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You're not alone if you were hoping to play FIFA 23 via Steam or Origin but can't get it to boot up. Many FIFA 23 players are experiencing an issue with its anti cheat system which is preventing it from launching—this is why our review is also a little late! EA has acknowledged the issue and there is a workaround of sorts that seems to solve the problem, so let's take a look at what you need to do.
How to fix FIFA 23 anti cheat error
The problem seems to be affecting both Steam and Origin versions of FIFA 23, so I'll talk you through how to solve it for both platforms. As with all IT issues, try restarting the game—sometimes it really is a case of "computer says 'no'" and it'll work afterwards. If you're still getting an error message or a black screen, there are a few more steps you can take.
It's worth noting, however, that these fixes won't work for everyone and you might need to try these steps several times before you can play the game. EA has mentioned that it's working on updated error messages so that players can troubleshoot specific problems, so keep your eyes peeled.
Run Steam or Origin as an administrator
Run Steam or Origin as an administrator by right-clicking on the launch icons and selecting "run as administrator", click yes when the pop-up appears then boot up FIFA 23.
(Image credit: EA)
Launch then delete EA anti cheat
Search for the EA anti cheat folder then launch EAAntiCheat.Installer.exe, wait a second then close it. Then, right-click and delete EAAntiCheat.Installer.exe and launch FIFA 23 from your desired platform. This will force reinstall anti cheat and should hopefully get you past the errors.
Reinstall FIFA 23
Yes, this one is probably the biggest pain in the arse, but if you really want to play FIFA 23 then your best bet might be to uninstall and reinstall. Run Steam or Origin as administrator then uninstall FIFA 23, then reinstall it and, hopefully, you'll be able to finally jump in and play a game of football.
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The last entry in one of gaming's great historical partnerships has been released and, let me tell you, the manager won't be happy with how EA has set their stall out early doors. FIFA 23 is unplayable for a considerable amount of the playerbase thanks to a malfunction with EA's own anti-cheat software, which is failing to properly verify itself and thus refusing to launch the game.
Some players are reporting conflicts with other anti-cheat or DRM software on their PCs, while plenty of others have expressed their frustration through the game's now 'mostly negative' Steam reviews. It is impossible to say how widespread this is, though a minority of players seem able to access the title, and it has also affected PC Gamer's reviewer (our review of FIFA 23 is thus delayed until the writer can, y'know, play a bit of it).
"FIFA 23 is not a sports game, it's a simulator," writes Colonel Clam in their Steam review. "A simulator for troubleshooting why the game won't launch." Rmgerro drily observes that "I guess the anticheat is working, because if you can't play the game you can't cheat."
Developer and publisher EA has issued a holding statement acknowledging the issues and promising a fix:
"We are aware of the issues some PC players have experienced when launching FIFA 23, which are largely related to EA anticheat software. We are actively working on a fix. We see and understand our PC community’s frustration, and we apologize."
EA goes on to reference the expansion of cross-play support in FIFA 23: PC players are supposed to be able to play with console owners (PS5 and Xbox S/X) as well as those on Stadia (well, until January at least). The company also says that "many players who have encountered errors have been able to play after using one of our help solutions" though it seems fair to add that many players have found that the help solutions do not in fact help. Nevertheless here is EA's help page.
We are continuing to work on addressing PC issues related to EA anticheat when launching FIFA 23.ICYMI, we provided a quick update on #TopBinsLive covering the steps being taken to resolve this issue for players on PC.We will provide more updates as they become available. pic.twitter.com/oWrsPHSfLJSeptember 30, 2022
See more"We are working to correct all issues as soon as possible," says the publisher. Not quite the grand old send off that fans were expecting then, not yet at least. In the above video EA's FIFA CM Shelden Rogers mainly repeats the existing statement, though he does add that one of the immediate improvements the devs are looking to implement is "updated error messaging to help better inform players of the issues in question and troubleshooting steps, and we're also looking at addressing other stability issues for FIFA 23 on PC."
There's no ETA on a fix. In the meantime, you're probably best-served to give this entry a bit of a hip-swerve for now. Anti-cheat is obviously a necessity for any contemporary competitive experience, especially one on the scale of FIFA, but when it's stopping the game functioning for most players that's clearly an own goal. There are definitely a handful of players who seem able to access the title regardless but, for the moment at least, FIFA 23 is very far from the beautiful game.
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Living in the future if one thing is clear, it's that digital media is king. In the gaming world, it's becoming far more common to buy games digitally than it is to purchase physical copies. This has been true in PC gaming for years now with the success of Steam, lickety-split SSDs, and new consoles now releasing without disc drives. While some companies are seeing an increase in optical drives sales, generally speaking the days of the DVD drive are well and truly over—but what to do with those leftover drives?
DVD drives especially aren't of much use to anyone anymore. Streaming services will often offer better quality versions of the same movies in digital format. Plus, if you're a big physical media fan you've likely upgraded to Bluray or gone the other way completely with your mounting VHS collection. So it's time to gut those DVD players in favour of something actually useful, like a laser scanning microscope.
Kuriuzu recently posted a neat build to hackaday which involves turning two DVD drives into microscopes. A fair warning, while this project is described as simple it also requires a bit of soldering and might be confusing if you're new to this kind of work.
An Analogue Discovery instrument was used for this build, so follow along with this guide. This will do a lot of the heavy lifting, though these devices don't come cheap. It can be done without one but you'll be in for a bunch more trouble. Still, if you've got the parts laying around it's a great inexpensive one to try that should deliver a really cool result.
