UHQBot
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As is true of most things in life, PC gaming is a wondrous spectrum of different interests and hobbies. Among the most intense of which can be the simulation crowd, always looking to emulate real experiences as closely as possible on PC hardware. Flight simulators, like the ever popular Microsoft Flight Simulator are among the most impressive out there, complete with fantastic rigs featuring realistic control configurations like the Thrustmaster TCA Yoke Pack officially licensed by Boeing.
Combining these impressive setups with VR is often the next step for many seeking a bit of added realism to their flights of fancy. The Flight Simulator Association states that 15% of simmers are incorporating VR in their flying experience as of December last year. But it's also a lot of kit to get used to and understand. Thankfully, when it comes to flight sims and enthusiasts seeking the best experiences around, the community is rich and ready to help.
To help with this, the Flight Simulator Association and Pimax, makers of some of the most bonkers VR headsets we've seen, are hosting a webinar to help get people involved in simming in VR. It's happening live on the 27th of October at 2130-2230 UTC, where prizes and tonnes of information will be on offer.
The seminar promises to not only give viewers a look at a home VR setup, but also offer tips on how to help. This will include what to expect with a VR experience, dealing with common issues like motion sickness, what hardware you'll need, and a bunch of tips and tricks from experts who've done it all before. Then you can take to the new Microsoft Flight Sim Top Gun tie in that teaches you how to be a real maverick.
Virtual reality(Image credit: Valve)
Best VR headset: which kit should you choose?
Best graphics card: you need serious GPU power for VR
Best gaming laptop: don't get tied to your desktop in VRThose interested can register for the seminar by making a Flight Simulator Association account, or you can just check it out here on YouTube when it goes live. Having an FSA account will allow you to ask questions during the show, so if you're hankering for answers, that might be your best bet. The association will also be running a FlightSimExpo next year running from June 23-25 in Houston, Texas, for in person questions.
For those looking to get their hands on a brand spanking new headset, Pimax is offering a discount code for its store that'll be revealed during the event. Or better yet, you can potentially win one a Pimax 8KX or Pimax Crystal headsets just for taking part. The Pimax 8KX is a 4k headset boasting that crazy 200 degree field of vision Pimax is known for. It usually goes for $1,335 USD, but they're still on sale due to the Pimax birthday celebrations. The Pimax Crystal, on the other hand is one of the newest headsets to release for the brand making it an even better prize.
But again, these headsets aren't for the faint hearted, and will require some other intense kit to go with it, not to mention tracking devices. Though with their stellar resolutions and visual fidelity, there's no doubt these would be amazing headsets, especially for a flight simulator experience. Getting a full field of view while you're flying would just be breath taking with one of these, though it'll take a mean machine to power it. Still, the seminar on offer should go through all of what's required in detail, which is exactly what it's for.
If flight sims, VR, or some combination of both are your jam this definitely feels like a seminar not to be missed. Whether you're looking for a serious experience, or want to be a badass flying a Halo pelican in MS Flight Sim. Until then, why not check out some of our favourite flight sims on PC to open your mind to a sky full of possibilities.
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DisplayPort 2.0 has hardly made it into the wild, yet here comes DisplayPort 2.1. Interestingly, VESA, the industry group behind the development of DisplayPort says that all DisplayPort 2.0 certified products already meet the 2.1 spec.
DP 2.1 essentially replaces DP 2.0. The revised spec aims to improve alignment and integration with USB 4 and the type-c connector. It means DisplayPort signals are better able to co-exist with USB data while delivering increased efficiency.
According to Alan Kobayashi, VESA board chair and DisplayPort task group chair, “Display transport through DisplayPort, with its higher bit rates and proven visual quality of DSC compression even for HDR content, offers ample bandwidth for the needs of virtually every practical application.” That sounds good. High resolution gaming at high refresh rates is something all gamers can appreciate.
DisplayPort 2.1 also brings updated cable specifications. A DP40 cable can support 10Gbps UHBR10 (40Gbps with up to four links). Cable lengths beyond two meters should now be possible too. The DP80 cable supports the UHBR20 link rate, with four lanes providing up to 80Gbps of bandwidth. UHBR stands for Ultra-High Bit Rate. DP 1.4a can deliver up to 32.4 Gbps, so the highest 80Gbps of a high spec device is a big improvement.
Screen queens(Image credit: Future)Best gaming monitor: Pixel-perfect panels for your PC
Best high refresh rate monitor: Screaming quick screens
Best 4K monitor for gaming: When only high-res will do
Best 4K TV for gaming: Big-screen 4K PC gamingIn terms of resolution, DP 2.1 remains unchanged from DP 2.0. A UHBR20 connection can deliver 75Hz at 8K uncompressed, or over 240Hz at 4K. That’s with 10-bit color depth. Though refresh rates will be a little lower for HDR10 content, 8K at 60Hz is still possible. With 8-bit depth, maximum refresh rates are higher and even higher again with Display Stream Compression. A 16K display at 60Hz is possible in that case.
AMD has confirmed that it’s upcoming RDNA 3 graphics cards will support DisplayPort 2.0, so AMD’s cards will have at least one advantage over Nvidia’s RTX 4090 which is limited to DP 1.4a. Intel’s Arc cards support DP 2.0 as well, though only UHBR10 mode. That's still enough for over 180Hz at 4K.
Now that the ecosystem is slowly maturing, we await DP 2.1 monitors to take advantage of all that bandwidth. CES 2023 would be a logical forum for showing off the latest and greatest monitors. A 7680 x 2160 curved ultrawide would be a sight to behold, though I'm not sure I want to look at the price of such a panel!
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CD Projekt revealed in September that Keanu Reeves will return as Johnny Silverhand in the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion Phantom Liberty. And he won't be the only celebrity to appear in the add-on: Gaming streamer Sasha Grey revealed on Twitter that she's in it too, as a new radio DJ named Ash.
"A new community radio station is coming to Night City in the Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion," CD Projekt tweeted on October 14. "Help Ash set up 89.7 GrowlFM by creating a music track inspired by the video below." In a reply, Grey tweeted:
Hi, I'm ASH 🫢 https://t.co/fn1pblenVYOctober 15, 2022
See moreIt is admittedly not the most detailed announcement ever, and Grey did not state explicitly that she is portraying Ash in the expansion rather than, say, submitting her music as a contest entry (more on that below) or feeling an emotional kinship with a character attempting to kick-start a media career. When Monster Prom producer Jesse Cox welcomed her to the role, though, she thanked him rather than correcting him, which I take as a sign that she is playing the role.
Prior to becoming a content creator, Grey had a relatively brief but successful career in adult films; she's also been involved in the music industry as a vocalist and DJ, and has also published a photo book and trilogy of novels. These days, though, she's probably best known (among gamers, at least) for her online presence: Grey has 428,000 subscribers on YouTube, 1.1 million followers on Twitch, 1.5 million on Twitter, and 1.7 million followers on Instagram. She's been in videogames previously too, appearing as Viola DeWynter in Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell.
CD Projekt is also looking for music for the new Cyberpunk 2077 radio station, which is what the tweet Grey replied to is actually about. The studio is holding a contest for original music tracks to be used in the game—full details on that are up at cyberpunk.net.
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In a Magic the Gathering WeeklyMTG video on October 13, Wizards of the Coast announced upcoming Secret Lair special guest collaborations. The new card packs notably feature art by mangaka Junji Ito, Metal Gear series concept artist Yoji Shinkawa, and… is that Post Malone?
The special collaborations are reinterpretations of pre-existing Magic cards, and each collab covers a series of four. Shinkawa offers special editions of Tezzeret the Seeker, Solemn Simulacrum, Skullclamp, and Phyrexian Metamorph, while Ito gives his take on Thoughtseize, Doomsday, Carrion Feeder, and Plaguecrafter.
The Ito and Shinkawa pieces are just killer—I don't even play Magic and I kinda want them. I especially dig Shinkawa's take on Skullclamp, turning a traditionally nasty, body-horrory card into something rather dignified and melancholy.
My favorite from Ito is probably Doomsday, here depicting some kind of pustule-coated celestial body consuming the sky and crashing down on a modern city. It reminds me of the beginning of Akira, or the failure cutscene from Majora's Mask. I'd like to imagine Ito drew these with the help of the absolutely nuts, handmade, keyboard-trackball thing he's shown off in the past.
I hadn't really thought about it until now, but if you'd asked I probably would have told you the Venn diagram of Post Malone fans and limited edition Magic card purchasers is just two circles. Nevertheless, the musician seems to be a diehard Magic fan who selected cards from his own deck. Post's visage graces revamps of K'rrik, son of Yawgmoth, Bolas's Citadel, Leshrac's Sigil, and Jet Medallion.
The Post Malone cards are honestly pretty fun. I especially like how these variants are appropriately renamed. For example, instead of "K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth," you get "Post, Son of Rich." Incredible commitment to the bit, and isn't that what matters most in this life?
Each individual pack costs $30 standard, $40 for a foil-etched version, while Japanese versions of Ito and Shinkawa's sets can also be bought. The cards can be pre-ordered at the Secret Lair website ahead of their release on November 28.
