In a developer update, Jeff Kaplan talks about the in-game event linked to the story, as well as some changes coming to the game’s role queue system, too. You can read the short, Stone By Stone, on the Overwatch website. It follows Symmetra as she attempts to rebuild a temple that her employers, Vishkar, have managed to destroy. The omnic monk Zenyatta is there to help out, too, and lay down some wisdom and tranquility, as always....
This motherboard uses better value DDR4 memory, two M.2 PCIe 4.0 slots and WiFi 6 on board, so it ticks a lot of boxes in terms of the essentials. You’re missing some things from higher-end Z690 boards - like PCIe 5.0, USB-C ports and 2.5-gig networking - but nothing that affects gaming performance, at least in the here and now. Get an Asus Prime B660M-A WiFi motherboard for £86 (was £197)...
So, up to four Loot Trucks will spawn at the start of a Sanhok match, and new ones spawn as they’re destroeyd. These armoured autonomous vehicles will drive themselves around, and drop crates of equipment as they take damage. When they’re finally destroyed, they’ll drop a lot of high-level gear, potentially including decked-out weapons which have special skins and names. But they’re tough, and fairly obvious targets for all players....
I know, I know. Originally, we said the whole reason why we were hiring for a section editor and not a reviews editor was because we wanted that person to sit across all aspects of the site, not just reviews. Technically that’s still true. As well as heading up our reviews section, Rachel will also be casting her highly trained eyes over all sorts of news and feature posts that we write....
As such, now’s a good time to consider it as your next peripheral upgrade. Why this and not the Logitech G502 Hero, another of the best gaming mice? I like both (and actually owned a G502 before switching to this), but I particularly love the Basilisk V3’s finely textured thumb rest, its more mature, less angular design, and the extra customisable thumb button that replaces the overly delicate trigger switch on the V2 model....
Power To The People takes the other approach. You’re the decision maker of an energy company, tasked solely with providing electricity to towns you have no control over. Do a good job and you’ll make enough money to scale up alongside the village/town/city. For such a simple premise it’s surprisingly good at engaging the part of your brain that covers strategy and puzzles. Considering that power lines are normally an annoying hassle in games that simulate them at even a basic level, I’m also impressed by how entertaining it is....
“We’re actively working on cross-progression and crossplay,” game director Jean-Baptiste Halle told cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer in a recent interview. “Within the realm of consoles, I think it would be great if PlayStation and Xbox could play together.” But as for letting PC play with consoles, yeah, maybe not. “I can see the pros, but I can also see the cons,” Halle said. “So, for this one, it’s too early for us to communicate....
The Basilisk V2 is effectively Razer’s answer to the RPS readers’ favourite Logitech G502 series, with multiple programmable buttons, a thumb rest and RGB lighting. Right now it’s 53% off – might that be enough to swing the next vote? The sale also includes two denizens of our own best gaming mice list, the leftie-friendly Razer Viper and the three-in-one Razer Naga Trinity, the latter of which is down to its previous all-time low of just £50 again....
“We know it hasn’t been fun waiting—it hasn’t been fun for us, it definitely hasn’t been fun for you,” Double Damage say. “There’s been a lot of things happening behind the scenes we’re not able to really elaborate upon, but know we have been pounding away on all the things needed to launch a title on consoles.” According to the rest of their announcement post, it sounds like a combination of Covid-19 pandemic problems and personal matters have exacerbated the process....
The announcement that Last Call BBS would be Zachtronics final game was made on Twitter. Replying to commenters, the company explained that Last Call BBS is actually a compilation, but said that several of its component games were at least as sizeable as 2015’s programming-based puzzler TIS-100. The news led to an outpouring of thanks and sadness from Zachtronics fans – one tweeter even posted a GIF of legendary actor and procrastinator Bernard Cribbins openly weeping....
Developer Daniel Almenara’s top-down tribute is a series of rooms that’ll provide Gordon with fights, puzzles and platforms to pass. The footage is pretty low-key: swiping zombies, leaping headcrabs, and in the middle of it all the Freeman thwacks away. I think he’s managing to capture the feeling of the OG GoldSrc game well enough, and it’ll be interesting to see if the top-down perspective can take Half-Life into places it’s never been before....