Peak Storage(Image credit: Future)Best SSD for gaming: the best solid state drives around
Best PCIe 4.0 SSD for gaming: the next gen has landed
The best NVMe SSD: this slivers of SSD goodness
Best external hard drives: expand your horizons
Best external SSDs: plug in upgrades for gaming laptops and consolesYou'll need two drives so you can grab the DVD pickups out of them. In this example Kuriuzu is using HOP-150X pickups, which can also be purchased online, though that isn't as much fun as reusing your old drives. They also recommend using Analogue Discovery 2, though say the original should still work. Aside from these all you need is a few resistors and some cables. You can get the complete detailed list of parts from the project website.
Once constructed you should have a nifty laser scanning microscope. These work by scanning lasers both horizontally and vertically across an object, and use the light reflected to construct an image. Typically these will give a high contrast and very detailed scan of an image, often used to get details other scanners can't. Of course, it may or may not do that, depending on how well you've followed the steps. PC Gamer holds no responsibility for failed DIY projects.
The images Kuriuzu has posted of their scanner at work are very cool, especially when you consider its humble beginnings. Even if they weren't potentially super useful for imaging data, they're still fascinating to look at and could make for some wild custom art pieces.
Whatever these wind up doing, it's likely far more useful than being a DVD drive in 2022.
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I can offer everything you need to solve today's Wordle just the way you want to, whether you'd like to read a handy clue or see the full answer to the October 3 (471) challenge as quickly as possible. And if you'd still like more you'll also find links to a range of Wordle guides and answer archives just a little further down the page.
Some days I don't want a brain-twisting challenge, I just want a nice way to spend a minute of my morning—and what could be a better way to start the week than three greens… four greens… and done?
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Monday, October 3
Bees, wasps, nettles, jellyfish, and plenty more creatures can do this to someone or something else, either passively, defensively, or as a calculated attack. Music fans of a certain age may also remember a UK singer going by this stage name. There's just one vowel to find today.
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:
- A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
- A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- The solution may contain repeat letters.
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
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)What is the Wordle 471 answer?
I won't keep you any longer. The answer to the October 3 (471) Wordle is STING.
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:
- October 2: TWINE
- October 1: LEAVE
- September 30: SCORN
- September 29: SCALD
- September 28: USURP
- September 27: SOGGY
- September 26: BRISK
- September 25: ADMIT
- September 24: GRATE
- September 23: GLORY
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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Westwood wasn't the only Studio publishing Dune videogames back in the day. French studio Cryo Interactive developed an adventure game simply called Dune and released it in 1992, then in 2001 released a tie-in to the Sci Fi Channel miniseries called Frank Herbert's Dune developed by Widescreen Games. The latter was a flop, and Cryo Interactive, already struggling due to the early 2000s recession, declared bankruptcy.
That left Soft Brigade in trouble. The Hungarian studio was working with Cryo Interactive on an arcade flight-sim for the Game Boy Advance called Dune: Ornithopter Assault, in which you played a House Atreides pilot on Arrakis, protecting spice harvesters from the Harkonnen. It was canceled—as was an online RTS called Dune Generations being developed internally by Cryo Networks—despite being almost finished. A playable ROM was eventually leaked online, but now Soft Brigade's game lives on, thanks to crowdfunding.
After raising $21,222 on Kickstarter, the game formerly known as Dune: Ornithopter Assault has finally been completed. Absent the Dune license and renamed Elland: The Crystal Wars, it's been brought to PC by Retro Room Games, who specialize in game preservation.
Instead of Arrakis, it's set on Elland, a world where the Brem-Nar crystals vital for making galactic star cruisers are mined. As a raptor pilot for Elland Inc., it's your job to deliver crystal gatherers to the crystal fields and prevent smugglers and agents of the rival Trafford Corp from destroying them. There are 23 levels, and some modern quality-of-life features like the ability to save anywhere, controller support and control remapping, cloud saves, and image scaling and smoothing options.
Elland: The Crystal Wars is available on Steam as of October 3. As for official Dune videogames, 4x strategy game Dune: Spice Wars is currently in early access, and Funcom is working on three Dune games, including open world survival MMO Dune Awakening, which has yet to announce a release date.
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Released in 2021 but updated multiple times since, with the most recent update bringing it up to version 3.17 and adding 15 more multiplayer maps, the GoldenEye With Mario Characters mod is one of those real "everything that's great about modding" achievements. Not just because of the wonderfully demented idea, but because of the follow through. The modder known as StupidMarioBros1Fan and their collaborators weren't content just swapping GoldenEye's bad guys with Koopa Troopas and calling it a day. Oh, no.
For starters, the dialogue (subtitled) has been rewritten to reflect the new character models. Alec Trevelyan's line, "For England, James?" made sense when he was being played by Sean Bean. Now that he's been replaced by Luigi, the line goes, "For-a Brooklyn, Mario?"
Everyone in the singleplayer campaign has been replaced appropriately, so Natalya Simonova is Peach, Xenia Onatopp is Daisy, and Valentin Zukovsky, the Russian gangster played by Robbie Coltrane in the movie, is now Wario. Of course.
There's more, including restored beta content, recreated content, and new cheats. In multiplayer there are more weapon sets to choose from, including jungle weapons, explosives, and full automatics from the 2005 total conversion GoldenEye: Source. The additional maps include two that were found unfinished in the game's files, some recreated from the canceled Xbox Live Arcade remaster of GoldenEye that was leaked online, and some from GoldenEye: Source.
"The new Multiplayer Maps will be released for regular GoldenEye 007 at some point in the future," StupidMarioBros1Fan says in a video description, " have to mess around with the Memory Allocations to make sure there aren't any issues with the Original Characters."
You can download GoldenEye With Mario Characters from ModDB, and if that's not working because the site's too busy, grab it from Google Drive. To install it you'll need the GoldenEye Setup Editor, and a clean GoldenEye 007 (NTSC-U) ROM to apply it to.
