Who among us hasn't wished to be a cool hacker from the movies, like Hugh Jackman in Swordfish (a classic)? In real life hacking things is apparently quite dangerous and hard, but in video games we can crack the system and mutter "I'm in" under our breath as often as we want. Naturally, there have been some fabulous hacking games on PC over the years, and we've collected what we think are the cream of the crop of the best hacking games to play on PC right now.
]]>Nerves have been sufficiently jangled as of late, not least thanks to the slew of action packed games that have landed in recent months. I crave an altogether more sedate beginning to next year, and so my mind turns to games in which violence, reflex or any other kind of unblinking attentiveness takes a back seat.
]]>My first racing love wasn't Screamer, but Moto Racer. It was so long ago, I can barely remember the case it came in. Instead of a cardboard sleeve, I think it was one of those slim plastic cases that closed with more of a snap than those chunky ones. What I do remember, though, is that I played the heck out of it.
]]>Flaschbier is one of the games I remember playing the most as a kid on the family Amiga. An obscure game with many similarities to the better known Mr Do! and Boulder Dash, this 2D platformer tasks the player with guiding a long-nosed alcoholic through each level, avoiding falling boulders and patrolling cops and trying to reach bottles of beer that to my eyes look identical to little pixelated Real Madrid football club crests.
]]>Is it possible to say that one thing is more unique than another thing? Doesn't sound right. Something's either unique or it isn't. But I'll be damned if Loop Hero is one of the most unique games I've ever played. Watching your hero cycle endlessly around a closed loop, auto-battling ever-tougher enemies while you play tiles in and around the loop to help your hero "remember" their surroundings and grow in strength? Leave off a moment, please; my "intrigued" button needs a moment to recover.
]]>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.
]]>For more than a year now, the events industry has been in something of a total war footing, as hundreds of thousands of minds have set themselves to the challenge of proving that a website can, indeed, be a live event. Many experimental web design gimmicks have been deployed in the course of this effort, in the same way that bizarre new forms of life tend to proliferate after mass extinctions. Some have felt inspired. Some have felt sad. And some, of course, have been E3's eerie, Picrew-esque avatar system.
]]>Yakuza: Kiwami is Kazuma Kiryu's first outing, but it's been remade to look even nicer and play even better. And by this, I mean that self-proclaimed "Mad Dog" Goro Majima will pop out of bins and manhole covers to fight you with even more gusto.
]]>Sundays are for giving your fresh laundry a good sniff. Before you bring nose to cloth, let's read this week's best writing about games.
]]>There is a running joke, every time Paradox Development Studio says it will announce a new game, and it goes like this: "Vicky 3!" That's the joke. You see, Paradox maintains a quartet of big, complex historical strategy series - Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Victoria, and Hearts Of Iron - which each abut each others' time periods in an extremely satisfying fashion, so that players can experience a full millenium of human history in excruciating, day-by-day detail.
But while Crusader, Europa and Hearts have all had new versions in the last few years, their poor idustrial age cousin has been languishing since the release of Victoria 2 in 2010, without even any DLC since 2013. And needless to say, fans of the series don't like to let Paradox forget this. Hence the shouts of "Vicky 3!", which have gotten more and more memeified as the odds of Victoria 3 actually getting made have dwindled. Only now... um... Victoria 3's coming out?
]]>Crusader Kings 3's Royal Court DLC, announced just now during the PDXCON reveal stream, is all about being a king. You'd think that was the case with Crusader Kings 3 anyway, given the game's title. But there's always room for more grandeur, and this expansion (the game's first, in fact, given that Northern Lords was dubbed a "flavour pack") will set out to deliver that - along with some correspondingly regal headaches to go with it.
As with most Paradox expansions, Royal Court will also ride onto your PC attended by a free patch. This free content will be no scurrying squire, however, dressed in tattered old sacks: it'll be a full overhaul of the game's culture system, which promises to make the dream of Viking Death Elephants real at last. I had a bit of a duck-billed chatypus with CK3's game director, Alexander Oltner, to find out what exactly will be in this big golden bag.
]]>I developed this new allergic reaction this year, namely that my eyes feel like they're being blowtorched if I don't plop some miracle liquid into them regularly. They water and itch and I spend a lot of time blinking, which sort of feels like how a rusty shop grate sounds as it lowers.
I realised quite quickly into my playthrough of Before Your Eyes that I'd forgotten to administer the holy water. And in a game where time skips forward as you blink in real life, I thought I'd royally messed things up. But it turns out that having an allergy actually enhanced the experience.
]]>It seems, after weeks of investigation, we have uncovered the truth: it was you, podcast listener, who was the culprit all along. Well, well, well. Don't bother trying to defend yourself. We can't hear you. It's all recorded ahead of time. Yes, this week the Electronic Wireless Show delves into our favourite mysteries.
There's only a brief intermission to discuss what counts as a mystery (mysteries being a topic we designate "Matthew Kibble", similar to "Nate Bait"), but watch out for the extended break where I choke with laughter because Matthew has to take a Rennie, live on air. We also introduce a lot of Adrian Chiles chat. Only time can tell if Chiles will become a regular podcast character. Also: yes I did get the episode number wrong. IS THAT A CRIME??
]]>For those unaware, Garrus Vakarian is a kind of space-cop who joins your squad in the Mass Effect series. He's a Turian, a race of aliens who look like spindly mummified cats made of pummice. The recent Mass Effect Legendary Edition means you can play the first Mass Effect and look at the mandibles on his face in higher definition.
He's also a potential love interest for a girl protagonist from Mass Effect 2 onwards. And Garrus appears to be a popular choice vis. alien smooching, much like how everyone just knows who is objectively the best Hollywood Chris. But though Chris Evans' supremacy is self-evident, I cannot wrap my head around wanting to shag Garrus. The title is not a facetious question. I am a curious person and would like detailed answers from the Garrus-fanciers in the comments.
