I was encouraged after playing Amazon's New World MMO yesterday. A few things grabbed me. One, it was much more robust than I'd expected - I realise we were in a fairly controlled testing environment but it handled a 50 versus 50 battle without any kind of hitch. Two, it did it all while running believable collision detection on the server which made a real difference in battle. Three, it was very handsome and the spell effects were wonderful. Four, it was fun. And five, it didn't feel as out of date as I thought a fairly traditional MMO, in 2020, would.

New World was unveiled at The Game Awards last year. It's an online world inspired by the Age of Exploration but based around fiction rather than fact. You're not discovering America but sailing to an island in the Atlantic Ocean called Aeternum instead, a place where a magic called Azoth comes from and shapes the world. It's a setting that allows the game to have both gunpowder and magic, and swords and arrows.

I realise none of that sounds particularly exciting, but New World has some interesting ideas. The most exciting revolves around territory control, whereby guilds - companies - can own areas other players can live in, levying taxes and building those areas up and, of course, fighting over them. Or, rather, Warring over them. And this is what I got a chance to try: a War, a kind of instanced, 50 vs. 50 fight involving a few capture points and a fort.

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As we (finally) draw closer to the release of Cyberpunk 2077 in November, you could still be holding out for reviews before taking the plunge, or you might be starting to think about laying down a pre-order for CD Projekt Red's upcoming mega-RPG.

Well, if the latest Night City Wire has you convinced, order from Amazon UK and you'll get 3 exclusive Night City postcards with your copy of the game. Each one looks like an advertisement poster or flyer you might come across during your wanderings through the near-future metropolis. It's a somewhat more reserved offering that what you can find in the Cyberpunk 2077 Collector's Edition.

The postcard you're most likely to recognise features in-game rock band Samurai, who have been brought to life by real-world punk rockers Refused. A number of their singles created for Cyberpunk 2077 have already been made available to stream so far, ahead of the release of a full EP to come later down the road.

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We're a day out from the official reveal of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and the leaks are coming thick and fast, as yet another datamine has revealed the official description for the title - and even a possible release date.

The full description for Black Ops Cold War was posted by CODTracker, and reveals the game is a "direct sequel" to the original Black Ops. Set in the midst of the Cold War in the 1980s, players will "battle around the globe through iconic locales like East Berlin, Vietnam, Turkey, Soviet KGB headquarters and more" as part of the campaign.

"As elite operatives, you will follow the trail of a shadowy figure named Perseus who is on a mission to destabilise the global balance of power and change the course of history," the description adds. "Descend into the dark center of this global conspiracy alongside iconic characters Woods, Mason and Hudson and a new cast of operatives attempting to stop a plot decades in the making."

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As with E3 2020, gamescom moves online with a virtual show this year.

Alongside some daily programming is a headline stream once again hosted by Geoff Keighley of The Game Awards fame. Beyond that, the Future Games Show returns to round out the week.

Though Microsoft is due to announce something Xbox Series S related soon, there are no signs of a conference at the time of writing - so don't expect much from them, or PlayStation, in the week ahead. The wait for next-gen pricing and dates continue!

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When I met Wan Hazmer and Daim Dziauddin, founders of No Straight Roads developer Metronomik, at EGX Rezzed last year, I was immediately taken with the great story behind the game. Not only did the two want to release a homegrown Malaysian game and thus support their local game industry, but they also envisioned rhythm gaming as something more than following cursors and pressing buttons to the beat. One loves rock, the other is more into EDM, and thus Vinyl City was born, a place where a lone rock band takes on an evil EDM empire.

Vinyl City is a place so infused with music that it's powered by the screams of its music hungry fans. Bunk Bed Junction, a rock band consisting of the boisterous Mayday and her friend and polar opposite Zuke, wants to be the next big thing, but despite playing a solid show at an audition, they're told to beat it - all of the top performing artists play EDM, and simply see no reason in changing what works. About to give up, Bunk Bed Junction discover that the EDM Empire called No Straight Roads also disproportionately favours the rich and famous when it comes to electricity distribution, and so our heroes decide to become a very vocal opposition and climb to the top of the charts.