(Image credit: StupidMarioBros1Fan) -
Hello nobody,
Welcome to UnityHQ Nolfseries Community. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.
nobody joined on the 10/02/2022.
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Hello mghankin,
Welcome to UnityHQ Nolfseries Community. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.
mghankin joined on the 10/02/2022.
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Vermintide 2 is one of our favourite co-op games of all time, so we've got a lot of confidence in its developers, Fatshark. With Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, the Swedish studio is switching from fantasy to Games Workshop's sci-fi setting. That's right, it's time to pick up a chainsword and do battle in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium.
Expect to fight hordes of enemies in the claustrophobic depths of a hive city alongside your friends, while enjoying banter and a story co-written by best-selling 40K author Dan Abnett.
We've played Darktide, and it's great. Scroll down for a lengthy gameplay video and some early impressions.
When is Warhammer 40,000: Darktide's release date?
Darktide will release for PC on November 30. While initially scheduled for a 2021 release, it's yet another game that had to be pushed back thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"We have a responsibility to deliver the best game we possibly can, and frankly we need more time to accomplish this goal," Fatshark CEO Martin Wahlund wrote. "It is no secret that building a game during a pandemic is a challenge, and we are not immune to this."
The first of two subsequent delays, from Spring 2022 to September 13, was explained in a press release as being more to do with a simple desire for quality: "To us here at Fatshark, it's paramount that we deliver the best 4-player co-op experience possible."
Most recently, it was delayed to November 30 on PC, with an Xbox Series X|S launch "shortly after". This time, Wahlund cited a need to improve "stability, performance, and to mature key systems."
You can sign up for a chance to join a beta playtest, and Darktide is currently available to wishlist on Steam. It will also be coming to GamePass on day one.
Here's a full Darktide mission: 21 minutes of gameplay
Darktide was our favorite game of "not-E3" 2022
Here are the highlights of our hands-on with Darktide:
- Objectives are no longer tied to levels, so you'll be able to play through areas with different goals.
- The loot system has been overhauled. There's still some random gear, but you can also buy weapons from the in-game shop (not with real money) and set "contracts" on specific weapons you want to earn by playing.
- Objectives now involve minigames like hacking (or rather, skulljacking) into a computer, rather than just holding a button down.
- There's mantling, and it's smooth.
- Hordes of enemies are bigger than in Vermintide 2.
- You'll still be doing a lot of melee, but guns feel excellent.
- Every character class now has a regenerating shield, a necessary counter to the bad guys having guns. Functionally the shields are the same for each class, but Fatshark still gave each one its own little lore-appropriate twist. "For the Zealot [class], it's her faith in the Emperor who protects her. For the Veteran, it's his armor. For the Psyker, it's her warp power."
Who are the player-characters?
Darktide's heroes are nicknamed the Rejects, as seen in a trailer from June called Rejects Will Rise. They're a bunch of criminals and outcasts recruited to become agents of the Inquisition, then sent to investigate an outbreak of plague and heresy in Tertium Hive.
The gameplay trailer that debuted at The Game Awards in 2020 gave us our first look at some of them: an ogryn (an oversized descendant of humans who were sent to harsh, high-gravity worlds generations ago), a hammer-wielding religious zealot who may well be a confessor or some other servant of the Imperial faith, and two soldiers who seem to be veteran soldiers of the Imperial Guard. One of them wore a face mask like the kasrkin, elite storm troopers from the planet Cadia. We got a closer look at them in the release date trailer.
In an Edge magazine feature we first saw another archetype: a psyker who draws psychic power from the warp, but may well explode if they rely on it too much. The psyker reappeared in the Rejects Will Rise trailer.
Edge's article also mentioned that Darktide will have a character creator, and those characters can be customized with different faces and loadouts. It seems likely the two veteran Imperial Guards are examples of how much the same class can be differentiated.
Though being able to customize them means the Rejects won't be set individuals like Vermintide's Ubersreik Five, they will still have plenty of entertaining banter. As Fatshark explained in a dev blog, the voice actors have recorded "thousands upon thousands of banter lines".
A character spotlight for the zealot archetype made it plain that each of the archetypes will have multiple classes to choose from, each with unique skills and abilities. The example shown was the zealot's preacher class, who has faster melee attacks and a class ability that lets them charge at a target, locking them into hand-to-hand combat. They also gain more damage the less health they have and can throw a Stumm gas grenade.
While Vermintide had five core characters, we seem to have only seen four so far in Darktide. That's led to plenty of speculation that a fifth playable character is being held for an announcement closer to release.
(Image credit: Fatshark)Our interview with co-writer Dan Abnett confirmed that each Reject begins at the bottom, as "an unwilling recruit into this life of serving the Inquisitor. You've got everything to prove, and I suppose everything to lose." The warband will also include NPC professionals who "are kind of using you as cannon fodder."
In the Warhammer 40,000 fiction, acolytes of the Inquisition come in many archetypes, and there's an acolyte hierarchy (from acolyte to proven acolyte, to trusted acolyte, throne agent, and so on) that would serve nicely as a progression system. We know from Edge's feature that Darktide will indeed contain leveling up, and that characters' dialogue will change to reflect how seasoned they are.
(Image credit: Fatshark)Who are the enemies?
The big bad behind it all is Nurgle, the Chaos god of pestilence with a surprisingly good sense of humor. Grandfather Nurgle, the Lord of Decay, tirelessly experiments with new strains of disease with the ultimate aim of inducting everyone into his garden: a festering organic plane of existence. You do not want to go to Nurgle's garden.
