After the events of Far Cry 5, Ubisoft rightly turned up the volume for its regularly scheduled stopgap game. Rather than place you in the role of gun-wielding saviour, it allows you to become a superhero... who also happens to be quite handy with firearms.
]]>HDR on PC hasn't improved much in 2019. Despite there being more HDR gaming monitors than ever before, the very best gaming monitors for HDR continue to be quite expensive compared to non-HDR monitors, and the situation around Windows 10 support for it is still a bit of a mess. However, provided you're willing to fight through all that, then the next step on your path to high dynamic range glory is to get an HDR compatible graphics card.
Below, you'll find a complete list of all the Nvidia and AMD graphics cards that have built-in support for HDR, as well as everything you need to know about getting one that also supports Nvidia and AMD's own HDR standards, G-Sync Ultimate and FreeSync 2. I've also put together a list of all the PC games that support HDR as well, so you know exactly which PC games you can start playing in high dynamic range.
]]>95% of Assassin's Creed Odyssey players kept subtitles on, Ubisoft have revealed, and 50% of The Division 2 players are currently playing with them on too. These surprising statistics and more come from a wee tweetblast this week confirming that yes, subtitles are hugely desirable even in murdergames. Even as someone who often plays with subs on, I'm surprised by the numbers shared by David Tisserand, an accessibility project manager and user research fella at Ubisoft Montreal. Subs: they are good. Subs in video games: they could be better. Conclusion: more and better subs, video games, please and thank you.
]]>Hot pink is the new post-apocalyptic beige in Far Cry: New Dawn, and to help you get the wild, fluorescent fauna of Hope County looking its absolute best on PC, I've put together this handy Far Cry: New Dawn graphics performance guide. Below, you'll find everything you need to know about how to get the best settings for Far Cry: New Dawn, as well as what you need to do in order to get that lovely 60fps frame rate from today's best graphic cards. So, if you can't wait to double-jump into Hope County's newly-acquired nuclear Northern Lights with an unhinged granny in tow, then read on.
]]>John had the presence of mind to take today off, after flying back from San Francisco on Sunday. Young Matt and I got a red eye that took off on Friday night and landed on Saturday afternoon. I didn’t sleep for 30 hours, then slept for 12, was wired for the next 16, and then slept for another four. Which brings us to today, when I am writing these charts, unsure which meal I should be having next and shaking off a lingering dose of The Fear, which I get from long haul flying more than I ever did from hangovers.
With that in mind, it’s me, back once again with the ill behaviour, to fill in doing the Steam Charts. I’m very much flying by the seat of my pants here, so let’s see what I come up with, shall we?
]]>Of course the original editions of the Steam Charts focused on those maps used by the early pioneers of steam-based exploration, so this week we take a historical look back at the origins of your favourite game series. For just one week, put aside your modern electricity-based computing, and come on a journey through time.
]]>When I was a kid, my parents would often take me and my sister out “twitching,” a weird word for bird watching made weirder by the emergence of the streaming platform. When we travelled, they would take heavy reference books showing off every species that occurred in the area, and tick them off as we saw them, tallying them up at night to add to a running total that usually reached the hundreds.
I didn’t think this habit had rubbed off on me until I started playing Far Cry: New Dawn.
]]>A ten-sided device appears in your hands. Each side features a carving of a wild animal, but three of the sides depict the face of an RPS writer instead. Look, there’s Matt. And yes, this one is John. The side with Brendan is a bit grubby, but it’s unmistakeably him. Smells a bit weird. What could this mean? Of course! It’s the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. Perhaps if you press down on these three journo mugs at the same time… aha! A telling click, and the sound of a delicate MP3. You’ve discovered the latest episode. They seem to be talking about puzzle games.
]]>The game you like isn't as good as the game I like. When you like the game you like, you are made to look a fool!
Find out why in this week's Steam Charts.
