I’ll cop to the fact that Peter Chiykowski is only a local man if you, like him, live somewhere in Scotland, and on top of that, I actually suspect Peter may be having a little joke with us. But still, I found this tale of love and loss in Stardew Valley quite heartwarming. It all began back in February, when Chiykowski’s wife discovered the inescapable Sarlacc pit that is Concerned Ape’s lovely farming/life sim, and he documented her first hours of it on Twitter. Chiykowsky grew increasingly desperate, especially after her response to being given a dog, and began to tweet directly to Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone himself. “I want to understand what your game has done to my wife,” he pleaded. Now, months later, it seems the situation has developed. Chiykowski reports that his wife has wooed and married town doctor Harvey, and had two children with him. “Stardew Valley consumed my wife,” he said, in another tweet to Barone. “But I finally figured out what to do.”

“I am Harvey now.” (more…)

A new Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds in-universe documentary explores the history of a deserted dinosaur theme park with the perfect host: Jonathan Frakes. He’s recently escaped the shadow of playing William T. Riker on the sci-fi show Lexx, finding new fame for saying “Not this time” and “It’s a total fabrication!” in compilation videos of his time hosting 90s show Beyond Belief: Fact Or Fiction. Who better to probe the strange death of a mascot at the island of Vikendi’s Dinoland?

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Evil Genius

, the 2004 minion-gathering, Bond-defying base-builder is free right now, if you link your Rebellion account to Steam. This is of course to whet appetites for the upcoming Evil Genius 2, which is expected out this year.

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I have a real issue with the sea. That enormous blue conceals awful primal horrors which I can’t help but be fascinated by. So you can understand why I admire Raft, the survival game in which you try to stay alive on a rickety wooden craft constantly circled by a giant shark.

That shark is Raft’s principal antagonist and it sits at the centre of many of its survival mechanics (as observed by Steve Hogarty in his early access review of the game). Yet players have developed a strange relationship with it. “They talk to the shark and name it,” co-developer André Bengtsson tells me. So does his team: Bruce. “He gives you a kind of company out there, even though he’s trying to kill you.” (more…)

Cyberpunk 2077

‘s now officially gotten stamped with a “Mature” rating by the ESRB, one of the organisations wot gives all the big games their official warning labels. Most of the ESRB’s description of Cyberpunk’s activities is pretty expected—nothing that GTA hasn’t got finger-wagged for in the past. In among the sex, drugs, and guns though are apparently lots of butts and bits customising and, uh, some kind of cyberpunk crucifixion scene?

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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s official announcement confirmed what had long been suspected: Ubisoft’s next instalment in the Assassin’s Creed series will be about Vikings and is coming in 2020.

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“Games are a series of interesting decisions”. That Sid Meir quote has been floating around for nearly a decade, and writing it out nowadays can seem pat. “Of course they are!”, you might say, or possibly “of course they’re not!”. Personally, I find it a helpful way of thinking about why I enjoy most of the games I play. Generally speaking, the more interesting the decisions, and the more densely they’re packed together, the more I enjoy myself.

It’s a bit weird, then, that I’m still enjoying Legends Of Runeterra quite a lot, despite many of my matches containing very few interesting decisions at all.

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With PC components getting more expensive by the day as stock levels fall, SSD prices are bucking that trend by remaining relatively stable. Alas, while that means there aren’t a huge amount of truly bargain-tastic SSD deals to be found these days, at least those static prices means it’s still a good time to buy one. So to help you find the [cms-block] at the best possible price, I’ve rounded up all the SSD deals I’ve been able to find from the last seven days, covering a range of size capacities and form factors.

Indeed, there are some great SSD bargains to be had if you know where to look (which is a lot more than can be said for the [cms-block] going on right now). Whatever you’re looking for, whether it’s the best deals on SATA SSDs to the biggest savings on today’s super fast NVMe SSDs and portable SSDs, here are the best SSD deals of the week.

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A new event started in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege yesterday, introducing The Stolen Goods, a limited time game mode where players have to attack or defend a 1920s British mobster hideout full of safes. There are a few twists to this new mode, but the important one to know right now is that the floors are completely breakable, allowing players to shoot out the floorboards beneath the safes to get them to drop to different levels. A good strategy, right? Well, yeah, as long as you don’t stand directly beneath the dense cubes of metal hurtling towards you.

If you’ve ever watched an episode of Looney Tunes, you can probably imagine what you’re about to see.

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Fallout 76

fans have come together to return a player’s kindness after he was struck by a house fire in his real life home.

Brent Fairchild is better known as his character “CJ Martin”, a doctor who wanders the wasteland giving food and medicine to needy strangers. His generosity has inspired many players to help out, first in game, and now during his offline moment of need.

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