In Darktide we'll be facing a cult of plague-worshippers called The Admonition, who seem to be thriving. The hordes seen in the trailers are poxwalkers, the corrupted zombie masses of 40K, and make sense as low-level fodder in a Left 4 Dead format. We also see well-armed cultists, some of whom can be identified as traitor guards given the autoguns they're carrying and the armor they're wearing, though they have modified it with spikes because of course they have.
(Image credit: Fatshark)The big ugly who shows up at the end of several trailers is an infected Chaos ogryn, and the dog who leaps out of the darkness is presumably a Chaos hound.
There are plenty of other servants of Nurgle from 40K that would work in Darktide too. We've already fought Chaos spawn in Vermintide, as well as some of Nurgle's daemonic servants. The lesser daemons called Plaguebearers will make excellent elites, and one of the greater daemons called Great Unclean Ones could serve as a big campaign finale—though it's unlikely a squad of plucky acolytes would stand any chance against one of those large, large lads.
(Image credit: Fatshark)Just tell me about the weapons
Fatshark excel at melee combat, and the gameplay trailer shows some familiar animations for that. One of the veterans wields an iconic 40K chainsword and the other a power sword, the zealot has a thunder hammer, and the ogryn a real big knife. That last one may sound underwhelming, but it's a blade the size of an ordinary human being. The psyker apparently gets access to a force sword.
Darktide has more of a focus on ranged weapons than Vermintide, however, and it seems like we'll be modifying our loadout with plenty of those. Multiple characters in the trailers have autoguns for continuous fire, and there seems to be two lasguns, one a sniper's long-las. There's also some kind of shotgun or perhaps just a real heavy-duty autopistol. The ogryn's ripper gun—a heavy auto-shotgun—also doubles as a melee weapon, which is nice.
(Image credit: Fatshark)We know from Edge that plasma guns will feature, and given that it's a 40K game, boltguns are a dead cert for inclusion. One of the other characters hurls a frag grenade to break up a horde at one point as well.
"As we've seen in Vermintide, players really enjoy tweaking their loadouts,” creative director Anders De Geer told us. "And since we have a lot of great modders, they also want to tweak individual weapons, talents and other stuff. So we are working with a system right now that will allow players to have way more freedom than they had in Vermintide to customise their toolkit when they go into a mission."
(Image credit: Fatshark)The hive and the hub
Darktide is set in a hive city called Tertium. Hive cities are awesome. They're vast, layered cities populated by a diverse population of warring gangers, corrupt diplomats, and a few billion hardworking folk who tend to die quite quickly. Planetary governors and senior Imperial agents enjoy good living at the top of a hive city's spires, while in the tangled underhive corridors that form the bowels of the city, citizens form gangs and battle for territory.
Among Tertium's locations are an underground water market, well-lit habzones where the billions huddle close together, a much less well-lit prison, service tunnels that connect the guts of the hive, and the gothic walkways that span its heights.
It's a good place for Nurgle to do his work. A Chaos-instigated pandemic can take down an entire planet if allowed to fester, so the stakes are high in Darktide. As a location to explore, hive cities risk being eternally dingy, but there is potential to mix up the architecture a lot, from grandiose and gothic Imperial buildings, to more utilitarian spaces reminiscent of Alien.
The maps will change, too. Return to a friendly corner of Tertium later and a gas leak may have driven out the inhabitants, or they might have been replaced by the Admonition.
Between missions we'll be returning to the Inquisitor's starship in low orbit to collate the clues we've gathered, tinker with our gear, talk to NPCs, and select the next mission from those available.
"You've got a place that you can talk to the other members of the team and the other characters," says Abnett, "the important members of the warband. And also improve yourself and get new kit and get briefed and all those sorts of things that you would expect to be able to do in a game."
It'll also have players beyond those we're grouped with in it. "The starship is much bigger in the sense of player count than the Vermintide hub," game director Anders De Geer told us. "It's more of an actual hub with NPCs and people to interact with, but also other players of course."
Will it tie into the 40K lore?
Fatshark is used to close collaboration with Games Workshop from developing the Vermintide games, and has Abnett on hand to keep the lore straight. In addition, the writing team includes a bunch of other names 40K readers might recognize: John French, Sarah Cawkwell, V J Hayward, Mark A. Latham, Jude Reid, and creative consultant Matthew Ward, who also wrote for both Vermintide games.
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A new character spotlight has revealed information about the Zealot: Preacher class in upcoming cooperative shooter Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. Developers Fatshark have released a slew of quick cuts showing the class in action and highlighting some of those many and varied character lines and party banter.
The Zealot is a melee-focused character, one that thrives in the thick of combat. They focus on the use of close-range weapons like automatic pistols, revolvers, shotguns, flamethrowers, thunder hammers, chain axes, and power mauls.
The more damage a preacher takes the more melee damage the preacher deals, lending a push-your-luck element to managing your health while playing as one. You can also lunge forward, engaging enemies in melee—or escaping it—and have an aura that decreases friendly damage taken.
To be clear, the character's broader Archetype is Zealot, while their specialized class is Preacher. The four archetypes in Darktide are Zealot, Veteran, Psyker, and Ogryn. Each one has its own range of classes. The Zealot archetype and Preacher class were revealed in a trailer posted to YouTube and in a blog post on the Fatshark website.
The Preacher will also have increased melee attack speed, and "resists death on taking lethal damage," says the Fatshark blog. So you get at least one slip-up as you ride that low-health damage boost high. Fatshark points out that their fast, high-damage melee attacks make them good at dealing with both armored and unarmored enemies at close range.
