Rock, Paper, Shotgun

All three games of the Crytek's super-powered shooter trilogy are now available fancied up with modern graphical bells and whistles, with Crysis 2 Remastered and Crysis 3 Remastered today following the first game's 2020 revamp. Given that developers Crytek were always years ahead of most shooters in shininess, the originals hardly look hideous but hey, you can pay for extra fancieness. The first game was always the best though.

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Strategy games are, as everyone knows, much like moving house. Whether it's your first, daunting one and you don't yet know that the whole "most stressful thing in life" line is a total lie, or you stopped counting house moves after your 15th, there's one obstacle that never stops getting in the way: the deposit.

You know you can pay it, theoretically. You could gather together the energy and focus it takes. It is not beyond you to learn how a new game works and take the time to situate yourself within its world. But doing it all at once? Right now? Ach. Now you're asking.

That's the deposit. And it prevents you from playing games you'd love.

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This week, Activision revealed Ricochet, their new kernel-level anti-cheat that will be used for Call Of Duty: Vanguard and Warzone. They've been in a constant battle with cheaters for ages now, so it's nice to see them stepping up their anti-cheat game. Unfortunately, Ricochet might have already leaked, and it's claimed cheat-makers are currently working on reverse-engineering it.

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Want to know the best build for Jim in Back 4 Blood? Jim is quick to take aim and fire thanks to his increased ADS speed, but damage is his real strength. With each precision kill, Jim gains 2.5% stacking damage, which stays until you are hit. This means you could increase Jim’s damage to ridiculous levels if you avoid damage. Oh, and he also gets a 10% boost to team weakspot damage, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jim deserves a spot on your team in Back 4 Blood.

This guide will show you everything that you need to know to make the best Jim build in Back 4 Blood.

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Splash Damage, the folks who made Gears Tactics and Brink, have announced they're working on a new sci-fi game. They've worked on a number of series created by other developers over the years, including Wolfenstein and Gears, but haven't made their own PC game since Dirty Bomb in 2014. It'll be interesting to see what they have in store - perhaps a first-person shooter like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory? Or maybe something more strategic, given Gears Tactics' success.

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Want to know the best build for Hoffman in Back 4 Blood? Hoffman is one of the best characters in Back 4 Blood, as he has a chance to find ammo when he kills Ridden, whilst also increasing the team’s max ammo capacity by 10%. As a bonus, he also carries an extra grenade so that you can make more zombies go boom.

This guide will show you everything you need to know to make the best Hoffman build in Back 4 Blood. However, don't expect to play as Hoffman straight away. You'll need to actually unlock all of the cleaners in Back 4 Blood first.

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Exactly one month after launch, Deathloop received its "first major game update" last night. Along with (hopefully?) fixing lingering issues with stuttering framerates, it has added DLSS support to give Nvidia folks a big FPS boost, fixed some crashes and other bugs, including a nasty one where a bad menu option would reset Colt's progress, and generally improved things. And this is the point where I think I'll finally play the game.

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Diablo II: Resurrected launched to widespread and ongoing server issues. Today, a Blizzard community manager offered some insight into the nature of the problem - and it's partly some 20-year-old code, and partly some modern player behaviour.

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Last week, EA said they were considering renaming FIFA, their long-running football series. The issue is that their licensing deal with football's world governing body is up for renewal. Now a report by the New York Times says that the issue is that FIFA want double what they were getting before for EA to continue using the name.

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Sometimes a functional game strikes me as bland or forgettable. Dungeon Encounters appeals to me, oddly. I look at this game about exploring 99 levels of a dungeon, fighting enemies using an iteration of Final Fantasy's Active Time Battle System, designed by the man who created it, and I think: yes, you should be called Dungeon Encounters.

It's out now, and there's a new launch trailer below.

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Call Of Duty: Vanguard has finally revealed its zombie mode. It continues the zombies storyline from the Black Ops series, returning to WW2, where you'll be fighting Nazi zombies with the aid of new 'Dark Aether' powers. The reveal trailer is below.

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The massive 4TB Samsung 870 Qvo has hit a historic low price at Newegg, where you can use code EMCXHEHU2 to knock this drive from $390 to just $312. That's an incredible price for a high-speed SATA SSD, just 8¢ per gigabyte (!!).