]]>I love the premise of Deathloop: trapped in a timeloop, you need to assassinate eight targets before the day is out to stop everything from resetting. While you're at it, you're being hunted yourself - by another assassin who can played by your pals. I'm really hoping Dishonored developers Arkane will deliver something great with this one, and having seen an action-packed (if hands-off) preview, I can't imagine any other studio pulling it off.
I was given the low-down on all the weird and wonderful supernatural abilities at your disposal in Deathloop, and Arkane also showed off how missions on the game's 60s-themed party island can go down. While it offers you plenty of stealthy opportunities, however, it seems pretty different from the Dishonored experience, sometimes favouring the guns-blazing approach.
]]>I have played a lot of Mass Effect since the remaster came out on Friday, but I haven't really... done anything. "I know we're busy hunting for Saren," a member of the crew will say, before asking if we can make a personal detour for them. I look back at our flight history: the last six planets we landed on had nothing but space debris and the occasional Thresher Maw. Since picking up Liara, we've essentially been on a joyride through every solar system in the galaxy. Look, Saren could be hiding on any one of these uncharted worlds - it would be irresponsible of me not to check everywhere.
]]>Going by the art for top-down cyberpunk shooter The Ascent, I thought I'd be in for a thrill ride. It's bold and red and has these three menacing characters with guns that look ready for violence. All set in a gritty cyberpunk world as well? "Sheesh", I thought. "This is a recipe for a raucous time, and I'm not sure I'll be able to handle just how darn unchained it's going to get."
So when I got hands on with The Ascent, I was surprised to find I felt quite indifferent about it all. I'd expected to coat walls with human bolognese and clog up machinery with cooked frags, but the kitchen wasn't quite as frantic as that. Instead, I'd say everything was at more of a simmer as opposed to a rolling boil.
]]>I’ll be the first to admit it: I was too young to be playing this game when I did. Still though, when I opened my PS3 and me and my younger brother got Modern Warfare 2 alongside Little Big Planet, guess which one we were all over first?
]]>My favourite description of the Shin Megami Tensei games is that they’re everything the religious right accused Pokémon of being in the late 90s. Back then parents fretted that Pikachu was secretly conscripting children into Satan’s army, what with the paranormal tinge of its bestiary and the presence of ‘undead’ Ghost types. When, as we all know, the only Pokémon you need to watch your kids around is Mr Mime. Powerful Operation Yewtree energy.
All the while Shin Megami Tensei was doing its thing in Japan, actively encouraging you to negotiate with a snake with the head of a dog in order to secure your rule in post-apocalyptic hellscapes. Pikachu was just a diversion! Well played, The Devil, well played.
]]>Once you've reached a certain point in Resident Evil Village, tonnes of treasure symbols will appear on the map. One of these is the Beneviento Treasure, which is arguably one of the most difficult to obtain. I'll explain how to get the Beneviento Treasure in Resident Evil Village.
]]>As an on-off Arma 3 fan (250 hours seems like nothing in the Arma scheme of things), I generally find the base game not much of a game. Even with all the DLC, it’s still more of a sandbox for you to fill and play, but that’s what it was built to do. Others agree, which is why there are 89,000 mods on the Arma 3 Steam Workshop. Here’s some of the best.
]]>In the end, the finals of the 2021 Total War: Warhammer World Championship come down to an overextension. French finalist Alfredino’s Archmage of Fire, leading his High Elves from the back of a giant eagle, pushes past the safety provided by ranks of elite archers. His Russian opponent Evenstar's Wood Elf caster drops a Tempest spell. The arcane whirlwind plays havoc with Alfredino’s Archmage, leaving the elf caster wounded and near immobilised. It’s then the Wood Elves’ deadly arrows come, sealing the Archmage’s fate.
Losing a general is always a morale hit, but for players this practised, it isn’t always a death sentence. In this case it’s a disadvantage Alfredino, despite some excellent cavalry plays, never quite manages to recover from. The finals wrap, and Evenstar takes the lion’s share of the $4,200 prize pool. A relatively humble figure, as far as organised e-sports go, but this isn’t some sponsored, glitzy event.
]]>There's plenty of shiny good in Resident Evil Village which can be sold to the Shopkeeper for a helpful cash injection. One of these spots is called the Maestro's Collection, but it can be difficult figuring out how to access this treasure. Below I'll explain how to get the Maestro's Collection in Resident Evil Village.
]]>Sundays are for doing some guided meditation to wind down. Before you take a deep breath, let's read this week's best writing about games.
]]>I've started making a small pug dressed in a sailor outfit after several months not doing any crochet. In related news, carpet beetles got into my yarn stash, so now my living room smells of mothballs. I hope the weather this weekend is nice because otherwise it's going to be a long couple of days.
But in other news, happy kissing aliens weekend, everyone! Maybe if every single person in the world buys Mass Effect, it'll buy more runway for the devs doing Dragon Age 4! A Christmas miracle! That's how these things work, right?? But some of us are actually playing other things, it turns out.
]]>I love Mass Effect. I am the BioWare liker. Give me an RPG with a weird setting and some non-humans to be friends with and possibly smooch, and I'll have a hell of a time. When people ask "what is your favourite game?" (which used to genuinely be on the interview set questions for Gamestation when I worked there) I usually say "Mass Effect 2, but with the context of having first played Mass Effect."
As such, I am the consumer who is targeted by the Mass Effect Legendary Edition. All three spaceventure ME games in one remastered package? Sign me up! So far I've only played a bit of the first game, in its spiffy new 2021 get up, and all I can say is "Hooboy, this sure is some Mass Effect!". That's good, because Mass Effect is good. And it's the only thing that really needs to be said, because it doesn't really matter what any of the reviews say: you already know if you're getting it or not.