Fatshark also posted a short clip to YouTube highlighting the starting equipment and ability of the Preacher. You can read more about the Preacher on the Fatshark blog.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a very exciting game for those who love the Left 4 Dead type cooperative formula, and past games Vermintide 1 and 2 are both superb. You can read everything we know about Darktide on the site.
Darktide will have a beta this month following its delay to a fall release. In a hands-on with Darktide earlier this year, our Wes Fenlon said it "absolutely rules."
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Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
Phasmophobia(Image credit: Kinetic Games)Developer: Kinetic Games
Year: 2020Most groups of gaming friends have a casual hangout game, the equivalent of having a football game on the TV that nobody's too invested in, or going window-shopping without intending to buy something. Maybe it's an unranked round of Rainbow Six Siege, or a low-level dungeon run in an MMO. For my friends it's a few cheeky rounds of Phasmophobia.
Phasmo's ghost-hunting is excellent for getting in the spooky mood each year, but my friends enjoy its co-op shenanigans so much that we play it year-round. Just like battle royales or co-op crafting, ghost-hunting has become pleasantly methodical.
After nearly two years, our group of three can reliably grab our preferred starting tools (EMF reader and a photo camera for me), split up to start casing every room in a house, and inevitably serenade one another with our favorite ghost-taunting songs. The choicest track is a nasal-y rendition of Blink-182's I Miss You, "where are you?" pronounced "were or yew" when a shy ghost just refuses to appear. A spirited "tell me what you want, what you really, really want" comes in close second.
The ridiculous clips of livestreamers scared shitless are what originally enticed me into playing Phasmophobia in October, 2020. Scores of missions later, things aren't nearly as scary as they once were, but it's still capable of producing memorable in-jokes every time we play. The locations that once scared us the most are now some of our favorite haunts.
On a particular contract in the Ridgeview Road house, a friend and I stood huddled over a ouija board on the garage counter, carefully reading off the answer to the question "where are you?" (not sung, this time) letter by letter. "Upstairs" we repeated slowly, after which we heard the muffled footsteps of our third member pause above us. "Upstairs hallway!" we shouted over the radio, answered by a hissed "'frack', that's where I am" from our unlucky friend.
Even after slight tweaks to various house layouts, the halls all feel familiar. There's something wonderfully comforting about hopping out of the van for an intermediate-level contract with my best pals, knowing we can pretty safely phone in this investigation and ID a demon without anyone dying.
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Those 30-minute rounds of Vampire Survivors got you down? I'm really loving Rogue: Genesia, a nicely-made little Early Access gem that's got a roguelike mode putting structure over its weapons-and-upgrades horde fighting. The result is spurts of shorter wave survival with short rests in between that's easier to pick up and put down.
It's a pretty game, to boot, and has both a free demo and a nice price point at $3.
You jump from node to node, some are fights, others are treasure, but all lead up to bigger miniboss and boss battles alongside shops and the like. Some are battles with survival timers, others challenges to slay a number of monsters as quickly as you can, and yet more have those goals combined with battling elite foes.
Your job in Genesia is, as someone with a very powerful soul, to hop from world to world within a multiverse and save them from hordes of monsters. Near as I can tell, at least, but either way it's about cutting down hundreds and hundreds of monsters as they fall upon you in waves.
Developer Huard Ouadi is a technical artist and programmer, so the neat thing about Genesia is that it has very modern lighting, shading, and rendering techniques in play. Characters are 2D sprites, but they live in 3D environments with full lighting and particle effects, it's a 2.5D effect much like the vaunted visual design of recent JRPG hit Octopath Traveler.
You can find Rogue: Genesia on Steam and follow it on Twitter. Rogue: Genesia is developed by solo operator Huard Ouadi and published by French A/V outfit iolaCorp Studio.
Speaking of the invigorating flavor that is the reverse bullet hell horde battling game, the modern progenitor Vampire Survivors will finally release to 1.0 on October 20th, complete with a whole new engine.
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As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Activision Blizzard chief compliance officer Frances Townsend has stepped down from her position. While no longer an employee of the company, she will continue to serve its board as an advisor.
The move comes as Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of the company slowly works its way to completion, though not without regulatory hurdles like a recent challenge from a UK watchdog.
Townsend was a controversial figure before joining Activision Blizzard. In the early 2000s, during the invasion of Iraq, she held the position of Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism under George W. Bush.
The Washington Post reported in 2004 that Townsend toured the infamous Abu Gharib prison during the height of the US military's torturing of prisoners at the facility. According to the Post, an officer at the prison told US Army investigators that Townsend pressured him to extract more and better information from prisoners in his capacity as head of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Gharib. Townsend, for her part, denied witnessing abuse of prisoners during her tour.
In July of 2021 close to the outbreak of the Activision Blizzard controversy, Townsend emailed employees regarding the allegations against the company. She claimed the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing lawsuit "presented a distorted and untrue picture of [Activision Blizzard], including factually incorrect, old, and out of context stories—some from more than a decade ago."
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick subsequently assumed responsibility for the content of the offending email. Townsend, however, stepped down from a position sponsoring a women's network at the company, and later deleted her Twitter after sparking controversy by sharing an article critical of whistleblowers.
According to Bloomberg, Bobby Kotick wrote in an email that Townsend "did a truly exceptional job" during her tenure. The WSJ reports that Townsend's former duties as ethics and compliance officer and corporate secretary are being assumed by her deputies Jen Brewer and Luci Altman respectively.
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Hello DerMenschenfeind,
Welcome to UnityHQ Nolfseries Community. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.
DerMenschenfeind joined on the 10/02/2022.
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"God-dang it, Bobby. The legions of Hell have come for our Clean Burning Fuel," So begins Modder FreewayHere's description for their King of the Hill Doom WAD. "We must rip and tear until it is done, or else Arlen will succumb to the will of the damned."