Image 1 of 3(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 2 of 3(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Image 3 of 3(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast) -
After years of rumors and disappointments, it came as great news for long-suffering fans when Ubisoft announced in December 2021 that the stealth-action classic Splinter Cell is getting a full remake. But some of those fans are feeling a little bit nervous following the news that David Grivel, the director on the project, has left Ubisoft.
Grivel announced his departure on his LinkedIn page (via VGC), where he said that after 11 years at Ubisoft, "it is now time for me to go on a new adventure."
"11 years is a long time and summing it up in one post is quasi-impossible but I must say, I’ve been lucky," Grivel wrote. "Lucky to work with so many great people over the years. Made so many friends.
"From Ubisoft Paris (Ghost Recon Future Soldier), to Ubisoft Toronto (Splinter Cell Blacklist, Assassin’s Creed Unity, Far Cry Primal, 5, 6 and Splinter Cell Remake), I’ve had the opportunity to work on many franchises that I love as a gamer."
Grivel is only one man, and studio employees—even those in leadership positions—move around with some regularity. Even so, the reaction to the news was not overly positive.
"Well, that doesn’t bode well," redditor AceRojo wrote. "A lot of the problems with Conviction was the troubled development. Here’s hoping they beat the odds."
"First there's some serious issues with Prince of Persia Remake and now this project starts having problems as well.," budyll66 added. "Oh, well... aha, it's Ubisoft!"
"I always try to be cautiously optimistic, and in the case of this remake that’s been the approach I’ve taken so far," Revenant_XV wrote. "But I’ve still had very little faith in the first place after being burned way too many times by Ubisoft and now, what little faith I have left is getting shaky lol. Still gonna try and be open-minded but it gets harder to do when you’ve seen warning signs like this a lot in the past."
The Splinter Cell remake is presumably still a long way off, and a recent job listing made clear that the remake is not going to be a note-for-note do-over, but rather a ground-up rebuild that maintains "the spirit and themes of the original game while exploring our characters and the world to make them more authentic and believable." That sounds like a properly substantial challenge for a game director, but Ubisoft said that Grivel's departure won't slow things down.
"We can confirm that David Grivel has left Ubisoft and wish to thank him for his contributions," a Ubisoft spokesperson said in a statement sent to PC Gamer. "His departure will not impact the game's development."
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Blizzard has completely upended how buying stuff works in Overwatch 2, and the transition has not been smooth. The hero shooter's switch to free-to-play coincides with its move away from loot boxes to battle passes and a cosmetic shop that only accepts a new paid currency: Overwatch Coins. For a studio that used to give away loot boxes at a breezy pace, Blizzard is being incredibly stingy with its premium currency.
Overwatch Coins are the new way to unlock just about everything in Overwatch 2. You can buy Overwatch Coins in bundles starting at $5 for 500 coins or buy more at once to get a better value. It's a nearly identical setup to a bunch of other live service games, but what's less common is how Overwatch Coins can also be earned.
The only way to get Overwatch Coins without simply buying them is to complete weekly challenges. That sounded neat when I first heard about it, but then I realized how hilariously low the payouts are. Here's how it breaks down:
- Complete 4 weekly challenges: 30 Overwatch Coins
- Complete 8 weekly challenges: 20 Overwatch Coins
- Complete 11 weekly challenges: 10 Overwatch Coins
That's a total of 60 possible Overwatch Coins you can earn in a week, equivalent to exactly $0.60. To give you a sense of exactly how little 60 cents is worth in Overwatch 2, legendary skin bundles go for around 2,000 coins, or $20. If I were determined to unlock Sojourn's cool detective outfit with only weekly Overwatch Coins, I'd have to complete every challenge, every week, for about nine months.
A guy can only play so much Arcade in a week, OK. (Image credit: Blizzard)That's an insulting earn rate, right? 60 coins is a borderline useless number of coins. It's pocket change—I could find more money diving between my couch cushions than by playing Overwatch 2 for a week. The math is so unfavorable to players that I have to believe nobody at Blizzard crunched the numbers and determined that 60 coins is a cool and gracious reward for playing a lot of Overwatch.
I do mean a lot of Overwatch. I've averaged 2-3 hours of Overwatch per night and I've yet to earn all 60 coins in a week. Most challenges are doable, but there's typically one I'm not willing to grind for, like winning a bunch of Arcade games (snooze) or Competitive matches (no thanks), so I'm locked out of the final 10 coins. Another 40 weeks or so and that Sojourn skin is mine!
Seems like I'm not alone in my bewilderment, either. "This is appalling. I get they have to rework their payment model to better support the game, but this is garbage," wrote Reddit user BlynxInx.
"The battle pass is fine. The fact that buying a single skin costs double the amount of a battle pass is crazy," added Specific-Moose8094.
Overwatch 2's weekly coins compare even less favorably to other battle passes. In every other shooter I play, a substantial chunk of premium currency can be earned back by progressing through the $10 premium battle pass. In Fortnite, Apex Legends, and even Overwatch's corporate cousin Call of Duty: Warzone, it's possible to earn enough credits over a season to pay for your next battle pass (or buy a bundle or two in the store). Overwatch 2's battle pass includes zero Overwatch Coins.
(Image credit: Blizzard)It's weird how bad Overwatch 2 is where it concerns currency, because the battle pass itself is reasonably paced. After a few weeks of nightly sessions, I'm at tier 48 out of 80. It helps that Overwatch 2 has some of the easiest daily challenges I've ever seen (I've had one that simply asked me to wave to a support hero), and the 20% XP boost for having the premium pass helps a lot too.
Throwing some currency into the battle pass progression as most other games do would probably go a long way, but barring his, I think I'd actually be less annoyed earning zero coins (or some extra battle pass XP) than a measly 60 cents.
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Second Dinner's Ben Brode feels like he's on a mission with Marvel Snap. His endgame is turning a legion of die-hard Marvel fans who never play card games or have been intimidated by the genre into devoted digital CCG converts.
Brode calls Marvel Snap the "perfect card game" for anyone who's never tried a card game before. And after my quick chat with him at New York Comic Con, and considering his history as game director during what's widely regarded as Hearthstone's golden era, he might be onto something.
What sets Marvel Snap apart from other games like Hearthstone and Runeterra is just how quick and easy matches are. It's a snack-like approach to battling where one quick match can quickly turn into 10 if you're not careful.
Snap's core gameplay hasn't changed much since we checked it out earlier this summer. Rivals face off against each other for six turns with a deck of 12 cards featuring all your favorite Marvel heroes and villains fighting for control over three random battlefields. The aim is simple: Finish the match by scoring the most points in two out of the three locations.
When comparing it to working on Hearthstone, Brode focuses on how the team designed for Marvel Snap's low barrier to entry. "It's challenging to make a game this simple but have this much depth." He joked that it's easy to make a game with a lot of depth; "you can just keep adding rules," but it eventually becomes "overwhelming" for new and lapsed players.Brode opted to strip out things that would scare away new players, making the simplest cards possible without sacrificing the depth required to ensure long-term fun. "We have less numbers on a card than in any other card game. We have less card types than any other card game. There's only one card type; cards, that's it!"
(Image credit: Second Dinner)It's challenging to make a game this simple but has this much depth.
Ben Brode, Chief Development OfficerBrode said it took a lot of playtesting to make Marvel Snap matches just the right length. "We tried every option. We tried five turns, six turns, seven turns. We even tried skipping turn one and just playing turns two through six." Ultimately, six ended up being the magic number because he said it gave players the "perfect blend of fast games while doing cool combos." He told me wants the player to feel "smart and clever" in every match.
As for the cards, we spoke about how Marvel Snap will handle card collections and the plans to keep things fair and balanced for players with less competitive decks, especially after scrapping Snap's controversial previous monetization strategy. Unlike other CCGs, there are no card packs to buy or unlock here. New cards are gated behind progression in its version of a battle pass.
Co-Founder / Chief Development Officer at Second Dinnerhttp://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/HPPfjgFxV9Lbp6TztQttEh.jpgCo-Founder / Chief Development Officer at Second DinnerBen BrodeBen Brode was a 15-year veteran at Blizzard Entertainment who began as a QA tester on Warcraft III before working multiple roles on the Hearthstone team, including lead designer and game director of Hearthstone from 2016-2018. Brode is co-founder and chief development officer at Second Dinner. The studio's first game is Marvel Snap
The fear for any new player is to be matched up against someone with a far superior deck of cards with stuff you've never seen. Brode explained that to keep things on an even playing field, Snap's matching system will only pit you against people with similar card collections. This means both you and your opponent's 12-card decks will come from more or less the same pool of cards you've already unlocked.
Now that Marvel Snap is about to leave beta and be released globally, I asked Brode how excited he was feeling. "I do think Marvel Snap is going to be the biggest card game of all time." He followed that typically confident statement by saying he has "a lot of experience in growing the size of the card game genre. This team that worked on Marvel Snap is the best in the industry, and it [Marvel Snap] will be huge."Will Marvel Snap live up to Ben's high expectations? We'll know when it releases on PC, iOS, and Android on October 18th.
