Promise you won't tell the other children, but the RPS staff are actually complex magical spells cast by the Sugar Plum Fairy, as part of an age old pact with the ents of the forest where the RPS treehouse was built hundreds of years ago. Each year the Sugar Plum Fairy has to collect more wishes to power the spells every year (you can help to make the spells more powerful by joining the RPS supporter program). While she's out wish-hunting, here are some Christmas Crackers to distract you.>

Time to enjoy your lovely joke!

Q: What d'you call it when you need the loo, but incorrectly assume you can hold it?

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It has once again fallen to me to pick out my favourite features, this time from 2023. This is a terrible task, because there are always a lot I like. I've tried to cut it down a bit from last year, for both our sakes, dear reader, and decided that previews don't count (because as a format previews do a lot of the work for you, to be honest). Even reducing my task this way made it tough to whittle things down, and I'm sure I've missed some excellent articles and writers - and that I will be corrected in the comments!

Still, read on for a place to start if you want to look back at the year that was on RPS. We've got interviews, community nonsense, and even more interviews for you to enjoy here. I think in 2024 I'm going to advocate for more horseposting.

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This year, I've mostly played smaller games, mostly from small or solo developers. Playing a giant timesink game all day hasn't appealed as I've sought to spend more time in forests and up hills and down rivers, and Destiny 2 burned me out so hard on live service games that I still can't face those. But a year of little games has been great fun, short bursts of play and ideas explored concisely, so here are some of my other favourites.

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Promise you won't tell the other children, but the RPS staff are actually complex magical spells cast by the Sugar Plum Fairy, as part of an age old pact with the ents of the forest where the RPS treehouse was built hundreds of years ago. Each year the Sugar Plum Fairy has to collect more wishes to power the spells every year (you can help to make the spells more powerful by joining the RPS supporter program). While she's out wish-hunting, here are some Christmas Crackers to distract you.>

Time to enjoy your lovely joke!

Q: What did loveable Geordie Dec say to his double act partner after a tough climb?

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In the market for a high refresh rate gaming monitor for FPS? Right now you can pick up the Asus ROG Strix XG27AQMR for $499 on Amazon US, a great price for a 1440p 300Hz (!) esports-grade gaming monitor that delivers a silky-smooth experience. The current price is a $100 discount on its normal going rate and quite competitive for a montor with these specs.

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While other god games might have been recently consigned to the scrapheap, the cute, toy-like WorldBox continues to improve. The early access god sim is going to start simulating family trees in its next update.

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At last, every door on the RPS Advent Calendar has been ripped open, leaving nothing but foil wrapper remnants, and the odd pixel crumb of the digital delights once contained within them. But that doesn't festivities are over! Like a Boxing Day bubble and squeak, we've gathered together all of our favourite games of the year once again, this time in one handy location. If you've been following along with our Advent goings-on, you'll already know what our game of the year picks are for 2023, but just in case you missed them, here's the list in full. Enjoy!

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It's rare to see a 27-inch 1440p 165Hz gaming monitor for £200 or less, but that's exactly what you can get from X= on Amazon UK at the moment. This alphabet-soup-inspired model, the X= XRGB27WQ, uses an IPS panel to deliver its spec point of choice, with FreeSync/G-Sync support, a 2ms GtG response time and a clean, RGB-optional design.

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WD's SN850x NVMe SSD is an RPS mainstay, having been named the best PCIe 4.0 SSD in our evergreen gaming SSD recommendations, thanks to its extremely quick game loads and generally excellent performance.

It's also frequently discounted, but not normally to the extremes of today - where a 4TB drive is available for just $230 at Amazon US, versus the $286 it normally costs and the $449 (!) it cost at the start of the year.

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Lenovo's Legion Go is the (literally) biggest Steam Deck competitor to hit the market, a handheld gaming PC that brings the same Z1 Extreme processor as the Asus ROG Ally but a larger 8.8-inch 1600p 144Hz display and faster DDR5-7500 RAM - along intriguing detachable controllers, one of which turns into a vertical mouse for FPS-type games.

The Legion Go retails for £700, but today you can pick one up with a screen protector for £648 from Lenovo direct. To get this price, you need to use the code UKIFLASHSALE at the checkout.

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