Eurogamer

GTA is well known for its jokes and spoofs, but this week it would appear someone has beaten Rockstar at its own game by falsely advertising the next installment in the GTA series.

Over the past few days, GTA Online players have seen messages supposedly advertising GTA6 appear on the side of their screens. On the surface, the announcements appeared to be fairly legitimate: they used a font similar to the official Rockstar branding, and even included a link to Rockstar's website.

Unsurprisingly, this was enough to hoodwink many players, who were ecstatic at the news of a new GTA game and rushed to Twitter to express their excitement.

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Eurogamer

Bungie is launching a new version of Destiny 2 for South Korea. It's named Destiny: Guardians, is exclusive to PC, and launches on 5th September.

The game includes all Destiny 2 content released so far up to and including this September's Forsaken expansion, Invent reported. It also includes a new microtransactions merchant.

Destiny: Guardians' new shop character has been designed specifically for this Korean version. Her name is Yuna, and she will act as Korean players' merchant for the real-world money service Eververse. Here you'll be able to obtain XP boosts, weapons and armour.

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Shenmue I & II

Sega has given a final release date for its Shenmue HD collection, with the bundle that pairs the original two games with a gentle makeover coming to Xbox One, PS4 and PC on August 21st.

The collection will release with a physical version on PS4 and Xbox One, with the PC remaining digital only - and by pre-ordering now for your platform of choice you can get a 10 per cent discount. The remasters allow players to enjoy a new interface, plus the ability to play with either the English or Japanese dubs - the first time players in the west will have had that option for the first Shenmue.

Shenmue first came out for Sega's Dreamcast in 1999, its sequel following a couple of years later in 2001, and at the time it was the most expensive video game developed, and the last high profile game that legendary creator Yu Suzuki would make for the company that made his name.

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Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons

Josef Fares, the lively and outspoken director of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and A Way Out, was not on EA's E3 stage this year, but he did get a mention.

During the EA Play conference, chief creative officer Patrick S derland said: "A Way Out is such a huge success [having sold 1 million copies in roughly two weeks] that Josef and his team are expanding and moving into a new studio. Stories like this drive our industry, and it's why we will continue to work with independent developers to help them realise their dreams."

A Way Out was published on the EA Originals label, hence the mention, but S derlund's comments about the studio's future suggested the partnership lived on.

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Eurogamer

Players of the recent Battlefield 5 alpha have been witness to quite a treat. Building on DICE's excellent work in BF1 and Battlefront 2, we're looking at an exceptionally handsome game that, small bugs aside, almost feels like the finished article. It's visually outstanding in fact, the only disappointment - if you can call it that - being that the signs are pointing towards an evolution of the Battlefield formula and its Frostbite engine, as opposed to a full-on next-gen revolution.

Some might say that expectations of a wide-ranging revamp of the tech might seem somewhat optimistic, but there is a strong precedent. In 2011 - a full two years before the arrival of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - DICE unleashed Battlefield 3, the game that laid the foundation for the series entries to follow, certainly from a technological perspective. Based on 64-bit processor support along with a requirement for DirectX 11 class graphics hardware, this was a developer essentially laying the foundation work for the console generation to come, with a cutting-edge PC version taking point.

At the same point in the current console generation, Battlefield 5's closed alpha - released only on PC - shows key embellishments, along with some crowd-pleasing enhancements to the destruction model. However, the overall aesthetic and some of its most impressive tricks will be familiar to those who've played Battlefield 1. The alpha reminds us of how good Frostbite is in dealing with massive, open levels. Select your capture point, click, and the overview of the map swoops down seamlessly into the in-game view - a cool trick from BF1 that still impresses in its successor.

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Eurogamer

Epic has see-sawed once again to re-release Fortnite's Playground LTM (limited time mode) after the initial update encountered matchmaking issues.

The LTM, which allows players to build and practise their skills in a relaxed environment, was originally released in last week's patch; but was pulled mere hours after release when players encountered long queue times and error messages.

According to Epic's official post on Reddit, players may still encounter some of these issues due to high player numbers. The developer has advised players to set their regions to 'auto-select' and re-queue if they encounter problems joining.

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Eurogamer

Update 04/07/18: New day, new game - as the list below indicates, today you can get your hands on copies of Metal Slug 3, The Last Blade, Twinkle Star Sprites and Q.U.B.E. 2, with Battle Chef Brigade being made available later on in the day. Not a bad haul, to be honest.

Amazon's continuing Prime Day deals continue to add up as well, with offers of a four-month subscription to Music Unlimited for 99p, 25 per cent off various Kindle, Fire and Echo accessories when using the code PD2018, and even some big US-based discounts on external hard drives, too.

