More than likely, I'm not the only person whose first reaction to the Steam Deck was something along the lines of "didn't Valve already try this?" Valve's hardware products have really run the spectrum from the VR gold standard Valve Index to the less impressive console-like Steam Machine. Sure enough, Valve say that "Steam Deck feels like the culmination of a lot of that earlier work." They say that Proton has been the route to help them solve the "chicken and egg" problem that the Steam Machine fell victim to.

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The extraterrestrial survival game Icarus may have just made RPS's list of top games in August but, oh dear. It's now delayed until November, actually. It will still be playable for some folks next month though, it turns out. RocketWerkz have announced that they'll be running a handful of beta weekends for pre-order players focused on different areas of the game beginning at the end of August.

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The next major update for viking craft 'em up Valheim is still being cooked up in the kitchen, but it's starting to smell just about done. Iron Gate have previously revealed several new foods and tasty cooking stations, but now they're taking us down into the cellar. That's right, iron cells, treasure chests, and giant piles of gold are also getting thrown in the Hearth & Home pot when the update lands this autumn.

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It has been a hot minute since I hit you with some fun new indie games (I was on holiday! Gimme a break!) but I'm very excited to be back with some crackers this week. I was too tired to come up with a theme, though, so instead here are just some fun games that I think you'll like, woooooo!

In fact, I've managed to pick three games that are so disparate in style and tone that I don't think I could link them by a theme even if I really, really tried. I can start with a more topical one, though. Yes, it's about vaccines. But like, in a fun way. I promise.

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The Artful Escape has been a long time coming for Beethoven & Dinosaur founder and designer Johnny Galvatron. While his side-scrolling platformer - about a teenage musician going on a fantastical journey to find and create his own stage persona - made its initial debut back in 2017, Galvatron tells me this game has really been 38 years in the making. He's a professional musician himself, having been the lead singer of electronic rock band The Galvatrons in the mid noughties, but he's also been raised on a diet of video games since the days of the Sega Master System. He started designing his own games during the Nintendo 64 era, but it wasn't until 2012 that he finally decided to make a proper go of it.

"Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP really made me want to make an indie game for iPad," he tells me, "[while] Kentucky Route Zero pushed me into the mindset of making something for PC. And, look, things spiralled out of control and here we are."

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Not sure what each of the New World attributes are for? You've come to the right place, then. Like many other MMOs, New World gives players a great many ways to level up and progress their character, and central to these interlocking systems are the five core attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Focus, and Constitution.

Each one of these attributes offers you a variety of different bonuses and boons, and before you have a good idea how to level up your character, you'll need to understand what each attribute does for you. Read on to find out the threshold bonuses and weapon damage stats associated with each of New World's core attributes.

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On this week's episode of Ultimate Audio Bang, Imogen shares some juicy news nuggets with us. Splitgate – a Halo meets Portal FPS – seems to have garnered some serious interest. Naturally, both of us haven't played it. Sounds cool, though. Elsewhere Halo Infinite's doing a thing this weekend, which we also aren't playing. To be fair, we're waiting for John Masterchief's invite. And just to round things off, Apex Legends has a new character, while PUBG might be going free-to-play. It's a stacked one, folks.

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It's been a great week for Ace Attorney fans. Not only has The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles finally arrived on Steam, giving us two brand new courtroom dramas to sink our teeth into, but there's also a rather brilliant double-pack deal going on right now that gets you The Great Ace Attorney and> the Ace Attorney Trilogy for just £40, which is a mega saving considering both games currently sell for £30-odd apiece. If you've yet to experience Capcom's legal dramas and don't know where to start, I strongly suggest buying both.

It's also a good week for Ace Attorney music lovers, too. Capcom's had the soundtracks for both games on Spotify for a while now, but hidden away in Great Ace Attorney's special content menu is a treasure trove of unused> music by composers Yasumasa Kitagawa and Hiromitsu Maeba. Accompanied by little notes describing their thought process and why they ultimately weren't selected, it's a great little peak behind the curtain as to what goes into making a rollicking Ace Attorney theme. And I wish more games did this as a rule, too.

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This week, hundreds of current and former Ubisoft staff signed an open letter in solidarity with Activision Blizzard employees, who took part in a walkout on Wednesday to protest an alleged culture of sexual harassment and discrimination at the Call Of Duty and World Of Warcraft developers. The letter criticises Ubisoft's own handling of abuse allegations, and calls for "real, fundamental changes" across the industry. Yesterday, CEO Yves Guillemot responded, saying the company has made "important progress over the past year", but acknowledges that "there is still more work to be done."

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When I think about it, I’ve probably spent more time looking at Steam than I’ve spent doing grown-up and useful things, like staring at my washing machine’s controls. And like someone who knows where all the bits are, I’ve gotten used to some design choices that could be better. I’ve been using external storage programs to deal with space issues across my multiple Steam installs, but Steam’s beta channel updated last night, bringing a new download manager and, importantly, a storage manager.

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