Sometimes I open with "I hate x" because it's funny (and I'm right), but sometimes it's because I'm not sure if that's the source of my mixed feelings about a game. Verne Colon The Shape Of Fantasy is, at least in part, an adventure game, and weaker for it. Taken as 'pure' interactive fiction, it'd be shorter and simpler, but might allow its premise, atmosphere, and intriguing world to shine the way they ought to.

The premise actually takes some explaining. Jules Verne himself takes the place of Aronnax, the protagonist of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Seas, and instead of mere hermitry, his new submarine home/prison is devoted to a guerrilla war against The Nation, a Prussian-ish empire you might be able to stop using a techno-magical gubbins that allows you to edit reality. Intriguing, right?

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We've covered Arc A770 deals a few times as of late, as Intel's aggressive pricing makes these 1080p/1440p graphics cards often a better value than alternatives from AMD and Nvidia. So too is it today, where you can pick up an Asrock Arc A770 8GB card for just $240 when you use code SSCV2886 at Newegg. That's a $50 reduction from its normal price and a great value for the level of performance on offer.

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Towering system requirements aside, I’ve had a relatively smooth time benchmarking Starfield on PC, enough so that I’ve got a full set of performance results and best settings suggestions to share ahead of schedule. But! Putting together the usual full-length guide (like this one or that one) would take hours, which would mean finishing it on Monday, which is ages away, and... I just have all these figures right now, y'know?

Here’s the abridged version, then: all off the most important technical details and recommended tweaks, just in fewer words than usual.

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Having spent around 45 minutes in a three-player Payday 3 sesh at this year's Gamescom, I can confirm it's very… Payday. You slap on some masks, choose your loadout, then get to robbing banks or stealing things from crates. Often, it ends in absolute chaos as you mow through waves of coppers and rush to a getaway van. The number three might not signal a sweeping change to the formula, then, but that's arguably a good thing. It's a better-looking version of its predecessors that doesn't lose sight of the co-op silliness.

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I wasn't too hot on Lies Of P when I played its first demo way back when. I felt it was so close, too close>, to Bloodborne in everything from the cadence of the Chalamet puppet's jog, to the "duhhnng" noise of pickups, and the gothic sheen of its streets. At the time I thought it was a bit of a duff pretender, honestly.

But a good chunk of time with it at this year's Gamescom has swivelled my head back in its direction. Having clacked through some dingy streets, fired blue gloop from my arm, and fought the literal King Of Puppets, I've come to realise it has the potential to be a magnificent Soulslike in its own right.

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The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro is down to £169 with this deal at Amazon UK - a great price for one of the best wired gaming headsets for PC and PS4/PS5, which debuted at £249 and normally costs around £200. I've been using one of these headsets with my PS5-based racing setup for months, and I've found it comfortable, good-sounding and very convenient to use thanks to the included second-gen GameDAC.

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Here's a strong pitch:

Want a 2TB NVMe SSD for less than £60? You've got exactly that with this Amazon UK deal, courtesy of Lexar. The NM610 isn't the fastest drive around, with a PCIe 3.0 interface and sequential speeds that top out at 3300MB/s, but it delivers a huge amount of storage space for very little money - while being around six times faster than SATA SSDs.

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I don't remember this at the time, but there were complaints about Skyrim's map when it came out, because it was just an extreme zoom out on the world. It wasn't dense with information; the map markers were often kind of an "it's in this area" guideline that were even less helpful if what you needed was in a barrow or otherwise underground. Starfield raises the bar by taking the bold step of having a map that is almost not a map.

I'm referring here to the planet surface map. The starmap is, like a couple of things I've experienced since being hustled through quite an accelerated inciting incident (Starfield's equivalent of Patrick Stewart dying in a sewer after he's charged you with saving the world), reminiscent of Mass Effect. You can select different galaxies, which have one or two solar systems in them, and then can zoom down and select specific planets or moons or whatever to warp to. Once you're wombling about on the surface being a naughty little space captain - or whatever, I don't judge what you're up to - well baby, I hope you like blue voids with a bit of topography.

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Woah! Last week Gamescom 2023 happened, the biggest consumer event for video games in the woooooooorld! The Electronic Wireless Show podcast gives you our definitive take on what was hot> and what was not> from Geoffcom's Opening Night Live, and points you towards some of the previews and interviews our crack team has from the show floor. This week there's plenty to talk about re. What We've Been Playing as well, because James has been cramming in a bunch of small games. Fun!

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Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moria is a survival game that certainly shares something in common with both Valheim and Deep Rock Galactic: you and a few buds sink pits and set out on expeditions to mine ore, batter monsters, and push further into the darkness. Having watched its game director Jon-Paul Dumont steer me through a 30-minute demo, I’ve come away with the impression it’s far more than just a cheap LOTR pretender. The game strikes me as a real competitor, with well thought out story beats and crafting treats to make Moria’s restoration a hearty adventure… or, if you'd prefer, the equivalent of a Powerwash Simulator.

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