With the arrival of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3060, we're finally getting into the realms where the next generation of graphics performance becomes vaguely affordable. While its starting price of £299 / $329 isn't quite as wallet-friendly as the popular GTX 1060 it's intending to replace (which launched for $249 back in the heady days of 2016), it's still a more appealing choice for those looking to play games at 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 than the £369 / $399 RTX 3060 Ti and the £469 / $499 RTX 3070. Its generous 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM gives it plenty of headroom to deal with future high-end quality settings, for example, and its less-demanding power requirements mean you can still get away with using a pretty standard 550W power supply with it, which can't be said of its more expensive siblings.
If the recent sea shanty craze has inspired you to experience something terrible at sea, you should check out the latest game being given away free on the Epic Games Store. Failbetter's Sunless Sea is a roguelikelike exploration RPG upon a deeply cursed underground sea, set in the same supernatural world as their browser game Fallen London. Recruit a crew, take on quests, explore, encounter wonders, uncover mysteries, experience horrors, lose your mind, eat your crew, and die.
You've heard of loving to hate something? Well this week the Electronic Wireless Show podcast is talking about things we hate to hate. It's the games that we know are good, and really wished we enjoyed... but just don't. Some controversial picks here, I'm sure.
The most significant digression this week is how Matthew is a serial killer who makes his victims into chocolate-coated mannequins, which runs throughout the whole episode. And how many sharks would Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn strangle at the London aquarium? Probably a lot.
Steam's nifty feature that lets you play local co-op games online with your friends is getting even niftier. In Steam's beta client, Remote Play Together can now be used to invite anyone to play games with you, even if they don't have a Steam account - all they'll need to do is install an app.
Winter has come to Foxhole, the fascinating MMO sandbox World War 2 where players fill every role from driving tanks to driving the trucks which deliver the materials to build those tanks and the fuel that keeps them running. Snow is one of Foxhole's new dynamic weather conditions, and not only can it cause all sorts of troubles for forces, it can freeze water to open new avenues of attack. Have a peek at the Winter Army update in the trailer below.
Cyberpunk is so last year, it's time to look ahead to the new, cooler, cyberfunk. The skating, graffiti-ing, dancing platformer (that very much looks like a spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio), Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, got a new teaser trailer last night. It showed off loads of sick flips and tricks, some new music from composer Hideki Naganuma, and revealed it'll be grinding onto our screens in 2022.
Season two of Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone has landed, bringing with it a new Outbreak zombies mode, weapons, maps, Operators, and a generous helping of the undead horde to Verdansk. Of everything that's arrived, I look forward to hitting zombies with a snowmobile the most.
“Don't pick things now; they will bear fruit later”. Bit of Sumerian wisdom for you there, about the importance of patience. It’s wisdom I wish the developers of Nebuchadnezzar, the new Pharaoh-like city builder about ancient Mesopotamia, had kept in mind. Because their game is 70 percent of a masterpiece. But then, give a loaf-bearded Babylonian king a delicious date that’s only 70 percent ripe, and what will he do? He will roar at you in Cuneiform and hurl a lion-hunting spear through your thorax, that’s what. Because what you have given him is basically just a massive, rubbish olive.
Nebuchadnezzar is not a rubbish olive. It’s very pleasant, and certainly reasonable value for 16 quid. But it comes so close> to delivering the city building holy grail - a proper successor to the old Impressions city builders at last - that the shortfall is agonising. It would be easier to deal with if it was just an unimaginative reskin of Pharaoh or Caesar III. But no; Nebs fixes some of the most annoying fundamental systems in those classics, with astonishing elegance, and does new things besides. It has an astonishing setting, it looks splendid, and it’s remarkably polished. But unfortunately, there’s just not much in it.
He's Superman, Geralt Of Rivia, and now it looks like Henry Cavill might be a Mass Effect fanfiction writer to boot. Yesterday, he posted a picture on his Instagram of some unassuming blurry text, with a caption teasing a "secret project". As it turns out, that text is actually from a Mass Effect 3 Wikipedia entry. So, is he studying for a secret live-action Mass Effect role? Could he be lined up to voice a character in the new Mass Effect game? Nah, he's definitely writing fanfic.
Nvidia's RTX 3060 graphics card is finally here. Launching today - that's Thursday February 25th - at 9am PT / 5pm GMT, the RTX 3060 is the latest entry in Nvidia's RTX 30 series and the cheapest RTX 30 card to date, coming in just under the RTX 3060 Ti at £299 / $329. You can read all about its performance in my full RTX 3060 review, but if you've already decided the RTX 3060 is the new graphics card for you, then here's a list of everywhere you'll be able to buy an RTX 3060 card in the UK and US when it launches later on.