"Dune is unadaptable! It could never work as a film," I cry, placing defiant fists upon my hips. "But what," says Denis Villeneuve, "about two?", shattering my physical form into one trillion shards. I have a difficult life.

But wait! What about as a strategy game? Denis glances nervously at the inexplicable open pools of molten steel all around us. I've got him now. He hasn't even played Spice Wars. Except... I think Spice Wars is about as good as an adaptation could be. Imperium too. Damn it. Alright Denis, let's have a truce and sort this one out.

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Can you believe we didn't have a best JRPG list until now? Baffling. To be fair we did once tackle this topic with a preliminary blast of recommendations for those completely new to the genre. We also have a few familiar fantasys in our list of the 50 best RPGs on PC. But until now we haven't addressed the genre in its own right. In an act of contrition, we offer you this: our list of the best JRPGs you can play on PC this year, according to our own tastes.

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There's no genre like the open world for inducing choice paralysis, so it's fitting that I've been agonising over how to begin this irregular article series on open world games for months. I have a lot of material, oodles of interviews with developers of all shapes and sizes - big shops like Remedy and CD Projekt, smaller studios like Ace Team and Awaceb, all holding forth on such topics as whether Elden Ring or Zelda did bandit camps better, and how you make a forest feel endless. There is so much you could talk about, so many trails heading off in all directions, but perhaps it's best to begin with the more personal and superficial question that inspired this investigation: how did the open world game get so boring>?

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Prime Day 2024 will, no doubt, be rich with deep discounts on PC gaming hardware. But when it gets fully underway across July 16th and 17th, it won’t be the only deals game in town. Not by a long shot. That’s why the RPS Anti-Prime Day guide has returned once more, to bring together all the worthiest hardware offers from non-Amazon retailers in the UK and US.

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July already, huh. I suppose that means it’s time for the annual roundup of the best Prime Day PC gaming deals, where subscribers to Amazon’s premium Prime service can claim their very own super-special discounts on all kinds of hardware. Ideally just the good stuff, mind. Hence the list.

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We've all seen it. The little spinning symbol cautioning players against impatient acts of powering down. "Don't turn off your system when this symbol is displayed," goes the message seen often while booting up a game (or some other version of these words). The implication is clear. The saving process is delicate and if you interrupt this invisible ritual the data that's being written to some folder deep in your PC's innards will become corrupted, wrecked, banjaxed. You will lose all your progress, all your precious swords and accomplishments.

But is this true? How likely are you to really> suffer a catastrophic loss of shotgun shells? To find out, I decided to spend a very annoying afternoon of turning my gaming rig off and on again during multiple games. Was this a good idea? I don't know. I'm a gamer, not an ideas man.

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You may or may not have seen Black Myth: Wukong impressions floating around as of late. Some claim it's not a Soulslike, or is merely Soulslike-adjacent. Some say it's a "boss rush" with a world that lets it down. Having spent 90 minutes with it myself, I'd like to add my ferocious take to the pile: you play monke = is good. But no seriously, I think no matter if it's a bit Soulsy or not, my key takeaway is one of relief. There's a lot more substance to back up the style than I thought there would be, alongside it feeling a lot more compact than the behemoth I envisioned in my head. All good signs for the complete package, which strikes me as living up to the crushing pressure of its number one Steam Wishlist spot.

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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! Words are amazing, aren’t they? I once put in a cover letter to a creative writing university course that I’d “even invented several of my own words” before my mate talked me down from it. Spoilsport. This week, it’s the creative director of Dread Delusion, maker of The Night is Darkening, and Lovely Hellplace director, James Wragg! Cheers James! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?

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Sundays are for... oh, god, there’s more of it, isn’t there? I thought it was just a regular cave, not a cave to literally a million new things. Before I go left and spend the next three hours stressed about the stuff I missed by not going right, let’s read this week’s best writing about games (and game related things!)

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Finally, some decent weather round these parts. And I don't mean good> weather, you perverse sun-lovers. I mean some real wind and rain to clear the air. Sitting at my desk next to the window, my eye keeps being caught by the hypnotic swaying of the treetops. It's quite magical, really. I might go for a walk later.

Just kidding. I'm superglued to my desk chair (thankfully it's a very comfy chair), and I'm ready for a weekend that's distinguishable from the weekdays only in name. Here's what we're all clicking on this weekend!

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