]]>The EWS podcast was on hiatus last week, because I was in a cottage where milk gets delivered in old-school glass bottles and then isn't drunk but left in the fridge unopened so it curdles but still looks new and then my cup of tea is ruined. But now I've returned to the land of wired internet, so too the Electronic Wireless Show returns with the best giants in games special.
We, once again, stay admirably on topic, talking about cool giants in games (because that was timely a week ago, just after Resident Evil Village came out. Matthew has done a really super Cavern of Lies, though. Like, proper great. Also, we have an update on Nate's fish, and Matthew has gotten into reading reviews of the fizzy drink Rio.
]]>Resident Evil Village has plenty of puzzles to solve, many of which can be quite difficult to figure out. One of these puzzles comes in the form of a piano, and it's not immediately obvious what you're meant to do. Below I'll explain how to solve the Piano Puzzle in Resident Evil Village.
]]>Resident Evil Village is filled to the brim with weapons, many of which can be upgraded with weapon parts. You can find many of these attachments by exploring the world, while some can only be bought from the Shopkeeper. I'll take you through everything you need to know about weapon parts, and give you the lowdown on all of their locations in Resident Evil Village.
]]>What with Stronghold: Warlords coming out the other week, I’ve been revisiting a few of the Stronghold games in my collection, and… crikey. Over the two decades and nine-ish games of the series, Stronghold has been on a right old rollercoaster, quality-wise. It truly is the Sonic The Hedgehog of RTS/city builder hybrids, eh? For a lot of people, Stronghold: Crusader Extreme was the nadir of the franchise. But other than the fact that “Crusader Extreme” sounds uncomfortably like some kind of fash energy drink, I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for it.
]]>Sometimes you want to write about two things, but don't quite have enough for either. I've noticed mech games, for example, are having a bit of a moment these last few years. It's not huge, and I don't see them absorbing everything like survival games or bloody roguelikes, but they're definitely picking up. It's a bit of a thin premise for a whole article though, right?
And then there's simultaneous turns. I want to cheer them on, to bewail the lack of games that dive into that rift between turn based and real time tactics and scheming. But so few games do it that I haven't found the champion I need. Thank goodness, then, for Phantom Brigade.
]]>What if monsters were a kind of weather? That is the question Scarlet Nexus asks, in the form of an anime hack 'n' slash featuring swords and psychic powers. In this future, wub wub music gives way to smooth jazz as you control a crowd of militarised teens who struggle to flirt effectively, yet are entrusted with the future of humanity. Think Nier combat with a Persona 5 palette and some light friendship management. I had the chance to play the opening hours as one of its two playable protagonists (startled boy swordsman Yuito or straight-to-business mind ninja Kasane). I chose Yuito, because he too seemed not to know what was going on around him at any given moment.
]]>Readers will know that I love city building games, dating back to spending a lot of time as a child playing titans of the genre Zeus and Pharaoh. But because these were my introductions to the genre, I don't really go in for the big town-planning-paloozas like SimCity, because I find having to efficiently place sewage systems a bit stressful. I like chill things that e.g. definitely involve having to build a bakery supply line (see: Foundation).
Distant Kingdoms is an early access city builder - a little feature-light in some places right now, but with an imaginative angle I am enjoying a lot. It's a fantasy setting where you can choose from four standard fantasy races (human, dwarf, elf or orc) and, eventually, will have a bustling city where they all mingle together. And my favourite thing about it so far is that there isn't some tortured allegory for real life racism. All the races are basically described as, like, "a great bunch of best pals! :D" but with different hobbies. And my most favourite thing is that also applies to the orcs. They are chill hippies who like meditation and farming and I love them.
]]>Long before brands were falling over themselves to get a jelly bean version of their mascot in Fall Guys, Doritos and Microsoft were partnering up to bring you the actual best Takeshi’s Castle game: Doritos Crash Course.
]]>There's some valuable treasure in Resident Evil Village which can be sold to the Shopkeeper for a hefty sum of Lei. One of these requires Luiza's Key, but it can be difficult figuring out where to get it, and where to even use it. To help you out, I'll explain how to get Luiza's Key and where to use it in Resident Evil Village down below.
]]>It's big news in laptop land today, as the launch of Intel's 11th Gen Tiger Lake H-Series CPUs for laptops and Nvidia's RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti laptop GPUs has prompted a whole new swathe of gaming laptop announcements. I got to see two of them early in an online demo presentation: the 16in mega screen of the Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 (pictured above), and its large desktop replacement sibling, the Asus ROG Zephryus S17 (pictured above, right). Both look like very fine gaming laptops indeed, but it's the super narrow bezels on all four sides of the Zephyrus M16's display that have really caught my eye here. It looks absolutely gorgeous, and I don't think I've seen a more impressive-looking display in all my years of tech journaling.
]]>There are some game traits which you will know, if you have read a moderate number of my posts, are surefire Nate-bait. Settings which go big on the stark, WW1-evoking side of the “dieselpunk” identifier? Yes please. Bafflingly utilitarian, diegetic UIs covered in clunkers and switcheroos? Like and subscribe. Baroque, crypto-feudal science fiction cultures, where archaic royal houses persist in the middle of mechanised warfare on a chilling scale? Here’s my credit card number.
HighFleet - which is slated to come out in Q2, so sometime in the next few months - plots a course straight through this maelstrom of tropes, and comes out in a blaze of glory. And, admittedly, in a blaze of fire. But in a good way. Mostly.
]]>Reading Football Club are the exact kind of team absolutely no one cares about. They put the supporters through an emotional Gladiator gauntlet whilst the rest of the world walks on by, unaware of the fact that the team somehow failed to score against a Yeovil Town team with three red cards.