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Lenovo's Legion 5 Pro 16 hits the current sweet spot for a high-end gaming laptop: an RTX 3070 graphics card, an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor and a 2560x1600 165Hz screen. These screens are a new addition for 2021, and make a massive difference when it comes to the amount of visible detail for playing games or just browsing the web.

This particular laptop has been out of stock for some time, but it's finally returned to Lenovo's online store - and you can get it for 10% off when you sign up to Lenovo's email newsletter. That knocks £150 off the price, bringing this high-spec laptop to £1350.

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When Paradox Interactive made the remarkable decision to take Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 away from its original developers, Hardsuit Labs, the company considered outright cancelling the game. That's according to returning CEO Fredrik Wester in a recent interview. Paradox still aren't saying who's making the World Of Darkness RPG now nor when it will be done, but apparently it's still happening?

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As Baldur's Gate 3 continues its adventure through early access, the fantasy RPG from the makers of Divinity: Original Sin has whacked in a load of newness. Patch 6 hit today to continue the story, add a Sorcerer class, open the new region called Grymforge, and spruce up the graphics. Some might focus on those big features, me I'm all about a little one: a Sorcerer spell which lets you turn characters tiny or giant. We'll see who's a tadpole now!

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Larian put blood, sweat and tears into Baldur’s Gate 3’s latest patch. I mean, they’ve literally put them in: venture into the scorching heat of a subterranean forge and you’ll see a greasy sheen on your hero’s face during conversational close-ups. Get blood spattered on you in battle and it’ll remain until you take a long rest to wash it away. Same goes for dirt, and bruises that bloom at low health. “We want you to feel you’ve been adventuring a bit,” says lead systems designer Nick Pechenin, “rather than just stepping out of a modelling agency.”

If he’d seen the potato-faced oddballs I’ve repeatedly made in character creation (saves are not compatible between big patches) Pechenin would not be so generous. Even so, I like seeing heroes wearing evidence of their travels. An earlier patch already made the camping system feel more demanding - a small price in food means you can’t just spam it after every fight - and now those longer treks between naps can visually sell you on the difficult journey heroes are undertaking, too. A journey that, with patch six, has gotten a little longer.

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ElecHead is one of those devilishly clever puzzle platformers that delights at every turn. Developed by solo dev NamaTakahashi, you play as the titular Elec, a tiny robot whose body can electrify whatever surface he touches, causing it to light up a dazzling shade of yellow in the dark halls of a strange, underground facility.

Technically, it's his head where his electrical currents stem from, which you quickly learn how to throw in order to flip switches from afar, create new platforms and dodge deadly obstacles in order to get from one side of the room to the other. The catch? Elec's body only has ten seconds of power left when he's without his head, causing him to explode if he doesn't reach it in time. The result is a stunningly good puzzle game whose bank of brilliantly conceived ideas is executed to perfection, and it left me with a big fat grin on my face for the whole of its three hour run-time.

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Want to know how to get the secret ending in Far Cry 6? If you've played previous entries in Ubisoft's long-running open-world FPS series, you'll likely have come to expect a secret ending somewhere early on. But fittingly for a game of this scale, in Far Cry 6 the secret ending comes not right at the very beginning, but a few hours into the game once everything starts to open up. Keep reading to learn exactly what to do to unlock Far Cry 6's secret ending.

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The problems keep coming for Windows 11. Besides missing gaming features and a vote of no confidence by cloud PC providers, perhaps the worst of it has been a bug that drastically increases L3 cache latency on most AMD chips. That includes some of the best CPUs for gaming, like the Ryzen 5 5600X, and while both AMD and Microsoft have promised fixes, an unrelated Windows 11 update appears to have made the problem even worse.

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This week the Electronic Wireless Show podcast is going the place you can always go when you're alone and life is making you lonely. That's right: down town! We're talking about our favourite cities in games, although we spend a lot of time talking about city builders even though we decide they probably don't meet the brief.

Surprisingly, though, we talk about games so much this week that we run out of time to do a Cavern Of Lies! Even though I had actually prepared one! Unprecedented scenes. Don't worry, though, because there are plenty of diversions this week too, including Nate's unwise excursion into green milk, and Matthew eating something he shouldn't ought to have ate.