(Image credit: Second Dinner)You can pay for boosts that will unlock cards on those tracks faster or pay for fun variants that change the appearance of a card. So you can take the Kang The Conqueror card you own and transform him into Kang the Cosmic DJ or, my personal favorite, Baby Doctor Doom.
All the cards can be unlocked by simply playing more of the game. Brode wants you to "earn your cards" but also wants you to feel like you can make a powerful deck with the cards you already own. "Cards you unlock later down the road aren't more powerful; they're just different. It gives you more options."
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If you've ever listened to Elden Ring's overpowering operatic soundtrack and thought to yourself, man, this would be even better with more saxophones, then I have some oddly-specific but very good news: It's happening.
Set to take place on December 3, Elden Ring: A Night in the Lands Between will translate music from the hit videogame into live jazz performed by a band led by Grammy Award-winning saxophonist Kenny Garrett and Japanese trumpeter Takuya Kuroda.
“We want to celebrate the incredible success of Elden Ring by presenting this truly unprecedented live and livestreamed jazz concert, giving fans a different way to immerse in the rich engaging world that has dominated their gaming days and nights this past year,” Bandai Namco's senior director of esports and live entertainment Wataru Nakasuji said.
"While videogame soundtracks have seen variations as symphonic music and even rock n’ roll, our A Night in the Lands Between jazz event is exploring a wonderfully different treatment of the Elden Ring soundtrack. Jazz master Kenny Garrett and new generation player Takuya Kuroda are both truly world-class musicians, respected and renowned by lovers of jazz around the world, and they are now lending their different talents to give birth to a new creative way to meld music and videogames."
Two shows will take place at the Bourbon Room in Hollywood, at 6 pm and 10 pm PT on December 3. The good news for those of us who can't be there in person is that the whole thing will be livestreamed. Unfortunately, you'll need a ticket to watch either way: I had initially assumed that the livestream would be available to all via the usual channels, but eldenringlive.com indicates that you'll have to purchase a ticket if you want to watch: $25 for basic access, or $50 for a "commemorative ticket" and digital soundtrack. If you just want the VOD, it'll cost you $15. (The price list doesn't specify whether the "watch live" tickets include access to the VOD as well, but I would certainly hope so.)
That's a letdown: I like jazz and I like Elden Ring, but I'm not sure the novelty of jazz Elden Ring is enough to justify spending 50 bucks on it. On the other hand, if you happen to be a big fan of both, this might just be the ultimate intersection of interests—and hopefully at least a track or two will find its way to YouTube at some point after the show for the rest of us.
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In a move that it says will help "accelerate the development of live games," League of Legends developer Riot Games has announced that it is the proud new owner of Australian studio Wargaming Sydney.
The studio was founded in 2002 as BigWorld Technology, and gained fame as the creator of the BigWorld toolset used in more than 30 MMOs and online games. It was acquired by Wargaming in 2012 and worked on that company's military MMOs: World of Tanks, World of Warships, and World of Warplanes. Following this acquisition, it will be renamed again, to Riot Sydney, and will work to support League of Legends, Valorant, and Riot tech teams.
"We are really excited to bring these talented developers and teams to Riot," Riot Games co-founder and president Marc Merrill said. "The Rioters that have had the opportunity to work with members of the Sydney team are confident not only in the tech they’ve built over the years but, more importantly, in the people who’ve built it. Naz (Naresh Hirani, Head of Development, Riot Sydney) and the dev teams at the studio have a long history of working in ways that will complement Riot’s ability to deliver value to our players and we really look forward to collaborating with them."
Riot described its new Sydney operation as "one of the largest development studios in Australia." Riot didn't specify how many employees it has, but it was said to be "home to over 100 developers" when Wargaming Sydney joined Australia's Interactive Games and Entertainment Association in 2019. It's a relatively small slice of Wargaming's pie, which according to LinkedIn has more than 5,500 employees spread across nearly a dozen studios around the world. But it's an important acquisition for Riot, which is maintaining and developing not just one but two major live games, and has other irons in the fire as well.
"Being part of Wargaming has been a phenomenal journey for us over the last 10 years, and it’s helped our studio grow and thrive," Riot Sydney head of development Naresh Hirani said. "We were really impressed by the cultural fit we’ve experienced in our dealings with everyone at Riot, and we can’t wait to bring our expertise in global development to the respective teams."
Riot Sydney will continue operating out of its current offices, and Riot said that the entire development staff will be retained. The publishing team, and the ownership of BigWorld, will remain with Wargaming.
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A YouTuber named Zaptagious noticed something funny about the debut trailer for the upcoming Mario movie (as spotted by WoWHead). Lined up with the intro cinematic for Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction, the clips share pretty much all the same beats.
Both videos have that stock barbarian army at the gates thing going on, with an evil overlord meeting with a portly and defiant emissary. Lord of Destruction commences with the Sescheron emissary stepping out of the city to see Baal's massing army, while Mario starts with the Koopa army perspective bearing down on a penguin city straight out of Frozen. Remastered or original, take your pick— the resemblance both versions of the Diablo 2 cinematic is uncanny.
After starting from opposite perspectives of the same sort of scene, Mario and Diablo pretty much match each other beat-for-beat with some timing differences. You get the squat little city rep making threats he can't back up, the big bad boy says something cheeky and nasty in response, then all hell gets let loose on the poor inhabitants of the city.
I gotta say, I was way more bummed about those penguin guys eating it. They were really cute, while the warrior-city of Sescheron is kinda just whatever.
Rather than implying that the fine folks at Illumination were cribbing off a 21-year-old PC ARPG specifically, I think this instead just proves how well it parodies a stock fantasy movie scene. I mean, you could picture this exact thing happening in Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, Lord of the Rings, the WoW movie, you name it. The extent to which this Mario scene parallels the notoriously grimdark Diablo is just especially delicious.
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As soon as I saw photos of Nvidia's RTX 4090, I started nervously eying my case. This new GPU isn't tiny. It's the opposite of tiny. It's you-might-need-a-new-case not-tiny. At a full inch taller than the 3080 Founder's Edition, there's a chance the 3090 won't fit into narrower cases once you factor in the power cables. Cable company Cablemod have come up with a solution for that very specific problem: a low-profile power adapter.
Cablemod's cable adapter for the RTX 4090 (spotted by Tom's Hardware) offers a 90-degree bend, giving you more space and clearance between your GPU and side panel. CableMod 12VHPWR right angle adapter plugs into your RTX 4090's 12VHPWR port, rated to PCIe 5.0 spec. Right now, the CableMod 12VHPWR only supports the RTX 4090, but it should work on other GPUs once more arrive with that same connector (it's different than the power pins most GPUs have been using for years).
The RTX 30-series Founders Editions offer a similarly sized and shaped connector, but those lack the extra four auxiliary pins, so they are incompatible.
The adapter itself measures 29mm x 36.3mm x 23.2mm.
According to the company, what sets the CableMod 12VHPWR adapter apart from other 90-degree connectors is that it "utilizes a multi-PCB design to achieve a right angle connection." The right-angle connection means you won't have the power cable protrude out, taking up more precious space inside your PC case.The power adapter has two different configurations, so it should fit other compatible graphics cards in the future even if their power ports are oriented differently than the RTX 4090's.
Your next upgrade(Image credit: Future)Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the restWith the 90 degree plug there's ideally no wire bending; it should be able to relieve any potential strain from you having to tug the power cable around the behemoth card and behind the motherboard to reach the power supply.
This idea is that it should make the gargantuan video card easier to install inside of smaller or oddly sized PC cases. Some cases simply aren't wide enough to house both the RTX 4090 and its chunky 12-pin (16-pin if you include the auxiliary pins) power cable. And judging by the way things are going, the RTX 4090 isn't going to be the last absolute chonker of a GPU.
The CableMod 12VHPWR right-angle adapter goes on pre-sale on October 31st. No word on pricing just yet.
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Jan Rabson, a prolific voice actor most recognizable to gamers as the nasally voice of Leisure Suit Larry, died on October 13 at the age of 68. Rabson's death was reported by CultureSlate and confirmed by friends on social media. The cause of death has not been released.
Rabson first voiced the character of Larry Laffer in 1993's Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out, and then carried on through Leisure Suit Larry's Casino, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, and Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded, a 2013 remake of the original Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, which was released all the way back in 1987. He returned to the role in 2018 for Wet Dreams Don't Dry, and two years later in Wet Dreams Dry Twice.
Rabson's other game credits include King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, Sacrifice, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, Toy Story 3, and Thimbleweed Park.
Games are actually a relatively minor part of Rabson's repertoire. He was far more active in movies and television: His IMDB page lists roles in numerous animated features and shorts including major Pixar and Disney hits like Toy Story, Mulan, Cars, a Bug's Life, and Up, he voiced Tetsuo in the Streamline Pictures dub of Akira, and he also had minor roles in several television shows, beginning with early '80s television staples The Facts of Life, One Day at a Time, and Knight Rider. His most recent appearance is listed as the 2022 reboot of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers.