It's confusing at first, but at no point is No Straight Roads ever really a rhythm game. Instead, it's an action adventure with platforming elements that vaguely follow a rhythm. Before taking on an artist, you need to bypass "security" by traveling through rooms filled with enemies that attack to the beat. You can either play as Mayday or Zuke or play with a friend - either way you need to give these fiends a whacking and you can only do that during the moment they don't attack, as being hit cancels out your own animation.

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Developer Dead Mage's gorgeous story-driven action-RPG Children of Morta just got a whole lot more cuddly, thanks to its new Paws and Claws paid DLC - which adds a host of animals to pet, with all proceeds going to charity.

Children of Morta follows the tribulations of the Bergson family, custodians of Mount Morta, as they - and players - embark on an evil-thwarting quest that blends fantasy adventure with procedurally generated, rogue-like dungeon-crawling.

Paws and Claws is designed to offer a bit of respite between all the stresses of adventuring, and adds a new Animal Shelter to the family home players are able to return to between jaunts. Here, it's possible to feed and care for a host of animals, including deer, foxes, peacocks, owls, and more, each with their own typically sumptuous animations.

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Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the latest entry in developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's acclaimed action series, finally has a proper release date in the west; it'll be heading to Xbox One, PS4, and PC on 13th November, and there's a new trailer - showcasing its ridiculous Job classes - to celebrate.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon, if you're unfamiliar, marks a considerable departure for the long-running series; while it retains the gleeful side quests and activities of previous instalments as players explore the streets of new setting Kamurocho, there's a brand-new protagonist in the form of Ichiban Kasuga, and it trades the meaty beat-'em up action of old for a (surprisingly successful) turn-based combat system similar to that of an RPG.

As part of the latter, players are now able to adopt over 20 different Jobs, which essentially function like classes, opening up a range of new abilities that can be deployed in battle.

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Airplane Mode, the sim that lets you lives the highs and lows (but mainly lows) of a six-hour economy class flight in first-person and in real-time, will land on PC and Mac this autumn.

Announced last November, Airplane Mode, developed by Hosni Auji and published by AMC, is inspired by Penn and Teller's infamous monotony simulator Desert Bus, in which players are tasked with driving a slightly defective bus for eight straight hours in real-time along a single strip of road between Arizona and Nevada.

Airplane Mode, however, focusses its attention on one of life's slightly more familiar monotonies, challenging players to keep themselves amused on a long-haul flight - including taxi, take-off, and landing - from the relative comfort of an economy class window seat.

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As of last Sunday the 2019/20 football season, pickled and zombified beyond its natural expiry, finally came to an end. Off the back of some alarmingly frantic games in the latter stages, the Champions League final promised box-to-box drama and defensive chaos, but ultimately played out exactly as all Champions League finals often do: two hours of nervy, methodical human chess, resulting in Bayern Munich's cranking mechanical stiflement of the gold-plated Paris Saint-Germain.

The talisman of that great Bavarian mechanism was inevitable, at least to those who follow football. Thomas Müller, despite being an attacker and despite not scoring, was central to Bayern's plan, harrying and nibbling at PSG when out of possession and tugging and twisting their defence when his team had it. Now 30, Müller is emblematic of Bayern Munich and the German national team's near-perpetual success over the past decade.

He's also, famously, a bit of a footballing enigma. A contradiction of a player who seems to scuff his way impossibly through games, all elbows and knees and loose-fitting shin pads. His success at the weekend, being a success of the most Thomas Müller kind, reminded me of an article in ESPN about the great obstacle his awkwardness tends to propose for a particular football game: by FIFA's standards, one of the best players in one of the world's best teams is, technically, not very good.

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A brand new Harvest Sale is underway over at that haven of DRM-free PC games that is GOG. And to celebrate, you can grab a copy of Serious Sam: The First Encounter for free.

The debut entry in the first-person shooter series from Croteam originally launched on PC back in 2001. Following in the footsteps of the likes of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, Croteam made the decision that bigger is better. Thus, Serious Sam: The First Encounter was packed with huge environments and massive hordes of enemies to storm through - and launched to great praise.

It was shortly followed by The Second Encounter around a year later for another barrage of gun battles against alien forces. 2K Games then took over publishing duties for fully-fledged sequel Serious Sam 2, before Devolver Digital assumed that position for the prequel Serious Sam 3: BFE.

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