Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Officially unveiled at this week's Panic Games Showcase, Arco is a triptych of revenge stories set across the deserts, plains and forests of a fantastical, South American-style landscape. It's a part of the world we don't often get to see in games, and its stunning pixel art (and tiny cute little llamas) instantly caught my eye when I got to play an early mission from it at last week's Gamescom. Made by four developers spread across the globe, the official genres listed on its Steam page describe it as a tactical turn-based action adventure RPG where you guide four separate heroes in their fight against the ominous sounding Red Company. But just saying it's turn-based is doing Arco a disservice, I think, as it's also a little bit real-time, a little bit simultaneous turns, and all> pretty brilliant, if you ask me. Here are some very early impressions of it.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Last time, you decided that a stress-free co-op helper is better than timed dialogue choices. A double victory for carefree living, there. I don't understand; how do you get anything done without the constant feeling that everything is about to collapse around you? Weird. Still, we must move on, for science. This week, I ask you to choose between a sharp shock and a deep dive. What's better: interrupt attacks, or a lore codex?

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Want a cheap and cheerful standing desk for working or PC gaming? This electric option from Songmics has been reduced to £116 when you tick the £20 voucher on the product page and has plenty of five-star reviews, making it a good value pickup.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

A month after the 2TB WD SN850x dropped to a historic low price of $99.99, our top PCIe 4.0 SSD pick has returned to this price over at Newegg when you use code LDCV29378 in your shopping cart. This is an awesome price for this drive, and a worthy pickup for anyone building a new PC or upgrading an existing one with more game storage.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

AMD will finally plug a yawning great hole in the middle of their RDNA 3 graphics card lineup, with both the Radeon RX 7700 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT set to launch in September. Intended as RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4070 botherers, you can expect these GPUs to put in a shift at high-quality 1440p, with a view towards FSR 3 making up for their lack of Nvidia DLSS 3 support.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Where Winds Meet struck me as hugely ambitious action adventure romp set in vast, Ten Kingdom-inspired China. And it was hilariously impossible to summarise in the space of a short, sharp 30-minute appointment. While the elevator pitch started off fairly naturally, there came a point where the elevator rocketed up into the atmosphere and spiralled out of control. I won’t pretend to completely understand what the exact measure of the game is, but I'm both excited to see more and a tad worried it could end up being a disjointed, overstretched mash of things that don't form a cohesive whole.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Far bet it from me to complain about Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The London Case introducing more incongruous eye candy, after my previous conniptions over Hot Hipster Poirot with his ankle-grazer trousers and his sexy egg-shaped head, but tick tock, it's himbo Hastings o'clock. Released on Steam this week, The London Case takes young Poirot to, err, London, charged with protecting a famous painting along with a representative of the insurance firm. Naturellement, the painting is stolen from an apparently locked room under everyone's silly noses, and thus begins Poirot and Hastings' first puzzle caper together (for who else is our insurance representative?).

Technically, of course, they met in The Mysterious Affair At Styles, when Captain Arthur Hastings was on leave from the front during WW1, but one of the things I like about this series is how it takes what it wants and gently buffs away the rest. If you're going to adapt, then adapt>! Like The First Cases, which came out in 2021, the game itself is largely a process of pointing and clicking through crime scenes to find clues, and then joining them in a big mind map akin to what you'd find in a Frogwares Sherlock Holmes game. But having Hastings along does make it a bit more fun, because his role is to be a bit of an idiot.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The Opening Night Live trailer for 'comedy slapformer' Thank Goodness You're Here! was a joyous balm in a sea of shoulder shrugs last week. Its bright, cartoon visuals instantly stood out against the grey, ultra-realistic grizzle beards of everything else Geoff had to offer in his Gamescom mega show last Tuesday, and even now I still find myself whistling its jaunty little song around the house. But what exactly is> Thank Goodness You're Here!? Well, having played through one of its 15 minute missions now, I can tell you it's a bit like Untitled Goose Game, in that you have a village you can wander about in causing chaos, but it's also much more structured than that, with specific quests and people to help as you guide your tiny travelling salesman through its surreal neighbourhood. Here's what I learned.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

AMD's Ryzen 7 7800X3D is a screaming-fast processor for gaming, and one that I've recommended on many occasions at RPS and beyond. Last week I noted that the CPU had dropped to $385, but now the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is even cheaper: it's just $354 at Walmart, with the unit being sold and shipped by Newegg.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Solidigm's P44 Pro is one of the most underrated PCIe 4.0 SSDs on the market, offering similar performance to the WD SN850x and Samsung 990 Pro while costing significantly less. I've been using this drive for months, and now it's down to $104.99 for a 2TB model at Newegg - from an original price of $170. For context, the last time we saw a deal on this model was $117 back in June.

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