If, like me, you've been eagerly awaited news of Portal 3 for the last decade and a bit, I'm afraid today is still not your lucky day. Valve does, however, have some hitherto unseen Portal on the way for your tearily grateful playing pleasure in the form of a free interactive tutorial thingy for Steam Deck - titled Aperture Desk Job and launching next week.

Admittedly, "interactive tutorial" sounds neither riveting nor sexy, which is probably why Valve is referring to its new Steam Deck experience as a "free playable short". But what actually is it?, you may be wondering. Well, in much the same way as Valve returned to the Portal universe for its entirely endearing Steam VR performance test a few years back, Aperture Desk Job is designed to walk Steam Deck owners through their new handheld's controls and features, "while not being nearly as boring as that sounds."

"Aperture Desk Job reimagines the been-there-done-that genre of walking simulators and puts them in the lightning-spanked, endorphin-gorged world of sitting still behind things," explains Valve over on Steam. "You play as an entry-level nobody on their first day at work - your heart full of hope and your legs full of dreams, eager to climb that corporate ladder. But life's got other plans, and they all involve chairs. "

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Amidst bumper acquisitions and a multitude of mega new releases, NFTs have garnered many headlines across the industry in 2022 - from big publishers like EA and Ubisoft toying with the controversial blockchain technology to flashpoints like Team 17 quickly embracing it then having to deal with the immediate fallout.

Back in October, Valve made a stand by banning all blockchain games from its Steam platform, updating its policy documents to reflect the change. The move was well-received by the wider community, though the developer of Age of Rust - one of the games impacted by the new policy - went into a bit more detail, claiming that Steam didn't want to allow items of real-world value on its store.

It was an interesting point, especially in context of the success Valve has seen off the sale of the likes of Team Fortress 2 hats and CS: GO skins, so given the chance to speak to Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell I thought it'd be worth asking for a bit more clarity on the stance.

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Imagine PlayStation 4-level performance at Nintendo Switch mobile resolution or better and you have some idea of what Valve's Steam Deck can actually deliver in terms of raw performance. With minimal tweaking, you're playing Horizon Zero Dawn or God of War at native resolution at 30fps and to put it frankly, that's quite a marvel to behold. Steam Deck isn't a cutting-edge PlayStation Vita successor though - it's so much more than that. It's built around a Linux-based iteration of the Steam platform, meaning that in theory at least, you have a machine capable of playing the entire Steam library with access to games stretching back decades. On top of that, this isn't a locked down console, it's a fully open PC, meaning that you can effectively run what you want on it - including Windows, if you want.

I suspect it's for this reason that Steam Deck is so eagerly awaited, because the system offers so much opportunity that inevitably, it becomes the embodiment of what everyone has ever wanted from a handheld. The cheap, powerful handheld Nintendo hasn't delivered yet with Switch Pro? A portable PS4? The ultimate mobile device for retro gaming? Potentially, Steam Deck can do all of these things and as soon as you've sunk a couple of hours into the system, you get some idea of what it's actually capable of - and from there, the possibilities seem endless.

However, there is also the cold, hard reality of the niggles and frustrations you endure alongside the winning experiences. There's still the sense that Steam Deck is very much a work-in-progress. SteamOS and software updates arrived throughout the review period, sometimes changing the experience dramatically. Right up until the day before the review embargo, new updates were still appearing (thankfully, with only minor changes) and I expect more to come. The truth is that it was only on Monday February 21st that I felt the system was stable enough to properly review it. There are still plenty of rough edges and in terms of the full Steam library compatibility the system needs, that's still much to do. For example, Nex Machina and The Witcher 2 freeze with a black screen after loading, Red Dead Redemption 2 crashes randomly, while Doom 64's continual seconds-long stuttering makes the title unplayable. There's the sense that there's still a long road ahead until Steam Deck compatibility is absolutely where it needs to be.

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Whether you are new to FromSoftware's games or not, Elden Ring's open world is both an exciting and daunting prospect.

When you first emerge in the starting area of Limgrave - after you have selected your starting class and starting Keepsake item - the entire region is open for you to explore, from discovering caves hiding short but challenging dungeons, to dragons, trolls and other powerful creatures which roam the lands.

Though there is a destination you must reach as part of the story, you don't have to go there right away. In fact, we would highly recommend against it - and instead, take the time to understand how things work and power up your character.

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Whilst I do my best to keep my reviews spoiler-free, it's incredibly difficult to critique Martha Is Dead without reflecting, in part, on some of its more problematic story beats. Consequently, though I promise to minimise them, it's unlikely this review will be entirely without spoilers. Apologies!

The scene everyone's talking about right now - a scene at the beginning of the game where a girl deftly slices off the face of her twin sister's corpse - is not the scene from Martha is Dead that we should be talking about. I don't think it's the scene we will be talking about. There are several sequences, in fact, that may spark the outrage of pearl clutchers everywhere, scenes that are so gratuitously obscene that even I - a card-carrying lover of deliciously dark stories with a penchant for psychological horror - struggle to justify, and that some may struggle to stomach.

For the record, I played an uncensored version of Martha is Dead on Xbox Series X, so it's possible the version I experienced will be very different to the one you do, but know that while I am easily spooked, I am not easily grossed out. I read the disclaimer - this "horror drama" will be "visually unsettling and may cause discomfort" as it explores "the complexities of the human mind, psychological trauma, and self-harm" - and was confident I'd be okay. And I was. Just.

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Elden Ring publisher Bandai Namco has acknowledged various performance problems with the game, and particularly with its PC build.

As Eurogamer reported earlier this morning, Elden Ring currently sits with a "mixed" Steam user rating despite its widespread critical acclaim. Many negative reviews note the game's current visual stutters on PC.

Yesterday, Digital Foundry listed this visual stutter among a number of issues it had uncovered during an early appraisal of the game with its current 1.02 patch applied. More on that below.

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Steam users have given the critically-acclaimed Elden Ring a decidedly more cautious response, with thousands of negative reviews within the game's first 24 hours.

Elden Ring currently sits on a "mixed" rating on Steam, with 14k positive reviews but 9.5k negative. Many fans list the game's PC performance as their chief bugbear.

FromSoftware's eagerly-awaited new Soulsbourne game launched last night to huge player peaks on Steam and Twitch, following years of hype and anticipation.

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If you've wondered what Elden Ring might look like as a PS1 game, then wonder no more.

Hoolopee, a London-based 3D artist and VFX supervisor, has reimagined Elden Ring's trailer to do just that.

Now you can witness the Lands Between with all the low-res, shimmering textures and polygonal character models you might expect of a 90s classic.

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Elden Ring is playabale on the Steam Deck.

It's fitting, considering both the game and Valve's handheld are released today.

Valve is rating games for the Steam Deck based on compatibility and Elden Ring has received verified status.

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Video game developers based in Ukraine have spoken out, amidst the ongoing invasion of their country by Russia.

Ukraine is home to Stalker developer GSC Game World, The Sinking City and Sherlock Holmes studio Frogwares and Suvarium maker Vostok Games, among others. Ubisoft has two studios in the country, including in its capital Kyiv.

"Our country woke up with the sounds of explosions and weapons fire, but is ready to defend its freedom and independence," GSC wrote, calling for aid to be sent to Ukraine's armed forces. "The future is unknown, but we hope for the best, are ever sure of our armed forced and our belief in Ukraine."

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