Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I spent much of my time with JRPG Tales Of Arise veering from a state of serene calm to one of total confusion. Like I'd been out for a walk down the street, spotted a group of misfits down a quiet suburb, and starting yelling encouragement as they kicked seven shades out of a fire hydrant. That feeling of not really knowing what you're doing, but rather enjoying whatever it is that you are, in fact, doing.

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You can tell summer is coming: sun's out, guns out, and taps aff, and a car drove past my flat blasting Len's 1999 monster summer jam Steal My Sunshine at full volume. That reminded me EA made a Simlish version of Steal My Sunshine for The Sims 4's Seasons expansion, and now I've fallen down a terrible hole of breaking my brain with incomprehensible versions of familiar summer jams. Please help. The Simlish translation of "Girl I think my butt gettin' big" in Nelly's Hot In Herre is killing me.

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When Jeff Goldblum delivered the news that we'd be getting a sequel to Frontier's 2018 park builder Jurassic World Evolution sometime in the next six months at the Summer Game Fest last week, I was immediately raised from my E3 slumber. While not perfect by any means, JWE is pretty much the best option out there right now for people who love dinosaur games that don't involve any combat. Sure, the trailer for Jurassic World Evolution 2 only revealed a very slim portfolio of facts about the game, but using my sordid credentials as a giant Jurassic Park nerd, and a sinker of many hours into Frontier's park games, I reckon I can offer some reasonable assumptions as to what you can expect.

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The RPS Supporter Programme launched back in 2014 as a way for readers to directly fund the kind of work we love most. The strange, the experimental, the personal, the obscure; the kind of work that's expensive and time-consuming, and loved intensely by those who get it.

Today we're making it easier to support RPS - and changing the way you access your benefits if you already do.

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Call Of Duty: Warzone Season 4 has finally crash-landed, like a number of satellites into Verdansk. Capture one of these smouldering space spheres and you'll earn rewards, one of which is only a flipping Armoured Truck. These metal stallions were previously only available in Armored Royale, a limited-time mode, but now they're a reward in normal matches. So, err, hey there buddy?! It's so good to see you again! Oh truck. Oh trucky truck, how I've missed you.

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Ynglet is proof that great things can come from terrible, world-ending disasters. As you and your fellow microbe-like pals watch a meteor hurtling towards your tiny home on the TV, a new world erupts the carnage - and it looks awfully like a cartoon town map you might find at your local tourist office. As you slither across this newfound land, portals gradually open up to eight worlds of floating shapes that fizz and pop with light, music and colour. It's a platformer without any platforms, and it's probably the most delightful 90 minute adventure you'll play all year.

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Word is Dano spends her downtime knitting and her uptime hitting. Best to approach her when her hands are empty, either way.

Whenever you meet someone new during a playthrough of Griftlands, Klei Entertainment's masterful deckbuilder, the first thing you get is a short box of flavour text that often summarises their demeanour, their line of work, and their attitude towards you all at once, and rarely ever resorts to actually stating those things outright. It's so much easier said than done to write one of these sentences, and yet Klei makes it look effortless.

It's little things like this that make Griftlands easily the most enjoyable deckbuilder for someone who doesn't enjoy deckbuilders.

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Razer's intensely Chromatic RGB desk pad is half-price on Amazon UK right now, dropping from £60 to £30 - a historic low price. If you're at all a fan of RGB lighting, and especially if you're already in Razer's ecosystem, this is a great deal for a mouse pad of this size and quality.

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Yet another giant Fallout 4 modding project has released a trailer for an ambitious expansion-sized campaign. Fallout: London is planning to take players to see how the war affected things in the UK. London may change, but war doesn't. Things look just as irradiated, divided, and gritty as you'd expect from a major Fallout 4 mod project. There's no release date yet, and it's certainly looking like there will be plenty of infighting between its new, British factions. No Enclave or Brotherhood of Steel here.

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Microsoft's Xbox One controller was already one of the very best PC gamepads, and its Series X|S era refresh made it even better with a massive upgrade to the d-pad, face buttons and reduced latency. Today you can pick up a 'open box but never used' (read: seller refurbished, but excellent condition) Xbox controller for only £35.62 with the code XBOXSAVINGS2021 - more than 33% off the usual price of £54.99.