]]>Twelve Minutes - which you may remember as one of those games that came to your attention the best part of a decade ago, and whenever you see it pop up again with a new trailer you're like "Oh yeah, that time-loop puzzle game, with the husband and wife and policeman!" - is still not finished. At this point, though, Twelve Minutes is the closest to not not being finished it's ever been. Director Luis Antonio tells me it's going to be out "really soon", and that they're just at QA and bug fixing right now.
I got to play a small bit of it recently, and it's as intriguing as ever. It's a story of violence and domestic intimacy shouldered by just three characters: you, controlling a husband (voiced by James McAvoy), must protect your wife (Daisy Ridley) and home from a violent intruder claiming to be a cop (Willem Dafoe), who bursts into your flat and accuses your wife of murder. Most intriguing is that you're actually able to figure out how to overcome Detective Dafoe pretty quickly, Antonio tells me. "The game becomes more than stopping this guy, and more about understanding each character," he explains.
]]>There's a certain puzzle in Resident Evil Village which caught me out. It's in the Beneviento Mansion, a harrowing place filled with nasty things and plenty of head-scratchers. One of which involves a music box and flipping cylinders. To help you out, I'll explain how to solve the music box puzzle in Resident Evil Village down below.
]]>A fair chunk of your time in Resident Evil Village involves winding your way through Castle Dimitrescu. There's a point at which you'll move on, of course, but it's not exactly clear whether you can go back into the castle once you've reached that point. In this page I'll explain whether or not you can re enter Castle Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village.
]]>Resident Evil Village is all about scraping your way through a horrific sequence of events. Of course, a decent set of weapons always helps, but sometimes all you need is a good meal. Scattered around the game, there are three special animals which can be slaughtered for valuable ingredients. These can then be handed to the Shopkeeper for some very strong benefits indeed. Below I'll take you through where to find all the Rare Animals in Resident Evil Village.
]]>Sundays are for blending coffee beans in your flat and being acutely aware that it's very, very loud. Before you spin the blades, let's read this week's best writing about games.
]]>Apparently in the UK May is National Walking Month, neatly coinciding with me being in a tiny village with no wired internet, where the chief entertainment is "going for a walk." Well, I refuse. You can't make me, dammit. Instead I shall stay as inside-sitting-still as possible, and play games while ignoring my mum periodically coming in to tell me I'm going to get blood clots because that's the sort of thing she routinely does.
Let's find out what the rest of the cheery ol' RPS gang are playing this weekend, eh? I predict a few mentions of Resident Evil Village.
]]>240Hz gaming monitors remain some of the most expensive screens you can buy today, and the BenQ Zowie XL2546K is no exception. Costing a hefty £459 / $499, this 240Hz, 1080p esports-focused display is probably one of the costliest monitors I've tested in some time. It's a far cry from the £270 / $280 price of my current 240Hz pick in my best budget gaming monitor round-up, the AOC C27G2ZU, and in terms of overall image quality, the AOC still has the BenQ beat (more on that in a sec).
]]>Resident Evil Village is filled with little puzzles that'll either unlock some treasure or prove vital to progression in the game. One of these involves a bath of blood surrounded by some statues, and it can be a deceptively difficult affair if you miss out on the clues provided. Below I'll take you through how to complete the statue puzzle in Resident Evil Village.
]]>The dark gods of survival horror smile on you this day, child. Resident Evil Village is out now, beckoning you into its township like a big church bell. But wait, before you go tip-toeing through the disturbing cabbage patches of these zombievamp wolfpeople, or whatever they are, please come this way. I have a map for you. An itinerary of other small settlements. Here are the 8 creepiest villages in PC games.
]]>In Resident Evil Village's early hours, you may have discovered an Iron Insignia gate in Dimitrescu's dungeon. Well, once you've got hold of Iron Insignia Key, backtracking here will lead to some treasure. If you hadn't spotted this gate before, it's hinted at via a Treasure Map, which can be found in the same room as the F2 sniper rifle.
Below, I'll take you through how to solve the Treasure Map puzzle in Resident Evil Village.
]]>Resident Evil Village may be a horror game, but it's also filled with a great deal of shooting. Early on you'll start with a pretty weak pistol, but as you progress there are plenty of increasingly powerful weapons to find, purchase, or unlock. And it's easy to miss some of them, so below I've steer you through how to get all the weapons in Resident Evil Village.
]]>This gun seems to be absolutely ridiculous. The CARV 2 tactical rifle is looking like it’ll dominate the Warzone meta until further notice, so we’ve put together a guide on how to unlock this thing ASAP. Here are all the requirements and best loadout to unlock the CARV 2 Tactical Rifle in Warzone and Cold War.
]]>Welcome to spring/summer 2021, the year in which this endless hell enters its Thunderdome mode. We all stagger from our caves, blinking in the harsh daylight, to batter each other for the chance to order a pint and drink it in a freezing beer garden going "Yeah, it's not actually that cold today, is it?"
If you're anything like me you'll have already prepared by making knuckle dusters out of empty spaghetti hoop tins been getting loads of emails about wellness and mindfullness. I've been getting them from my hairdresser. I've been getting them from cheese companies that I signed up to once like a year ago because I wanted a massive box of cheddar. Pretty sure I even got one from my bank, which is weird. Businesses out there are very concerned that we stay mindful and well in this difficult time. But none of the tips for easy yoga stretches I can do on my lunch break have done me as much good as Say No! More.
Wikipedia defines a spiritual successor as "a product or fictional work which is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous work, but does not explicitly continue the product line or media franchise of its predecessor, and is thus only a successor 'in spirit'."
The amount of games that are – for my money – wrongly considered spiritual successors is wild. But, to be fair, I believe we did well this week. I think you could call every game in this week's Mystery Steam Reviews a spiritual successor. And that's good, because if you haven't picked it up at this point, that's the theme.
