft and what the Allay will do.

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I'm exhausted at the mere thought of most Ubisoft games now, but I do want to fall down mountains in Riders Republic. To make that easier for me, Ubisoft are offering a trial week for their bigly multiplayer extreme sports 'em up. From October 21st until the 27th, you'll be able to play four hours of Riders Republic for free, with progress carrying over to the full game should you buy it.

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Microsoft Flight Simulator is getting a 'Game Of The Year' edition. The skybound sim has received regular free updates since launch, each adding new cities and points of interest. The GOTY edition will bring even more, including new potogrammetry cities, 8 new airpirts, and 5 new aircraft. It'll launch on November 18th and be free to all existing players.

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Marcus Lehto, former creative director at Bungie and the artist responsible for Master Chief, has joined EA to found a new studio that will make first-person games. Lehto's last company was V1 Interactive, who released the short-lived Disintegration last year.

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Do you enjoy the feeling of having pins hammered into your head? Then allow me to introduce you to: our modern reality.

Today's pin to the brow is that you can now buy NFTs based on Dead By Daylight's in-game models of Hellraiser's Pinhead. I can tell the difference between pleasure and pain, and this is pain.

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Among the many discoveries of this month's Twitch source code and data leak was a file called "do_not_ban_list." While not as black and white as the name suggest, the file sheds light on the otherwise opaque way Twitch has enforced its rules when streamers break them.

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The MSI GF65 Thin is the first Black Friday gaming laptop deal we've spotted, around a month before the shopping holiday traditionally begins. At Best Buy, you can pick up this RTX 3060 equipped machine for $850, a cool $250 below its usual price of $1100. That's a fantastic value for a laptop that's seen strong reviews since its release earlier this year.

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Adata is one of the best brands for budget RAM, and their long-standing Gammix D10 series offers a good balance of low price and high performance. Right now you can pick up two 8GB sticks of DDR4-3200 CL16 memory from Ebuyer for £56, around £10 cheaper than you'd pay for RAM with the same specs on Amazon.

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It's a hard life, being a soothsayer in Grotto. You live in a dingy little cave, the locals look at you with varying levels of distrust and suspicion, and occasionally your campfire will perk up and talk to you when no one's looking, its yellow flames turning an ominous shade of blue as it whispers dread-filled words about failure and the beating heart of the mountain into your ear. It's unclear how you ended up like this, but day after day you're tasked with consulting the handful of stars visible through a crack in the cave's ceiling to dole out advice to the local tribespeople, a group of anthropomorphic animals known only as The Brutes.

Said advice comes in the form of 24 constellations you can discover by looking up and drawing shapes in the sky with your mouse. You'll need to give one of them to each Brute that asks you a question, but when every constellation has its own fortune-cookie-like meaning attached to it, finding the right one to answer their question successfully can be a challenge. As the toad man Ouuch tells you at the start, if you ask three separate people what the word 'blue' means to them, you'll get three separate answers. Sometimes, your intentions will be misinterpreted, while others will willfully ignore you. But one thing Grotto always manages to do is to keep you coming back for more. Once you've set this car crash of consequences in motion, it's very hard to tear your eyes away.

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The Crysis Remastered Trilogy is out, complete with all the angry nanosuit men, angry alien squids, and solitary angry Cockney bloke of the originals – now with 8K support.

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Want to know more about the Minecraft 1.19 update? The Wild Update was revealed at Minecraft Live 2021, where we got details about all of the new additions, including frogs, fireflies, and mangrove swamps. This will be the first Minecraft update in 2022, and will be the next major update after Caves and Cliffs part 2.

This guide will explain everything that you can expect with Minecraft 1.19, so that you don’t go wild looking for details all over.

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After a lot of explaining how the factions of Grand Cathay and Tzeentch will work in Total War: Warhammer 3, Creative Assembly today demonstrated with a nine-minute video dramatically recapping a battle between the two. The third game in their fantasy real-time strategy series has needed to invent and fill out a lot of armies not present in the tabletop game, so it's interesting to see them in action. Got some nice colours and weird warmen, at the very least.

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New World players have found an exploit that lets you turn invincible, which is certainly not the sort of exploit you want in your PvP-focused MMORPG. According to players who've encountered the bug, it's pretty easy to replicate, and folks are calling for wars to be disabled until there's a fix. Amazon Games say they're aware of the problem and are investigating, so hopefully they'll patch the game soon to make sure everyone's staying vincible.

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The best part of primary school in the UK is learning about Vikings: getting to make and decorate cardboard swords and jewellery, write stories about legends, and maybe even escape school with a visit to a historical site. Well, Assassin's Creed Valhalla might not offer the same crafting opportunities, but you can learn a lot about the game's history with the new Discovery Tour mode. It hits Valhalla today in a free update, and will also be sold separately for folks who don't want Valhalla.

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Apex Legends is adding a second spooky murderbot to its roster, one that both Apex and Titanfall 2 fans might recognise. Ash is a simulacrum (human consciousness in a freaky robot) who was previously a baddie in Titanfall 2. Since May this year, she's been overseeing Apex's new 3v3 Arenas mode - you know, that ominous voice that tells you to crush your enemies. But in the battle royale's next season, Escape, she'll be joining the fight herself.

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