The comments are back! The comments are back! Guys! Guys! The comments are back!

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The Samsung Pro Plus is, alongside the Logitech G502 Hero, one of those hardware products that rocks up at literally every single sales event in the calendar. Just an endless cycle of microSD cards, mice, microSD cards, mice. At least it’s a good'un, though - the best Steam Deck-compatible microSD of them all, in fact. Previously, its one weakness was the lack of a truly cavernous 1TB model, but that was amended earlier this year, and now that capacity is getting its first major saving as part of Black Friday 2024.

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Cyber Knights Colon Flashpoint does not lead with its best foot. This is easier to shrug off while it's still in early access, but I will confess some relief when I read that the Trese Brothers (It's pronounced "Trese") nudged their estimated release date back to 2025. It needs a bit longer. But I'm about ready to start recommending it.

I'm a tad biased by my love for their previous Star Traders Colon Frontiers, an interest in mercenary management, and a wish for more turn-based tactics games that aren't bloody XCOM again. That I have reservations about what CKF hasn't yet nailed down is in part a symptom of high expectations. And because despite carrying over some design ethos from Frontiers, Cyber Knights is a very different kind of game.

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To be clear, I still think the best graphics card deal of Black Friday week is that RTX 4070 Super offer and oh no wait that one’s gone now. But even if hadn’t been ecommerced to death, there’d still be a way to get the upgraded ray tracing and DLSS 3 frame gen tools of the RTX 40 series for less cash still: plucky 1080p contender, the RTX 4060, whose deals are still very much available and kicking.

In the UK, the best available prices are for the MSI GeForce RTX Ventus 2X Black edition, which is the partner card I happen to own myself – and has become the effective go-to GPU for RPS game performance tests. Over in the US, meanwhile, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Gaming OC is the most affordable of all; it’s a chunkier design than that of the compact Ventus 2X, though that’s mainly just the tradeoff for having an extra fan. These cards were already on the cheaper end of the RTX 4060 spectrum, and now they’re £30 / $35 off in the sales. Bargain.

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As far as Black Friday deals go, the Logitech G502 Hero isn’t so much low-hanging fruit as it is a root vegetable. Every year, this damned multi-buttoned mouse goes on sale, and every year, I’m powerless to avoid writing about it. Can’t even be bothered to take a different header image photo. It’s partly your fault, you know. You like it too much.

This time it’s down from £80 to £26 in the UK (£27 outside the Bezos Empire), which isn’t quite an all-time low, but is pretty close – and a silly-good price for such a capable mouse in any case. Its US discount price of $35 ain’t half bad either, though I notice Amazon US is shouting louder about knocking the newer G502 X down from $80 for $45. That’s mostly a fine mouse as well, though I find its redesigned scroll wheel a bit too much on scratchy side. Of the two, I’d stick with the classic.

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In many ways, the SteelSeries Apex 3 TKL and Apex Pro TKL are about as different as tenkeyless gaming keyboards get: the first is a budget-friendly membrane ‘board, the second a luxurious all-mechanical number with adjustable switches and its own little OLED display. Yet they’re also both very good at what they do, and are now sharing Black Friday discount honours.

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Black Friday is usually heaving with discounts on NVMe SSDs, and today’s is no exception. Rather than do the usual routine of just suggesting the WD Black SN850X again, however, there’s no better SSD-for-yer-money deal right now than the Crucial T500, which is going for an exceptionally low £58 right now for the 1TB capacity – down from £120. The 2TB version is also an excellent buy at £100, and there are decent offers up for grabs in the US too.

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Okay okay, just one> more handheld deal then I’ll look at some desktop stuff. But here’s a properly chunky Black Friday discount on the most endearingly out-there Steam Deck rival to date, the Lenovo Legion Go: the 512GB model has shed hundreds of pounds/dollaridoos to fall all the way to £479 / $500. That’s really not a lot for something that goes full luxe on its display and build quality, not to mention its party trick of letting the two controller sections split off, Nintendo-switch style, with one acting as a portable mouse.

This is also the cheapest that the Legion Go has ever gone, at least in the UK, so could make a good pickup if you’ve been wanting something with more power than the Steam Deck range but have been put off by the Legion Go or Asus ROG Ally X’s high launch pricing.

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Happy Black Friday, I definitely don’t say with a gun pressed into my spine. These days, of course, Black Friday sort of just starts whenever retailers feel like it, which is why we’ve already seen the kind of Steam Deck microSD deals that I’d have normally spent this morning writing up. Instead, here’s an alternate for the more eager screwdriverists among you: up to 50% off the Crucial P310, currently our top pick of the recent breed of Steam Deck replacement SSDs.

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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl challenges you to survive the Zone, a land where the rules of nature are more like half-hearted suggestions and death may come from a mutant’s fang as quickly as a bandit’s bullet. But what if you could not only survive it, but tame it?

I am Bohdan Beastmaster, aspiring wrangler of all the radiation-twisted insults to God that occupy the Zone. One of its rogue Artifacts exploded my flat, and rather than find a place on SpareRoom, I’ve gone for the easier and safer option of venturing into the wilds of Chornobyl – armed not with rusty AKs or scavenged grenades but the teeth and claws of my mutant soon-to-be companions. The absence of any actual fauna-influencing tools or techniques only makes my plan even simpler: find beasts, aggro beasts onto human enemies, win.

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