]]>It’s a beautiful day in the meadows of Viking survival game Valheim; I’m ambling about picking raspberries, looking for stones and promising-looking sticks. They don’t take long to find, and with trembling hands I attach one to the other, and create a crude axe.
I seek out the nearest tree to unleash my wrath upon. It takes a while to bring my opponent low, but eventually I am victorious, and the great trunk teeters and falls!
The tree comes down on top of me, and I die immediately.
]]>Resident Evil Village is finally here, continuing the story of Ethan Winters from Resident Evil 7 as he finds himself trapped in a bleak, wintry landscape full of tall vampire ladies, snarling wolf boys and more horrible nasties than you can shake an Umbrella-shaped stick at. It's also one of the best-looking PC games of the year by my reckoning, especially if you happen to own a ray tracing-capable graphics card. It runs supremely well, but it can start to chug a bit if you exceed your graphics card's memory limit. To help you get the best performance in Resident Evil Village, I've put together this best settings guide, telling you which settings to turn on (and which to dial back) to help keep those frame rates nice and high.
]]>Before revisiting the games I played as a youngster, I never really realised how much better a game can be when you’re co-operating with a teammate. Of course this goes for your team-based games like Warzones and Fortnites and Valheims, but in my experience, literally any game where I can get the homies involved improves the vibes tenfold.
]]>Whoever said "nothing is certain but death and taxes" never played Eve Online. The space-faring MMORPG has no central government to shake you down for road money, and space pilots are cloned anew after every ignoble death. After 18 years and countless updates, Eve is one of the longest-running MMOs in the industry. It predates World of Warcraft by over a year. It is older than Facebook. Alongside long-toothed MMOs like Runescape, it has survived where others have fallen. But surely even this infamous generator of sci-fi skulduggery must pay the final toll some time. Well, not according to Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of the game's developer, CCP.
"It's never going to die," he says.
]]>From the beginning of its inception, Yakuza was a game made for the adult male audience in Japan. It’s a point that its creators have previously brought up when interviewed about the games.
Yet, as the entire mainline series is finally available on PC, Yakuza has become an international hit for Sega, and I’m thrilled that many new converts and some of the most vocal cheerleaders are women. Coming to the latest entry, Yakuza: Like A Dragon (LAD for short), there are a lot of drastic changes to the formula, from new protagonist Ichiban to a turn-based JRPG battle system - but one notable shift is its relationship with women.
]]>It’s the science fiction fan’s equivalent of “what’s the deal with airline food” to point out that nobody on Star Trek ever seems to take a dump, but it’s still an observation worth making, from time to time. Space is an offensively difficult place for humans to live, after all - if we want to survive there, there’s a dizzying number of biological needs we have to cater to. And that includes wee and poo. As unheroic as toilets might seem, it’s chilling to think how grim a space habitat would become, and how quickly, without them. I salute Space Haven, then - an early access “colony sim” in a similar vein to Rimworld - for making bogs mandatory, aboard whichever ship you choose to construct with your crew of deep space oafs.
]]>Resident Evil Village is a blended smoothie of horror, one that covers a spectrum of flavours to suit various tastes. Those first couple of sips are delightfully complex. Dark and brooding. But as you drain the glass, it begins to taste a bit too fiery, a bit too wild, until you can't taste anything. In fact, it's spilled all over your shirt. Again?! Urgh, this happened last time.
]]>At first glance, Welcome To Elk looks like the bright and breezy cousin of Die Gute Fabrik's alien soap opera Mutazione. Both feature young women travelling to a new island community for the first time, and while Elk swaps Mutazione's balmy tropical forests for the frozen hunts of a small Arctic fishing village, each game plays out in a very similar fashion.
You spend a lot of time getting to know the locals, and every now and again you'll play a small, reasonably inconsequential mini-game to advance the story. But beneath Welcome To Elk's cheery cartoon exterior lies a tale of surprising depth and human tragedy, as the tales you hear and the people you meet aren't just made-up creations of developer Triple Topping. They're all people and events that are based in fact and have happened in real-life, and the resulting story is as affecting as it is disarming.
]]>Buying a new gaming monitor can add quite a bit of extra cost onto a new PC build, but the good news is that there are plenty of great gaming screens out there for less than £300 / $300. In our round-up of the best budget gaming monitors you can buy today, we show you that it's perfectly possible to get a great display with all the modern conveniences you'd expect from a top notch gaming monitor, including high refresh rates and even a 4K resolution in some cases, without breaking the bank. Whether you're upgrading an old screen or buying one for the first time, here are our top gaming monitor picks for those on a budget.
]]>Sundays are for getting those all-important squash to water ratios just right. Before you turn on the tap, let's read this week's best writing about games.
]]>What a world, what a world! Recently I read a book called The Appeal, which I enjoyed very much. The framing of it is a couple of junior lawyers going through a bunch of case notes they've been sent, and so the book itself is mostly emails and messages between the central cast of characters. You have to figure out the shape of what you don't have by looking at what you do. It's very good!
So, inspired by that, this week I've got three text-based games for you, but with a twist. They each do something a bit different, maybe in how they play with the format, or how they bring in interactivity. For a bonus, definitely check out the Pokémon parody in a font file that Lauren wrote about a couple of weeks back.
]]>Most humans will instantly grow attached to any inanimate object if you put a face on it (preferably a sad one, as if it needs your help). This is possibly so we won't immediately hoof any unattended baby into the oven, because using cold logic they are a helpless and easy source of food, but emotions tell us that they are cute and we don't want the baby to cry at the oven being all hot. Buildings Have Feelings Too!, a puzzle/city management game that's heavy on the puzzle, is the reason I will never again enjoy a video of Fred Dibnah explaining how to demolish a massive great industrial chimney, because now I know it had little arms and legs, and spoke with a voice like the sound of a heap of bricks shifting around.