If you’d like to go a step further than just watching the event unfold, you can get involved by giving a talk of your own. The submission deadline for panels is this Friday and there are instructions on how to submit your ideas here. You don’t need to be a game developer in order to submit an idea, or even in the industry. You just need to be passionate and knowledgeable about the subject you want to talk about....
Valorant’s regional German-language Twitter account this week posted silly tweets with the game’s cheery German wizard touring her hometown of Berlin. She had a doner kebab: She rode the U-Bahn: And she briefly admired a piece of computer-generated art by Australian artist Martin Houra, who sells his work as NFTs for cryptocurrency. NFTs being as controversial and unpopular as they should be, Riot quickly deleted this. Not before the Wayback Machine archived it....
Here’s the latest game to have a demo: Rustler, a topdown medieval action game that frequently refers to itself as ‘Grand Theft Horse’. It’s out in early access today. The trailers and screenshots are certainly evocative of Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2. This is a topdown game, albeit in proper 3D, in which you explore a medieval open world to complete quests, get into fights and, yes, steal horses....
It’s a US-only deal, I’m afraid, but Ameri-chums can grab the G5 direct from Samsung for $250, that’s $130 off the regular asking price. This monitor may be on the less herculean end of the Odyssey range, but it’s still a large lad at 27”. The QHD resolution, that’s 1440p or 2560x1440 for the folks who like numbers, means that you still have a nice pixel density at the size without requiring the huge graphical grunt of 4K....
Get the Samsung T5 Portable SSD for £55 (RRP £89) Katharine reviewed the T5 back in 2018, where she found the drive performed excellently. Copying large files took place right around the limits you’d expect for an internal SATA SSD, while random read and write speeds were significantly better than the WD My Passport SSD she tested against. This should make the T5 a great shout for actually running games or applications directly from the drive, something that not all external SSDs can really handle....
I think I’ll let the game speak for itself: “Not Tonight 2 explores an alternative, defective America, where capitalism and political greed have taken center stage, and democracy is a thing of the past. Written and brought to life by a team of POC writers and artists, this US road trip explores every festering orifice of this Land of Liberty.” You’ll play Malik, Kevin and Mari attempting to stop their friend Eduardo from being deported by the Martyrs regime....
Tactical mech action from Kriegsfront Tactics (coming to Steam), a turn-based tactical RPG inspired by Front Mission: I’m a sucker for a spinny reload animation, like this shotgun in illWill (coming to Steam). I like the detail of the sight flapping about too: I did enjoy watching this, trying to figure out what ARE you? A cute scene in “space trading life sim” Orion’s End (coming to Steam): I do not know what this is, and I like it: I don’t know what’s happening here in VR game The Indigo Parallel (coming to Steam) either, but I’m curious: Not sure what this is for, but it’s cute: Precursor still looks neat: A gentle mood from In Search Of Lost Time: Immersive sim J(a)SON: The Dog Living Inside A Mistake has the interactions I crave: Honestly, I’m a sucker for a gadget: And lastly, I know this is spam slapped with rando hashtags, but I find that very funny: What else caught your eye this weekend, reader dear?...
Accurate and horrifying physics in Super Clay Boy (follow on IndieDB), made by the main 3D artist of Inscryption: A striking first-person swordfight with a grappling hook and big dashes: Another sword duel, this one with a lot more posing: A cute attack animation idea for an angry amanita in 2D platformer Color Story: Pixa’s Quest (coming to Steam): Speaking of cute attack animations, I dig these prone slideshoots from StarIliad, a metroidvania set inside a giant space whale: A good (bad) mood from post-apocalyptic car combat game Fumes (paid pre-alpha available on Itch): Flawless Abbey (coming to Steam) is a curious one: Mech combat game Bakemono - Demon Brigade Tenmen Unit 01 (out on Steam Early Access) is one of the few games to make me wish my eyes worked with VR goggles....
Silt isn’t bad, I hasten to add. In it you play a diver, or possibly a haunted deep-sea diving suit, swimming around a strange, 2D, side-on aquatic nightmare all in black and white and grey. So in that sense it isn’t a platformer, because you’re floating around, but there are puzzles to do with traversal and obstacles in the environment, so it tracks. As the diver you don’t have many abilities - you can shine a torch out of your face and swim a bit faster if you want - but you can vomit a proping tentacle made of light out of your helmet, and transmit you soul into nearby fish....