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Prison Architect is looking to the future in its new DLC. Second Chances is all about letting your inmates out of prison, but on purpose. If you're lucky, you won't ever see them again. Have a nice life, folks! Second Chances adds several new rehab programs focused on lowering your prisoners' sentences and making sure they stay out when they leave. It's out now, alongside another free game update called The Pen.

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I don't know the first thing about breaking into safes, or what the fiddly inner bits of a combo lock look like. So I've already learned a lot from Sophie's Safecracking Simulator from looking at its screenshots without even playing it. Fans of fiddly games should listen close on this one. Safecracking Simulator has just arrived on Steam and it's a neat little tech toy to snag for less than a fiver.

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One game which caught my eye during all of the E3 everything is one I'm apparently late to notice: surreal RPG She Dreams Elsewhere. A new trailer with mock VHS effects showed off its shopping mall level with a CGA-ish palette and sure, that was interesting enough, but then it hit a battle and WHAT HELLO THIS IS GORGEOUS.

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Don't go setting your sights on that big summer sale just yet. Keep your wallet in your pocket because Steam Next Fest just kicked off. That means for the next week you'll be able to download and try free demos for all manner of upcoming games on Steam. It's a huge collection, as past Steam demo bonanzas have been, with over 700 game demos to choose from this time. It's just launched, so here are a couple quick picks to get you started.

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Fishing is my absolute least favorite activity in any game that includes it. I say that, and yet Luna's Fishing Garden looks absolutely adorable. This super sweet angling and collecting game has an archipelago of islands to decorate, a bunch of massive animal spirits, and the style of fishing minigame I do actually enjoy in spite of myself. I may well wind up hooked, especially since it's just launched today.

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Tanks are usually a boring, one note interruption to the exciting infantry shootytimes I was having.

Armoured Commander II, however, is fun. How dare it.

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Multiplayer stab 'em up Chivalry II says it is inspired by "medieval war movies". The word "movies" is significant. Any historical theme invites complaints of inaccuracy, and the usual shield-wall pedantry. But by channeling Braveheart, Gladiator and that one scene in Anchorman, the makers of this bloodthirsty sequel are saying up-front: "No, this is the fun kind of head chopping". And they'd be right. Chivalry II is a ridiculous, over-the-top ruckus, with knights being catapulted across the field and infantry chucking trout at each other in a breathless panic. "Blood is my paint and the land is my canvas!" shouts one soldier, using the game's dedicated "battlecry" button. I couldn't agree more. This is art.

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Massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, aka, games that will consume your life. Your first task: fetch thirty kobold beaks for Gary and receive a stubby longsword in exchange. Fast forward ten thousand hours later. You sport fiery pauldrons, slay a dragon, and nab some legendary loot. What a feeling. And there are plenty of MMORPGs that can give you this experience, but with different makeups. Some are fantasy, some lean into the JRPG side of things, while others go full sci-fi. Well, we've put together a list of the 10 best MMORPGs to try out if you're into levelling, raiding, and roleplaying.

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Elden Ring exists! I'm still in a state of perpetual delight having read that I can turn my enemies into summoned sidekicks and that it has vases which are cute lads. And now I've learned that your enemies leave "trails" that are more visible at night, how curious.

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After snooping around offices in The Occupation and memories in Ether One, developers White Paper Games will soon offer the opportunity to snoop around a neighbourhood . During E3 they announced Conway: Disappearance At Dahlia View, where we'll play a former detective in 1950s England who falls into spying on his neighbours after the disappearance of a young girl. The announcement trailer remind me a bit of Hitchcock's Rear Window, spying on people out his flat window. Have a look for yourself below.