It had hopes and dreams, that chimney. It wanted to be useful, it would have changed to a different kind of industry if you'd only given them the chance! Hell, it would have even moved to a different part of the city! But unfortunately doing any of those things in Buildings Have Feelings Too! is way more complicated than the simple process of turn oven on, put baby in oven, close oven door. Thankfully, a hotfix has updated the most annoying control issues so at least I no longer want to pull out my own fingernails while playing.
]]>Back once again with a topic that I suspect we may have done before, it's the Electronic Wireless Show podcast. This week we're talking about the best water in games, but we also take the time to discuss what we think counts as a sandwich (we are surprisingly on the same page with it).
Digressions, apart from the sandwich thing, are surprisingly few, although we make time to talk about what Andrew Ryan would be like if he took a trip to the London Aquarium with Matthew, and there's a pretty off-topic Cavern of Lies in there too.
]]>I think everyone breathed a big sigh of relief when Microsoft announced their upcoming DirectStorage tech would work with both PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 SSDs last week, as it means we don't have to necessarily shell out the seriously big bucks to benefit from shorter loading times once it gets released. Indeed, prices for PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs are still eye-wateringly high compared to their PCIe 3.0 counterparts, and you only need to look at the Adata XPG Gammix S70 on test here today to see that difference in action.
]]>Domina is a game about managing a stable of gladiators during the last days of Rome. It’s pretty great, once you realise that winning isn’t really the point of it. Winning is possible, of course, but doing so is an uphill struggle against wild balance issues, hellish RNG, and a rigid approach to permadeath. Honestly, it’s much better (in my opinion), just to enjoy it as an ultra-brutal, vaguely historical software toy about the horrendous cheapness of human life.
]]>Having namedropped Tropico in the very last episode, I discovered two things this week: the happy fluke that it coincides with the 20th anniversary of the first game in the series, and that after years of waiting to use "serendipitous", it reads far too pompously to open an introduction with it.
It's a perfect opportunity to bring up why I love the series, because that should counter-balance all the complaining I'm going to do. And I'm hinging it on this: I don't want Tropico 7. I want another Tropico 2.
]]>I don’t know why the Fallout trailers always bang on about war never changing, because war changes loads. War changes more than most stuff does, in fact, because people keep inventing new types of swords and bombs and such. Less so Total War. The basic concept behind the Total War games - a turn-based strategy campaign on a big map, with huge RTS battles - has never really changed, and it doesn’t really need to. Much like sharks, crocodiles, or Jason Statham, it’s one of those ideas that was a complete banger on the first draft.
]]>Upgrading to one of the best 4K gaming monitors could appear, in a year marked by furiously demanding games like Starfield and Alan Wake 2, to carry a degree of risk. 2160p play has always needed a beefy graphics card to push all those pixels, but is it worth making the switch when new releases might only run well on an absolute behemoth of a bleeding-edge PC?
Yes, in fact, it can be. You know what else looks good at a pin-sharp 4K? The thousands of other games you can play on PC besides the aforementioned GPU-melters. And even where those are concerned, there are more tricks and tools for getting them under control than there were when 4K monitors first became a viable gaming option. Upscalers like DLSS and FSR 2 are the most widely available, and newer versions – namely DLSS 3 and FSR 3 – can boost framerates further still. Far from this being a bad time to upgrade to 2160p, then, you could say it’s never been easier to get good performance at such a high resolution.
]]>For a long time, I’ve had a low-key yearning for more CRPGs with a historical setting - to me, it feels like a gold mine that’s barely been scratched at. As such, imagine my delight in discovering not only that a hefty one is on the way later this year, but that it’s about the good old Romans besides.
Expeditions: Rome is the third in a trilogy by developers Logic Artists, and follows on from 2017’s Expeditions: Viking (but not literally, since it starts hundreds of years beforehand and all). It’s an RPG in the Baldur’s Gate/Divinity mould: you create a character who slots into an established backstory, just as their life takes a dramatic turn towards exploring beautiful pre-rendered maps with a party of colourful personalities. Sometimes they have chats, and sometimes they have turn-based fights on a grid of hexagons. But crucially, sometimes they have to manage a roman legion.
]]>I'm elated I've finished action-RPG NieR Replicant Ver.1.22474487139, but also a bit miserable. I'm not sure how else to sum up this upgraded predecessor to NieR Automata, other than to say that it was utterly brilliant, and yet I never want to touch it ever again.
]]>Razer have released a new version of their ultraportable Orochi gaming mouse today, giving this dinky, mobile-focused mouse a fresh new look, a faster, more responsive sensor and not one, but two different wireless modes that both give you hundreds of hours of battery life. Dubbed the Orochi V2, this thing is properly tiny. Weighing just 65g with its bundled AA battery (60g without) and measuring a mere 10.8cm in length - a good centimetre shorter than your typical gaming mouse - even my tiny girl hands are enough to dwarf this symmetrical, but still very much right-handed gaming mouse, and I can only imagine how titchy it's going to feel for people with normal-sized man hands. Still, if you're after an ultralight gaming mouse that can really go the distance, the Orochi V2 is well worth considering.
]]>The end of Warzone Caldera Season 2 means you’ll want to find other ways of unlocking the season’s guns. Not to worry though, the LC10 is easy to obtain with a specific challenge and a bit of effort on your part. Here’s how to unlock the LC10 in Call of Duty Warzone and Cold War
]]>I posted Take That's "Greatest Day" in the Discord before Verdansk's final hours. A thumbnail of Gary Barlow, arms spread, bellowing at the skies: "TODAY THIS COULD BE!". I did this because a live event was about to usher in Season 3 of Call Of Duty: Warzone.
After roughly twenty minutes trying, I didn't get a chance to watch the nuke go off and blow Verdansk into the 1980s. Instead, I stared at a server queue, then proceeded to gaze at streamers crash to their desktop over and over again. I should've posted Johnny Cash's "Hurt", instead.