There are truly few things more virtuous and right than Doom WADs riffing on '90s TV. The ambitious total conversions, voxelized sprites, and ray tracing overhauls of today owe a debt of honor to dopey hacks from '04 that turn all the Pinkies into Barney.
FreewayHere is keeping the tradition alive with this King of the Hill Doom pack. I'm a big fan of its file name: Hank.wad. The absurd, often heartwarming trials of the Hill family make for a surprisingly nice accompaniment to the horror and ultra violence of Doom, almost like fries with Worcestershire sauce, and it's about time someone brought that combo to the game itself.
The star of the show is FreewayHere's sprite work, especially for Hank himself. The Doomguy Hank multiplayer sprites and Zombieman replacers are nice, but the HUD health indicator Hank head just kills it. He even gets all bloody and determined and changes his expression like Doomguy. The wad also replaces numerous other sprites, including swapping barrels, health pickups, and the hazard suit for propane canisters, Alamo beer, and Dale's exterminator outfit respectively.
FreewayHere's replaced the shotgun with a sort of riding mower shotgun combo borrowed from the WAD, Lawn of the Dead, and the BFG 9000 is now a man-portable gas powered grill. The WAD also contains WIP versions of custom King of the Hill maps, including the Hill residence itself, but it's early days for the custom episode, "That Imp Ain't Right." The midi versions of the show's main theme and Travelin' Man by Ricky Nelson do bang though.
"Are the new levels anywhere near finished?" FreewayHere rhetorically asks in the mod description, "No way. Am I a good level designer? Nope. But can you play as literal propane legend Hank Rutherford Hill? Yes you can." Good enough for me. I'd also be remiss if I failed to mention the addition of Smoking "Sammy" Salmon, the Singing Manitoba Fish to E1M1.
I look forward to even more Arlen goodness getting added to Hank.wad in the future. For now, if you'd like to sample the current state of the mod, you can check it out yourself on ModDB. Be sure to grab the open source GZDoom before doing so.
Image 1 of 4(Image credit: id Software, user FreewayHere on ModDB)Image 2 of 4(Image credit: id Software, user FreewayHere on ModDB)Image 3 of 4(Image credit: id Software, user FreewayHere on ModDB)Image 4 of 4(Image credit: id Software, user FreewayHere on ModDB) -
Hello shah,
Welcome to UnityHQ Nolfseries Community. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.
shah joined on the 10/02/2022.
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As shared by the Flat2VR modding community, creator Simon "DrBeef" Brown is in the early stages of creating a VR port of the classic FPS/Lightsaber duel simulator, Jedi Academy. Or, as the learned know it, Star Wars: Dark Forces 4: Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Outcast 2: Jedi Academy.
Flat2VR shared a 50-second preview gameplay clip of Jedi Academy running on the Meta Quest 2, showing off a portion of the game's Hoth Echo Base level. I already dig the idea of seeing this iconic movie location (and level I played over and over in grade school) from this new perspective, and the shooter combat looks like it translates well.
Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy VR Mod A WIP sneak peek at @DrBeef 's Jedi Academy VR mod running completely standalone on the Meta Quest 2.Support TeamBeef's fantastic work on their Patreon https://t.co/WRR3Q7BFh3 pic.twitter.com/rPhQpawcOfSeptember 30, 2022See moreUsing a lightsaber pulls the game back into a third person view, a carryover from the base game. This perspective seems workable, though perhaps a bit risky for queasier gamers. Flat2VR indicates that Brown may have plans to work in a first person lightsaber view. Previous entry Jedi Outcast, which runs on the same engine as Academy, did offer this option so it seems like a doable feat.
This is hardly Brown's first rodeo when it comes to VR ports of retro PC games. His SideQuest profile features VR ports of Quake, Half-Life 1, Return to Castle Woflenstein, and more. This is likely where you'll find Brown's completed Jedi Academy project in the near future, but if you'd like to follow development or even try it early, you can check out his Patreon.
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Whether you're hoping to find a general hint to improve your daily Wordle game or are looking for a helpful clue to guide the way, you'll discover everything you need to solve the October 2 (470) challenge on this very page.
My opening guesses did a lot of the heavy lifting today, leaving me to spend an embarrassing amount of time finding the one last letter needed to solve today's Wordle. It was certainly a challenge and felt like a bottomless well of possibilities.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Sunday, October 2
Today's answer is a specific type of string. This is usually a light brown hemp or cotton thread; thick, rough, and often used in gardening or to tie up rustic-styled handicrafts. There are two vowels to find today.
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:
- A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
- A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- The solution may contain repeat letters.
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
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)What is the Wordle 470 answer?
Let's make sure you end your week with a win. The answer to the October 2 (470) Wordle is TWINE.
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:
- October 1: LEAVE
- September 30: SCORN
- September 29: SCALD
- September 28: USURP
- September 27: SOGGY
- September 26: BRISK
- September 25: ADMIT
- September 24: GRATE
- September 23: GLORY
- September 22: SAINT
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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Not long ago I played Last Call BBS, a puzzle anthology that included a minigame about assembling model robot kits—using tools to snip them off the plastic sprues, then connecting, painting, and even stickering them. I get a sense of the same pleasant tactility watching the release trailer for Retro Gadgets, an upcoming game that will let you build your own videogame handheld, calculator, digital pet, or chiptune starter kit.
"Lose yourself as you build, solder, code, customise, and play with electrifying gadgets at your relaxing workbench", says the Steam page description. "Build video game consoles, weather machines, lightboards, radios, drum machines... any gadget you can think of. What will you come up with next?"
