My own tragic backstory is that I grew up without any real tragedy, thus meaning my life will never be serialised on Netflix. I have lobbied producers many times, but they just say things like "Half of everyone's parents are divorced, Alice, you're not special!". Luckily, games provide richer narrative ground to tread, so this week's Electronic Wireless Show podcast is all about our favourite backstories in games!

It is, however, a highly derailed podcast even for us. First of all we need to clear up what exactly a casserole is, and then we get into this whole thing about what a gritty reboot of Matthew would be like, and also I describe the time I and my brothers were so hungover one Christmas Day a decade ago that we couldn't stand up. There's a bunch of games stuff in there, though. Also: The Sopranos.

Read more

When Elite Dangerous: Odyssey came out on May 19th, it was filled to the brim with bugs. Crashes, performance issues, stability problems - you name it, Odyssey was suffering from it. Developers Frontier issued three hotfix patches in its launch week, but more still needed to be done. Now they've released a sizeable patch that should remove a lot of the jank, addressing issues with the servers, UI, lighting, menus, missions and more.

Read more

Sony have already released former PlayStation exclusives Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone to PC, and Uncharted 4 might well be next, but it seems they still have plans for more. (Which is nice, because three games really isn't that many.) PlayStation boss Herman Hulst says Sony will "continue to look at the right times" to bring more scloosies over. From the sounds of things, we probably won't see those exclusives on PC at launch, however.

Read more

HP have announced they've completed their acquisition of HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston Technology, for a purchase price of $425 million. It's not yet clear whether HP will carry on using the HyperX name just yet, or whether they'll incorporate HyperX's extensive family of gaming headsets, mice, keyboards, mics and console accessories into their own HP Omen line-up. One thing that is clear, though, is that HP won't be taking Kingston's HyperX RAM with them. Instead, all HyperX RAM will now be rebranded under Kingston's new Fury banner.

Read more

For those of us that like hollering at our pals in co-op, Operation: Tango sure looks like it's worth getting some extra intel on. This co-op stealth puzzle game challenges you and a partner to take on roles as field agent and hacker to tackle secret missions with the power of your expert communication skills. Best yet, it uses a friend pass system so only you or your co-op buddy needs to own the game in order to play together. Suit up if that sounds like your type of assignment, because Operation: Tango is out now.

Read more

Esports legends Fnatic make some truly high-grade gaming peripherals, and their full-size Fnatic Streak mechanical keyboard is more than 50% off today. In fact, you can pick up the Streak from Best Buy for just $50, a $60 reduction from its normal price of $110 and the lowest price we've ever seen by a long shot.

Read more

Space exploring sim No Man's Sky is now letting you get off the ground, and not just in your ships anymore. You're now able to tame and ride low-flying space creatures. Take a gander at that silly flying space squid and tell me you don't want to hop on one right now. Hello Games have also made a pretty sizable visual update to the universe, but I'm honestly just excited about flying ten feet off the ground on my weirdest new pals. How silly and rad.

Read more

Minecraft's big new Caves & Cliffs update is just around the corner—or part of it is, anyway. Mojang announced previously that they'd decided to split Caves & Cliffs in two, rolling out a summer and winter release this year. The first part of that major update 1.17 is arriving next week on June 8th. It's got neither caves nor cliffs in it, though. Most of the world generation stuff is coming this winter. Starting next week you can start officially playing with goats and axolotls and glow squid, oh my!

Read more

Scrolling through oodles of videos of in progress indie games is always a treat. I hope everyone else has as big a sweet tooth as me because there are a heck of a lot of indie game goodies to check out thanks to the recent PitchYaGame awards. Indie developers have served up the freshest looks at their games for us to drool over and there's everything from optical illusion puzzles, to stealthy slimes, to city builders, to skateboarding.

Read more

If you're planning to build a new PC or upgrade an old one to run AMD's latest Ryzen processors, this deal is for you. The MSI MAG B550M Bazooka is one of the best recent AMD motherboards, and it's been heavily discounted at Amazon today. It normally retails for £120 and up, but today it's reduced to £70 - an incredible price for a quality B550 motherboard that pairs perfectly with AMD's latest Ryzen 5000 processors.

B550 is AMD's latest budget motherboard series, but it doesn't really sacrifice much to hit a much lower price point than premium X570 alternatives. You still get the three most important features: compatibility with the latest Ryzen 5000 processors, support for PCIe 4.0 graphics cards and SSDs, and the ability to overclock your RAM.

This means you get a very future-proof package, with the ability to start with entry-level components (like a Ryzen 3000-series processor, 3200MHz RAM and a SATA or PCIe 3.0 SSD) and still have the ability to make serious upgrades down the line, including up to 16 core Ryzen 5000 processors, 4400MHz RAM, PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs and the latest Nvidia or AMD graphics cards. The VRM - the part of the board that deals with power, essentially - is really good for a motherboard at this price point, which allows you to have options for overclocking if you want them.

Read more