Posts

Across the next fortnight, GTA Online players can claim $2,000,000 of crimecash for free just for logging in, while Red Dead Online players can scoop a free Bounty Hunter license as well as some free guns and ammo. Rockstar announced the freebies today while crowing about “another record-breaking holiday season” for both multiplayer modes, spaffing all sorts of claims against the digiwall. For example: December 2019 was GTA Online’s “largest month ever in terms of player numbers,” which is pretty impressive considering how old it is....

To use Halo 2 or 3’s tools, you need to own a copy of the MCC. You can grab the Halo 2 tools right here, and the Halo 3 tools over here. They’ve updated Combat Evolved’s mod tools too. Halo 2 and 3’s tools are similar to those in CE’s kit. “Guerilla” lets modders edit values or tags, meaning you can alter AI, colours, textures and more. “Sapien” is a level editor that lets you mess around with weapon placement, AI squads and more....

Of course, stacking up any RPG against CD Projekt Red’s juggernaut probably isn’t going to turn out too favourably for the stackee, so perhaps the comparison is a little harsh, especially when the bulk of King’s Bounty 2 - its turn-based, tactical battles - is clearly doing something very different to Geralt’s witchering quests. Nevertheless, the RPG element of King’s Bounty 2 feels a bit lacking by comparison. When Geralt talks to a cursed tree with that lovely voice of his, you just know it’s about to spiral into a complex, emotional side-quest with repercussions that’ll ripple throughout the story....

“We want to thank you for mixing with us. On December 19, we will be disabling FUSER’s live services and all sales of the game, as well as its DLC,” reads the statement on the Fuser site. “Players who already own FUSER will still be able to play the Campaign and Quick Play with any DLC they have already acquired. “Thank you again for your support and for all the amazing mixes over the years....

The puzzle: Take the following list of 12 words. Your goal is to come up with a single new word which relates to the three bold words at the top, but none of the others. Imagine you’re playing with a friend or family member, and you have to get them to guess the top three but no others. If they get any of the three words wrong based on your clue, you lose....

I liked Nero in Devil May Cry V a lot more. When we’re first introduced to Nero in this game, he’s missing half an arm. He’s still incredibly serious at this point, but then who wouldn’t be when their demonic arm gets pinched by the big bad guy? He soon loosens up, partly because he gets some reloadable cyber arms that mix things up a heck of a lot more than a regular ol’ demonic hand ever could....

It’s a shame that ol’ Big Boss cast such a shadow over Mad Max, because it’s genuinely a lot of fun. Not many people played it, so I’ll go ahead and give you the gist: You’re Mad Max, you have a car and a shotgun, and you’re trying to survive in post-apocalyptic Australia. It’s a very simple game, blending Arkham-style combat with an open world that’s both barren and chaotic, and given an extra little spice with excellent extreme-weather systems....

Games this accessible are never this challenging. And vice versa. That’s the secret behind Don’t Starve’s success in my eyes. Of all the survival games I’ve played, Don’t Starve is by far the easiest for a newcomer to just start playing. You drop into a world with nothing but the clothes on your back and the potential to grow a magnificent beard, and all of a sudden you’re running around picking up carrots and bits of flint from the ground, and oh, what’s this?...

The inclusion of toilets in the game, in fact, is a pretty good illustration of just how granular a simulation it is. To build a spaceship on which to go out looting derelicts (for this is the meat of the game), you will need to piece it together tile by tile from scratch. Starting with just a dismal metal box in the void, you expand your vessel little by little as you acquire resources, beginning by building out the hull, and finishing with the placement of lights, wiring, air support, vegetable plots - and loos....

The Last Campfire is the gamebaby of Steven Burgess and Chris Symonds, who worked together on LostWinds at Frontier Developments before joining Hello. “Hello Games was born out of a close-knit team of four friends working together to create our first game, Joe Danger,” Hello boss Sean Murray said today. “We are still a very small studio, and while No Man’s Sky takes up a large slice of our bandwidth, we want to nurture creative new ideas from small teams....

It’s nice to see Valve have given this a fair bit of thought. There’s a spectator-only HUD with information like health and ammo counts, to give you a better idea of the player’s situation. Valve mention people often check their health by glancing down at their glove, rather than holding it up to where people watching on a monitor will be able to see. Streamers can also enable spectator camera smoothing, which will “smooth out or remove the rotational jitter that comes from playing a game in VR”....

In the new gameplay video you “follow the Young Protagonist as he navigates ancient puzzles, defeats Shades, and confronts mysterious, sentient cubes in this sacred place,” Square Enix say. A good third of the video below is a look at the prettied up world of Replicant that you’ll be visiting. It shows off the Barren Temple and surrounding town, complete with a good dose of sass from your sidekick the flying and talking book, Grimoire Weiss....

If reading isn’t your thing, here’s the roadmap presented in a video: I’m mostly interested in this for Santa. Agent 47 returns to Paris to stop thieves Harry and Marv from stealing Christmas, and if you complete the mission you unlock the Santa 47 suit. This new mission is called Holiday Hoarders and it’s a permanent addition to Hitman 3, though it’s also included in Hitman 3’s free “starter pack” for the duration of December....

I kinda pick up the feeling of survival horror games like the early Silent Hills? Exploring spooky places in a non-linear, collecting items, solving puzzles, dodging fights when you can, and being a bit crap in battle when you can’t. But first-person. And with even more meat. It’s still hard to tell, really, with the slow and deliberate way they’re playing in this video to show things off and try to capture a mood....

Excess heat is a PC’s natural enemy, and gaming systems – with CPUs tending towards higher clock speeds, plus dedicated graphics cards producing extra warmth inside the case – are especially at risk. So while overheating is usually caused by an over-ambitious overlock or improperly installed cooler, rather than being part and parcel of computer ownership, it’s worth understanding how to monitor CPU temperatures so that you can spot potential issues quickly....

If you’re interested in pitching an article of your very own to us, read on, as we’re about to explain how to be in the first category of people. This page explains where and how to pitch, outlines our current freelance rates, and makes it extra easy for you by explaining the kinds of articles we’re currently looking for. Where to send your pitch We currently have one commissioning editor:...

The keystone of Together We Rule is the Congress of Humankind, which Amplitude are calling an “inter-empire forum”. This’ll let you vote to decide global doctrines and try to resolve international conflicts diplomatically. Fitting in with the peaceful theme are the new Embassy, where you can work out joint agreements with other empires, and the Diplomatic Affinity for cultures that allows them to do fancy things such as declaring a temporary demilitarised zone....

Mundfish unveiled an “ULTRA DETAILED” 4K trailer for Atomic Heart’s photo mode, and despite their use of all-caps, I still wasn’t prepared for how detailed it would be. So far, I’ve spent quite a few minutes sitting on the eight-second mark. It’s a close-up of nostril with a slice of cheek. I can’t get over the detail of his pores and his lack of blemishes. To not even have a single spot, or a blackhead, in what must be quite a stressful and gritty environment is mightily impressive....

Don’t worry; I’m not about to take out a cane and start hammering away at the skeletal, equine remains of the “difficulty in games” debate. But I always remember that joke. I like him miming a book quizzing you on what the major themes of the text are so far, and then woomp-ing closed if you can’t answer, and I thought of it again recently while playing Inscryption.