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Want to know the best build for Doc in Back 4 Blood? Doc is the resident healer in Back 4 Blood, so she takes on a supportive role like Mom. Doc’s passive bonuses allow her to heal each teammate for 25 health once per level, whilst also increasing her healing efficiency and the team’s trauma resistance. However, you'll need to know how to unlock all cleaners in Back 4 Blood before you can select Doc in your campaign.

This guide will show you everything that you need to know to create the best Doc build in Back 4 Blood, so that you can keep your teammates at the top of their game.

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Multiplayer FPS Battlefield 2042's Conquest and Breakthrough modes are largely about shooting bullets across vast distances on a vast map while trying to capture a vast number of objectives. They are vast, mate. But the newly revealed Hazard Zone mode? Nope, this is smaller, more survival-oriented, with a hint of Hunt: Showdown.

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The Good Life – which has nothing to do with the 1970s British television show about a couple of doom-prepping swingers who owned an allotment in Surbiton – is a colourful open world adventure in which you play an investigative photographer charged with uncovering the secrets of an idyllic English town.

Like so many of Swery’s previous games, most notably Deadly Premonition, The Good Life is characteristically goofy and haphazard. It can be broadly categorised as a daily life simulator — in the vein of Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, but not like either of those — with a Pokémon Snap style camera mechanic in which you take photographs of interesting things and people about town for kudos and cash rewards. You can also turn into a dog or a cat whenever you like.

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Like just about everything else in your PC, the CPU can get very hot, very quickly. That’s why not even the best CPUs are complete without a dedicated cooler, but which of the two main types are better: liquid coolers or air coolers?

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Looking for more Far Cry 6 Rides to unlock? There is a huge variety of cars and other vehicles to hijack and take back to Vehicle Dropoff Points in Far Cry 6, but none of them compare to the four Rides that you can unlock. These heavily modified cars are the pride of your collection, and can be customised and fitted with all sorts of powerful guns and other armaments.

Below you'll find out how to unlock all four Rides in Far Cry 6. Once you know the locations, you can easily go round and unlock them all in 20 minutes or so. So let's get driving!

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Just when you thought we'd seen every possible permutation of battle royale, here comes the strangest form yet: a movie. An interactive movie, specifically. Bloodshore will drop our laaad onto an island to fight for big money in murderous reality show Kill/Stream, with our decisions pushing the story down different paths and affecting relationships with other contestants. What's next, a battle royale novel?

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Fancy tweaking some Halo games to make some cool or cursed content? Then good news! Yesterday, developers 343 industries released modding tools for Halo 2 and Halo 3 alongside the Master Chief Collection's season 8 update. Halo: Combat Evolved got its own official modding tools back in June, and the new tools for 2 and 3 offer similar programs for modders to mess with. I look forward to seeing what good stuff they make.

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Want to know the best build for Mom in Back 4 Blood? Mom is one of the best characters in Back 4 Blood, with the ability to instantly revive a teammate once per level. She also grants the team an extra life and has an increased support inventory, which you can use for bandages, painkillers, or other medicinal goodies that you find on your zombie-stomping adventures.

With our Mom build, we push these supportive capabilities to the limit. Mom won't be able to match more combat-focused characters like Walker when fighting the undead, but she'll definitely pull you back from the brink of death and defeat. This guide will show you how to make the best Mom build in Back 4 Blood.

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As if they weren't busy enough remaking System Shock, Nightdive Studio have announced plans for a live-action web TV series based on Looking Glass's sci-fi FPS. It'd be headed to Binge, an upcoming gaming-focused streaming platform which also has plans for a Driver series. Yeah yeah, but who's gonna play Shodan?

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What are the best Squid Game experiences on Roblox? Odds are you're at least somewhat aware of Squid Game, the Netflix original thriller that came out of nowhere and has been taking the world by storm since its first season released on September 17th. If you've somehow missed it, suffice to say that it's a fictional TV show about a group of desperate people participating in a series of six deadly children's games — so, naturally, the video game imitations have already started to roll in, largely courtesy of Roblox.

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Having given Riders Republic a go over its free-to-play day, I can confirm that it really leans into Ubisoft's current obsession. Splashes of yellow and pink with the word "Blamo!" graffitied over the top, that whole thing. This is a Forza Horizon-esque trip, only you're not going to a pleasant festival in a car, you're going to an extreme sports resort with a roving band of TikTokers.

