All that writing about gaming earbuds yesterday has reignited my appreciation for the HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless, the PC headset I’ve been donning every day for... ooh, maybe two and a half years now? It sounds lovely, is comfortable enough to wear for hours, and has such a long battery life that we should probably just consider it witchcraft by now. Also, it’s just had its price cut for Black Friday week, dropping to a very agreeable £110 in the UK and $126.

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Another explosion sends the bodies flying. "Has anyone been here long enough to tell me what the hell is going on!?" the sergeant yells. He sounds annoyed. The field hospital is gone, probably blown to pieces. Troops keep wandering north and disappearing from view, only to come flying back as airborne cadavers moments later. The number of corpses and spilled backpacks on the road imply that someone in battalion headquarters (if such a place even exists) has made a terrible decision. If the Colonial forces want to win the persistent online war of Foxhole, suggests the sergeant with his many irritated noises, then someone needs to piece these dying fools together. As the only medic in a 500 metre radius, that means me.

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The Alienware Black Friday sale is well underway, and you can get your hands on some very tasty gaming PCs for a huge discount this year. Our top pick from this sale is the Aurora R16 RTX 4090 Gaming PC for $2,999.99. That’s a gigantic $1,000 saving on a powerful out-of-the-box gaming PC.

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We’re now just one day out from Black Friday, so the savings are starting to seriously ramp up. You can grab our favourite Steam Deck dock in the sale for just $23.99 this year. That’s a full $16 off the usual price. The 6-in-1 option is also on sale and 20% off at Amazon today.

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Back in January I wrote a (supporters only) post about how tired I am of all survival games starting off the same. Here's the gist of it: I've had enough of gathering rocks and sticks to make a crafting bench, from which I'm forced to build a hut and so on. I'm sure for some this is riveting, but for me, it's something I tire of within seconds.

And so it's with a heavy heart I say that Towers Of Aghasba suffers from the same starting gamut of sticks and stones. There's a hint of some interesting ecosystem stuff springing up a bit later, and judging by the trailers, an ability to clamber on massive flying creatures made of what looks like elephant skin and hair. Still, I just can't do it.

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I've gone on record as not being a huge fan of the artstyle choices used in the new Warcraft I & II remasters. It's crisp and readable, sure, but I'm never exactly thrilled to see all the roughness of older sprites completely done away with, especially when I always felt some of that ruggedness was the point. The tendency of remasters to treat every characterful oddity as a blemish is a wider topic than the scope of this article, but one day, Bluepoint will remaster Bloodborne, and the world will feel my pain.

Anyway. Nowadays, I'd say Blizzard - or, World Of Warcraft, at least - is pretty much synomous with a softer, more colorful approach to fantasy worlds. While I don't pine for a return to the more boobily ridiculous elements of Frank Frazetta's style, I do often wish that some of the more expressive, pained, and physically grounded elements of classic Sword And Sorcery art was a bit more common. I'm no art scholar, and there's undoubtedly a bit of tunnel vision of my part to this assertion, but as far as as pop culture goes: I see the Blizzard version of fantasy more than I see the Frazetta version, and I don't exactly love it. Same goes for the older, punkier, less uniform sci-fi art from things like 2000 AD and Warhammer 40,000. Edwin touched on some of this in his excellent Space Marine piece.

Anyway, a valued RPS community member on the Discord shared an older bit of art by Blizzard's Chris Metzen, from the original Starcraft manual. I figured a few of you might enjoy seeing these older pieces, considering how much the overall look of their games has changed over the years.

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System requirements are on the rise, and a glut of recent PC facepunchers has left some of the RPS treehouse wondering if it’s time for a graphics card upgrade. Being a helpful colleague and a handsome friend, I dutifully informed them that the highly capable Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super is currently getting the Black Friday price cut treatment, with Zotac’s Twin Edge model dropping especially low in both the UK and US. Still, dear readers, if you feel like punishing us for that comment system switch, you could always head over to Amazon and buy up all the stock yourself.

$590 is a decent deal for a model that’s spent most of the past few months at $610, but us Brits are getting the better bargain here - even if it’s not for the OC version. £500 means a hefty £49 slasheroo, the deepest discount this card has seen yet, and you’ll also get a key for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle to play when it releases on December 9th.

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It's often claimed by liars and fools that our website's title is a clever reference to the ancient Chinese game of shoushiling - or "rock paper scissors", as it's known overseas. The orthodox interpretation is that "Rock Paper Shotgun" is a folksy regional variation on this, with a "shotgun" instead of the "scissors". But friends, this is patently absurd. Think about it: a game that pits a shotgun against a rock or piece of paper would be incredibly one-sided. It goes against reason!

The sad reality is that the origins of our website's title have been deliberately obscured, allowing cold hard fact to slither back into legend. Behind that mockingly nonsensical moniker sleeps an eldritch truth of such gravity it would make Gandalf spill his mead. Friends, the Rock Paper Shotgun is real>. The Weapon exists. Or at least, it once did - and will, for I mean to fashion it anew by combing the writing of RPS writers gone by for raw materials. And in this endeavour, I will naturally need your aid.

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In hindsight, it’s surprising that it took so long for hardware manufacturers to start making "gaming" earbuds. If the likes of chairs, glasses, and chewing gum can be painted stealth-bomber black and prefixed with the G word, why not something that can actually get off its harshly angled bum and help pipe the games themselves into your head?

Then again, maybe gaming earbuds were just waiting for their moment. Obviously the Nintendo Switch is the Nintendo Switch, but the rise of handhelds like the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally has driven desires for more portable (yet games-friendly) noise-deliverers 'round these PC parts as well. Thus, for another edition of Should You Bother With – the RPS column where a diaphragm of testing vibrates advice directly into the cochlea of understanding – let’s have a listen of these wireless buds and find out whether they’re a worthy replacement for your current go-to headphones.

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Whereas some bits of games kit are in and out of the sales like they keep forgetting their keys there, The PlayStation 5 DualSense controller is one of those peripherals that just seems to hover around its £60 / $75 list price indefinitely. Which is a shame, as it’s a very, very good gamepad, including for PC playage. Consider these Black Friday week deals, then, as a rare opportunity to secure yourself said good gamepad without acquiescing to Sony’s stubbornness: it’s down to £40 in the UK and $54 in the US.

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