Hunt: Showdown drips atmosphere like a spider emerging from a hot bath. One foray at a time, you push your way through un-life and undergrowth, seeking your quarry’s hideout. Except it’s not just yours. The real monsters are the ones with keyboards and shotguns, and they’re gunning for the same arachnid.
It’s quite clear that many games with loot boxes are cribbing from the design and psychology of gambling machines, but it’s rare to see this as brazen as in NBA 2K20. For the MyTeam mode (similar to Fifa Ultimate Team) of their next b-ball ’em up, they’re going all-in with slot machines, pachinko, and even a spinny prize wheel. Players can’t pay money to play these but they are meant to add an extra thrill and engagement to a mode which does sell packs of character cards. That’s mighty bold considering parent company Take-Two are trying to convince governments that loot boxes are nothing to do with gambling.
At 390 / $360, Gigabyte’s X570 Aorus Master motherboard is currently one of the most expensive X570 boards you can currently buy for AMD’s latest crop of Ryzen 3000 CPUs. Sure, you get a number of handy extras, such as three PCIe 4.0 M.2 connections (plus accompanying heatsinks) for your SSDs and three PCIe 4.0 x16 slots for your graphics card and other expansion cards, but is it really worth spending all that extra money when you can get something like the MSI X570 Gaming Edge for almost half as much cash? Here’s wot I think.
If you’re thinking about buying one of AMD’s Ryzen 3000 CPUs, such as the excellent Ryzen 7 3700X, then you may want to think about pairing it with one of their new X570 motherboards. AMD’s Ryzen 3000 CPUs still work with older AM4 motherboards, of course, including those with X470 or B450 chipsets, but they may need a BIOS update before you can start using it (check our motherboard / CPU combo guide for more info), which isn’t the case for the out-of-the-box ready X570 boards. X570 boards also support the new super-fast PCIe 4.0 standard, which can chuck twice as much data around than their PCIe 3.0 predecessors – up to 64GB/s compared to 32GB/s.
That doesn’t mean much right now, admittedly, as there are still precious few PCIe 4.0 devices around to take advantage of all that extra speed. However, if you’re the type who likes to look ahead when building their PC, MSI’s MPG X570 Gaming Edge (Wi-Fi) motherboard is a great place to start.
On paper, the AsRock X570 Taichi sounds like a well-equipped X570 motherboard. All three of its PCIe x16 slots support the new, super fast PCIe 4.0 standard, as do its trio of M.2 NVMe SSD ports. It also comes with its own screwdriver for easy assembly in the box, as well as multiple M.2 screws and standoffs, an SLI HB bridge and four SATA cables. And yet this 297 / $300 X570 mobo for AMD’s new Ryzen 3000 CPUs has one crucial flaw. Its heatsink cover can’t be detached from the main motherboard, making it nigh on impossible to use with the only PCIe 4.0 SSD available right now, the rather fat Gigabyte Aorus NVMe Gen4.
The Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero has probably more USB ports than you’ll ever need, but if you’re thinking of building a new PC with one of AMD’s Ryzen 3000 CPUs in it and have a bunch of peripherals you want to plug into it, then this one is almost certainly going to fit the bill. It’s going to be a pretty big bill, mind, as this particular X570 motherboard is currently one of the most expensive ones you can get, especially if you plump the extra tenner or so for the Wi-Fi model that I’ve got on test here. Priced at 390 / $380, is it really worth choosing this over something a bit cheaper like the MSI X570 Gaming Edge? Here’s wot I think.
Six months ago, The Sims inspired an existential crisis. I say this with no particular gravitas, but to say it: The Sims is an undeniably powerful force. You can read about that existential crisis here, but suffice it to say that I have both a deep admiration for, and significant vendetta against, Maxis property The Sims. Perhaps sensing this rage/respect combo for The Sims, I ve been gifted the opportunity to write monthly about the game. I hope to take this column a variety of different places: Simmer communities, the game s strange quirks, and emotional roller coaster rides. But I begin with a challenge.
In my recent thinking about The Sims, I decided that the only way forward in a game so dedicated to unending simulated experience, or a ghostly perseverance, is through either exhaustion or death. I figured, why not? And I built an entire neighbourhood in The Sims, full of randomised chimeric people, and waited for all of them to die one by one just to see what would happen.
The German gamesblast of Gamescom 2019 is over, so let’s honour the team of RPS treehousers who went on a gruelling mission across Europe last week. Unfortunately, only one survivor seems to have made it back to the podcast room. Alice B is here, scarred and bruised, to tell us about Atomicrops, Empire of Sin, The Longing, Humankind, Bloodlines 2, The Eternal Cylinder, and a whole lot more of the games she witnessed during the terror of Cologne. Brendan, meanwhile has been monkeying around at home in Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. The knob.
I want it I want it I want it. Let me revel in chain reactions of dripping lava and exploding acid. Let me bask in quelling them through spell-summoned rain. Or at least die trying.
I kept forgetting Noita exists, because despite Noita being a fabulously-promising platforming roguelike that had Alec (RPS in peace) making favourable comparisons to Spelunky, it had also spent many years in development with no whisper of a release date. No more! The devs have announced it’s entering early access on September 24th, and there’s a trailer to celebrate. Quickly, come with me and fantasise about acid.
Epic s expansion from developer to distributor continues apace. Having secured exclusive distribution rights to some of this year s biggest PC games, such as Metro Exodus, The Division 2 and Remedy s Control, today Epic announced partnerships with a swathe of independent developers.
Games such as Manifold Garden, Superliminal, No Straight Roads and Airborne Kingdom will all have their initial PC launches exclusively on the Epic Store, for a minimum of 12 months. In anticipation of this latest announcement, we spoke both to Epic and some of the developers who have partnered with them about the reasons behind these latest deals, how they feel about the potential blowback, and also what Epic s partnership means for these developers and for the future of gaming as a whole.