Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Upgrade your keyboard's looks with these $12 pudding caps from HyperX

2 months ago

Listen up: this is one of the simplest and most effective upgrades you can give your mechanical keyboard, and right now it's 50% off, just $12.

I'm talking about a full set of 104 double-shot PBT pudding keycaps from HyperX, which combine the excellent legibility of a black backlit keycap tops with frosted semi-transparent sides. This is the perfect pairing for RGB wave fanatics, but it looks just as nice with a tastefully chosen single-colour or other effects. I am a huge fan of these keycaps, and at $12 they're an almost essential purchase for mechanical keyboard owners.

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Author
Will Judd

Grab a 45-inch 5120x1440 200Hz LG monitor for $150 off

2 months ago

Double-wide 32:9 gaming monitors are becoming increasingly affordable, which is brilliant for anyone that prefers an ultra-wide aspect ratio but doesn't want to deal with the relatively limited desktop real estate of your standard 21:9 ultrawide.

Right now you can pick up LG's 45-inch 45GR65DC, which essentially combines two 24-inch 1440p 200Hz screens into a single titanic panel, for just $550 - rather than the usual $700. That $150 discount turns this into a great alternative to a traditional two monitor setup, letting you have tons of space for getting work done as well as a super-immersive ultrawide gaming experience - just lovely.

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Author
Will Judd

Nvidia's cross-game modding tools RTX Remix now in open beta

2 months ago

The Nvidia tools used to create that raytraced Portal mod and other fanciness are now in open beta, inviting all and sundry to jazz up everything from Deus Ex to Garry's Mod. Nvidia's RTX Remix tech lets people fancify old games by injecting fancy modern lighting, new models, textures 'remastered' by AI, new environmental decoration, and other such fanciness, even if the game doesn't have mod support. I'll be curious to see what people make with this, though I am wary of artlessly pumping new tech into old games.

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Author
Alice O'Connor

Does Palworld break Pokémon's copyright? We asked a lawyer

2 months ago

Pocketpair's monster-collecting survival game Palworld has rekindled the eternal debate over what exactly constitutes a breach of copyright. While the game's mechanics are more reminiscent of Ark: Survival Evolved and other tree-punching, template-arranging wilderness sims, its monsters owe obvious debts to Nintendo and Game Freaks' Pokémon games.

The developers have something of a track record on this front, with their older early access release Craftopia freely stirring in nods to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But what separates copyright infringement from a flagrant, but perfectly legal rip-off? Given that a lot of people are making the case for Palworld being copyright theft online, I thought it might be useful to seek insight from (ominous roll of thunder) an actual lawyer.

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Author
Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

House Flipper devs promise two big content drops and more DLC still on the way for first game

2 months ago

The developers of House Flipper have promised that support and new content for the hit renovation sim will continue to land throughout 2024 alongside plans for its newly-released sequel. On the list are two ‘major’ bits of content, along with bug fixes and what looks to be the tease of a restaurant-themed DLC.

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Author
Matt Jarvis

Here's what's coming up in the RPS Game Club in 2024

2 months ago

After a successful first outing, RPS Game Club is returning for another year of gaming show-and-tells, and this time, we're publishing the schedule in advance so you know exactly what's coming up and when. Handy, say, if you want to keep an eye on certain sale prices for games you've got your eye on, or you want to clear your calendar so you can join us for our end-of-month liveblog session where we all get together book club-style to talk about the month's pick. Each member of the RPS Treehouse is getting involved this year as well, so read on below to find out what's on the Club docket.

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Author
Katharine Castle

CD Projekt latest: next Cyberpunk game might have multiplayer, Witcher 4 enters "production phase"

2 months ago

The next Cyberpunk game from CD Projekt - currently codenamed "Orion" - might have multiplayer in it, according to co-CEO Michal Nowakowski. Please let it be some kind of deckhead 'passenger-seat-driver' mode, where you get to play a crusty celeb uploaded to another character's brain implants, who strolls around the landscape as a hologram, offering passive-aggressive commentary. Watch those corners, samurai! Hey, you missed an ammo pack. SAMURAI ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME.

It'll be a while till we find out for sure: Orion is still in the conceptual phase, with CD Projekt expecting to have about 80 people working on it by the end of this year. The higher priority in 2024, it seems, is the next big steaming helping of The Witcher.