"So sorry to hear today we lost Jan Rabson," fellow actor Bob Bergen wrote on Facebook. "So talented. So funny. Such a sweetheart!"
"Rest In Peace, Jan. You were one of the BEST," voice actor Neil Kaplan tweeted.
Rest In Peace, Jan. You were one of the BEST.https://t.co/lNugPAklWcOctober 14, 2022
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Need to know
What is it? The sequel to 2019's A Plague Tale: Innocence, an action adventure starring two young siblings and a swarm of killer rats.
Expect to pay: £44/$50
Release date: October 18, 2022
Developer: Asobo Studio
Publisher: Focus Entertainment
Reviewed on: RTX 2070, i7-10750H, 16GB RAM
Multiplayer? No
Link: Official siteNever work with children or animals, the old showbiz adage goes. And while the sentiment doesn't usually stretch to games, it's a brave developer who would place an impulsive five-year-old at the centre of a harrowing action adventure, or try to construct logical systems atop a horde of ravenous rats. Yet Asobo Studio managed exactly that with A Plague Tale: Innocence, and its bold sequel raises the stakes with an even defter touch.
Despite the unorthodox casting of its beasts and youngsters, Innocence largely worked within boundaries set by bigger names, most notably The Last of Us. Requiem, by contrast, feels like a spread of the wings, buoyed by its predecessor's success to forge an unmistakable identity. In terms of production values among comparable titles, it still bows before Sony heavyweights such as The Last of Us Part 2 and God of War, but little else. And most importantly it grows outward from the elements that shined in the original—the palpable texture of its medieval setting, the pathos in its character relationships, and the persistent menace of the rats. By building everything up around that core, Requiem is often more compelling and relatable than its celebrated peers.
(Image credit: Focus Entertainment)This tale begins with the survivors from the first game travelling south through France to escape the scar of the rat plague that swallowed up their home. Teenager Amicia De Rune—the player character—and her little brother Hugo are starting to enjoy life once again, frolicking in lush fields and pretending to storm an abandoned castle. Meanwhile, the children's mother and her apprentice Lucas are more concerned about getting Hugo checked out by a renowned alchemist, since the rats are after all linked to a curse in his blood, and nobody wants them showing their little furry faces again.
Naturally, the group's fortunes soon take a turn for the worse, and it's not long before you're knee deep in slurry, cadavers and beady-eyed rodents. "Nothing ever stays nice," Hugo says, succinctly. Requiem excels in these contrasts, though, flooding the screen with vibrant joys one minute, despair the next. Innocence had moments of colour and hope too, but the Provencal and Mediterranean settings in this odyssey are blessed with sunshine, searingly green countryside and contented peasants. An early market scene embodies this spirit as well as anything, with rich yellow dyes and hot red spices adding extra warmth to the faces of joyous traders, which makes it all the more awful when things go bad.
It's not only the views but also the characters that drive the mood. Young Hugo is the star here, and his shifts of disposition from playful innocence, simply fascinated by the world, to quivering fear or destructive tantrum set the tempo of the game. That the script handles these transitions so coherently is a minor miracle, while the back and forth chatter between he and Amicia or other companions expertly reinforces the bonds between them. Your role as Hugo's protector, clinging on to his hand with sweaty intensity, torn between love and the weight of responsibility, is beautifully realised.
Of rats and men
(Image credit: Focus Entertainment)As ever, when trouble does arrive, it comes in two flavours—people and rats. The former are always up to no good, of course, especially the powerful ones, and an unpleasant confrontation leads to fresh trauma for Hugo, which triggers the plague once more. You'll thus be cracking heads with rocks from Amicia's sling before you know it, hunted by soldiers and mercenaries, while the dark swarm starts chewing through a picturesque city, and can only be kept at bay with light and fire. Indeed, after only a few chapters of Requiem, many of the systems drip fed into the first game have already returned, leaving a large part of the adventure to explore new territory.
While these options never quite match the emergent potentials of an immersive sim, there's always a lingering sense at the end of a section that you could have done things differently.
With all this extra room to develop, many human encounters (with or without rats) become stealth sandboxes, peppered with hiding spots, vantage points and shortcuts. These are more expansive than their equivalents in Innocence, and gift you more material to work with. Once again, you collect ingredients to craft into throwable chemical compounds, such as fire starters, extinguishers and rat bait, but it's easier to locate and combine what you need. You can also quickly switch between throwing these compounds, firing them from the sling, placing them in a ceramic pot to create an area of effect missile, and eventually attaching them to the end of a crossbow bolt. Different methods are required to distract, stun, blind or kill enemies, depending on the type of armour and weapons they're equipped with. While these options never quite match the emergent potentials of an immersive sim, there's always a lingering sense at the end of a section that you could have done things differently.
At the same time, items such as pots, bolts and quick-kill knives are in limited supply, so you can't over rely on your most powerful tools (knives in particular are best saved, since they can also prise the rusted locks off hidden treasure chests). You also need to decide when to call on the specific skills of companion characters, whether that's Lucas, Hugo or one of the new faces that join your group. In Hugo's case that can even mean taking control of small packs of rats, then moving them from a rodent's eye view as they tear through a scene munching anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way.
(Image credit: Focus Entertainment)As for the rats, when it's just you and them, they're still in effect a part of the game's environmental puzzles, and function quite mechanically, like a living sea of lava, albeit one that can be shifted and shaped to some extent by carving out paths of light. The challenge for Requiem was always going to be keeping the chittering black mass intimidating, given how much Innocence had us exploit their predictable behaviour. To an extent it succeeds by increasing the numbers, having them erupt in tsunamis that crash through stone walls with a momentum that might even swamp and choke out valuable light sources. Toying with them can also feel more dangerous, as you might push them away temporarily, only for them to teem back as you enter what you thought was safe ground.
The real force of Requiem, though, doesn't come from any one component, more its constant motion. As situations evolve, it adds fresh ways you can interact with scenes, whether that's through new tools, different allies that tilt the tenor of encounters more towards stealth or combat, or occasional set pieces that serve up a different problem altogether. A scene where you're faced with a falconer and his deadly bird, for instance, has you creating brief distractions then zipping to the next cover point, while another has you working a crossbow turret picking off charging soldiers.
Stealth and safety
Still, there are drawbacks to all this ambition. Because the systems are broader and more organic, they have more opportunities to clash with bizarre and unreasonable results. Chucking explosive pots around or moving rats as Hugo can cause complications, as straggling predators end up in unexpected spots that you should be able to access. Partner characters, meanwhile, can get stuck on scenery (especially Lucas for some reason), and the larger ones have a habit of getting in your way with their additional bulk. A case of never work with adults.
(Image credit: Focus Entertainment)Generally, stealth sections can be a little pernickety, with too many lines of sight to keep track of. It's an issue because once you've been seen you may as well reload the last checkpoint and go again, which can tend towards trial and error. Also, if you get frustrated by a series of such mistakes in the same area, it's often easier to quietly kill everyone rather than make an effort with stealth at all, which always seems a bit of a copout. "I don't like it, but I always end up having to do it," Amicia explains to one of her companions after setting light to an unaware victim. You may well feel the same.
It's hard to begrudge Requiem this unevenness when so much of what it does lands exactly as intended
Nevertheless, it's hard to begrudge Requiem this unevenness when so much of what it does lands exactly as intended, and even in stealth sections, when you do make it through in a clean take, it can be wonderfully gratifying to sneak through the large metal door that heralds a moment of safety. Frustrations fade away in the scope of a full-spectrum action adventure that shifts gear into exciting chases, then cerebral puzzles and teamwork, confidently keeping hold of your attention for almost 20 hours.
But perhaps the most effective example of this confidence comes in the second half of the game, when it releases the throttle for a while to let you leisurely explore a Mediterranean island, a paradise of bougainvillea petals, chiming cicadas and creeping afternoon heat. The aim here is merely to spend quality time with your characters. At one point Hugo spots a tower and decides he wants to climb it. Why? Just because towers are fun to climb. It's a reminder that beneath all the death and squalor survives the wide-eyed awe of adventure, which remains at the heart of Requiem even once it darkens again and rolls towards a touching finale. And so Requiem takes us through the heights and depths of human experience, by not only working with children and animals, but letting them run the show.
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You're confronted with Scorn's first door puzzle almost immediately after starting this first-person horror adventure. As you wake up and begin to venture through the grotesque architecture, you'll find the way forward is blocked by a solid door. You'll need to do some exploring if you want to open it but with so many branching paths heading off the main room, it's easy to become disoriented.
You'll need to find and interact with some glowing cocoons but even then it's not particularly straightforward. In this guide, I'll help you figure out the first Scorn puzzle and get you moving in the right direction.
How to reach the cocoon room
Once you arrive in the large circular room, you can climb the spiralling column in the middle to get a better view—from here, you can also see the large door you're trying to open. You can even interact with a panel up here, though, at this point, it's not particularly clear what you need to do. You can move some of the tracks on the outer side of the room but that doesn't appear to do anything at this stage. You'll need to do some exploring first.
