I’m always going on about Pharaoh, the Impressions city builder from 1999 that’s lodged itself in my psyche like a toy soldier in an alsatian’s paw. And every time I mention how good it is, some forlorn soul in the comments mentions Emperor: Rise Of The Middle Kingdom, it’s successor-but-one (after Zeus: Master of Olympus) from 2002, as being better. And you know what? They’re right. Pharaoh will always be my favourite because I’m just so into the theme, but Emperor was by far the better game, and is arguably as good as historical city builders ever got.

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Screenshot Saturday Sundays! It’s time for our weekly foray into the swamps of Twitter’s screenshotsaturday hashtag, fishing out the juiciest gifs, videos and in-development jpegs we can find for the afternoon’s pleasure. This week: moon’s haunted, but we’ve also got concrete gardening, low-fi adaptations, and crunchy cosmic billiards.

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Sundays are for swimming in the sea, as you have been doing most mornings. Nobody tell Alice O. Here’s the best writing about videogames from the past week.

For FanByte, Jay Castello weighed in on the ‘not overly-cutesy even though it looks like it’ nature of Ooblets. The RPS treehouse arrived at a similar conclusion.

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Onyxia, Broodmother of the Black Dragonflight. If you’re a veteran World Of Warcraft player, that name will immediately conjure long-buried feelings of dread – from the precision play needed to take her down, to the hours spent grinding quests to even enter her lair. But Azeroth’s scariest dragon seems to have lost her touch, as a band of 40 World Of Warcraft: Classic adventurers worked out how to fell Onyxia in nought but their undies earlier this week.

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Usually, when I’m working the news shift, I’ll pop on one of those lo-fi youtube mixes to keep my ears distracted. Today, however, I’m thinking about trying something a little more Nordic. This week, a snippet of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla‘s soundscape hit Spotify in the form of the Out Of The North EP, a seven-track mix of chanting, panpipes and warlike drums to study / relax / raid East Anglian settlements to.

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Remember Paragon? Epic’s shooty MOBA might be long-gone, but its DNA (and models, and textures, and animations) live on in Fault. Released in early access this week, Strange Matter Studio’s successor isn’t just influenced by Paragon – it’s an attempt to revive the ill-fated MOBA using that Paragon’s very own (and very free) assets.

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In a line that only further proves the cyberpunk dystopia is real, the US Army have been reprimanded by Twitch for running phoney giveaways on their streaming channel. Following criticism for banning viewers who raise the service’s history of war crimes, Twitch have now forced the US Army’s Esports Team (a thing that sure does exist) to stop a thinly-veiled recruitment trick disguised as a free controller giveaway.

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Lovable television strongman Henry Cavill overclocked hearts around the world when he documented his latest PC build on Instagram this week, reminding us all once again that even Hollywood A-listers with inhuman physiques can turn out to be giant, lovable nerds on the inside. But as it transpires, Cavill isn’t the only one in Tinseltown who knows their way around these inscrutable, whirring machines we call “computers”. Indeed, in the wake of his charming video, a swathe of weapons-grade celebs have come out of the woodwork to reveal their secret hardware passion, and have all – somehow – chosen to share their PC build secrets exclusively with us. Read on, then, as we reveal the rigs of the stars:

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Alright here we go, we’re about to enter the final week of notE3. Next week, Microsoft have their big show-off stream plus another Day Of The Devs showcase is coming as part of the Summer Game Fest. That’s it. Then we’re into a period I’m now declaring pre-Gamescom. But for now, still so many video games to play. Even if we are mostly playing Death Stranding.

What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on!

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If you think “ah yes, Final Fantasy Tactics” when you look at Fae Tactics, I suspect that’s totally its intention. Everything about it reminds me of being huddled up in the back seat of my mother’s van with my nose against the screen of a Game Boy Color being absolutely stymied by the logistics of vertical tactical battles. Fae Tactics pushed out a new trailer to announce you’ll get your hands on some classic turn-based skirmishes on July 31st.

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