Apparently, Viper one of the least-picked characters in Riot Games’ hot new FPS,Valorant, because, apparently>, her kit wasn’t very strong. She’s near the bottom of a lot of tier lists, yet here I am thinking she was pretty good. She has a big wall thing and a good smoke that both decay enemy health, as well as smelly little floor grenades that damage enemies. But that just wasn’t enough to make her more viable than other agents, I suppose. Not any more, though, because Riot have given her some beefy buffs in the most recent patch to up that decay damage, and bring down the cost of her toxic fuel.

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If a train of monsters riding through hell is too sensible for you, rejoice: you can now stick googly eyes on everyone Monster Train. Presumably inspired by the best Slay The Spire mod, the new option puts rolling googly eyes on all your monsters and enemies in battle (alas, not everyone on all screens, not like the Spire mod). Small. Pointless. Delightful. Pop into the settings menu, flick the switch, and get a-googling.

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A new region means new dojo leaders. Their teams are rather formidable and you’ll need to prepare in advance if you want to overcome them. But their dojo puzzles are also somewhat obtuse, with the fourth dojo having the absolute worst puzzle I’ve seen in a long time. If you’re stuck on that sliding puzzle, this guide has the solution.

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Has anyone, in the history of gaming, actually made the bad choice? I can see the renegade dialogue option staring at at me, but are we 100% sure it’s wired up to something in the game? I have my doubts. And it’s those doubts that have led to this, a new streaming series where your loyal RPS vid buds attempt to pursue the worst endings imaginable.

We plan to tackle games in their entirety over a number of weeks, starting with the moral murk of 2019’s The Outer Worlds. It’s short and has great potential for evil (like some RPS staffers I know) and should be a good time for all involved. Well, all those watching.

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As you may have seen already, the hillside lake shown on Minecraft‘s old title screen, which rotated slowly and blurrily between 2011 and 2018, has been located at last. The discovery of the world’s seed is a whole story in itself, about how a group of people managed to deduce a single location from among the 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 worlds possible in Minecraft. That’s about as many atoms as there are in a bee, for reference, making for a pretty daunting puzzle. But since the techniques used to solve it were so unspeakably clever that I could only understand them as literal sorcery, I am probably not the person to ham-fistedly relay that tale.

Instead, I thought I would make a pilgrimage to this fabled location by loading the 2011 beta build where it existed, generating a world with the sorcerers’ seed, and building a house by the side of that very lake. We’ve all seen the place hundreds of times, but I wanted to know what it was like to live there. The answer, as it would turn out, is “surprisingly difficult”.

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I’m sure you, a genius much like myself, have often looked at chess and thought “This is an idiot’s game for babies, fools, and foolish baby idiots.” I’m sure you, a genius much like myself, will therefore be thrilled to see the launch of 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel. And you, a genius much like myself, will be only too keen to play chess across extra “spatial, temporal, and parallel dimensions”. You, a genius much like myself, certainly will not read the marketing boast “It’s the first ever chess variant with multiverse time travel!” and groan OH GOD HELP.

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Dishonored

is one of my most favourite game series, even with the spelling. In it, you creep and sneak and elegantly stab your way through a part-steampunk, part-magick city (both aspects derived mainly from whales) and its political intrigues. And Death Of The Outsider, a standalone expansion that takes place after Dishonored 2, is that most rare of things: a satisfying ending.

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A long time ago, on a launcher far far away, you couldn’t play Star Wars: The Old Republic on Steam. But the old EA order has given way to the new, and for the past month, a fleet of games once exclusive to Origin have found their way into Valve’s orbit. Today, The Old Republic joined that armada, bringing the venerable MMORPG alongside its Star Wars brethren on Steam for the very first time.

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Now here’s a forecast you can rely on. Risk Of Rain 2 is finally leaving early access next month, and besides an increased chance of precipitation, the alien-blasting romp is adding a whole heap of new features on launch. Expect a new survivor, a new stage, a flashy new server browser and, unfortunately, a little bit of a price hike when it arrives on August 11th. Soz about that last one.

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Hey, can you keep a secret? See, I still haven’t played Rocket League, and I’m a little worried it might be too late. Fortunately, developers Psyonix have just announced that they’re making their spectacular car footy game free-to-play later this year – but there’s a bit of a catch. Once it ditches that pricetag, Rocket League is leaving Steam’s parking lot, taking its acrobatic hatchbacks exclusively to the Epic Games Store.

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