]]>Deck-building games are all the rage at the moment, but Signs Of The Sojourner is a very different kettle of cardboard fish. Instead of using wit and cunning to play a victorious hand, Echodog Games' wistful tale of a young travelling merchant trying to keep their tiny village afloat is all about using empathy and understanding to forge new bonds with people you meet on the road.
]]>Sundays are for gorging on a massive roast dinner slathered in gravy. Before you raise a knife and fork, let's read this week's best writing about games.
]]>When Rogue One: A Star Wars Story came out in 2016, most of us already knew how it was going to end: miserably. In the final scene, the protagonists brace for death - just after sending critical Death Star schematics to their fellow rebels - setting the stage for 1977’s A New Hope. All we knew up until Rogue One was that a group of rebels sacrified themselves for the future of the galaxy. This bittersweet ending offers a fatal catharsis to a doomed story that predates the original Star Wars trilogy: this is how they did it, this is how they struggled, and this is why living through the end mattered.
And now, after what feels like an eon of pandemic anxiety, death, struggle, and economic despair, we have the much-anticipated re-release of Nier Replicant. Sorry - Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139.
]]>When the embargo lifts and the discourse begins, I'm pretty confident the only thing developers are looking for is a Bestest Best from Rock Paper Shotgun. It is, after all, the highest honour that can be bestowed on any video game.
Some video games publications like doling out numbers, though. And, like the MSR that focused on games with Metacritic scores of 60 or lower, I'm very thankful for them today. We wouldn't have an episode of Mystery Steam Reviews this week without you. So, thanks, number-givers.
]]>Okami celebrated its 15th anniversary this week, and it got me thinking back to a series of articles I wrote about ten years ago (lawd) about the game's underlying myths and folktales, back when I was all young and pretentious and used phrases like "literary allusion" in posts with a straight face. I know better now (hopefully), but I still look back on that series fondly, and I'd like to share some of those stories here today in honour of the birthday of our favourite sun goddess. You might be surprised just how many characters are drawn from Japanese mythology, because lemme tell ya, Okami pretty much did the whole Wolf Among Us fairytale-characters-all-living-together schtick waaaay before old Bigby was even a speck in Telltale's eye.
]]>The Oxford English dictionary describes a bug as: "a sort of computer oops". It is the result of errant coding, mismatched texture, wonky physics or (sometimes) a briefcase. Developers must fight bugs day and night to safeguard the digital realms we call our playgrounds. Sometimes they lose that battle and a bug comes stomping ravenously into our game, ready to upset us. But sometimes that bug is not an annoyance or a game-breaker, but instead the funniest thing to ever happen. Here are 9 of the best bugs in PC gaming.
]]>Fit For A King is, very simply, one of the funniest games I’ve played. “Marry everything, execute everything, spend it all, go mad”, runs the tagline for this so-called “Henry VIII simulator”, and I couldn’t put it better myself.
]]>This week, after a post by Graham inspired a big discussion in the RPS Discord, the Electronic Wireless Show Podcast is having a best combat in games special. In a surprising move we manage to not have a huge discussion about what constitutes 'combat', but we do discuss what Batman would do if he went to the London Aquarium with Matthew.
Aside from that, there are surprisingly few digressions this week. Us, staying on topic? Armageddon must be upon us. But there is a moment where Matthew reveals that he basically thinks he should never be punished for anything, and Nate provides a bumper Mortal Kombat-themed Cavern Of Lies.
]]>Season 9 of Apex Legends brought one of the biggest updates to Respawn's battle royale since the game's release, introducing a new Legend, tonnes of map changes and balance changes, a whole new game mode, and a brand new weapon: the Bocek Bow.
The Bocek is, as of the time of writing, easily the most popular and powerful Marksman weapon in the game, so let's delve into the Apex Legends Bocek Bow stats for Season 10 and talk about what makes it so powerful.
]]>Oh, to be a sentient turnip. A little stubby-legged jackanape with a serene, blank smile, several very fashionable hats, and a fondness for destroying paperwork. An unlikely hero, is Turnip Boy: he is a turnip, he is a boy, and he has evaded some taxes (specifically, taxes owed to Mayor Onion, an onion who is also the mayor). In this specific case, it's pretty clear that the tax thing is a flimsy excuse for Mayor Onion to get Turnip Boy to carry out dangerous and annoying errands. But off you pop on a colourful 2D action adventure anyway.
]]>Season 9 of Apex Legends is fast approaching, and wouldn't it be just like Respawn to offer players a secret challenge they can complete which offers them a glimpse at what to expect when the new Season drops?
Learn about the corrupted keycards and the "Invitation required" holo spray challenge currently overtaking Apex Legends; and use this walkthrough to find all the holo spray locations across both Olympus and Kings Canyon.
]]>For the last year, there's been one SSD that's completely ruled the roost in my best SSD for gaming rankings, and that's the WD Blue SN550. Few SSDs have come close to matching its fast read and write speeds and competitive pricing, and it remains one of the best value NVMe drives you can buy today. However, we might finally have a worthy alternative to the SN550, and that's Crucial's P2.
]]>Outriders, unlike certain other looter shooters, is an entirely PvP-free affair. While this may be a disappointment to some, the good news is that there are no qualms about giving the player the tools to become hilariously overpowered. No matter which of the four classes in Outriders you pick, you'll have the ability to become godlike with the right setup.
But despite the potential for growth in all four classes, we all know one of them must be labelled the very best class in Outriders. We'll go over the strengths and weaknesses of all four classes below, along with our thoughts on the strongest class in the game right now.