]]>Alice is on holiday, so this week it's me, Alice, filling in for Alice. We're deep in the trenches now, the game trenches, the February onslaught of releases. Metro is only just in our rear view mirror, and Brendan is almost a broken man. Anthem is in its bizarre week of early release for people who'll pay for EA's special version of Origins. Apelegs is taking the Battles Royales by storm. There is too much to do, so I might not remind people to send me what they're playing, just so I don't have to put it in this document, because I am busy playing some of the games that we have to play. I know, what a ridiculous thing to moan about, hey?
What are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!
]]>The vivid post-apocalyptic playground of Far Cry: New Dawn’s Hope County is now open for visitors. Liberate some bases, maybe set some things on fire, definitely come across some weird political subtext that Ubisoft insists actually isn’t there – it’s a Far Cry game, you probably know roughly what to expect.
“This apocalypse has been too much fun,” say the twins, as they run around with guns and trucks and cause explosions in the launch trailer (below). Except they’re the antagonists, and you're the hero, so I'm sure it's completely different when you're the one enjoying the chaos.
]]>As part of Ubisoft's latest round of mostly positive financial reports (which, unlike Activision, were not accompanied by massive layoffs) CEO Yves Guillemot shed a little light on the publisher's decision to thumb its nose at Steam and make The Division 2 exclusive to the Uplay and Epic stores. In his words, it's not just about the smaller cut Epic takes, or whatever up-front money may or may not have changed hands as part of Epic's fulsome attempts to ring-fence big names within its new store.
It's not even, if I'm correctly reading between the lines, about Epic. Instead they suggest that people not buying from Steam means that Division 2 pre-orders on their own store, Uplay, are "six times higher".
]]>In many ways, Far Cry New Dawn is the most Far Cry game the series has turned out. Sure, the apocalypse may have ushered in an era of goons with health bars and levels. But there’s also a bit where you take some drugs so you can survive a boat ride to a man who gives you more drugs, in order to punch a bear that represents your soul.
It’s also got a blummin' double jump.
]]>With a recent press event where people got their first chance to play Far Cry New Dawn, it only seemed fitting to put this into our roundup for the game. It seems to be more experimental, with RPG system being included for the first time. In this guide, we'll go over everything we know, from the release date, to the trailers and the editions of the game that are available.
]]>Wow 2019 is a thing, huh? How are we all doing? Relieved? Bowling a hangover and a nagging sense of trepidation? Maybe you work in retail and, surprise! You were supposed to be at work half an hour ago. Time loses all meaning post-New Year break, doesn't it? You're just sort of adrift in a sea of empty Quality Street wrappers. That's okay. We're all there too.
Pretty soon the grim news cycle is going to grind to life again. Only three months until -- no! Don't think about it. We still have a moment here, on the crinkly, brightly coloured waves. Listen to their quiet rustling and think, not about reality, but about games! Yes, lovely, shiny games. We can bury our face right in them. And from that point of view the next 12 months are looking pretty good. Here's our selection of the games we're most looking forward to next year.
]]>That post-apocalyptic new Far Cry teased earlier this week is Far Cry: New Dawn, Ubisoft announced tonight, a standalone sequel to Far Cry 5 set after seventeen years after that game's nuke-slinging ending. It'll send us roaming the colourful wasteland of Hope County and beyond to thwart a vicious gang of raiders led by twin sisters by doing the usual Far Cry explore-o-craft-a-shooting. What you most need to know is: it will have a Shiba Inu dog and giant pig as potential animal friends. Oh, and it's due in February. Here, watch the announcement trailer.
]]>It's looking like the next Far Cry is going to be set after the end of the world. Teasing a full announcement for The Game Awards tomorrow night (which Alice Prime will be burning the midnight oil to cover), the trailer below gives us a little taste of the things to come. Ubisoft manage to hold back from declaring that 'war never changes', but that pneumatic saw-crossbow sure looks Mad Max-ish to me. Ubisoft call it "a new Far Cry game" but it's not yet clear whether it will be a direct sequel, a spin-off, or what.
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