Head to the main door to find two panels you can interact with. Both move mechanisms on the door but don't actually open it. Instead, head through the doorway directly to your right and follow the corridor until you see a strange alien crane. Once in this room, turn immediately right, then right again to find a circular elevator and interact with the red pedestal to ascend. Follow the corridor—ignoring the turnings on either side—and you'll come to an open room with two pedestals.
Image 1 of 5Follow the corridor until you see a strange crane. (Image credit: Ebb Software)Image 2 of 5Take the circular elevator. (Image credit: Ebb Software)Image 3 of 5Follow the corridor until you find the cocoon room. (Image credit: Ebb Software)Image 4 of 5The first cocoon puzzle. (Image credit: Ebb Software)Image 5 of 5The first cocoon puzzle (Image credit: Ebb Software)How to solve the Scorn cocoon puzzle
If you interact with the pedestal directly ahead, you'll move a claw-like mechanism on the far wall and it will try to grab a cocoon but fails as there's nothing there. Move to the pedestal on the right instead and slide the cocoons around—though be aware that some of them are connected and move in groups.
You should notice that two of the cocoons have lights on them and you'll need to move these to the place where the claw tried to grab earlier when you used the first pedestal. You technically only need one, but the first one you move to the correct position will break when the claw tries to grab it, so you'll need to move the second one too.
To get the first cocoon into place, check the last two screenshots above. Essentially, you want to move the single cocoon on the third row across to left, then move the double cocoon on the second row all the way to the right. This should make a clear path for moving the first cocoon into place. Once that's done, use the first pedestal and watch the cocoon break. Now it's time to move the other one.
The second cocoon is much trickier as it's attached to another one, so you'll need to make room for both to move. You can refer to the video above if you're having trouble figuring out how you should move them. Basically, you want to get all the double cocoons over to the right-hand side to leave space for the glowing cocoon to move into position. Once done, use the first pedestal again to transport the cocoon down to the lower floor.
How to open the door
Take the elevator back to the ground floor and to the big room where you started. You're looking for the cocoon which you should see suspended pretty high in the air. It's making sounds too, so you can use that to help locate it. Use the pedestal here to operate the crane and put the cocoon into the cart.
Now head back up the spiral column in the center of the room and make sure the tracks are set take the cart to the room with the crane you saw earlier before taking the lift. It should look like the screenshot below. Push the cart along the track to the crane. Use the large pedestal here to make the crane move the cocoon to the machine, then use the smaller pedestal to—err—finish the job.
Image 1 of 4The tracks should be lined up like this. (Image credit: Ebb Software)Image 2 of 4Use the pedestal to move the cocoon. (Image credit: Ebb Software)Image 3 of 4Take the arm that's been left behind. (Image credit: Ebb Software)Image 4 of 4Use this device to attach a key to the arm. (Image credit: Ebb Software)Pick up the arm and you're almost done. Now you need to head back to the main door you're trying to open but head through the door on the left. You should find a device here that will add a key to the arm you just picked up. With that done, head back to the two pedestals in front of the big door. Use your newly acquired arm on the small one, before heading to the larger one and activating it. Phew! Well done.
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It's been quite a year for Nintendo games on PC. We've had an unofficial port of Ocarina of Time, a full decompilation of A Link to the Past, and now a coder called Ryan Dwyer has gone and reverse-engineered the original Nintendo 64 Perfect Dark. Pretty soon I won't feel the need to own any consoles at all.
The decompilation is available right now on Dwyer's GitHub page, and it opens up all sorts of new possibilities for tinkering with Perfect Dark on PC. Now that the game's been reverse-engineered, future tech wizards could do anything from modding the game, to creating entire unofficial PC ports.
Before you castigate me for drawing the baleful eye of Nintendo's lawyers, it should be noted that the decompilation—and a hypothetical PC port project resulting from it—would be technically legal (the best kind). If you wanted to use the decompilation to play Perfect Dark on PC, you'd need to provide your own ROM with all the game's copyrighted material on it. This is why the Zelda projects mentioned up top haven't been DMCA'd into oblivion, too.
Dwyer is working on decompiling a bunch of different versions of the game, but it's the NTSC 1.0 and NTSC Final versions—the original release and a later patched version respectively—that have been completed so far. They're not listed as 100% complete on the tracker because they aren't yet "byte-matching," meaning they don't match the original games "byte-for-byte," but they are functionally complete. Still, it probably won't be too long until they match the originals completely when recompiled with the compiler the original dev team used.
There are plenty of other projects aiming to do the same thing for other Nintendo classics. At time of writing, a project looking to decompile The Legend of Zelda: the Minish Cap says it's 97.5% done, another one for Banjo-Kazooie is 91% of the way there, and (most excitingly for me personally) an effort to reverse-engineer Majora's Mask is nearly three quarters of the way done. By hook or by crook, Nintendo games keep trickling onto PC.
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The performance of AMD's latest CPUs appears to show that it's the Ryzen 5 CPUs that are the best option for gamers. This is because the double CCD (Core Compute Die) configurations to be found at the top of the Ryzen 7000 stack seem to be falling foul of the Microsoft Windows 11 thread scheduler and performing worse than they should.
Jesus! 30% better lows with SMT off on 1 CCD. @Buildzoid1 pic.twitter.com/YSa2Xaskj7October 15, 2022
See moreCapFrameX and Hardware Unboxed both took to Twitter to reveal that AMD's top chip of this generation was lagging behind the single CCD chips in some games—with Metro Exodus in particular dropping from 176fps on average from a single CCD down to 151fps at the stock Ryzen 9 7950X configuration.
Turning off the second CCD can unlock the performance of the chip, but halving the core count isn't exactly something you'd want to do after splashing out $699 on the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. Alternatively, you could just pick up a chip that has a single CCD by default, such as the Ryzen 5 7600X or the Ryzen 7 7700X.
CapFrameX also tested to see if performance also improved after turning off SMT (Simultaneous MultiThreading) and sure enough, it did. But, and it's an important point here, the single CCD version of the chip with SMT off performed even better—it managed 190fps, with the minimums also improving significantly compared to the default configuration.
This is why the finger of fault ends up pointing at Microsoft's Thread Scheduler once again—there was a similar problem on this front last year with the release of Windows 21H2, which saw performance drop significantly for AMD's chips. A chipset driver update was needed back then to sort out the performance.
Will we see a similar patch this time around? There's a good chance that AMD will want to get this sorted quickly, as gamers actively avoiding its top-end chips is not a good look for Zen 4. The fact that we see the Ryzen 7 7700X as the better option for most gamers doesn't help much either.
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There is a report going around that AMD has reduced the production volumes for its latest Ryzen processor range "amidst a decline in the PC market and the overall poor reception of the AM5 platform."
We're used to gaming hardware disappearing from retail the instant it's released. Whether that's the latest graphics cards, such as the new Nvidia RTX 4090 or AMD's RX 6800 XT of days gone, or a new games console. We expect there to be a mad rush on stock, shelves to run dry in a matter of minutes, and for it to be tough to buy the latest best new techie thing for ages.
Unless you're talking about the new AMD Zen 4-based Ryzen processors, that is. The new AMD CPUs launched relatively recently, and we've been pretty positive about both the Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 7 7700X chips. But unlike most new tech launches since the pandemic began, it's surprisingly easy to bag yourself a new 5nm Ryzen in whatever flavour you most desire.
There is an accepted decline in PC sales this year, and last week's third-quarter earnings report for AMD showed how much of an impact it has had on the company's bottom line with revenue falling short by $1.1 billion. Towards the end of both a CPU and GPU generation, that's to be expected on the gaming hardware side, but total PC sales have dropped, too, below the pre-pandemic levels.
AMD cited the weak PC market and large outstanding inventory of product as the reasons behind its recent revenue miss. And it's against this backdrop that WCCFTech is suggesting it's learned the company is cutting Ryzen 7000-series production.
The piece is also suggesting that it's also partly because of an "overall poor reception of the AM5 platform" that this is happening. Given there is an abundance of chips on the shelves I guess you could make that argument.
But with an overall slowing of the PC market that is leaving a bunch of stock out in the channel it would be a foolish company indeed to keep production at the same levels without taking note of a changing hardware environment.
Your next upgrade(Image credit: Future)Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD
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Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the restAMD's new processor platform was always going to have a slower start than recent Ryzen CPU launches, too. It requires not just a new chip, but a new motherboard and likely new DDR5 memory, too. I mean, I doubt many people are upgrading from an DDR5-based Alder Lake system. Especially given the similar gaming performance.
A new graphics card, on the other hand, can be an easy drop in upgrade that will instantly benefit practically any system. That makes it a far wider purchase base for day one. When you're switching to a whole new platform you're more likely to be waiting for a specific time to make your upgrade, not just when it releases.
That and there's a whole new Intel CPU release on the horizon with Raptor Lake, too.
So, looking at the day one sales of such a setup is perhaps a bit disingenuous. We'll see whether AMD sees its new chips as struggling when Raptor Lake does launch, and whether AMD changes the pricing of its own competing chips in response. In the end, money talks, and any Zen 4 pricing change might say a lot.