As mentioned elsewhere in this article, we've got our own guide to the best gaming deals of Prime Day 2018 right here on the site, with more constant updates.

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Objects in Space

I love passing the time in Flat Earth's Objects in Space. In fact, I love passing the time in Objects rather more than I love actually achieving things in many other games. An absorbing blend of submarine and space sim distinguished by some decadently throwback interface design, it sees you hauling passengers and cargo across 2D star systems while dodging pirates or indulging in a bit of skyway robbery yourself. These journeys can take upwards of 10 minutes from system jump to system jump, and once you've given the autopilot a heading, there's essentially nothing to do save twiddle your thumbs and luxuriate in the retro ambience of your ship, with its chevron-fringed levers, neon grids and see-saw hum of cooling fans.

You might hop back to your comms room and check your email (best not to do this while the engine is firing, however, as the FTL modem drains power and your reactor can only handle so much in one go - I once managed to paralyse myself by downloading a newsletter in the middle of a braking manoeuvre). You could also turn on the MP3 player for a little light synth, or study the peeling posters in your bunkroom. Or you could click away from the game entirely, leaving it to tick over in another window till a rumble of thrusters indicates that you're approaching your destination. Objects in Space is discreetly composed of tabs, with different parts of your ship (or any space station you're aboard) accessed by hitting right or left arrow. Switching to your computer's desktop feels oddly like a continuation of this: it's as though the very hardware running the game were just another fat nugget of 80s technology, lodged in amongst the raster displays and light-up buttons that comprise your bridge.

Out now in Early Access, Objects in Space lacks the more obvious grandeur of an Elite: Dangerous - there's no 3D galaxy map, no panoramic third-person view, just a spiral of pixel stars through the comms room viewport - but its grubby pocket of space-time feels every bit as lively as Elite's universe, and no less Dangerous. Each system is aswarm with merchant craft, enforcers, military ships, smugglers and banditos, their interactions tracked by your bridge sensors and hailing screen. Eavesdropping on those interactions is another great way of whiling away the longer voyages. As I write these words, the captain of the nearby Pygmy Giant is having a particularly terrible day - fined for possession of contraband just after leaving port, only to fall afoul of a pirate in the shadow of a nebula.

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LUMINES REMASTERED

For two games that are pretty much nothing alike, it's suprisingly easy to find yourself pondering the differences, large and small, between Tetris and Lumines. Yes, one is a marathon while the other is a sprint. And yes, one is about things that collapse while the other is about things that, often maddeningly, remain fixed in place. Playing Lumines Remastered over the weekend, though, sat cross-legged on the bed as though it was 2005 all over again, I was struck by a new point of difference - or rather an old point of difference that I had simply never really noticed before. Something about the texture of your mistakes, I think. Oh yes, it's this: your mistakes feel very different in Tetris and Lumines.

A mistake in Tetris is a terrible thing indeed. This is because of the sprint-like nature, I guess, the fact that Tetris is really the survival horror of the puzzle world. Mistakes stick around in Tetris for a very long time: those gaps remain in the bedrock beneath you, a bit like a group of old friends who are always ready to remind you of a terrible faux pas you made when you were 12 (just me?). The mixture of sprint and fixed in place means that Tetris doesn't forget anything. And it in turns means so much of the game is spent trying to undo earlier mistakes in a bit of a sweaty panic. And of course, because you're in a sweaty panic you make more mistakes. Tetris thrives on mistakes.

So does Lumines, I think, but in Lumines your mistakes are often on your side. Lumines isn't about building a wall to unbuild a wall, it's about growing territory of a certain colour. You rotate the coloured sections of the blocks that fall so that the two colours for each stage will match up harmoniously before the timeline sweeps through. This is why some people get a bit bored with Lumines. They think you can beat the game indefinitely by dividing the screen up into sections and storing block types in specific silos, and inching your way to victory. I have never played golf, but I wonder if these Lumines min-maxers also turn up at Pebble Beach in early Spring or whenever it is people play golf and ask Ed "Porky" Oliver - I Googled him - if he'd considered just faxing the ball over to the hole.

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Myst V: End of Ages

Myst, one of the most internationally renowned and often baffling adventure games of all time, is getting itself a 25th Anniversary edition, thanks to a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year. They asked for $247,500 and got $2,810,127 from backers, so it seems safe to say that people still really like Myst.

Ahead of the release of the fancy 25th Anniversary Edition of Myst, GOG's not only offering up a bunch of discounts on Myst, Uru and Riven titles but also recently became the only place online where you can pick up copies of Myst 3: Exile and Myst 4: Revelation digitally.

In order to celebrate all these lovely things happening all at once, the folks at GOG and Cyan Worlds have gotten together with Jelly Deals to offer up yet another giveaway for you lovely people.

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