Eurogamer

A secret text adventure game has been discovered in the source code of Google Chrome.

A Redditor found the easter egg by typing "text adventure" into google.com and opening Chrome's javascript console. Beneath a warning reminding users never to manually copy and paste anything nefarious into the code, the console asks: "Would you like to play a game? (yes/no)".

While not exactly complex, the story - which is a mission to locate the missing letters of the Google logo by way of simple text directions - requires you to navigate by way of a series of directional instructions, plus the actions "grab", "inventory", and "use". You can also ask "why", and bring up all commands available to you via "help".

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Eurogamer

Minecraft developer Mojang has announced new spin-off game, Minecraft: Dungeons.

A dungeon crawler set in the Minecraft universe - which makes sense given the name, let's face it - has only a vague 2019 release window for now, and is currently only scheduled to release on PC. Here, take a look:

Developed as a "passion project" by a "small and dedicated" team in Stockholm, Sweden, it's inspired by their love of classic dungeon crawler games and will feature four-player co-op.

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Eurogamer

With the widespread availability of the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro along with some highly powerful PC graphics hardware, there are more ways than ever to enjoy games at 4K with HDR. That makes it a great time to check out the latest crop of high dynamic range 4K televisions, which offer improved performance and new features at similar price points to their 2017 predecessors.

When looking at a 4K HDR TV for gaming, one of the most important metrics is input latency, which measures how long it takes for your buttons presses to translate into in-game actions. The best 4K HDR TVs offer input latency of around 20ms, average models around 30ms, and slower screens react in 40ms or more; generally a difference of about 15ms between two screens is noticeable. However, you'll only accomplish these speeds by engaging gaming modes, which go by different names on different televisions.

As well as input latency, we'll also be looking at how these televisions handle motion, their peak brightness figures, which HDR formats they support and the strength of their built-in smart TV interface. Of course, price is a prime consideration as well. Right now, more expensive OLED sets start at around $2100/ 2000 for a 55-inch display (though expect prices to drop around Black Friday time) while LCD models at the same size can cost less than half of that amount. There are also even cheaper options that provide relatively poor HDR but still deliver a lot of screen for the money.

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Eurogamer

20 years ago, video game RPGs were either stagnating or going from strength to strength. How could it be both these things? The answer depends, as usual, on perspective. Fans of the genre had recently been enjoying the original Fallout, a turn-based apocalyptic world that would eventually morph into the much-loved series of today.

Yet even with PC gaming enjoying a huge surge in popularity, the RPG remained a relatively niche type of game on a platform dominated by first-person shooters, flight simulators and real-time strategy titles before, in 1998, BioWare and Baldur's Gate changed that forever. Founded in 1995 by medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, the Canadian developer began life by publishing Shattered Steel, Brent and Trent Oster's mech simulation, to moderate success. A series of events then conspired to realise what would become the most successful RPG of the decade, and for some time to come.

Baldur's Gate began life as Battlegrounds: Infinity, a tech demo of an engine devised by Scott Greig, one of BioWare's first employees. Around the same time, the developer's publisher, Interplay, secured the Dungeons & Dragons licence from TSR, and were keen to publish a video game that emulated the famous world.

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Eurogamer

For the first time, FIFA discloses pack odds - and now FIFA 19 is live, the true horror of FIFA Ultimate Team is laid bare.

FIFA 19 launched proper this week (although EA granted early access through a variety of means), and FUT's first promotion is live: Ones to Watch.

This promotion has injected 23 brand new live items of the highest profile and most promising transfers from across the world. Included are special versions of Cristiano Ronaldo, who moved from Real Madrid to Juventus in the summer, and Riyad Mahrez, who moved from Leicester to Manchester City.

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Eurogamer

EGX 2018 is done and I've come away with a lot of nice memories, a bunch of sleep to catch up on and a lovely convention flu. While I continue to dose myself up with cold meds, we've got enough time to take a look at this week's batch of the very best gaming deals from all over the internet. Let's do that, shall we?

As usual, we've got deals that'll work in the UK, deals that'll work in the US and some deals that will work in both the UK and US, as well as presumably many other places.