If you can't think of what you'd like to build, Retro Gadgets will let you find projects other makers have shared via the Steam Workshop "Check out gadgets made by people all over the world", it says. "Download any gadget, play with it, take it apart, see how it works, build your own version."
I'm not much of a maker myself, and I leave it to others to do things like using a Raspberry Pi to make an all-in-one emulation box for playing classic console games. But pretending to be the kind of person who owns a soldering iron and wields it like a pro has a definite appeal. Turning that fantasy into a game is kind of like what PC Building Simulator does. Plus, it takes away the element of risk. You could even use Retro Gadgets to plan a build before going ahead with it in real life.
Retro Gadgets is being developed by Licorice ehf and Studio Evil, who plan to release it in early access, where it will stay for, "Ideally about one year, but this could change." A demo will be available during Steam Next Fest, which runs from October 3 to October 10, and you can add it to your wishlist right now on Steam.
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(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)
Since the Unicron-sized toy company Hasbro owns both Magic: The Gathering and the Transformers, maybe it's not the strangest thing in the world that the robots in disguise will soon be appearing in Wizards of the Coast's collectible card game—at least from a brand synergy viewpoint. (In fact, there was a convention-exclusive Grimlock Magic card available at HasCon 2017.) During Hasbro's recent PulseCon it was revealed that 15 double-sided cards representing characters like Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Arcee, and Goldbug will be appearing in Magic: The Gathering. They'll be spread throughout booster packs for upcoming expansion The Brothers' War, a retelling of a classic Magic storyline from 1994 that will have its global release on November 18.
On one side the Transformers cards depict characters in their robot forms, and on the other as vehicles or stereos or whatever. Each card will be printed in two art styles, one looking like the 1980s cartoon, and the other resembling the recent Transformers: Shattered Glass comic books, which are set in a kind of mirror universe where the Autobots are the bad guys and the Decepticons are the heroes.
IGN has a preview showing six of the Transformers cards, which feature two new mechanics. There's More Than Meets the Eye, which lets them be cast transformed for a different price, and Living Metal, which means Transformers in vehicle mode don't need to be crewed like regular vehicle-type artifact cards. It notes that these cards will only be legal in the Commander, Legacy, and Vintage formats.
The NME reports that Outright Games is working on a Transformers videogame based on Earthspark, an animated series coming out on Paramount+ in November. Outright previously published Transformers: Battlegrounds, a turn-based squad tactics game that was released on Steam in 2020. The new game is scheduled to come out on PC in 2023.
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From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the dice to bring random games back into the light. This week, let's talk about one that's finally getting its due—a smart game that launched a thousand adventures. Well, a dozen and change. But that's not bad going!
There's a lot to like about The Shivah, but what's most impressive about it is what it isn't. It's about a preacher, but it's not preachy. It's a moral story, but it doesn't moralise. It's got soul, but it's not a soldier. It's a rare case of a game that dares to handle religious themes, but without heading down the path trod by previous Crapshot games like Captain Bible, Bibleman, and The You Testament, or completely negating them with extra layers of fiction, like just about everything involving the Knights Templar over the years. There are no aliens here. There's no lost treasure. There's simply a man, who happens to be a Rabbi, whose faith and crisis of same are equally relatable whether you share it, follow a different religion, don't believe in any of that stuff, or even claim lifelong allegiance to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Oh, and it's got a really clever twist on Monkey Island's insult sword-fighting too.
To be exact, this is The Shivah: Kosher Edition, which is simply "Shivah" in the game itself (I've never been entirely sure whether the 'the' is part of the name). It's the same game though, jazzed-up from an original that rocked the finest art Microsoft Paint could provide, with much-improved backgrounds and characters. Other versions available include simply Shiva, in which hero Rabbi Stone is replaced with the naked blue lady from Final Fantasy and the entire game consists of finding the villain and pelting him with ice magic (sounds short, but given the length of Final Fantasy cutscenes, still longer than the entire Deponia series) and the inevitable pirated version, Shivah Me Timbers.
Right. Mandatory puns now over.
Unlike the bible-themed games above, this isn't really a religious game; it's simply a game about a religious man. Or at least, a formerly religious man struggling to figure out where he stands. As we meet him, Rabbi Stone is in charge of a poor, failing synagogue in New York city with an audience of two, and an internal monologue that suggests Philip Marlowe could have easily have rocked a yarmulke.
'Or, to be more exact, I'd like to read you some of my erotic Twilight fan-fiction. Brace yourselves.'"The night sky above Manhattan will never win any awards," he sighs. "The few stars visible looked lonely and desperate. I could relate."
Part of what makes The Shivah effective is that it's willing to embrace its main character as both flawed and human. The very first scene is him cutting his sermon off mid-flow and locking himself away in his office. The next, a policeman appears to say that a former member of his congregation, Jack Lauder, has been murdered, and Stone's response, even factoring in natural care at dealing with a cop, is little more than "Oh." It's only the news that the deceased has suspiciously left him over $10,000 for no apparent reason that stimulates Stone's giving-a-crap gland, reminding him of simpler times, and also promising... well... $10,000. That buys a lot of curiosity.
The only catch? "It was blood money. And I couldn't believe God would work that way."
Which is a shame, because bubkis is strong against the pound right now.The titular Shivah—a mourning period for the dead (which doesn't actually take place here, as Lauder's wife isn't Jewish, though she does follow a few of the traditions)—is Stone's convenient 'in'. Not for carrying out religious duty, but for playing detective and figuring out what's going on. It's a clever solution to the classic mystery problem; if you've got a character other than a cop or a PI or similar, what's their reason for getting involved and why does nobody just tell them to stick their head in a pig after the 50th personal question.
