Gallium Nitride (GaN) chargers are pretty awesome, as they're much smaller than traditional power bricks allowing for some pretty bonkers specs in a tiny space. That's certainly the case for this Tecknet GaN triple charger, which offers two USB-C ports, one USB-A port and up to 65W of charging for Steam Deck, ROG Ally, laptops, tablets and phones.
It normally retails for £33, but today it's available for £25 - an awesome price for this spec.
Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 are two of the finest CRPGs ever devised, with incredible stories, characters and settings, and now you can relive one of the highlights of my childhood for just £2.99. That's a 90% savings on the two Enhanced Editions of the game, which run out of the box on modern PCs and even Steam Deck.
You know how some games are notebook games? Well, The Banished Vault is a manual game, no two ways about it. Sure, you could theoretically make meticulous notes about all the planetary symbols and construction costs of the various buildings you'll need to harvest and convert resources into fuel, alloys and elixirs as you hurtle through space trying to escape the terrifying Gloom based on its in-game> manual. But when there's a physical paper booklet that replicates all that for you in a much more easily accessible format, with several gorgeous illustrations of its mysterious space monastery to boot, not to mention infinitely better explanations of what everything does than I could ever hope to describe, it's quickly become an essential part of my play experience.
I'm still working on my review for The Banished Vault (hopefully coming later this week), but as it launches on Steam today, I'd strongly recommend spending the extra £5/$5 to get one if you're at all interested in Lunar Division's space survival management 'em up. I don't think I could have survived in the game without it.
Welcome to the 2023 edition of The RPS 100, our annual celebration of our favourite PC games of all time. Like previous years, this isn't a list of the definitive best PC games of all time, nor is it about what's considered the most important or influential. Rather, this is a ranking that reflects who we are as a team - our own personal Bestest Bests, so to speak, and the games that are nearest and dearest to our collective hivemind hearts. Once again, we're splitting the list in two articles this year, so come on in and find out what's made the cut in Part One below.
Recently I sat down with GGRecon for a roundtable-ish interview with Armored Core 6: Fires Of Rubicon director Masaru Yamamura and producer Yasunori Ogura to talk more about their upcoming mecha action game. And their answers gave us more of an insight into the game's early development, where the story might take you, and how you might overcome some of its trickiest nuts and bolts.
While it won't come as much of a surprise to Armored Core veterans, Armored Core 6 isn't an open world game. If you're a new FromSoftware-liker brought on board by the expansive world of Elden Ring, then yes, you might be a bit surprised. As I mention in my preview, Armored Core 6 sees you play a mecha-mercenary who selects jobs from a drop down menu and jets off to destroy whatever needs destroying. But Yamamura says FromSoft actually considered going down a more open world route in early stages of the game's development.
With a trusty can of Red Bull coursing through my veins and my heart rate pounding like a jackhammer, I spent around three hours with Armored Core 6: Fires Of Rubicon's first chapter. And rather like Red Bull's metallic fizz of aspartame and rocket fuel, I'd say the game shares a similar makeup. It doesn't give you wings, but what it does give you is a mech as nimble as a Eurasian Blue Tit darting at a confetti of stale bread.
As a historic mech-disliker, the game actually managed to instil a desire to become a skilled mech pilot. I want to buy new metal legs and attach gatling guns to my spine! But I'm apprehensive about the grind to get those parts and whether some of AC6's Souls influences clash with its rapid pace.
While I was on holiday last week I started playing Alan Wake for the first time ever in my whole life, due to a working theory that I might end up reviewing the sequel one day, who knows. I am furious because none of you told me Alan Wake is essentially Garth Marenghi in his Twin Peaks era, and if you had I would have played it ages ago. The game is such a knowing snake ball of mating tropes that it ouroboroses round into being brilliant, flawless, ridiculous. And also Alan is a terrible writer, I would hate his books. But also everyone should leave him alone because he's doing his best.
Another day, another Eastern MMO picked up by Amazon Games and repackaged for a Western audience. What's the grind this time? Blue Protocol, an anime MMO developed by Bandai Namco that's already out in Japan, and is due out in the West sometime in 2024. I played it for an hour and I've come away thinking it's a slick operation, with some slight Monster Hunter edge to its combat. While the future sounds promising, questions remain around a world which seems a bit eh, and the ever looming march of the microtransactions.
What's the cheapest graphics card that includes a free copy of Starfield? That would be this AsRock RX 6600 8GB, available for just £186 shipped on Overclockers. This card is an ideal choice for 1080p gaming and has dropped in price consistently over the last few months, making it an even better value than it was in 2022.
Samsung's 990 Pro 2TB SSD is the fastest gaming SSD on the market in terms of real-world performance - no wonder it's one of our top picks for gaming SSDs. Today you can pick up one of these 7300MB/s PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives for £133, down from its regular price of £170.