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Author
Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Palworld's over zealous police are even worse than the cops in GTA right now

2 months ago

I'm still working my way through the grim realities of Steam mega-hit Palworld, but as developers Pocketpair begin working through their 50,000-strong pile of bug reports, I'd hazard to add one more to the pile: please, something must be done about this game's ruthless police force, who are so dogged in their pursuit of evildoers that they literally will not stop chasing you until you've been shot dead.

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Author
Katharine Castle

Piranha Bytes, devs of Gothic and Elex, are next on Embracer's chopping block

2 months ago

Embracer Group is once again doing sterling work to demonstrate the perils of consolidation. Piranha Bytes, who are one of well over a hundred studios that Embracer bought up in recent years, today posted a statement on Xitter saying "Don't write us off yet!". The statement goes on to say that they're "convinced they will succeed". Succeed at what, you might ask? Not being shut down by Embracer.

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Author
Alice Bell

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy review: the guilty pleasure boxset

2 months ago

For a series that's defined by its trials and elaborate murder cases, the greatest crime in Ace Attorney history is arguably one we never get to see or take part in. Okay, maybe crime is too strong a word. Miscarriage of justice is perhaps more appropriate, and specifically that of Apollo Justice, the cover star of this latest trilogy in Capcom's beloved lawyer 'em up. Except poor old Apollo isn't really what holds this collection of Ace Attorneys 4, 5 and 6 together at all. Sure, he features in all of them, but at the end of the day, it's still the series' original bluffer supreme Phoenix Wright who heads up most of the casework here, relegating his new protegee back to bench-warming duties almost as soon as Apollo's debut game rolls its credits. What's more, he quickly has to share that space with Athena Cykes, another new hotshot lawyer that enters the firm in Dual Destinies and continues the scrappy defence trifecta in Spirit Of Justice.

Author
Katharine Castle

Screenshot Saturday Mondays: Cutting through the crypto spam

2 months ago

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 was caught by dozens upon dozens of spam accounts hijacking the tag to promote cryptocurrency garbage. Twitter's journey to uselessness continues. But after reporting dozens of accounts in the vain hope that Twitter might at least knock these particular bots offline (knowing it'll never actually address the wider problem), I was delighted to admire a great many attractive and interesting indie games. Check out this week's pick!

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Author
Alice O'Connor

Piracy, preservation, and the devs who don't mind if you have to pirate their game

2 months ago

“Most of videogame history is alive and well due to the ability to pirate old video games,” Frank Cifaldi, founder of the Video Game History Foundation, tells me over a call. Last year, the preservation and archival non-profit put out a study revealing that 87% of games made before 2010 are out of print. “There's no way to access them without either pirating them or buying antiques from vendors. That's a scary place to be.”

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Author
Nic Reuben

Ease the wait for Silksong with the upcoming demo of this very Hollow Knight-looking Metroidvania

2 months ago

When Edwin popped the reveal trailer for new Metroidvania Deviator into The Maw this morning, he really wasn't kidding about it looking a heck of a lot like Hollow Knight. You've got a small, diminutive hero with a nasty little blade up his sleeve, a haunting and melancholy piano score, a beautiful hand-drawn animation style, and lots of mean-looking creatures to fight. Then again, the trailer also makes it clear there are lots and lots of spikes and traps to navigate here, which puts me more in the mind of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Either way, I'm well up for another platforming-Metroidy hybrid, and developers Gami Studio have announced that there's Steam demo coming in February.

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Author
Katharine Castle

Palworld updates coming for broken multiplayer, inaccessible servers and save data bugs

2 months ago

When I innocently went on holiday on Thursday evening, Palworld was that flagrant cash-in survival game where you can make Pokemon - sorry, Pals - shoot guns and work on an assembly line. As of this morning, it's among the most-played games in the world, one of just six to exceed one million concurrent players on Steam. Right now, it's doing almost twice the numbers of Steam's usual chart-topper Counter-Strike 2. We have entered the Pal Age, it seems - but how long will the feeding frenzy last? How much is owing to it releasing during the quiet time of year with a meme-ish premise, while capitalising on pent-up demand for a proper PC version of Nintendo's monster-catching series? Much will depend, I think, on how quickly developers Pocketpair can update it and stay ahead of the usual early access game avalanche of community requests and complaints.

