There’s a sneaky-sounding new faction joining the fray in Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone next week, and they’re bringing some new weapons and operators with them. They’re called Shadow Company, which is a name you may recognise if you’re familiar with Modern Warfare 2. I’m not really sure what the lore implications of that are, but hey, even if there aren’t any, they’re at least bringing along three new characters for you to play when Season 5 launches on August 5th next week.

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Imagine you’re having a scuffle in Blizzard’s funky little FPS, Overwatch. Most of the enemy team is here, except one of their tanks is definitely missing. That’s when you see it – a drop pod hurtling down from the sky. It crushes your teammates upon landing, before the gentle giant mech Orisa emerges from it. According to the Overwatch devs in a recent Q&A, this is what Orisa’s ultimate could’ve looked like in early development.

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Fae Tactics

is a turn-based tactical RPG with a ‘modernised retro’ vibe.

You play as Peony, a magician who’s looking for her mother and perhaps inevitably ends up having to save the world. It has a pretty art style, some promising ideas, and lots of lovely spell and attack effects. It’s out later today, and there’s a trailer too.

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If you’re after a new graphics card for your PC and can’t wait until Nvidia and AMD reveal their next-gen GPUs at the end of the year, then have I got some great graphics card deals for you. There have been big price drops for Nvidia’s RTX 2070 in the US this week, and a tasty UK discount for AMD’s RX 5600 XT, which is currently my top graphics card pick for those after excellent gaming performance at both 1080p and 1440p alike.

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To completely defox today’s word chain you’ll need to provide Roman, my Chief Foxer Setter, with the sequence of 24 words suggested by the clues below. (more…)

Dear Simon, Your Dad sounds like a chap after my own heart. It’s quite possible we were both in the Kerovian Republic at the same time. We might even have shared the same aviodyne gondola or stood atop the same stinking jagiphant carcass! In answer to your birthday present recommendations question, as it happens I have recent play experience of both of the titles you are considering. Steam tells me I played Winter War (£15) for ten hours before putting it aside disappointed.>(more…)

Razer’s super thin Blade laptops are often quite a bit more expensive than your typical portable gaming machines, mostly because they’re much slimmer than their chonky competition, but also because Razer stuff generally demands a bit of a premium anyway. Thankfully, Amazon have chopped a massive £550 off one of Razer’s Blade 15 laptops from 2019 today, taking this normally £1649 GTX 1660 Ti-powered laptop down to a much more appealing £1099.

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Struggling to get started in Factorio?

Have your friends told you time and time again about the joys of building factories, but you find yourself completely lost when it comes to starting your own? Or perhaps you just want a few pointers on how you can get set up even quicker in your next world?

Whichever of the above, this Factorio early game walkthrough is here to help. I’ll take you along for the ride as I play through my first hour or so of a new Factorio world; and in that time, I’ll show you how to be productive with your first steps, so you can create a solid foundation which you can then turn into a glorious, pollution-chugging factory.

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Baldur’s Gate 3

will probably be here next month, and it’s still unclear where it will land on the critical issue of a level cap.

Developers Larian previously stated in a Reddit AMA that their upcoming sequel will cover levels one to ten, but in our recent interview, lead systems designer Nick Pechenin said that this isn’t certain, as they’re still weighing it up.

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Vikings are cowards. Same goes for knights and samurai. If you’re a competent fighter in For Honor, then you might have clocked that defensive moves often beat out aggressive ones. Right now you can merrily block away until your opponent exhausts themselves, then go at ’em as they wheeze. This may have had something to do with my skill level, but counter-attacks seem a tad over-strong, too.

Great news! All of that will be worse soon! The upcoming Core Combat update revolves around emboldening players, introducing a load of tweaks that incentivise aggression. It’s not out ’til August 6th, but come watch this vid and and do some thinking about swords with me.

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