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The Genshin Impact Padisarah is one of the regional specialities that's unique to Sumeru. Although it wasn't really used for much before, you'll need it if you're looking to ascend the new Hydro character, Nilou. These special flowers are a little harder to procure than the Kalpalata Lotus and the Rukkhashava Mushrooms you had to gather for Collei and Dori. If anything, they're more like those troublesome scarabs you have to scour the desert for in order to ascend Candace.
Here, I'll explain the best places to find Padisarah flowers in Sumeru, as well as what world quests you'll have to complete in order to unlock the village of Vanarana so you can actually get to most of them.
Genshin Impact Padisarah locations: How to get them
Image 1 of 2There are lots of Padisarah flowers in Vanarana (Image credit: miHoYo official interactive map)Image 2 of 2You can enter the real Vanarana by playing the Vintage Lyre by this statue (Image credit: miHoYo)The best places to get Padisarah flowers in Genshin Impact are Vanarana, the Palace of Alcazazaray, and Pardis Dhyai. The only difficulty is that to get the Padisarahs in Vanarana, you have to transition into the Real World. You do this by playing your Vintage Lyre at the stone in the village, once you unlock the Rhythm of the Great Dream in the World of the Aranara quest. You basically get to this by following Rana's Woodland Encounter quest when you meet her on the road to Sumeru City.
You can see every Padisarah location on the official Genshin Impact interactive map. There are 68 overall, meaning you'll need to complete around two and a half farms in order to get the 168 to level Nilou fully. Also remember that regional specialities take 48 hours to respawn. If you have Tighnari, he can be pretty useful for this farm, since his passive Encyclopedic Knowledge skill displays regional Sumeru specialities on the minimap when you're near to them. If you're looking for a specific time-efficient farming route through Vanarana, this one from KyoStinV is pretty speedy:
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Following the cancellation or 'unlaunch' of the RTX 4080 12GB, Nvidia has reportedly offered to reimburse its AIB manufacturing partners for any packaging that's already been printed, though whether that's in full or in part remains unclear.
With the new GPU's launch originally expected next month, at least the first batch of RTX 4080 12GB cards will have been manufactured, packaged, and likely already sitting in warehouses waiting to go out to retailers. There's going to be a whole lot of logistical gymnastics needed to pull those back and sort them out.
Gamers Nexus (via Videocardz) confirmed that two different Nvidia AIB partners are going to have the RTX 4080 12GB's packaging "collected and destroyed, or sent to recycling centres."
"From what we understand Nvidia is subsidizing the boxes, or at least part of them," Steve Burke notes.
But the changes that partners will need to make don't just end with packaging. Not only will it involve reprinting the boxes and restickering the serial numbers on each card, the GPUs' vBIOS may also need to be flashed to incorporate the new name.
Burke suggests it might be more awkward to change the name for Founders Edition cards, though Nvidia has stated from the outset that there will be no FE card for RTX 4080 12GB.
Part of the whole issue with the RTX 4080 16GB and 12GB cards was that they weren't just the same GPU with a different memory configuration, but a completely discrete slice of silicon.
The 16GB card launching on November 16 will run on the AD103 chip, while the RTX 4080 12GB was supposed to sport a third-tier AD104 GPU. From the beginning that looked a lot like it should have been an RTX 4070-class chip, considering the underlying specs and memory design. And if Nvidia is solely looking for AIBs to change the packaging, a name-change seems the most likely avenue.
Your next machine(Image credit: Future)Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines from the pros
Best gaming laptop: Perfect notebooks for mobile gamingWhen it comes to the 4080 12GB rename, we're guessing Nvidia will take the advice of the masses and rebrand it as some variant of an RTX 4070. It could decide to stick with whatever the original RTX 4070 specs were intended to be, if those were already set, and peg this one as an RTX 4070 Ti, giving it a way to still put a high price on the card.
It was originally meant to sell as an RTX 4080 12GB for $899, but it would be tough even for Nvidia to expect the market to accept that price for a straight RTX 4070. If it's marked as an RTX 4070 Ti it may still have to drop the price, but $799 wouldn't be a huge surprise.
One thing we don't know is when such a card might appear. We were expecting the RTX 4070 and below to arrive in the new year, but with these third-tier Lovelace GPUs just needing some fresh packaging, could they be an early Christmas present in December? Or a late one in January?
The big question right now will be whether Nvidia's offer to pay for the packaging will cover just the cardboard and printing, or if that will extend to the labour costs involved in taking each card out of its box, putting a new serial number sticker on there, and potentially even updating the vBIOS.
Honestly, it seems like EVGA got out of there just in time.
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Need to know
What is it? Teen angst mind heists in the slickest turn-based JRPG ever you'll ever play.
Expect to pay $60/£50
Developer Atlus
Publisher SEGA
Reviewed on Ryzen 7 1700X, RTX 2080 Super, 32GB RAM
Multiplayer? No
Link Official siteMy team of anime mind-thieves deftly jump across chandeliers, then take cover to avoid the gaze of a patrolling guard in the corridor that follows, zig-zagging behind him to initiate an ambush. As the jazzy soundtrack reminds me, he never saw it coming, and taking advantage of the weakness of the demon who lives inside him—a cute looking pumpkin in a witch hat—we tag-team attacks to wipe it out in seconds.
It's the kind of dynamism you might not expect from a turn-based JRPG, but Persona 5 Royal is fine with bucking tradition to execute this near-flawless adventure. Even a few years since its original release, this is the genre's pinnacle.
(Image credit: SEGA)Despite being later to the heist on PC, this is an excellent version—perhaps the best one on the market. While clearly intended for controller play, keyboard and mouse support adds a nice, direct layer to this largely slow-paced, tactical affair (the cursor even turns into a neat thief's dagger). Graphical options are limited, but get the job done, and the option to play with 120fps—as well as 30 and 60fps options—adds to P5R's already slick vibe.
That fluidity and sense of style permeates every layer of P5R, which seemingly has an answer for every reason players might be bored of the genre. Its combat is comfortable operating in both an arcadey mode that has you chaining together weaknesses to clear boards almost like a puzzle game, and boss fights that require a thorough use of its toolset. Its story of teenagers rebelling against an unjust world of adults in modern day Tokyo feels refreshing in its parallels to our real-world. Its main dungeons are far cries from straightforward corridors, instead featuring environments worthy of exploration as you scoop up shinies.
The treasure you'll be picking up goes beyond gold trinkets to sell back at the equipment shop. You'll be stealing hearts—quite literally. You play as a teenager with an unjustly earned rap sheet, carted off to start anew with a family friend, enrolling in Tokyo's Shujin Academy. Discovering a strange phone app that refuses to be deleted, you end up involved in another case of an adult abusing their authority. The school's lecherous gym teacher is both injuring the volleyball team he teaches through cruel training, while also treating the girls in his care as sex objects. It's gross, and the game goes to great lengths to make the complicated mental toll of that kind of abuse clear.
(Image credit: SEGA)The app, the Metaverse Navigator, allows users to enter the shared consciousness of Tokyo, where particularly nasty individuals who wield influence have grotesque Palaces. Guarded by demons (who are mostly inspired by real world mythology from many cultures, materialised in this world via that shared belief), it's a deathtrap for your average passerby. But you (and later your friends), are able to draw on that demonic power for yourself by reckoning with the mask society has forced you to wear, dramatically tearing it off to evoke your persona in battle.
Awakening to the power also decks you out in the duds of a modern-day gentleman thief, after which you take on the codename Joker to match your long leather coat and gloves. Having to publicly call-out the teacher to manifest the treasure of his heart so you can abscond with it, you and pals take the name the Phantom Thieves. After successfully getting away with it—which results in him admitting to his crimes and resigning—the crew decides to press on for a whole JRPG's worth of adventures, each dungeon a new mind-heist through some of the most devious brains in the city, with a new theme to match.
Hang loose
Making your way through the story will take almost a full year. In-game, that is. In real-life it'll easily take over 100 hours if you include this edition's chunky, post-game epilogue. Starting school in April, a calendar system takes you through each day. It adds to the sense of always pushing forward, whether that's to see what each new dungeon will hold, or just chasing the game's many bouts of downtime where you can just hang out with friends. This in turn either strengthens their powers in battle, or awards you buffs, depending on if they're a party member or not.
(Image credit: SEGA)P5R's story is a great tale that'll resonate with anyone who remembers being a misunderstood teen, and the characters still pack enough charm to stack up against the genre's best. Even so, there are still some missteps in how it handles its material, though improvements in this release have been made—such as an off-colour gay joke that's been toned down. More often than not, the hits land, and you'll find yourself getting emotional at your pals' tragic story arcs. Less successful is the strange romance you can initiate with your homeroom teacher (especially so, given the theme of the game's first dungeon), and how some additional scenes in the Royal release leaves a fan favourite 'ships' feeling queerbaity.
By not being able to do everything, the game empowers you to follow your nose, and get into your own groove.