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Author
Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Steam Deck beta client update explains what its performance settings actually do

2 months ago

The latest Steam Deck beta client update is out, and it’s made a pretty neat addition to the quick-access performance menu. A tap of the Y button now brings up a brief explainer for whichever individual setting is currently highlighted, a handy lil’ reference for anyone who wants to customise how their Deck (or Steam Deck OLED) runs without knowing exactly how things like TDP limits and half-rate shading affect performance. Clearly it’s also a brutal attack on the livelihoods of honest hardware editors who write guides to this sort of thing, but whatever, Valve.

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Author
James Archer

The Maw 22nd-27th January 2024

2 months 1 week ago

As W.H. Auden once wrote: "our apparatniks will continue making the usual squalid mess called History: all we can pray for is that Videogame News Writers may still appear to blithe it." Welcome one and all to another week of addled product journalism care of your ever-salivating host, the Maw, ravenous hype god and certainly not a silly metaphor I’ve come up with to make my job sound grander than it should be.

Author
Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Indiana Jones being first-person "separates" it from other action-adventures, says director

2 months 1 week ago

Indiana Jones And The Great Circle was announced at this week's Xbox Deveoper Direct. It looks good! There has been much discussion of its decision to make its tomb raiding first-person (with some third-person traversal and cutscenes), however.

In an interview with Lucasfilm.com, game director Jerk Gustafsson said first-person was "part of MachineGames' DNA", and that the perspective "separates our game from many other action-adventure titles."

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Author
Graham Smith

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth seemingly locks New Game+ behind expensive special editions

2 months 1 week ago

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth releases this coming week and takes the series' best boy protagonists to the new shores of Hawaii. It's one of our most anticipated games of 2024. There's a slight snag though: New Game+ mode, a staple of both the genre and the series, is this time locked away within the more expensive Deluxe and Ultimate Editions.

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Author
Graham Smith

What are we all playing this weekend?

2 months 1 week ago

After saying last weekend that I was aching for the cruelty of snow, I found it. When weather warnings popped up this week, I tracked forecasts and cloud movements for hours before booking a day off work to chase potential snow. When I woke up, it looked bad. Forecasts had turned. Many areas expected to get dusted went untouched. But me, after six hours of walking over thin, old snow, the good stuff finally started to fall as I entered a wood and approached a waterfall. Pretty magic, really. It was so cold that snow settled on my shoulders and my hair froze. Perfect. That's what I craved. Anyway, what are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!

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Author
Alice O'Connor

Work on PCs with this 77-piece $10 screwdriver set from Walmart

2 months 1 week ago

If you're working on computers, sooner or later you're going to have to face the facts and pick up a screwdriver set. Sure, that old Phillips screwdriver your dad gave you does the job most of the time, but wouldn't it be nice to put it somewhere safe and get something a little more adaptable?

Walmart are doing a good deal on a Hyper Tough 77-piece screwdriver set, which is $10 versus its regular $16 - a good deal for a set that includes everything you'd need for PC building and maintenance and has attracted a 4.5/5.0 star average after 245 reviews.

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Author
Will Judd

Arctic's Liquid Freezer II 280mm AiO is down to £70 at Amazon UK

2 months 1 week ago

Earlier this week I reported on a great deal for the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240, a 240mm AiO with excellent reviews, over on Amazon US. Today I'm back with a confusingly similar deal: an all-time low price on the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280, a 280mm AiO with excellent reviews, over on Amazon UK. It's down to £70 following a 26% reduction, a great price for an AiO that regularly beats less powerful 360mm alternatives.

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Author
Will Judd

Last Epoch continues to look like a worthy Diablo challenger ahead of next month’s full release

2 months 1 week ago

Last Epoch is gunning for the action-RPG crown long held by Diablo (and recently contested by the likes of Path of Exile and Grim Dawn). With the power of time travel - and a flash-looking launch trailer - on its side, the indie hopeful certainly looks set to put up a decent fight when it exits Early Access in just over a month.