Swerve through the cringe on your bike, though, and there's some decent fun to be had. And for me, this wasn't so much in the game's fast and furious moments, but when it slowed the pace right down and transformed into a platformer of sorts.

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Jeff Strain—co-founder of Guild Wars studio ArenaNet and founder of State Of Decay studio Undead Labs—is now founding a new game studio once again. Strain's studio Possibility Space has already drawn in a group of leadership talent worth paying attention to with history at the likes of Valve, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, BioWare, Double Fine, and more. Possibility Space doesn't have a game to announce just yet, but is hiring up for their first "joyful game" that Strain describes as his "dream for many years."

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Update: The price has dropped further on the 5900X, with the chip now costing £453 at Amazon. Original article continues below...

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X is the company's latest high-end consumer processor, offering 12 cores and 24 threads using the incredibly fast Zen 3 design. AMD's latest generation CPUs have made incredible strides against Intel*, and are now often the best choice for both gaming and content creation - an unthinkable situation just five years ago when Ryzen first launched.

The 5900X has been the hardest Ryzen 5000 model to find at a good price, thanks to low supply and incredible demand, but today you can pick one up for a significant discount - £43 below RRP, or £466.92. That's a great price for a CPU of this quality, especially in the middle of a silicon shortage.

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The Logitech G Pro X is a fantastic headset - a comfy and well-built premium option that sounds fantastic. Today, it's not so premium any more, as Currys has discounted the headset from its original RRP of £110 to just £62.99 - a massive bargain. To get that price, you'll need to use code FNDDGAMING at the checkout.

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As it goes in online competitive games, Activision are in a constant battle against cheaters in Call Of Duty games. They've banned more than half a million cheaters in Call Of Duty: Warzone and yet there are always more. They've announced a new tool to help crack down: their Ricochet Anti-Cheat system. When it launches in Warzone and Call Of Duty: Vanguard it will include server-side tools along with a kernel-level driver to monitor applications interacting with the game.

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As it does, action and explore 'em up Genshin Impact has rolled out another game update adding more characters, weapons, a domain, and a new island too. Genshin Impact version 2.2 has launched today, opening up more of that new Inazuma area and bringing its first crossover character Aloy of Horizon Zero Dawn fame to the game. You can hop into the new update titled "Into the Perilous Labyrinth of Fog" as of today to get started on all the new activities.

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Solar Ash is the next action-y adventure from the folks behind Hyper Light Drifter, which they've described as "Super Mario Galaxy meets Shadow Of The Colossus, and sprinkle in a bit of Jet Set Radio." It was coming up quite soon, and ranked on RPS's list of best games in October to look forward to thanks to that colourful world and skater-like movement. The monthly list has taken a hit again, as there's a bit longer to wait for it now. Heart Machine have just announced a delay, though fortunately a short one.

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After launching in August, mostly-melee battle royale 'em up Naraka: Bladepoint rated on RPS's list of best battle royale games for its parkour and grabble hook fights. If you're all about the battle and less about the royale, Naraka is queueing up a new game mode for you. The new 1v1 mode is inspired by and named after the movie Bloodsport, pitting sixteen players against one another in an elimination tourney until just one emerges as the winner. Naraka's new Bloodsport mode is kicking off tomorrow for you to go face to face and sword to sword with solo challengers.

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November may bring an unpleasant surprise for Skyrim Special Edition players, as one prolific modder has warned that changes in an update will mean a large part of Skyrim modding "is going to be broken for an unknown length of time". While it's common for updates to break mods, supposedly this will require a whole lot more work than usual to get back on track. And there's a risk some will never be fixed.

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I love a bit of anime fighting. The darting back and forth over a battlefield the size of a small town, the gravity-defying jumps through the air, the razing of entire cities with the flick of a thumb, the volume of someone’s yell equating to their increase in power - it’s all equal parts enrapturing melodrama and total lunacy.

Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles gets this. It gets that, when I am playing a 3D fighting game adapting a popular manga, I really want to inhabit the part of an incredibly wholesome anime boy, journeying across feudal Japan to cure my younger sister of her demonic sickness and smack around some otherworldly folk on the way there. Tanjiro Kamado is about as pure as anime protagonists come, and if there’s one lovable anime lad whose shoes I had to step into, it’d probably be his.

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