Back to what you can do—there's so much of it, it'll feel like you never have enough time in the day. To max out every character or unlock everything you'll need to staunchly follow a guide—which I wouldn't recommend. Instead, by not being able to do everything, the game empowers you to follow your nose, and get into your own groove. Depending on the day of the week or even weather, the people who want to hangout with you or activities you can take on across the daytime and evening change. The school shop's health-restoring yakisoba bun is so popular you can only buy it once every Friday, for example. Studying in the rain will give an extra boost to Knowledge. It's a testament to the game's strength that even with its lengthy runtime, you'll rarely get bored.
Note that I said "rarely", not "never". Shin Megami Tensei's (of which Persona is a spin-off) obsession with near-endless dungeons continues with Mementos, a subway-themed proc-gen dungeon representing the generic shared consciousness of the city, with new chunks of floors to descend to opening up the further you get in the game. It's not optional either, as you will have to slog through it whether that's piece-meal or in one big chunk. It's better here than it was at launch, your cat-pall Morgana's cat-bus form now geared up to reach new top speeds, collector Jose offering new rewards for exploring, and more side missions to mop up. It's not the worst lengthy JRPG dungeon (and you can blitz to the exit on each floor if you want), but it's still a long one.
(Image credit: SEGA)Demon days
Thankfully, it's not just the calendar that keeps things moving. Everything is slick, right down to the menus. Everything is designed to keep you pushing forward. Each battle command that bursts from your party, for example, is easily accessed from your controller or keyboard, so you don't spend too much time navigating. It sounds minor, but it makes battle snappy, especially as you learn each area's stable of demons, and how to exploit their weaknesses. A helpful "advice" command even quick-navigates you to target discovered enemy weaknesses.
Tactically, a good fight in Persona 5 is all about keeping up that momentum. You'll enter most fights with advantage, thanks to a cover system that means you can jump enemies roaming the map with ease. In combat, if you bust an enemy's skull with their elemental weakness, whack them with a critical hit, or score a technical hit on a debuffed enemy, you can knock them down and score a "one more".
Rather than just giving a party member another attack, the "one more" can also be handed off to an ally using the Baton Pass. That means from one opening, you can chain a series of weaknesses. Down all foes, and you'll initiate a hold up, from which you either perform a spectacular, high-damage All-Out Attack on them; or natter with them instead. The latter can be used to obtain all sorts of goodies from items to cold hard cash, or you can forge a contract with them to join you.
(Image credit: SEGA)Unlike the rest of the party, Joker has the unique ability to befriend more than one demon, bringing a stock of them into battle (starting at six), which can be switched between each turn. A Joker-of-all-trades, that means he can bring immense utility to brawls, depending on how you kit him out. While P5R sports easy modes (and an extra-easy safety mode that allows you to get back up when you die), even those will require some thoughtful plays. Thank your past self when you end up needing to rely on that demon you picked up with a resistance to dark insta-kills, for instance.
You won't just be welcoming demons from the field into your arms, but creating them yourself. The aetherial velvet room is open to you, where mysterious entities will talk you through the art of demon fusion, allowing you to combine two together into a new one who can inherit some of the previous bunch's skills. While each demon does level-up and earn new skills—and can even feed on other ones for direct-XP in this version—they won't match up to your own character growth. Jumping ahead levels by making literal deals with the devil (Satan is here, yet ironically wields "severe" ice powers,) is the way to get ahead, and means you'll constantly be mastering new powers and party set-ups. It's just another lockpick in P5R's set of thieving tools that allows this RPG to constantly keep things fresh across a lengthy runtime.
P5R is just a game that goes down smoothly. There's an urge to see both the large story beats unfold, and to pack in as many meaningful character moments into your schedule as you can. It might not be what you'd expect from quite possibly the longest JRPG you'll ever play, but each of those many hours is filled to the brim with inventiveness that—quite frankly—can make it hard to go back to other games in the genre. The dungeons, the battles, even the hangs-outs at burger joints are just that much better. I could play something else, but the chance to re-plan my schedule on New Game Plus is looking awfully tempting.
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It’s a question that’s captivated the most advanced minds of a generation: could painting pretend miniatures in a game ever be as satisfying as the real thing? It’s a proposition presented in Moonbreaker, a turn-based, tabletop tactics game from Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds. And to help to answer it accurately, PC Gamer teamed up with miniature painter extraordinaire and all-round good egg Emil Nyström from the Age of Squidmar YouTube channel. And he’d know: Emil’s channel has amassed millions of views with videos about things like brush care, beginner painting techniques, and colour theory. He’s even commissioned artists on Fiverr to complete Warhammer models, essentially making him the Mr. Beast of paying strangers to paint Imperial Fists.
You can see Squidmar’s detailed take on Moonbreaker's painting mode in the video above—complete with demonstrations of some classic miniature techniques such as blending and chipping—but it’s worth pointing out that this isn’t just a gimmick. Moonbreaker is designed to feel like a game played with physical miniatures. There’s a satisfying tactility to the designs that recalls the wallet-bothering fervour which accompanies most new Warhammer releases.
The major difference here, however, is that instead of displacing the existing, half-painted miniatures languishing on your shelf (stay strong, Dankhold Troggoth), you can build your virtual collection with neither guilt nor judgement. That itch to get your hands on the latest model is scratched by the ability to unlock new characters, all of which come painted. And, when the time is right, you can dive in and create new colour schemes without having to scrub off existing paint jobs with meths and your partner’s toothbrush.
(Image credit: Unknown Worlds)The interesting thing here is that the approach to customisation is deliberately limited. Yes, you can stipple, wash, and drybrush, but the range of tools echoes what you have painting the real thing, rather than offering an idealistic degree of precision. The result is something that captures the zen, time-devouring experience of painting Warhammer, without the peril of accidentally knocking over your Nuln Oil, and you only need to look at Emil’s finished paint job to get a vivid sense of what’s possible.
Part of the enjoyment of painting plastic legions, of course, comes from dense narrative fluff that surrounds every faction. They’re not just goblins anymore, mum; they’re Gloomspite Gitz. In this respect, Moonbreaker equals and perhaps even outstrips the level of world-building seen in most tabletop games. The lore and overarching story are provided by award-winning author Brandon Sanderson, creator of the Mistborn series, as well as the wider Cosmere universe in which it’s set. He’s also the man responsible for finishing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.
Sanderson worked with Unknown Worlds for years to develop a rich, real setting for Moonbreaker. It’s a place of myriad planets, clashing cultures, and specific systems for technology and magic—something Sanderson knows plenty about, as the creator of a series of go-to laws of magic for application in fictional settings.
(Image credit: Unknown Worlds)The way this information is imparted also sparks the imagination. Each character’s history is contained within their biographies, but it shows instead of tells: they’re presented as song lyrics, book excerpts, or personal creeds. This context, combined with the effervescent voice acting, give a more complete picture of who you’re playing with. The wider story of the game also works in conjunction with the painting mode. The broader points of the plot are detailed in audio dramas which are available in-game or as podcasts. The cool thing here is that you can listen to these while painting your models, which is the nicest way of imparting background plot points since someone realised the Mother Base struts in Metal Gear Solid 5 were exactly the right length to listen to one of the game’s voluminous collection of audio tapes. And there’s plenty to listen to: three audio dramas will be released during Moonbreaker’s first season, with more planned for later updates.
As anyone who’s ever felt a shiver of excitement seeing a fresh sprue of unpainted minis knows, however, the other thrill of the hobby comes from collecting. Moonbreaker includes an element of this, too. You start off with a limited selection of captains and crew from which to choose, but a few games against either the AI or other players will bag you enough points to start expanding your collection, and booster packs work as a shortcut to an expanded collection. As well as bolstering your rosters and providing new ways to play the game, you can unlock paint jobs, paint palettes, decals, and exclusive skins for free as you progress through the first season, adding yet more variety to your burgeoning collection. Moonbreaker is out in early access now, and registering for an in-game ID before October 31 will also bag you an exclusive paint job for one of the characters.
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More capacity for less cash. But at what cost? That’s the question for the new Crucial P3 Plus M.2 SSD, tested here in its 2TB configuration. It uses QLC flash memory to offer increased storage space at a conspicuously low cost, in this case around $179 (£205) for this 2TB drive at the time of this review. But is there a different price to be paid here?
In simple terms, the answer is yes. The Crucial P3 Plus uses parent company Micron’s latest 176-layer QLC NAND chips. QLC stands for quad-level cell and indicates four bits of storage per memory cell. That’s one more than the TLC or triple-level cell flash memory typically used in premium, high-performance SSDs.
Now, it’s well established that as cell-level bit densities increase, both performance and endurance take a hit. But it’s worth remembering roughly why. In simple terms, the complexity of reading and writing to a QLC cell is double that of a TLC cell. And that means it takes longer. Much longer. There’s the performance hit.
As for endurance, well, it comes down to the fact that every time a given cell is written to, it slightly wears out the oxide layer required to store the charge that in turn represents the bits—the zeroes and ones—that compose the actual data. And more bits per cell means that each cell is written to more frequently and thus wears out more rapidly. Hold all those thoughts.
