Last week, you decided (barely!) that drawbacks are better than a load of lasers. I feel I should've defined drawbacks more narrowly but there'll be chaos if introduce undosies. Onwards! Next, I present a choice between two oft-disliked things. What's better: controlling a turret, or little inconsequential choices?
I've not played Call Of Duty: Warzone in yonks. It used to take up practically all of my time, and now it's sat there neglected on my PC for the better part of a year or so. Even with King Kong and Godzilla arriving in the game today, I'm still playing Fortnite over it, which says it all, really.
Why did I stop playing Warzone? Other games came along, I suppose. Maybe I'd become a bit burned out, which would only be natural considering the amount of hours I spent ducking and trucking. But I think the way it's changed has played a big part in my departure. More specifically, there's been too> much change. The game looks bonkers now.
The antitrust lawsuit against Valve can continue, a US judge has ruled. Valve had filed a motion for the case to be dismissed, but the latest ruling states that game publishers "plausibly allege" that they "suffer price and non-price injury" from Valve's conduct related to Steam. In particular, the suit alleges that Valve use "most favoured nation" policies to prevent competition based on price.
The Samsung 970 Evo Plus is a strong PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD, offering excellent performance and reliability, but it costs $200 on Amazon for a new 2TB model. That's a fair bit, so we were excited to see a refurbished option for $140 at Best Buy. That's considerably cheaper than any other 2TB NVMe SSD on the market, and user reviews on Best Buy paint a rosy picture of barely-used drives whose condition can easily be checked.
The Crucial MX500 SATA SSD is going cheap in the UK this week, as Amazon have discounted the 1TB model to £66 while CCL are selling the 2TB size for £138. Both are the cheapest we've ever seen the MX500, making it a great time to upgrade your desktop or laptop with a reliable SSD.
Inspired by Ready Player One's critical acclaim and the unstoppable rise of cryptocurrencies and NFTs, I'm writing my own dystopian young adult novel about teen rebels who stick it to The Man using the power of the blockchain. While I'm still working on it, publishers and movie producers have already shown great interest. So allow me to treat you, reader dear, to some samples and worldbuilding notes from 1/1, the first drop of the Non-Fungible Future saga.
One of my biggest highlights from PAX East a couple of weeks ago was attending Shirley Curry, aka: Skyrim Grandma's panel about her roleplaying adventures in Bethesda's enormous RPG. Despite suffering a stroke just a couple of months beforehand, the 85-year-old YouTuber was on fine form during her PAX East panel, speaking to a packed out theatre of fans and viewers who have spent the better part of six years following her various playthroughs through Skyrim as a multitude of different characters. She talked briefly about her writing and character creation process for her Let's Play-style videos, before spending a whopping 45 minutes answering questions from the audience. These covered everything from her favourite things in Skyrim to her favourite, real-life candy, and also included a surprising number of horror game recommendations. In her own words, she loves stuff that's "weird and creepy", and has recently been looking for something new to play. "I’d really like to play a dark, scary game," she said, and the audience were only too happy to oblige.
It was a truly wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon, and as soon as it was over, both Liam and I knew it was too good not to share. Here's a written transcript of the entire audience Q&A in full, plus a summary of her opening speech, for your reading pleasure.
Nothing says "family" more than banding together to slaughter a giant sea creature, then using its corpse as a venue for killing each other repeatedly in your bloodsport tournaments. Yes, Apex Legends' 13th season, Saviors, is now live, bringing with it changes to the Storm Point map, and the newest Legend, Newcastle.
"Check, check."> When Eve Online players hear that word repeated in quick succession, they fall silent. They know an important message is to follow, and that everybody in voice chat needs to hear it. Often, when Michael Pusateri is in a work meeting at NBCUniversal that’s going sideways, the same comms command enters his head. "Check, check. Shut up, everyone.">
“They’re all talking over each other and nothing’s getting done and it’s spinning into chaos,” says Pusateri, a VP for Creative Technology who goes by Dunk Dinkle in-game. “Why can’t these people who are being paid so much money behave as well as these people who get paid nothing?”
Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is a bit of a weird one. Originally conceived as a Kickstarter stretch goal for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, the next JRPG from Suikoden creator Yoshitaka Murayama, this smaller, more action-focused RPG has become both an official prequel to Hundred Heroes and a kind of intermediate stop-gap designed to tide players over until the main event next year. Focusing on the back stories of just a handful of the titular hundred you'll be meeting in Rabbit & Bear Studios' spiritual successor to Suikoden (the first of which memorably had a whopping 108 recruitable party members), Rising has the air of almost required reading for players eager to return to the lavish, retro worlds Murayama built his name on.