Assassin’s Creed has been threatening to go to Japan for so long that I think the idea has lost its thunder, but I’ll admit to a squee of enthusiasm, during our first look at Assassin’s Creed Shadows, when deuteragonist Naoe grappled onto the ceiling to allow a castle guard to pass innocently beneath. I was similarly tickled by the sight of her breathing through a bamboo pipe while swimming underwater, and I emitted a gentle hum of approval, like a smartphone switching on for the very first time, when she impaled a silhouette through a paper door. Respectable shinobing, for sure. Papa Tenchu would be proud.

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How do you like your coffee? For those who answer: "served by a barista with ten arms wearing a mask adorned with intense scarlet lipstick", you are in luck. The multi-limbed coffee shop owner of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is, indeed, a reassuring sight, since they are the ones who sell the player fashionable jackets and trousers to wear while you axe enemy heads to bloody fragments. In this soon-to-sally-forth soulslike from the makers of Ashen, the creature design is a highlight. Whether it's a good souls 'em up remains to be seen. I've only played a couple of hours in the Steam Next Fest demo. But I want to make clear that, among the reservations I've collected on my murder jaunt, nothing will diminish the espresso-pumping hand-haver of the game's first café.

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One of my absolute most favouritest Steam Deck cases, besides the one you get for free with the Steam Deck OLED, is the Dbrand Project Killswitch. It’s not so much a carrying vessel as a hardened second skin, providing protection without all the bag-hogging bulk of a traditional case – while throwing in handy bonuses like a clip-on kickstand and grippy thumbstick covers. For owners of the Asus ROG Ally, the recent launch of a Project Killswitch for their own handheld PC should therefore represent glad tidings with extra gladness, even if it won’t also fit the upcoming ROG Ally X.

Thank the new device’s bigger battery, wider SSD and reworked connection layout for that particular lack of forwards compatibility, as the ROG Ally X’s thicker dimensions will make it just slightly too beefy to slip into the Killswitch’s skintight silicone. A shame, but at least it makes a quality addition to the original Ally right this second. I’ve been manhandling one for a week now, and it’s just as practical and protective as the Steam Deck version.

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Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week - our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! You likely already know that books are made from trees, but did you know that Kindles are made from discarded tree asset packs? My uncle, who is a tree, told me that. This week, it's the one and only author and games-worder-abouter, Alice Bell! Cheers Alice! Mind if we have a nose at you bookshelf?

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Sundays are for finishing up Godzilla Minus One now its on Netflix. I’m not shilling Netflix here, but I am happy to shill Godzilla. Before I shout “It’s Godzilla! That’s Godzilla! It’s him!” every time Godzilla is on screen, let’s read this week’s best writing about games (and game related things!)

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Busy week, this one. We've had a whole load of games announced over the past few days, and there'll doubtless be a whole lot more this weekend. Most of them we can't play yet. But as a general rule, talking about games makes us want to play games, even if they're completely unrelated. Everyone has those moments where they see the trailer for a new multiplayer hero shooter or some such thing, and for reasons only known to themselves, they say, "yes, I really must play more Simpsons: Hit And Run." So: here's what we're all clicking on this weekend!

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This year’s Day Of The Devs boasted an entire seven exclusives, plus a load of other nifty features and previews for exciting indies we already knew about, but are no less excited to be reminded of. It’s been over ten years now since Tim Schafer and the folks at Double Fine kicked off the non-profit initiative to help shine a spotlight on games what they thought were nice. No way! I love games what I think are nice! Here’s everything from Day Of The Devs 2024, dutifully arranged for your clicking pleasure.

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Are Tamagotchis a thing now again? I’m getting a sense they might be, but I’ll always associate them with the nineties. Ah, to return to a simpler time, where kids tripped each other up in the school hallways to steal toys , before Pokémon cards came along and everyone leveled up to stabbings. Sorry, Petal Runner devs, for opening a news article about your lovely wholesome game talking about stabbings. This gorgeous, fuschia-splashed, slice-of-life RPG is, if anything, the antidote to stabbings. In terms of game fatigue, anyway. It won’t cure tetanus, at least I don’t think so.

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Sonar Shock is a reminder that some of the best game concepts or settings seem so obvious as soon as you play them.

System Shock on an unreasonably huge submarine on an equally ludicrous trip around the Northeast Passage via Cape Agulhas? With a satirical Soviet setting that isn't just "lol russia" or "I think Stalker was about machismo and gun attachments"? And> a third thing that I'll get to in a minute because this intro is getting out of control? God yes.

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Whether or not they actually amount to anything, rumours of a new Doom have had me diving back into Doom Eternal recently. There’s at least one level in it that feels like essay-bait, so I’m obliging. The centerpiece of Mars Core - the FPS’ best level - is a comically massive superweapon called the BFG-10000. Oh, Chekov. If only you could see what we’ve done with your wisdom. The literary subtlety to gun-big-enough-to-scar-planets pipeline will eventually subsume all of pop culture, and those of us who chose to specialise writing about headshots will alternate between grins and tears from the wreckage.

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