Dec 19, 2023
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Advent calendars are all about opening doors in search of wonderful treats, but you should probably leave this one closed.
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Advent calendars are all about opening doors in search of wonderful treats, but you should probably leave this one closed.
4K 144Hz gaming monitors continue to drop in price, with the very cheapest being this incredible MSI MAG274UPF at Best Buy in the US. It costs just $360 right now after a $90 discount, an extremely low price given the high-spec monitor that you get in return.
Meanwhile, in the UK the MSI is also the cheapest 4K 144Hz option from a mainstream brand (though AWD-IT's X= XRGB27UHD is cheaper at £350), so I've linked that below as well at a price point of £399 (was £549).
AMD's Ryzen 7 7800X3D is a phenomenal gaming CPU thanks to its Zen 4 architecture and added 3D V-Cache which boosts gaming performance far beyond standard Ryzen 7000 processors. That performance - and extremely modest power draw and a reasonable price - has caused the 7800X3D to become the best selling CPU by a huge margin according to a German PC part retailer.
Anyway, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D continues to drop in price. Recently we reported on a reduction in the UK, and now it's time for the US to get a turn on the deals train with a new asking price of just $339.99 - a full 40% off its US MSRP. That's a great price for a CPU that even comes with the breathtaking Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
Multiplayer shooters have become defined in recent years by the methods they use to withhold power from players, whether that’s a hero shooter's unlocks and battle pass or a survival shooter's vast map of scattered goodies. Even before these systems became du jour, however, shooters often required you to be good at them before you unlocked their real pleasures, whether by perfecting your rocket timing in Quake or memorising level layouts in Counter-Strike.
The Finals' real master stroke, I think, is that it has found a design that lets it be generous with power - even while containing an unlock system, a battle pass, and a not insignificant skill floor. Those things aren’t an obstacle between you and the childish joy of smashing the world to bits.
We've reached another day on our Advent Calendar, shipmates! Yo ho ho and a bottle of stealth!
Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week is the end of the year for us here at RPS, so this is the last look I'll bring you until the future arrives. In that spirit, please enjoy this bumper Christmas edition to tide you over until we're back. Don't read it in one go under the covers while guzzling chocolate coins, you little scamp.
Time for day seventeen on the 2023 Advent Calendar! What's Christmas without a bit of nostalgia, eh?
Sundays are for almost pulling the trigger on a silent mechanical keyboard you definitely don't need. Let's read some of the week's best writing about games and game-related things.
We come to the sixteenth door of the advent calendar, but unfortunately it's quite far up above you. You're going to have to climb.
This week most people are once again awake, but Alice0 has taken the day off, which means I needs must once again ask everyone to tell me what they're playing this weekend. I think last week I might have forgotten to update whatever it was I was playing. I can't remember. It's nearly the end of the year, what do you want from me? To do my job? Pah. Anyway, we're playin' some stuff, alright.