Attention crewmates, Among Us has added a new quick chat text feature that they say is meant to be a faster and safer alternative to open text chat. Instead of typing out text freely, the radial text chat menu includes several different categories of callouts you may need to use. The update came with a few bugs throwing a wrench in player lobbies, but Innersloth have since released another update over the weekend to address many of them.
While Microsoft have been on a spending spree in recent years, snapping up studios of all shapes and sizes, it's still a little surprising that they're buying ZeniMax. That's Bethesda, Id Software, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, and the rest of the ZeniMax family joing Microsoft. And join they seemingly will, as financial authorities in both the US and Europe have recently approved the deal. $7.5 billion! The big bucks.
I've been watching a lot of Married At First Sight: Australia as of late. It's a reality TV show in which two strangers meet for the first time at the altar, say "I do", then dive headfirst into married life. As one might expect, it often doesn't take long before the honeymoon phase gives way to disappointment.
This just about sums up Maquette, a first-person puzzle game where everything in the world is both simultaneously small, but also very big. And as you unfold it with the powers of your intellect, you are subjected to the story of Michael and Kenzie's relationship. It's one that starts off all rosy, but gradually deflates as time goes by. The feelings go from big, to small. I'd say my own lie somewhere in between at a solid medium.
If you think you've got your ghost hunting routine down to a science, think again. Ghost investigation simulation Phasmophobia has gotten a hefty update that makes ghosts smarter and increases the difficulty of professional level contracts. Next time you load up the game you might need to be a bit quicker on your feet to avoid being murdered by that angry demon named Carol.
The K70 RGB MK.2 gaming keyboard is one of Corsair's best and most popular mechanical gaming keyboards, and the Cherry MX Red model is currently £50 off over at Amazon UK. Normally £150, this keyboard is now down to £100 at the moment, which is the cheapest this particular model has ever been, according to my Amazon price tracker.
If your sphere of PC game tastes includes either of the words “medieval” or “RTS”, you probably know the Stronghold games. They are about attacking and defending castles, and the 2001 original was pretty great. It had approximately two and a half million sequels, each of which was either equally ace, or a bin fire, depending on who you ask. As such, this review of Stronghold: Warlords could easily get swallowed up in a long, dull attempt to compare it to every one of its predecessors, identifying which of their various features it does or does not retain, and then agonising over where among them to rank it.
Instead, I’m going to review Warstrong: Lordhold as if it exists in blissful isolation from any of its bucket-helmeted elder brothers, and just say how much fun I’ve had with it. The answer is that I’ve had lots of fun with it! There are some caveats to go with that, sure. But the bottom line is that I’ve found at least as much pleasure in playing it, as my 17 year-old self did with Stronghold in 2001. To me at least, the series is back at the top of its very slightly wonky form.
When Nvidia announced their new slate of RTX 30 series laptops coming out this year, they told us we'd be seeing RTX 3060, RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 models starting to appear over the next few months. Now it looks like there might be RTX 3050 Ti versions joining the fray as well if new specs leaks are to be believed, as laptops from both Acer and Asus have been spotted listing this currently unannounced GPU in their specs product pages.
Listeners of the Electronic Wireless Show podcast will know that I like books, which is why my recommendations at the end of episodes are wot I read recently. Readers of this website will know I love RPGs. It was with some interest, then, that I discovered the existence of a genre called litRPG. It is apparently hugely popular, but I was totally unaware of it. I spent this week getting to grips with an upcoming Audible Original called Rise To Glory, by Alex Knight
The stabbing worlds of Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice come together in Blades Of Ashina, a DS3 mod which adds a number of Sekiro-inspired weapons. Mods swapping in weapon from other games are common, but these are full additions: they have unique moves, adding complex setups and combos with the speed and variety of Sekiro. Looks dead fancy. Come check out these sweet clips of upcoming murders with Owl's sword.
Unfortunately, Watch Dogs: Legion players will be waiting a little while longer before they get to go some lovely London hacking-sprees with their pals. The game's online mode was supposed to launch on PC and consoles tomorrow, on March 9th, but on Friday Ubisoft announced that due to some bugs and crashes they're postponing the mode's release. Console players will be able to get their hands on it later this month, however for PC, the mode has been delayed indefinitely.