MSI’s RTX 2080-powered GS75 Stealth laptop may have been their big announcement for this year’s CES, but personally I was much more taken with the next model down, the newly RTX-refreshed GS65 Stealth. Also packed with an RTX 2080 in its energy-efficient and laptop-friendly Max-Q design, MSI’s calling this 15.6in laptop the most powerful ultra slim device of its respective size category, and it’s a real beaut.
Sure, Bandersnatch has funny lines, surprises and scene stealing performances from Will Poulter doing a pretty much exactly how I, the writer, talk in real life voice. But as a whole, video games have been iterating deeper on the main themes of control, authenticity, forced choice, meta-recursion and non-linearity for years, without also including an unhelpful portrayal of paranoid schizophrenia. When you love enough people who hear voices and suffer from castigatory delusions, maybe you become less enthused about media which depicts sufferers committing murders or throwing themselves off buildings. Fix it, Brooker. The same plotpoint was in White Christmas and it was shit back then.
Winning nine rounds of Overwatch over the next fortnight will net you a neat-o cat costume for snipermum Ana, thanks to challenge Blizzard have launched. The ‘Bastet’ skin leans into her Ancient Egyptian mythology flair, and it’s a good’un. While much focus around the out-of-game short story which inspired this, also named Bastet, has been on the fact that growly shootman Soldier76 mopes over his ex-boyfriend (who’d guess that barrel of sunshine was a moper?), the best part clearly is Ana dressing as a cat. She must have known her fightpals would become the subjects of odd mash-up cosplay and wanted to establish a cool fursona.
The rediscovery and reignition of Destiny 2‘s fourth and final Black Armory Forge, the climax of the current season of paid content, has stalled because the puzzle to unlock it has players stumped. Bergusia Forge will let players craft new weapons but it’ll only be opened once players–any players–solve a long and complex puzzle sequence involving ciphers, runes, invisible ink, translating French quotes, and a whole lot of fighting. Bungie opened the puzzle yesterday afternoon, players had hit level 6 by the time I went to bed, and when I check in again now… they’re still there, after frustrating long hours of shooting walls and starting over.
Update: Annnd minutes after I posted this, a group solved level 6. Only twelve or so hours, then. The puzzling continues, and we don’t know how many levels are to go.>
Imagine chopping your way through a dungeon, but each minion might have a human mind behind it. Throw in some techno-wizadry and a few demonic hordes, and you’ve landed on the pitch for Breach. It’s due to come storming through Steam’s Early Access doors on January 17th, bringing RPG-style dungeon-clearing to fifteen minute multiplayer matches.
Right: there are a few sensible reasons for why I m excited about Breach, and a bigger one that is a bit silly.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is about to enter its fourth year of updates, which is just mind-boggling when you think about it. The game still has a huge player base and with the support that Ubisoft has given to it over the years, it seems like now is a good time to go over the 44 Operators that are currently in the game. Each one has different weapon load outs, gadgets they can bring along for the fight, and the unique abilities they offer; essentially being their own class. Knowing their limitations and strengths is key to getting the most out of them and we’ll be looking at the various operators to see how they’ve changed in this guide. We’ll be making recommendations about whether or not to use them, as well as detailing which operators they have advantages over. (more…)
Razer announced they were finally jumping headfirst into the world of gaming monitors at this year’s CES, and man alive does this 27in display get a lot of things right. Dubbed the Razer Raptor, this 2560×1440 IPS screen is still in the early stages of development at the moment, but even now there’s plenty to admire here.
Indeed, the thing I’m most excited about isn’t even anything to do with its image quality. Instead, it’s the 90 degree hinge that lets you tilt the monitor all the way back until its horizontal for easy access to those all important ports. And the back of the stand… hoo boy. The back of the stand is magnificent.
It translates, roughly, as bullet refute . Danganronpa, that is. Which makes more sense than it sounds, as the game is about taking part in murder trials and literally shooting truth bullets at lies as they spill out of suspects mouths. It s not enough to say If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit ; the glove has to be loaded into the chamber and fired through a tangle of distracting words to hit the fib you want to destabilise. It s a bizarre hybrid of Ace Attorney and Time Crisis, then; a game that feels life-and-death murder trials aren t already exciting by default. It is quite odd.
Nvidia’s RTX 2060 may have dominated most of the graphics card headlines at this year’s CES, but down on the show floor you simply can’t move for RTX gaming laptops>. Chief among them is MSI’s new GS75 Stealth, which has been shoved in my face at no fewer than three separate appointments I’ve been to in the last two days. This is mostly because it’s the world’s first 17in thin and light gaming laptop with an RTX 2080 inside it (albeit in Nvidia’s energy-efficient Max-Q design rather than a full-fat laptop chip), but is bigger necessarily better? Here’s wot I think so far.
Eastshade seems a much calmer take on open world fantasy adventures than most. It may have crafting and construction, but there’s no swords or bows or guns, just painting. Set up your easel, take in the scenes of its mellow fantasy world, and then trade the artwork to characters in exchange for items, information and more. If Wandersong was a fantasy bard simulator, then this is rarer still – a wandering artisan sim. The product of years of work by Eastshade Studios, the game is very nearly complete and due out on February 13th. Enjoy the sights in the new trailer below.
If you ve choosed-and-adventured through Bandersnatch, the recent Black Mirror thing on Netflix, and aren t already a fan of experimental interactive fiction: I envy you. It means you re able to play actually good examples of interactive fiction for the first time.