]]>The tutorial for medieval first-person slasher Chivalry 2 felt like I'd attended my first zumba class run by Stanis Boratheon. I was told the art of warfare lay in the swing of your hips, not your sword. And that to riposte, you match your opponent's movements. But to break someone's guard you use your legs. Got that? Orders were barked, "sir yes sir", and I barely kept pace.
Then I was enlisted into the Siege of Rudhelm. I'd need to stoically defend a fortress with all the moves I'd learned, and I was stressed out. So when the gates opened and I roared my battlecry, naturally, the little I remembered escaped from my mouth and into the breeze. I swung wildly with zero hip-action expecting to get cut down, only to find it worked quite nicely. I even sat down mid-battle and remained unscathed. Then I realised no-one knew what they were doing at all, and I relaxed.
]]>In the months running up to the release of Ori And The Will Of The Wisps last year, I was gripped by an irrational fear. I'd loved Moon Studio's first Ori adventure, Ori And The Blind Forest, with a fierce and fiery passion. Even now, I still love the bits everyone hates, from its ineffectual combat to its heinous boss escape sequences. But as news struck that its sequel would be taking a slightly different approach to its Metroid-like structure, favouring branching, almost Zelda-style hub worlds, and ditching its unique save system, I was worried that Will Of The Wisps might end up losing what had made Blind Forest such a special game for me. As I said, the fear was irrational, as Will Of The Wisps wasn't just better than Blind Forest; it was probably about as perfect a sequel as I could have possibly hoped for.
]]>Ten years ago, Valve released Portal 2. I’d like to think that the ultimate goal of Portal 2 was to get me to write an article about its tenth anniversary, so my ego wouldn’t let it go by. 10 is a nice age to celebrate, and it’s also the perfect number of random facts to pluck from the history of one of Valve’s most celebrated games. Also, I get to call them “decafacts”.
]]>Want to learn how to master Bangalore and her abilities in Apex Legends? Valkyrie was Season 9's addition to the Apex Legends roster, and she brought some of the most powerful abilities we've yet seen in the game. You should have a read of our Valkyrie tips and tricks below if you want to master her high skill ceiling.
We cover each of Valkyrie's abilities in great detail on this page, with stats, tips, and strategies galore. We also talk a little about Valkyrie's backstory to catch you up on how Respawn have started to blur the boundaries between Apex and the Titanfall series.
]]>When Sennheiser's gaming division transformed into EPOS last year, one of their first orders of business was the release of their GTW 270 Hybrid wireless earbuds, an expensive, but highly compact take on a traditional gaming headset. Despite their tiny size, these earbuds had a built-in microphone and everything, but their short battery life of five hours made them less than ideal for prolonged gaming stints. The good news is that EPOS are now in the process of refreshing Sennheiser's more traditional line-up of gaming headsets, starting with the EPOS H3. This is the evolution of Sennheiser's GSP 300 and 350 headsets, the latter of which I thought was a decent, if rather chunky £115 headset back when I reviewed it in 2017.
]]>I'm writing this just a day or so after Hunt: Showdown celebrated its three-year anniversary with an event which caused it to break its all-time concurrent players record. Of course, that would be more noteworthy if the game hadn't been breaking its concurrent players record with increasing frequency over the past several months. It seems that word has started to spread at last that Hunt, with its wonderfully unusual approach to battle royale and competitive multiplayer, is well-worth the average player's free time.
]]>A Legendary farm in Outriders is a location or method where you can easily get guaranteed Legendary items as loot. And seeing as Legendaries in Outriders are often outrageously powerful, I think everyone can see why Legendary farms are quite the hot topic.
Below we'll walk you through two contenders for the best Outriders Legendary farm that we've found so far, and exactly how to go about farming those Legendaries so you can perfect your character's loadout.
]]>Any talk about the best armor in Outriders has to begin with a discussion of the Legendary armor sets and pieces. These powerful gold sets of gear boast enormous power and scaling potential thanks to their unique set bonuses and mods, and can form the backbone of many a fine Outriders loadout. Below you'll find a complete list of every Outriders Legendary armor set and one-off armor piece in the game and the benefits they'll grant the wearer.
]]>Outriders, like many looter shooters, saves its true potential for overpowered builds for the rarest pieces of loot. If you want the best guns in the game, you should look no further than the Outriders Legendary weapons, which each sport a unique and often devastatingly powerful weapon mod. We've gone through every single Legendary weapon in Outriders below, with full details on their weapon type and attached mods.
]]>Diddy 13in laptops are all well and good for taking on the road, but their compact shape and super svelte innards rarely leave much room for powerful gaming components. Indeed, the best graphics chip you'll often find on 'gaming' laptops like these is the humble Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU, as we saw on Razer's Blade Stealth 13 at the end of last year. It's the Max-Q version of this entry-level graphics chip that sits at the heart of the new Asus ROG Flow X13 as well, providing a decent 1080p gaming experience as long as you're prepared to make do with playing at Low to Medium quality settings. On the Blade Stealth 13, it was a decent trade-off considering the laptop's tiny form factor. The Asus ROG Flow X13, however, has a rather nifty secret weapon that turns this pint-sized gaming laptop into an RTX 3080 powerhouse. Enter the Asus ROG XG Mobile eGPU.
]]>Sundays are for putting on your new glasses and realising your should've got your eyes tested years ago. Before you book an appointment, let's read this week's best writing about games.
]]>Last time I did one of these (which was a few weeks ago because I've been away, whaddaya want from me?) I said I was going to go and poke around on Itch.io, because they have as much - indeed, probably more - porn than Steam, but they don't try and surprise me with it by pretending it's something else. And I did go poke around on Itch!
None of these game are porn, though. They're a collection of fun Pico-8 games you can play in browser, and my other abitrary way of linking them this time is that I really liked the what-it-says-on-the-tin approach to naming that the developers have employed for all of them. Makes me think they're fun, devil-may-care jaunty types of people.
]]>
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