Fallout 4’s “next-gen update”, announced just over a year ago as part of the series’ 25th anniversary celebrations, has seen its release date pushed back into next year - meaning it will arrive close to a decade after the last major entry in the franchise.
Last time, you decided that ricochet attacks are better than blue shadows on dodges and dashes. I expected this outcome but am still glad to see a good quarter of you favoured cool essence over cool effort. We continue. This week, in honour of Doom's 30th birthday (we've already written about John Romero's memories, motion sickness, and inviting monsters to a birthday party, with more to come), I ask perhaps an impossible question. How could anyone ask you to pick between two iconic tools of ultraviolence. What kind of monster would. Yet we must. What's better: Doom's shotgun or Doom 2's super shotgun?
Back in May when I first played Ubisoft's new Metroid-like Prince Of Persia game, The Lost Crown, ahead of its reveal at this year's Summer Game Fest, I got to sample several hours' worth of some of the early areas inside its cursed mountaintop citadel of Mount Qaf. Some of protagonist Sargon's powers had been unlocked early to give us a taste of his abilities, and on the whole, I had an exceedingly good time with it. One thing was missing though, and that was any kind of narrative framing for why Sargon was here in the first place. Sure, we'd been told ahead of time that Sargon's main mission in The Lost Crown is tracking down and saving the eponymous Prince of this game, but I didn't actually see any of this in action. Anything with the slightest whiff of story about it had been expertly excised from that initial demo build, and I was left none the wiser about how those opening hours of The Lost Crown would really play out in the final game.
Now, I've been able to play the game from the beginning, with all the story bits slotted back in and Sargon's powers unlocked in the correct order. You may have got a glimpse of some of that stuff in the new trailer released during last week's Game Awards. In the space of two minutes, it sets the scene for Sargon's rescue mission by first introducing all of his fellow warrior mates, and then seconds later showing how they're all at each other's throats as they get increasingly turned around in Mount Qaf's labyrinth. And oh my, I can practically feel all the inevitable backstabbing from here. It's going to be delicious, I can tell, and I can't wait to slice them all six ways to Sunday when The Lost Crown comes out in January.
For an informed, insightful take on E3's end, please go and read Alice0's piece on why she misses it because it only lasted a week, not months. Here, you'll find markedly less insight, but a more personal take on why my E3s lay, largely, with others. More than anything, I'll miss E3 because I liked watching the original Gametrailers crew react to it live. And I liked watching them form Easy Allies once GT closed and continue the tradition, suiting up and completely losing it to the big reveals.
It's no surprise to hear that E3 is officially dead. The games industry's annual mega-marketing event had been suffering for years, then skipping 2020 due to covid without an online alternative left space for its killers to aggressively expand and make clear quite how redundant E3 had become. On one hand, E3 was a week of misleading marketing, dubious claims, expensive stunts, and empty hype. On the other, the 317 assorted online events replacing E3 are just as bad, and now they sprawl across months. I miss E3. Bring back E3. I'm sorry, E3. I didn't know how good we had it. Please, bring back E3.
What's that I hear behind today's Advent Calendar door? A sweet guitar riff and a sick drum beat that makes me want to snap my fingers forevermore? Man, I'm tapping my toes just thinking about it!
"Consider yourself warned! This book contains scenes of graphic violence!" These are the words that adorn the Doom comic book, which was originally released for promotional purposes during 1996's E3 by GT Interactive and Marvel Comics. "Knee-deep in the dead!" is the next bit of text below the logo, referencing the name of the first shareware Doom episode and beautifully describing the blood-soaked cover illustration by Tom Grindberg, who was apparently tickled enough at the thought of drawing this monstrosity to take time away from working on 2000 AD.
The cover is an accurate peek at the gore and demonic entrails that lie within this epic work of sequential storytelling, which required the writing skills of not one, but two gentlemen - Steve "Body Bag" Behling and Michael "Splatter" Stewart. Both Behling and Stewart have a decent body of work between them at Marvel, where they've penned more civilised fare starring the likes of Ant-Man and The Hulk. The Doom comic, in comparison, seems to have been a thing that was written in a fever dream, and DoomWorld, which lovingly hosts scans of this brisk read to this day, describes it appropriately: "Some time in 1996 a couple of guys got together and smoked what was apparently a large amount of crack and then injected pure heroin into their eyes and then proceeded to create what is now known only as 'the Doom comic.'"
Legendary-tier monster cards on the table time: I do not like video game loot. I think that the popularity of "looting", an English word itself looted from Hindi during the time of the East India Company, is one of the worst aspects of the modern games industry and especially of the blockbuster live service game, which strives to keep its audience coming back by means of fresh loot injections at regular intervals.
I distrust how the randomisation element of much video game looting flirts with actual gambling mechanics. I hate that structuring games around the acquisition of loot creates a framework and an appetite for microtransactions and arguably, NFTs. But I am kind of fascinated by the art of designing loot, and especially when it comes to action RPGs such as Diablo 4 and Path Of Exile 2, because it seems to trade on some irresolvable contradictions.
Want a titanic 45-inch gaming monitor? Of course you do - and this 5120x1440 super-ultrawide model is down to £699 at Currys in the UK following a rare £100 price drop. That's a great price for a 165Hz gaming monitor with DisplayHDR 400 certification, HDMI 2.1 support and even a KVM switch.
It's awesome that you can get a great high refresh rate gaming monitor for not much over $100 these days. Take this Acer Nitro XF243Y M3bmiiprx - it's a 24-inch 1080p 180Hz display, yours for a very reasonable $100 after a $90 discount at Best Buy in the US.