Eurogamer

Chris: Pocket Watch is the latest game from Sokpop, a team that releases two new games a month. They tend to be ingenious riffs on a single idea each time. Pocket Watch is really something.

For the first twenty minutes I didn't really know what was going on. I was a duck who woke up on an island and had to try and fix a boat to get back to the mainland where a volcano was rumbling. I had to get a boat part, but I also had to wait for high tide so I could swim to a little reef and collect a spanner. That meant...waiting. Actually sitting down and waiting for the time to pass.

Eventually I got the boat fixed and made it to the island. I wandered around a bit, met a few characters and collected a few coins - after I'd been given a purse to keep them in. There was an auction set for the evening with a pocket watch up for grabs, but I'd foolishly spent all my money by then. Just as I was wondering what to do next the volcano erupted and I died. Game over. Back to the start.

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Eurogamer

The first of the big three chip-makers to have their CES 2021 press conferences, Intel has had a packed day of announcements. The company teased their next flagship desktop chip, the Core i9-11900K, as well as 500-series motherboards and 11th-gen H-series CPUs for laptops. Here's what you need to know - starting with the 11900K.

In some ways, the 11900K feels like more of a successor to the Core 9900K than the 10900K, as it drops back down from 10 cores and 20 threads to eight cores and 16 threads. However, this decrease in core count should be compensated for by an up to 19 per cent quoted improvement in instructions per clock (IPC), an important measure of single-core performance - and an area where AMD made significant strides with their Ryzen 5000 processors.

This larger-than-normal IPC uplift in Rocket Lake S comes from the use of Cypress Cove cores, which debuted in Intel's 10nm Ice Lake laptop chips and now have been back-ported to that familiar 14nm process Intel has been using for some time now in its desktop CPUs. Frequencies on the 11900K are on par with the 10900K too, with the new processor being capable of boosting to up to 5.3GHz on a single core or 4.8GHz on all cores with Thermal Velocity Boost.

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Eurogamer

Last night brought a new PlayStation 5 trailer broadcast during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and with it some changes to the release dates of various upcoming PS5 games.

Hidden in the trailer's small print is word that Capcom's odd-looking astronaut and small girl-starring Pragmata will now arrive in 2023. It was previously slated for launch in 2022.

There's also a slightly more definitive "March" 2021 launch window for the intriguing Kena: Bridge of Spririts, instead of simply "spring".

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Eurogamer

Final circles in battle royales can be daunting for the best of us, but for some players it seems to be something they want to avoid entirely. Warzone's infinite stim glitch has returned, and players are once again using it to win games by hiding out in the gas. Not so great for those who want to end a game with an actual shoot-out.

The glitch, which first appeared back in October last year, allows players to use infinite tactical items, thus making it possible to spam healing stims and hide away from other players until the game is over. It's also possible to use the glitch to spam stun grenades, which seems just a little overpowered. Numerous videos have popped up on social media showing players using the exploit over the last few days, including one in which a hacker and a stim glitcher go toe-to-toe. Who will win? Only one way to find out...

Yet some players have managed to get their own back on the stim glitchers: one doing so by truck, and another group hunting a stim exploiter down across the map to clutch a victory. It's all extremely satisfying to watch.

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Eurogamer


More than 2 million people tuned into Twitch last night to watch Spanish Fortnite streamer David "TheGrefg" Martínez reveal his own skin in the game, utterly smashing the platform's concurrent viewer record.

At one point, total viewership to TheGrefg's channel hit 2.4 million - nearly quadruple the record set by fellow Fortnite fan Ninja back in 2018 when he played the battle royale with rapper Drake and notched up 635,000 viewers.

(TheGrefg already beat that total once - narrowly - back in December, with a stream watched by just over the 639,000 people.)

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Destiny 2: Beyond Light Stranger's Upgrade Pack

Riot Games and Bungie have teamed up to tackle cheating in Valorant and Destiny 2, with their lawyers filing a joint complaint aimed at cheat software creator GatorCheats, which it accuses of selling and distributing "malicious software products designed to enable members of the public to gain unfair competitive advantage."

As reported by Polygon, Riot and Bungie filed the complaint in the Central District of California court last week, estimating that GatorCheats and its owner Cameron Santos have made "tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars" selling cheats - which cost $90 USD a month, $250 for three months, or $500 for lifetime access.

"The Cheating Software enables players to manipulate Valorant and Destiny 2 to their personal advantage," explains the lawsuit, before giving examples "such as by automatically aiming weapons, revealing the locations of opponents, and allowing the player to see a vast array of information that otherwise would be obscured".

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System Shock® 2 (1999)

Nightdive Studios' upcoming enhanced edition of seminal sci-fi adventure System Shock 2 might be a little more ambitious than initially expected, with the developer now teasing VR support for the game in a new tweet.

System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition was initially announced back in 2019, and while Nightdive wasn't particularly forthcoming regarding the specific enhancements fans could expect on its release, the developer did confirm the game would include improvements to co-op play and employ the same engine used to create its enhanced version of System Shock 1 - which added the likes of 4K support, achievements, and improved controls.

Little has been seen of the project since that initial unveiling, leaving fans to ponder its progress, but now System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition has resurfaced in a new tweet from Nightdive, with the developer revealing a surprise new feature in the form of VR support.

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Eurogamer

Lucasfilm is resurrecting the Lucasfilm Games brand, which will be the future home for all its future video game properties, including all Star Wars titles "and beyond".

"Lucasfilm's legacy in gaming stretches back decades," says the company in its announcement post, "and with Lucasfilm and the galaxy far, far away entering a new and unprecedented phase of creativity, so will the world of Lucasfilm Games".

The Lucasfilm Games brand has a long and illustrious legacy, of course, being the original name given to the company's gaming division - responsible for adventure classics such as the Monkey Island series and Day of the Tentacle, as well as X-Wing and Star Wars Jedi Knight - by George Lucas in 1982.

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Eurogamer

Lucasfilm is resurrecting the Lucasfilm Games brand as the new home for all its video game properties, including future Star Wars titles "and beyond".

"Lucasfilm's legacy in gaming stretches back decades," says the company in its announcement post, "and with Lucasfilm and the galaxy far, far away entering a new and unprecedented phase of creativity, so will the world of Lucasfilm Games".

The Lucasfilm Games brand has a long and illustrious legacy, of course, being the original name given to the company's gaming division by George Lucas in 1982 - a division that would go on to produce a string of seminal titles, from adventure classics such as the Monkey Island series and Day of the Tentacle to beloved Star Wars games including X-Wing and Jedi Knight.

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Eurogamer

A couple of online retailers have now listed the upcoming Mass Effect: Legendary Edition for release on 12th March 2021.

EA is yet to officially announce a date for its remastered Mass Effect trilogy pack beyond a vague spring window but, barring any further delays, Eurogamer understands the above date to currently be accurate.

Singapore retailer Shopitree and Indonesian outlet GSShop both have Mass Effect: Legendary Edition down for 12th March, as spotted by Twitter user Idle Sloth.

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