Which Mass Effect has the best control scheme can be a pretty dividing topic. Now I don't want to shame anyone who enjoyed how Mass Effect 1 controlled, but to be clear, I do> think you're all masochists. I was delighted to find out that BioWare would be bringing the first game more in-line with the sequels with the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. As well as tweaking the combat, the devs are making some much-needed changes to the Mako. However, if for some reason you want to experience the infamously unwieldy vehicle just like old times, you can.

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As someone who likes to read a lot when they're not playing games, I'm always intrigued by what video game characters have on their bookshelves. Usually, it's a pretty fruitless endeavour. Occasionally there'll be individual books we can pore over as in-game items, but more often than not, any actual bookshelves in games tend to just be awash with a mass of wordless spines with colourful decorations on them, as artists, understandably, probably don't have time to come up with an entire library of unique book titles. But I always take a look regardless, because you never know when someone might surprise you - and a couple of games I've played recently have really> good ones.

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The dark gods of survival horror smile on you this day, child. Resident Evil Village is out now, beckoning you into its township like a big church bell. But wait, before you go tip-toeing through the disturbing cabbage patches of these zombievamp wolfpeople, or whatever they are, please come this way. I have a map for you. An itinerary of other small settlements. Here are the 8 creepiest villages in PC games.

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Welcome to spring/summer 2021, the year in which this endless hell enters its Thunderdome mode. We all stagger from our caves, blinking in the harsh daylight, to batter each other for the chance to order a pint and drink it in a freezing beer garden going "Yeah, it's not actually that cold today, is it?"

If you're anything like me you'll have already prepared by making knuckle dusters out of empty spaghetti hoop tins been getting loads of emails about wellness and mindfullness. I've been getting them from my hairdresser. I've been getting them from cheese companies that I signed up to once like a year ago because I wanted a massive box of cheddar. Pretty sure I even got one from my bank, which is weird. Businesses out there are very concerned that we stay mindful and well in this difficult time. But none of the tips for easy yoga stretches I can do on my lunch break have done me as much good as Say No! More.

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Wikipedia defines a spiritual successor as "a product or fictional work which is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous work, but does not explicitly continue the product line or media franchise of its predecessor, and is thus only a successor 'in spirit'."

The amount of games that are – for my money – wrongly considered spiritual successors is wild. But, to be fair, I believe we did well this week. I think you could call every game in this week's Mystery Steam Reviews a spiritual successor. And that's good, because if you haven't picked it up at this point, that's the theme.

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Norse mythology is great. Really, what's not to like about nine magical realms all connected by a giant space tree? The open-world Viking stabbing sim Assassin's Creed Valhalla might be exploring these mythological Norse roots a bit more in the future, as a dataminer has discovered files in the game that reference the toasty realm of Muspelheim - that's the one with fire giants and lava rivers.

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Resident Evil Village has finally arrived, bringing back Resi 7 star Ethan Winters and chucking him into town where tall ladies and werewolves roam. The first-person horror game takes place a few years after Biohazard, after Ethan and his wife Mia attempted to live a peaceful life following their escape from the Baker family. But there is no peace for Eef. Now he is in a scary village whose inhabitants seem to want to eat him.

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It’s a beautiful day in the meadows of Viking survival game Valheim; I’m ambling about picking raspberries, looking for stones and promising-looking sticks. They don’t take long to find, and with trembling hands I attach one to the other, and create a crude axe.

I seek out the nearest tree to unleash my wrath upon. It takes a while to bring my opponent low, but eventually I am victorious, and the great trunk teeters and falls!

The tree comes down on top of me, and I die immediately.

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Resident Evil Village is finally here, continuing the story of Ethan Winters from Resident Evil 7 as he finds himself trapped in a bleak, wintry landscape full of tall vampire ladies, snarling wolf boys and more horrible nasties than you can shake an Umbrella-shaped stick at. It's also one of the best-looking PC games of the year by my reckoning, especially if you happen to own a ray tracing-capable graphics card. It runs supremely well, but it can start to chug a bit if you exceed your graphics card's memory limit. To help you get the best performance in Resident Evil Village, I've put together this best settings guide, telling you which settings to turn on (and which to dial back) to help keep those frame rates nice and high.

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Before revisiting the games I played as a youngster, I never really realised how much better a game can be when you’re co-operating with a teammate. Of course this goes for your team-based games like Warzones and Fortnites and Valheims, but in my experience, literally any game where I can get the homies involved improves the vibes tenfold.

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