The next big video game release is almost upon us - Assassin's Creed Odyssey is due out on October 5th and GamesPlanet is joining forces with Jelly Deals to offer a handful of copies just in time for launch. To be in with a chance of winning either the Standard or Gold Editions, click the link below.

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Eurogamer

Valve has renamed an Artifact card after it was accused of being racist.

Valve tweeted to reveal a card called Crack the Whip, which depicts a blue lizard creature wielding a whip on a battlefield.

The card's text reads: "Modify a black hero with 'After you play a black card, give this hero and its allied neighbours +2 Attack this round'."

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Eurogamer

Between major trips visiting different relatives in Pakistan many years ago, us kids were allowed to be entertained at home with video rentals. I don't remember ever going to a store myself, so I have no idea who ended up choosing Wes Craven's Wishmaster for the tiny CRT television. And I don't remember much about it, except it was goofy, gross and strange all at once. Little did I know, as I didn't have access to dial-up internet in rural South Asia, there was a major shift occurring for the horror genre, in both video games and film.

It all started around the turn of the century, with two films in both the Far East and the West, their influence still a major source of artistic inspiration. First was Japanese director Hideo Nakata's film Ring (or Ringu) in 1998, with many of us becoming familiar with it through the subsequent Hollywood remake starring Naomi Watts. You've probably seen it or are at least aware of it by now, but the plot revolves around an infamous videotape, which results in the mysterious death of its viewers seven days after they watch it. The other film is The Blair Witch Project, a film presented as "found footage", that follows a group of friends camping in the woods to find out whether or not there is a Blair Witch that haunts and kills locals.

The reason why these films still stand out today is because they showed that true horror lies with what can't be seen or understood, changing the meaning of visual horror. This emphasis on psychological horror instead was translated into games too, with developers foregoing blood and guts and instead focussing on fog and shadows. Arguably, the best examples of this are still those games from that specific period, such as Silent Hill, Forbidden Siren and Fatal Frame.

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WildStar

Earlier this month, NCSoft announced that it was shutting down WildStar developer Carbine Studios, and that support for the sci-fi MMO would be coming to an end. The publisher has now confirmed that WildStar's servers will be going offline permanently on November 28th.

"At launch, the Carbine team delivered a deep, engaging, and spectacularly fun game full of outlandish adventures on the most legendary planet in the universe," a new post on the WildStar website explained, "And it has been our great privilege to share those adventures with all of you over the last four years... Unfortunately, as you may have heard, those adventures are coming to an end. It's never easy to say goodbye to something, especially something that has meant so much for so many - but the WildStar game service will close on November 28, 2018."

Despite WildStar's looming demise, NCSoft says it plans "to do everything we can to honor the WildStar community" prior to servers shutting down. As confirmed when news of Carbine's closure broke, that will include offering refunds on all real money purchases made since July 1st this year, and on prepaid Signature Memberships that run past September 26th. More detailed information on those purchases eligible for a refund can be found in NCSoft's news post.

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Eurogamer

Card games haven't done story on this level before. With Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, we're not talking about a bolted-on campaign, we're talking about a whole separate game - a 30-dollar, 30-hour Witcher story with more lines of dialogue than The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt expansion Hearts of Stone. Thronebreaker has 77 side quests, 20 possible end-states and is directed by Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, lead quest designer on Witcher 3 (and also brother of Witcher 3 game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz).

The message is clear: the people who made one of this generation's most celebrated role-playing games have made a new Witcher story. You'd be forgiven for not realising it was a card game - the title Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales doesn't even mention Gwent, the card game upon which it is based. Then again, 'more Witcher' is a far tastier proposition. But can a card game reach the same storytelling heights?

I played Thronebreaker for two hours earlier this week, which wasn't long enough to gauge whether the story will rival the Bloody Baron in terms of gut-rending oomph, but was long enough to sense a similar dirt-smeared grit in the world around me, and to be reassured dark and mature story is front and centre of what Thronebreaker is trying to do. At one point I ordered a defeated rabble - whose only real crime had been a few wrong words - to be hung, for example. I did it because as a monarch - Queen Meve - I didn't want to show signs of weakness, but when a grubby onlooker then scorned me (brave, considering what I'd just done) for my cruelty, I felt awful.

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