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It's been a long while since there's been a truly great budget gaming CPU that's actually been available to buy. AMD's Ryzen 3 3300X filled that hole admirably when it first launched back in May last year, but the sheer popularity of that £115 / $120 CPU has meant that it's been out of stock almost ever since. Indeed, AMD still haven't released a Ryzen 5000 successor for it, and even Intel's 11th Gen Rocket Lake earlier in the year didn't yield any promising Core i3 candidates, either, with the chip maker stopping firm at the Core i5-11400 and i5-11400F, the latter of which is on test today.

The Core i5-11400F is fundamentally identical to the 11400 - it's just that the F model doesn't have any integrated graphics built-in. As such, you'll need to pair it with a graphics card if you want anything to appear on your monitor when you come to turn it on. Otherwise, they're exactly the same chip. And for lack of any other competition right now, this £150 / $230 CPU is probably the closest thing you'll get to a great budget gaming CPU in 2021.

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Given how many cyberpunky games are around these days, it takes something particularly interesting in that style to stand out to me now. But Minds Beneath Us has really caught my eye. It's an upcoming sci-fi thriller set in a futuristic world where humans have been integrated with AI. It has cool skylines, excellent use of neon signs, and you play as a character who might occasionally turn into a murderous zombie-thing.

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Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is a HD remaster of the cute anime visual novel (which is also a psychological horror game) coming out on June 30th. Unlike the old game, this one won't be free, but it's adding a bunch of new stuff that I'm sure will have plenty of spooks for us. It's bringing six new side stories, loads of new music, and a visual upgrade with higher-resolution artwork.

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If I've learned one thing from Mojiken Studio's beautiful hand-drawn point and click puzzler When The Past Was Around, it's that I should never strike up a relationship with a violin-playing owl man unless I want my heart to get smashed into a thousand tiny pieces. Despite its bright and breezy art style, When The Past Was Around hits hard, wallopping your emotions with all the feels at every gosh-darned turn. To be honest, even if I wasn't getting all teary-eyed at Owl and Eda's blossoming romance, I'd probably be equally upset about having my lovely neat apartment trashed by an invisible, busy-body puzzle solver. I've only just finished unpacking those plants, goddamnit, no need to tip them all over the carpet as well.

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Windows 11 has leaked online, giving us a first glimpse of Microsoft's next operating system and all the small ways it'll annoy and unsettle us until we finally Google how to change it back. This time around: it has rounded corners, the app icons are centered in the task bar, and the Start menu has changed.

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Songs Of Conquest was one of the most exciting trailers I saw at E3 2021. It's a turn-based strategy game in which you stomp around a world map, triggering hexy battles against fantasy factions, and levelling up and expanding your kingdom in between. It also has lovely pixel art. Watch the trailer below.

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Loop Hero has sold 800k copies since its release back in March, which is pretty impressive given it's a strange, lo-fi mashup of roguelike and idle game. It's now received its first major update, and version 1.1 brings with it new tiles to build with and a bunch of quality-of-life improvements, including the ability to speed up the game.

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Here's an interesting one: a Fatal Frame game is headed to PC. Announced during today's Nintendo Direct (not traditionally a source of PC games news), Fatal Frame: Maiden Of Black Water, which was originally released on Wii U in 2014, is being re-released on nearly every platform, including Steam. You can find a trailer of its polished-up horror photography below.

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Sin thought you should play Wildermyth. In fact, she was quite insistent that you play the storytelling tactical RPG. Bluntly so, even. "Play Wildermyth, you cowards," she said. The big hook is that you play procedurally generated adventurers who develop into proper little paper people as their lives change and stories grow along the way. You're no coward, I know, but perhaps you didn't fancy buying it in early access? Good news: as of today, Wildermyth has hit version 1.0 and officially launched. Check it out in the launch trailer below.

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Rare were at Microsoft's E3 pressblast this weekend, but only to show off a Sea Of Thieves crossover with Pirates Of The Carribean. Certainly no sign of Everwild, the beautiful and mysterious game they announced back in 2019. Which was a shame. Rumours say that the English studio best known for the NES version of Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat have gone back to the drawing board for a big old rethink of Everwild. According to rumours, anyway.

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If you're in the market for a mid-range gaming monitor and you happen to be in the US of A, then this deal is for you. The Asus Tuf Gaming VG27AQ is one of the best 1440p 165Hz gaming monitors on the market, and it's been heavily discounted at Newegg today.