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Author
Matt Jarvis

Genshin Impact 4.4 ends January with a Lantern Rite, lets you transform into a fish to explore its new area

2 months 1 week ago

Genshin Impact’s next update, version 4.4, will drop on January 31st. As well as bringing back the game’s Lantern Festival with rewards including a new outfit, Vibrant Harriers Aloft in Spring Breeze will bring the usual additions of new characters, quests and a boss. There’ll also be a new area showcased with some shiny new visual tech, that you’ll be able to explore by transforming into a flying fish.

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Author
Matt Jarvis

Palworld utterly misses the point of being a good Pokémon-like

2 months 1 week ago

For a game that's been repeatedly described as "Pokémon with machineguns", the first thing that strikes me about Palworld is just how un-Pokémon-like it actually is. To its credit, it does do quite a good Pokémon Legends: Arceus impression when you first step out on its big, Breath Of The Wild-style hilltop and take in the open world vista of its monster-stuffed starting continent. But if the opening moments of washing up on the island in nothing but your very scantily clad undies hadn't already given it away (seriously, why do shipwrecks always destroy the clothes you had on, but not your smalls underneath?), then the ream of tutorial prompts about punching trees to get more wood, building bases, putting pals to work on said bases, and the endless parade of crafting technologies you'll need to unlock to actually do anything on this godforsaken rock will quickly pull the wool clear away from your hopeful little face.

Author
Katharine Castle

Pokémon-with-guns game Palworld is so popular its servers are struggling to keep up

2 months 1 week ago

Palworld was obviously destined for success the moment a million games journalists and Twitter users wrote “Pokémon with machine guns”. (Acceptable alternate nicknames include “Eevees with uzis” and “Abras who’ll stab-ya”.) Having finally launched into Early Access on Steam and Game Pass this week, that prophecy has rung true as the monster-catching survival game has caught (ha, ha) so many players that its servers are struggling to handle the load.

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Author
Matt Jarvis

The Cub learns all the wrong lessons from Limbo's do-by-dying platforming

2 months 1 week ago

It always breaks my heart a bit when a game I've been looking forward to for a while absolutely biffs it on arrival. Having quite enjoyed Golf Club Wasteland a few years ago (now called Golf Club Nostalgia for, I don't know, reasons), I was quite pumped when developers Demagog Studios announced not one, but two further games set in the same post-apocalyptic universe. The first to come out (albeit only on Netflix at the moment) was the turn-based strategy game Highwater (also a bit of a dud, based on the early Steam demo I played last year), but it's the second game, The Cub (out today on Steam) that has prompted this current moment of teeth-sucking sadness.

I've been playing a bit of it over the last week, and oh man, it's trying so, so hard to be like Limbo and Inside, but just... doing quite a terrible job of it all. I was looking forward to any excuse I could get to have the soothing sounds of Golf Club's dystopian Radio Nostalgia From Mars show back in my ear drums, but alas. I simply cannot hear it over the sound of my own screams of frustration.

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Author
Katharine Castle

Moonlighter devs' upcoming bricky tower defence game has a demo out right now

2 months 1 week ago

We've known about Moonlighter devs' upcoming RTS tower defence hybrid Cataclismo for a little while now. But now we know a couple more things. It's set to release in Q2 of this year, and there's a demo on Steam right now if you'd like to give it a try. Expect to make nice fortresses out of Lego-style bricks, then defend them from hordes of horrors. I'd say that's a recipe for a good time.

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Author
Ed Thorn

TV show Leverage: Redemption has a great esports villain, even if its fake "fighting MOBA" is baffling

2 months 1 week ago

A "third-person cyberpunk fighting MOBA". A villainous esports team owner. A horde of teenagers Naruto-running through a convention centre. Even as a keen viewer of Leverage: Redemption, I was leery of the heist-o-rama tackling esports. And sure, its fake video game is baffling, but I was surprised by how many notes the esports episode hit right. With an Illumatrons team overworked to breaking point by an egotistical owner hawking dangerous supplements, it'll take a con, a frame, fisticuffs, and powerful cheat software to save the day.

