Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Tic-tac-toe, known to British people as noughts and crosses, is a famously boring game that is nonetheless often played by anybody with a sweet wrapper, a pencil and five minutes to burn while waiting for any form of public transport. It's boring because it's a "solved game" whose outcomes can be safely predicted regardless of where you place your first nought or cross, allowing the "perfect" player to at least draw their opponent. It gets played regardless because a lot of people don't know it's a solved game - specifically, young children you may wish to humiliate using your superior grown-up brain, because when you were a child somebody did the same to you.

How many twisted adults were born from the experience of being bullied via the medium of tic-tac-toe? We'd be better off without this game. But look! Here comes Tic Tactic to shake things up with a touch of Balatro.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

“If, two months ago, you’d been told to close your eyes and imagine a Two Point game about a museum, you’d come up with something at least 85% identical to Two Point Museum,” wrote James, previewingishly. After spending a few hours with a beefier build, I’m inclined to agree. But, much like Campus (which gave you real incentive to actually run a smooth operation that genuinely benefited the lazy ratbags stinking up your dorm halls) it’s that extra 15% that really makes all the difference.

James already covered the new exhibits system, and how acquiring and displaying them changes the way you run things, but such globetrotting adventures do little to rattle the pulse of a world-weary mapmuncher like me. No, what I’m actually most excited for when Two Point Museum releases next February is possibly the most ostensibly uninteresting feature added to any videogame ever - partition walls.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Are there any sights more quintessentially Christmassy than a street lit up by warm and glowing decorations, as seen through a snow-graced windowpane? Why, I could gaze through this wonderful window all day. Let’s just hope no-one decides to smash through it, eh? Why, I’d get bits of glass in my lovely warm milk, which would massively downgrade my biscuit-dunking experience. Wait. What’s that? Oh no!

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, while devastating on the emotional wellbeing of hardware editors, are as useful for knocking a few more quid off already-cheap bits of gaming gear as they are for saving hundreds on big-ticket luxuries. It’s the re-bargainating aspect we must concern ourselves with here, as the Logitech G413 SE – already a premier choice of affordable mechanical gaming keyboard – is now more attainable still, dropping to £65 / $56.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Anyone with the need for a new CPU and even the slightest inclination towards tech envy is currently waiting for new stock of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the unbeatably powerful new chip that our boffin friends at Digital Foundry are calling the fastest gaming CPU ever. If, however, you’re hoping to switch to the 9800X3D from an older system with DDR4 RAM, you’ll need to upgrade that as well as the motherboard, as the entire Ryzen 9000 series only works with newer DDR5 memory.

Cyber Monday won’t help materialise more processors into retailers’ warehouses, but it can help you make this RAM switch on the cheap. Relatively speaking. And I can recommend a nice, fast 32GB kit of Corsair Vengeance DDR5, which is down by £43 in the UK and $22 in the US.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

If you want your next gaming mouse to be the sort of thing that feels like it might float off your desk and into the empty blue sky, disappearing forever, then have a look at this here Cyber Monday deal on the HyperX Pulsefire Haste. It’s the wireless version of an old lightweight favourite of mine, and it’s a snip at $50 (a 38% discount) and/or £43 (30% off).

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Have you ever been pretty deep into a Steam Deck session playing a very gra[hically extensive game like God of War: Ragnarok and realised just how quickly the battery gets drained? It’s a familiar and frustrating feeling for many Steam Deck owners. Luckily, there’s a solution!

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Got yet another quality PC storage deal for ya, this time courtesy of Cyber Monday and the Samsung T7 – an almost comically dinky portable SSD that can, nevertheless, stuff itself senseless with file backups and game installations. The 1TB model in particular is going mighty cheap, falling to $88 in the US and £67 in the UK.

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Today’s advent calendar window has an entire cult inside of it. Also, an alcoholic knight speaking in plummy prose between mouthfuls of booze and porridge. What’s more Christmassy than booze and porridge, eh? Not much, we’ll wager. You could pour the booze in> the porridge, perhaps? You could call it ‘inebrioats’!

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I had a horrible dream last night that I had to spend a whole day, as well as a good chunk of the preceding week, rounding up discounted PC hardware. Chilling visions indeed. Good thing today is only Cyber Monday, meaning I can get away with spending a mere 80-85% of the day rounding up discounted PC hardware. Like this: this more powerful Ryzen Z1 Extreme edition of the Asus ROG Ally, a handheld Windows PC that beats the Steam Deck on 720p games performance. With £100 off in the UK and £150 off in the States, it’s now a much closer match on price as well.

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