Available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, indications that the new Crucial P3 Plus is a value-orientated product go further than merely the choice of flash chips. In conspicuous contrast to Crucial’s more expensive SSDs, which use the brand’s own controller chips, the P3 Plus is fitted out with the Phison PS5021-E21T.
The Phison E21T is basically a budget PCIe 4.0 controller, offering just four memory channels to the competition's eight. It’s also a so-called DRAM-less chip and thus doesn’t support dedicated DDR cache memory. Instead, system memory performs the job of providing primary caching.
Crucial P3 Plus 2TB SpecsSpeaking of cache, one of the most important elements of any QLC drive is SLC cache provisioning—or the proportion of the drive that can be allocated to run in much speedier SLC mode. In this case, it’s around 20% of the available free space on the drive. As the drive fills, then, the amount of SLC cache available will shrink. But the main point is that QLC tech tends to make sense on larger drives where SLC provisioning can be fairly generous. Even half full, this drive is large enough that you should still get a few 100 GB of high-performance SLC cache, which is decent.
Anyway, for the record Micron says its latest 176-layer QLC chips are around 25% quicker than its outgoing 128-layer QLC memory. If that sounds like a nice speed bump, Crucial says this 2TB model is good for 5,000MB/s reads and 4,200MB/s writes, which is obviously a fair chunk behind typical TLC-based drives. Crucial doesn’t even bother to quote IOPS numbers. Still, the P3 Plus does come with Crucial’s usual five-year warranty and 44TB of rated write endurance.
Symptomatic of the impact of QLC memory, that latter figure is barely better than one-third the endurance offered by a premium TLC-powered 2TB drive like the WD Black SN850. Of course, it’s absolutes and not comparisons that matter. Is 440TB enough? It adds up to 240GB each day, every day for five years. Plenty for all but the most demanding users, then.
Image 1 of 5(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 5(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 5(Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 5(Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 5(Image credit: Future)If the P3 Plus is likely to last long enough, how will it perform in the meantime? Adequately, is probably the best precis. Peak synthetic throughput measured by the likes of ATTO looks convincing enough at 6,890MB/s for reads and 5,940 for writes. But the numbers elsewhere are rather patchy. CrystalDiskMark reveals more realistic numbers, the drive achieving less than 5GB/s read speeds where premium drives clock in over 7GB/s. The P3 Plus’s 263MB/s 4K writes are actually pretty good, the 63MB/s 4K reads less so.
The arguably more real-world assessment that is PCMark 10 Storage likewise returns a pretty major shortfall versus TLC-based drives. Scoring under 2,500 points where top drives can hit 3,500 and likewise registering 68ms of latency against something in the mid-40s compared to a performance drive are clear consequences of that low-cost, high-capacity QLC memory and the budget controller chip.
There’s better news when it comes to sustained performance. The P3 Plus shows no signs of thermal throttling, maintaining peak performance in our pre-test fill routine until the SLC cache is fully exhausted after 500GB of writes and topping out at 56 degrees. That said, once you do get through the SLC cache, performance absolutely falls off a cliff, dropping to just 90MB/s write speed.
Image 1 of 4(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 4(Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 4(Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 4(Image credit: Future)Overall, the Crucial P3 Plus performs largely as you would expect for a large-capacity QLC drive. While the SLC cache isn’t exhausted it’s arguably plenty quick enough for most needs. And we’re not worried about long-term endurance either.
The main issue is what happens when that SLC cache runs out. The whole point of a big, cheap drive like this is surely to fill it with loads of data. At which point you will expose the underlying performance of the QLC memory and run into performance issues in some scenarios. In that context, it’s worth noting that just $30 more buys you Crucial’s own P5 Plus TLC drive, neatly sidestepping all of the QLC-related downsides. In the end, that’s where our money would go. The savings from this QLC drive just aren’t enough.
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Kazutaka Kodaka, creator of the murderous high-school visual novel series Danganronpa, has said he's not averse to the concept of bringing it back for another game.
In an interview with Twinfinite, Kodaka spoke about his upcoming game Rain Code and his decision to opt for an entirely new story rather than make yet another Danganronpa game. "It's not like I don't want to make another Danganronpa game, but I have a lot of ideas and want to create something new," he said. "Someday I may go back, maybe."
He also added that developer Spike Chunsoft wasn't pushing for another pop art murderfest, joking that if he asked to make another one "they might say yes, so I didn't ask."
Kodaka also called Danganronpa "more of a niche game," a surprising choice of words considering the game's explosive popularity and rampant cosplay community. He said that "it'd be cool" to return to the series eventually, but ultimately is currently focusing on creating new stories and experimenting. "I'm not really interested in doing the same thing other people may be doing," he concluded. "I'd rather not pick the safe option. When people start to forget about Danganronpa, perhaps I'll be more inclined to work on it again."
The last game in the series, 2017's Danganronpa V3, offered a pretty definitive (if not divisive) ending and I can't exactly imagine how a sequel could add anything further to the narrative. There are definitely some possibilities in how a new Danganronpa could build off its existing universe, or even tell an entirely new and original story separate from the original four games. Though I have my own hesitations, I'd definitely end up picking up whatever Kodaka put down in front of me. It's nice to see the door on Danganronpa isn't closed completely, and there's a chance we may be seeing murderous Monokuma and a gang of new ultimate high schoolers in the future.
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Remember when the world was young, Team Fortress 2 was new(ish), and Valve was putting out those Meet The Team character spotlight videos to promote the game? Well, they're back, except instead of in-engine trailers, the game's voice cast seems to have taken it upon itself to engage in a sort of real-life guerilla marketing campaign, baffling onlookers but greatly entertaining me personally.
Search for Sandvich: the Plot Thickens! #TeamFortress2 #TF2WTSFTS #TwinPeaks #GigglingSecretary @Robin_A_Downes @improvmaven @EllenMcLain pic.twitter.com/mSbMMIaaFaSeptember 18, 2022
See moreThe 'Search for Sandvich' series sees the voice actors of characters like TF2's Sniper, Heavy, Medic, Announcer and so on roam America's unsuspecting small towns in a hunt for, well, sandwiches. It began back at the beginning of September, when the game's voice cast was united in Seattle for PAX West 2022, and only seems to have snowballed from there.
So far, the cast has mystified deli workers, confused convenience store staff, and sent at least one bystander into a laughing fit in a Twin Peaks-themed cafe in North Bend, Washington State. You've got to respect how ready every random passerby seems to be to humour a band of roving strangers shouting at one another about sandwiches in accents no real human being has ever had. Maybe that just happens all the time in Washington. I've never been.
The latest video came out last Saturday, and sees the introduction of Dennis Bateman—the voice of TF2's Spy and Pyro—and Liz McCarthy from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I have no idea if the Twin Peaks tie-ins are actually building to anything or if it's just a brilliant, incomprehensible coincidence, but David Lynch suddenly making an appearance in one of these vids—perhaps to announce the weather—would hardly be out-of-character.
There's a whole load of these videos by now, but I've included a few that cracked me up below.
Ze search for #Sandvich continues @pax #Heavy #Sniper #Administrator #Medic @johnpatricklowr @EllenMcLain #TeamFortress2 @GarySchwartz14 pic.twitter.com/JdZokR0TWrSeptember 4, 2022
See more#TF2WTSFTS #TeamFortress2 #SeptOktoberfest pic.twitter.com/QjK6J8hXroSeptember 12, 2022
See moreSearch for Sandvich: Out to Sea!#sandvich #TeamFortress2 #Medic @improvmaven @Robin_A_Downes @johnpatricklowr @EllenMcLain @GigglingSecret1 #TF2WTSFTS pic.twitter.com/ayQzPeA7hUOctober 15, 2022
See moreSearch for Sandvich: who are THESE women? And will we ever find the Medic??? #sandvich #TeamFortress2 #Medic @improvmaven @johnpatricklowr @EllenMcLain #TF2WTSFTS pic.twitter.com/bRKCawflXmSeptember 29, 2022
See moreIf you're desperate for more, you can find them by searching the #TF2WTSFTS hashtag on Twitter. I'm hoping it just becomes an ongoing series that continues every time two or more cast members are in the same place. Everyone seems to be having too much fun for it to end.
Today's Wordle 486 answer and hint: Tuesday, October 18
in Gaming News
Posted
Whether you're just looking for a few quick hints to set you on the right path for today's Wordle or need all the help you can get to find the answer for October 18 (486), everything you need is just below. I've got handy clues, the complete solution to today's puzzle, and if you've always wanted to learn how to play I can even offer links to our Wordle guides.
I do love a good first guess. My opener revealed not only a few yellows but also a nice solid green right in the middle—the perfect pillar to arrange my follow-ups around.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Tuesday, October 18
The answer today is the "to be" part of Hamlet's most famous speech, another word for living, being real, or simply "being" at all. You'll need to find two vowels to solve this one.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank.
Wordle answer
What is the Wordle 486 answer?
Let's save that win streak. The answer to the October 18 (486) Wordle is EXIST.
Previous answers
Wordle archive: Which words have been used
The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
Learn more about Wordle
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns
️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. 
means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 
means you've got the right letter in the right spot.
You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer.
After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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