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Author
Alice O'Connor

Kingsvein review: monster-splatting RPG goodness that leads with its weak foot

2 months 1 week ago

I disliked turn-based RPG Kingsvein at first. Quite a bit, in fact. An earlier version of this review would have been a very negative on, filled mostly with complaints and annoyances about opaque and frustrating systems, most of which I've since got over as the intent behind its design has become more clear.

It could definitely explain some things better, and its inscrutably tiny graphics remain a minor nuisance. But it's grown on me a lot, and though it may not be quite the kind of turn-based RPG I get on with best, it's an enjoyable one with a refreshing lack of bloat and timewasting, and with a class and combat system that will be pure catnip to a particular kind of player.

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Author
Sin Vega

Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned For Danger is the disappointing second album in this mystery series

2 months 1 week ago

The phrase "best foot forwards" implies the second foot will never be as good as the first, and that's unfortunately the case with Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned For Danger. It has a 10/10 pun name and introduces/strengthens concepts that I expect will become series mainstays as we continue with this project, but this is definitely in "difficult second album" territory. I don't hate it! But it's no Secrets Can Kill, and I think that's in part down to increased ambition, as our Nance is called upon to solve a poison pen puzzle at a TV studio.

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Author
Alice Bell

Diablo 4's Season 3 developer update reignites "controversial topic" of how to pronounce WASD

2 months 1 week ago

Earlier this week, Blizzard announced what's coming up in Season 3 of Diablo 4, and underneath the mountain's worth of lore and loot updates, there was the surprisingly good news that WASD key controls were finally being added to help provide even more accurate and precise movement in the game over the series' traditional mouse clicks. Not that any of them could decide how to actually pronounce WASD when it came to talking about them on last night's Developer Update stream, though, as there were competing cries of "was-dee", "wased" and "double-you-ey-es-dee" all over the shop as they debated this clearly very "controversial topic" live on air. Read on for more details about what they're hoping to achieve with WASD controls in the game, but more importantly: how do you pronounce WASD? Let's get a poll up asap.

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Author
Katharine Castle

More layoffs as Behaviour Interactive and CI Games "adjust scope" and make "optimisations"

2 months 1 week ago

About 20 years ago, a travel company declared this Monday just gone, the 15th, to be the most depressing day of the year. They call it Blue January. Enter yet more studio layoffs. 2023's trend continues with Dead By Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive getting rid of about 45 staff, per Kotaku, while CI Games has laid off 10% of its workforce, including from Lords Of The Fallen studio Hexworks and Sniper Ghost Warrior studio Underdog (via GI.Biz).

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Author
Alice Bell

Roots Of Yggdrasil's gorgeous roguelike citybuilding is a real grower

2 months 1 week ago

Back in the depths of 2023's February Steam Next Fest, Roots Of Yggdrasil was one of a handful of games that really caught my attention. Not because it was another beautiful-looking deckbuilder (though that does seem to be a steadily growing niche of mine these days), or because its colourful, inkwash visuals had the air of a Norse-flavoured Okami about them (though it did also help). Rather, it was the way its roguelike foundations meshed with its freeform, but still very goal-driven turn-based building systems, giving you drive and purpose in your construction choices, while also being light and chill, with just the right amount of existential threat nipping at your heels.

It struck me that if, say, my best puzzle strategy bud Dorfromantik was ever turned into a roguelike, this is probably a good approximation of what it would look and feel like, which is, frankly, yep, I'd like that game right now, please. Happily, with Roots Of Yggdrasil now approaching its early access launch on January 24th, I'm very happy to report that it's come on leaps and bounds since that Next Fest demo. This is already a very moreish and polished building game, and I've been struggling to tear myself away from it as I guide my longboat of magic Vikings away from their impending Ragnarok.

Author
Katharine Castle

Destiny 2 will finally let you change your character's appearance, with one big limitation

2 months 1 week ago

If you want to change your Destiny 2 wizard's appearance, the only current method is to stash your wizard's gear in your vault, create a whole new wizard with a new look (after deleting the old to free a character slot, if needed), grab your old wizard's gear, then optionally replay any story bits to catch up. The MMOFPS has no barber, no surgeon, it's new character or nothing. After six years (longer, if you count the first game), Bungie are finally planning to change this. An upcoming update will introduce the ability to change your character's look—within limits. For drastic changes, you would still need a new wizard.

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Author
Alice O'Connor