Using code EMC2Z2AZ6A5Z24, this 27-in monitor drops from $400 to $340, the cheapest we've seen this monitor by a massive margin. For context, we've never seen this model drop below $395 on Amazon, so this is an all-time best price by a good $50 or more.

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Alright, the next sentence will feature a confusing combo of words.

Icarus: First Cohort is a PvE session-based survival game by RocketWerkz, a studio founded by Dean Hall - the person who brought us DayZ. While in DayZ you attempt to survive through a zombie apocalypse, the idea in Icarus is that you've got a limited amount of time to explore a savage alien planet, grab resources, then hoof it back to your dropship and escape. If you don't make it out alive, you lose everything.

"Crikey", I thought when I heard about it. "Now that is intense." But in reality, Icarus is a lot less savage than it lets on. In fact, I'd say it's pretty chill. I mean, I had time to try and become the first person in Icarus to bake some bread. I failed - but in fairness, the feature hasn't gone live yet.

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The ultra-premium Logitech G915 TKL Lightspeed is £50 off today, bringing it to £149 - the cheapest we've ever seen this compact wireless keyboard. That's still a lot of money, but for critically acclaimed and well-built mechanical keyboard that will last you years, we'd argue it's worth the money if it's in your budget.

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If the gruesome look of cyberpunk RPG Death Trash doesn't quite do it for you, then perhaps the more grungey style of Mechajammer will. It's an upcoming open-world game influenced by 80s action films, and it's set in a cyberpunk city surrounded by killer jungles on an alien planet. In the trailer I've spotted: cool motorbikes, very good eyepatches, and futuristic guns that make very good "pewpewpew" noises.

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If you're looking for a game like Rimworld that zooms you up to the stars to organise a space station, rather a land colony, then you might be interest in Starmancer. Developed by Ominux Games and published by Chucklefish, Starmancer is a space station management sim in which you play as an AI tasked with looking after squishy humans. It's heading to early access on August 5th.

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It was a weird E3. A lot of video games we already knew about, and more CG trailers than we might like, but there were still some notable announcements and gameplay reveals. While Kevin Hart didn't seem too pleased with his involvement in the festivities, those watching at home had an alright time.

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I'm not here for discussions on what "wholesome" means or the limits of its definition when applied to video games. What I am here for is to list every single PC game that was shown at this year's Wholesome Direct at E3 2021. There were a lot of great looking games this year, from bee conservation sims to beautiful puzzle games about putting things in order, to loads of games about witches for some reason.

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A decade ago, some fella named Jim Rossignol posted on RPS that the X-Com-esque strategy sequel UFO2: Extraterrestrials was due to launch in March 2012. Reader dear, it did not make March 2012. But UFO2 finally launched today, delivering more turn-based alien-busting in an X-Com way. Check out the gameplay trailer below.

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You can't buy a new graphics card for love nor money these days. When the RTX 3070 Ti went on sale last week, it followed in the footsteps of all new GPU launches this year and disappeared in a puff of smoke in 23 seconds flat. It's a real shame, as some of these new GPUs would be pretty decent upgrades if your current PC's starting to struggle a bit.

However, I put it to you that the real crime of 2021 is the current state of graphics card box art. It's just so... bland and sensible these days. Not like the good old days, when Palit's robo frog was giving you the evils from on high with a menacing grin, PNY's purple Verto face could turn you to stone with their piercing, cybernetic snake eyes, or... whatever the hell's going on with that goblin up there. Seriously, is that a glowing bagel on a stick? And what is with that terrible haircut? Oh no. Today's graphics cards don't know they're even born. So here's to you, GPUs of yore and their terrible box art. We miss ya.

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During Capcom's E3 stream last night, they showed new footage of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, which is coming to PC next month. Some of it will be fairly familiar to those of you who've dabbled in Ace Attorney, though they did reveal a couple of new gameplay mechanics: Dance Of Deduction and Summation Examination. I can't get over how that first one sounds like Herlock Sholmes has been spending a bit too much time on AO3.

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