Endless Legend is a truly wonderful 4X strategy game set in a fantasy world that really works to earn that “vibrant” descriptor, but that’s sadly where I have to end any talk about the game itself, so that I can spend the rest of this piece gushing about the music. It’s been some time since I last played the game, but the soundtrack is something I listen to with frankly alarming frequency, whether I’m working, playing another game, or going for a run outside....
If this sounds like a recipe for social disaster on a scale with Monopoly, don’t dismiss it out of hand. While you do technically have the option to undermine another player’s attempts to woo your love interest of choice, the sheer variety of romanceable characters on offer usually leads to a scenario where you and your supposed rivals are all interested in different monsters anyway. At that point, you sometimes get the opportunity to wingman for a friend and net stat boosts for both of you....
Mostly, I lived on the forums instead, talking the exact kind of absolute pish that now haunts kids forever. The internet should never have been given a memory. One of my first, cool teenaged internet friends came out to me as bi (I replied with something like “I don’t think that affects me”. Christ, the egocentrism of it). Another tricked a rando into thinking they were being traced by the FBI....
Like Theme Park before it, you’re tasked with running a profitable amusement park, with different ‘worlds’ providing themes - horror, space, jungle that kind of thing. You can only advance to a new theme park once you’ve got enough money and golden tickets from your previous successful ones. And the themes are done so well! You have different rides, gift shops and food vendors all designed with lovely little details....
Both of them were fairly opaque, ambitious evolution simulators, marketed on the idea of creating your own life forms and seeing them develop over time. I guess the difference was, SimEarth was more about simulating the life of your planet - with oceans rising and falling, atmospheric temperature and composition changing, continents drifting and so on - while the creatures that evolved there were more abstracted, and didn’t have many characteristics beyond the taxa they belonged to, and their level of “advancement”....
The Last Campfire is a smaller affair than No Man’s Sky. Made by a team of three within Hello Games, the puzzle adventure involves the tiny hero Ember making their way through the world to rescue sad folks called Forlorn from their despair. Saving each of the Forlorn requires solving the style of adventure brain ticklers many of us are familiar with—block pushing and switch plates and the like. Over in their announcement post for the update, Hello Games say that this free update adds 20% more puzzles and the ability to replay them at will....
The trailer understandably focuses on the big, airborne explosions as these hulking jets do battle, but there are a bunch more screenshots over on its Steam page that show off its menus. The game isn’t just about combat, but exploring territory, carrying out acts of diplomacy with factions you meet, and gathering resources with which to build and modify your fleet. These are some of my favourite things. I’d been following HighFleet’s development for a while via Twitter GIFs, as it’s the work of Konstantin Koshutin, a development duo previously known for Hammerfight, 2009’s similarly physicsy dogfighter....
The official Homeworld Twitter account put out the news with the traditional image square: “We are moving the launch of Homeworld 3 into the first half of 2023,” says the message. “Delivering Homeworld 3 at the highest quality is the top priority for Gearbox Publishing and Blackbird Interactive because we recognize the special place this series holds in the hearts of players. This passion from players fuels the work and the additional time will allow us to make good on our commitment to quality in a healthy and sustainable way for all those involved....
Ubisoft clearly designed Assassin’s Creed Valhalla with a brochure of the former open, and I came away from my hands on demo feeling like the world they’d crafted was certainly beautiful, but largely devoid of things to do. Throughout my playtime, I craved the feeling Assassin’s Creed Odyssey gave me, of barrelling through a map littered with icons and crashing into its caves and forts and chests. I wanted to dash between markers, but instead I was left spinning in the English countryside....
So, how on earth does someone with no sight play games? The answer is a lot less complicated than you might think. The first thing you need to know about Sightless Kombat is that he can’t see - at all. I first spotted him on an official Sea Of Thieves stream a few weeks back. During the stream, himself and a crewmate demonstrated the many workarounds they use to help him to find his way around the game - the most creative of which was having said crewmate play an instrument so he could follow the sound....
The good news is that you can banish all that grime with some (mostly) bog-standard household cleaning items. This guide on how to clean your PC will show what you need, and where to scrub. To prove this isn’t some brazen rewite of a WikiHow article, sans the amusing drawings, I’ll also be putting my own grubby PC on the line. Behold, its customary “Before” shot: Follow along, then, as I reveal my slovenly shame in service of cleaner, cooler, quieter gaming rigs for everyone....
How to get to Inazuma in Genshin Impact To get to Inazuma in Genshin Impact, you’ll need to have reached Adventure Rank 30. If you aren’t there yet, don’t sweat it: by making your way through story quests, daily commissions, and Teyvat’s hidden chests, you’ll earn enough EXP in no time. After your Adventure Rank is high enough for the Genshin gods to deem you worthy of a ticket to Inazuma, you’ll also have to complete one prerequisite quest: Autumn Winds, Scarlet Leaves....
Just as my first go at Troy saw me play a battle built on the feud between bronze age miseryboys Achilles and Hector, this second demo, which allowed me four hours to guzzle down as much campaign play as I could, focused on the even more cataclysmic beef between Menelaus and Paris. I got to play a good chunk of game with each of them, but Menelaus got the lion’s share of time....
Rainy Season by Inasa Fujio sees you take control of a Japanese boy reliving a childhood memory of a rainy day in his grandparents’ home. It’s a cozy, wistful experience which brought back some wonderful memories of times past, but also reinvigorated my desire to really explore Japan now I’m much older. You see, in Rainy Season there’s this locked front gate which refuses to open no matter how hard I rattle it....
What was once Gods And Monsters is now officially Immortals Fenyx Rising. While we’ve known for a bit already, Ubisoft christened the name with a renewed announcement trailer during tonight’s Ubisoft Forward stream - reintroducing their open-world hack n’ slash with a December release date The name’s still a bit naff, but hey. It’s nice to get a proper look at their Olympian adventure for the first time since its announcement last year....
“Intel continues to join the global community in condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine and calling for a swift return to peace. Effective immediately, we have suspended all business operations in Russia”, the statement reads. “Our thoughts are with everyone who has been impacted by this war, particularly the people of Ukraine and the surrounding countries and all those around the world with family, friends and loved ones in the region....
In a statement to Tom’s Hardware, however, an Intel spokesperson has essentially said it’s not as bad as it sounds. The statement does acknowledge the warping (or “deflection”, to use Intel’s more engineer-y term), but says there’s no evidence thus far to suggest it drives load temperatures up to unsafe levels. The statement reads: “We have not received reports of 12th Gen Intel Core processors running outside of specifications due to changes to the integrated heat spreader (IHS)....
Alternatively, play some cool video games! Here are the ones that make me smile when I’m feeling blue.