Here, Stone has a direct reason for wanting to know the truth, gets to claim religious observance, and can point to kosher law when his subjects start getting that '49 and counting' look in their eyes. It's a neat little set-up for a mystery, both bending the rules for the sake of pragmatism, and having that mirrored in a hero who already worries he's drifting away from them. This might not seem like a big deal, narratively speaking. Given the number of kleptomaniac sociopaths calling themselves adventure game heroes out there though, it's a very rare case of self-awareness.
There's also an interesting comparison when he speaks with Lauder's wife that despite generally looking back on his more devout years as simpler, better times, he still feels guilt over specifics—not least having forced Lauder out of his congregation for marrying outside the faith. As an older man, one who favours answering questions with questions wherever possible, he can only reply "Were you and Jack happy? Then my reasons don't matter." Later, he both vehemently defends his choice in the face of accusations that he never learned to compromise, and accepts that on a human level, it still hurt him. The Shivah never picks a side, limiting itself to simply that this is what happened and these are how the chips fell.
Stone never resolves his conflict over the decision, even knowing that Lauder ultimately forgave him for it.In a lesser game, Stone ultimately sitting on the fence could have felt like a cop-out. Here, it's simply part of the tapestry; a self-doubt that everyone can at least understand and empathise with, whether they stand on one side of that specific line or have no cultural connection to it whatsoever. Stone is no more intended to represent all rabbis than Guybrush Threepwood speaks for all pirates —he's simply a man, fallible as any, presented warts and all for the player to draw their own judgements and conclusions.
Wider afield, this is arguably the first moment in Dave Gilbert's adventures that demonstrate his knack for minimalistic writing that would well serve the series that The Shivah's success spawned: The Blackwell Legacy. It's used to great effect in a number of cases, including the horrible fate of the main character's aunt and the unspoken threat of her failing at her duties, as well as specifically in the way that every player of the series seems sure they know the backstory of main character Rosa's ghostly sidekick Joey, despite having completely different theories on what it actually is and only the tiniest scraps ever having been revealed. Was he a mobster? Lounge singer? Guy on his way to a costume party?
That or throw you in jail for being a smartarse. But everything I know about the law, I learned from Castle.But back to the murder mystery, already in progress. Stone discovers that between the unpleasantness and Lauder's unusual generosity, he began visiting another temple—Beth Tikvah—run by an elderly rabbi called Zelig. The two immediately begin fighting a fantastic verbal battle of 'rabbinical answers', answering questions with questions, in a way that annoys the crap out of most people that Stone tries it on. Here, he's outmatched in a straight-up battle that goes a little something like this:
"What brings you to our humble synagogue?"
"Do you know Mr. Jack Lauder?"
"Should I know Mr. Jack Lauder?"
"Don't you think you SHOULD know Jack Lauder?"
"Why do you think so?"
"Wasn't he a member of your congregation?"
"Was he?"
"Don't you know your own congregation?"
"Am I expected to know everybody?"
"Well..."
And then for some reason this doesn't happen:
Pardon the slight technical inaccuracy of the pun, but... MOHEL KOMBAT!...but clearly should. Still, with a little poking around, Stone discovers reason to be suspicious of his rather more successful counterpart. It's obvious that whatever happened to Lauder, it involved a tough called Joe and a partner, Ethan Goldberg, neither of whom Zelig wants to discuss until absolutely backed into a corner. And even then, only to point out that people getting up to things in his temple should cast no aspersions on the place itself. He makes this very clear. One might even say, with a few veiled and carefully unspoken threats. Because he's totally the villain. But sssh! Spoilers!
Luckily, he's not a very skilled villain, using the computer login name 'rabbiz' and the name of his pet dog as a password. Idiot. This makes it very easy for Stone to find reasons to hate him, not least that his inbox is like the Star Trek Mirror Universe version of his own. Stone's email? All "Rabbi, your talk was very depressing," and "My children are scared of you." Zelig's? "You're so inspiring." "I just wanted to congratulate you on another hair raising sermon." He even has a better spam filter than Stone, stripping out unsolicited e-mails from some company called "Wadjet Eye Games" that makes obscure point-and-click things from some dead genre in the '90s. Truly, Stone has found his arch-nemesis.
Oh, and he's also revealed to be in the business of setting up his congregation with Mafia loan sharks and stuff. So, that's a pretty good reason to hate him too, obviously. Not as good, obviously, but...
And by 'chat', I mean 'beat up', with 'fists', for 'money'. Let me know if you need help cracking my code.Sadly for Stone, Zelig may be bad at passwords, but he's not quite bad enough at evil to actually write a full confession. That means tracking down Joe in the city of New York—one Italian guy in a population of close to nine million. Impossible? Hah! Not in a short adventure game! It takes about three seconds, thanks to him hanging out in one Irish pub that's home to exactly nobody save an oddly familiar redhead and a Sectoid from XCOM: Enemy Unknown behind the bar for some reason.
This is why adventure game map screens are way more convenient than real maps.
Joe the Heavy is not exactly the smartest cookie, with his idea of deflection being the likes of "Are you Jewish, Mr. DeMarco?" "What's Jewish?". Stone of course takes this in stride, slowly picking away at his declarations that he's never met Jack, Ethan, or Zelig, before finally deciding he's had enough of this 'frack' and that the only rolling this Stone is going to do is straight over some two-bit punk.
The last time I saw a prick like you was during a bris. Shall we re-enact it with this pen-knife?Joe, not exactly shaken by being shaken down by a rabbi of all people, is less than intimidated, but promises that sure, he'll talk. Outside. Or, y'know, in a subway station. An abandoned subway station. With no people in it. In the middle of the night. In a seedy part of New York. Right next to a dive bar.
This goes about as well as you'd expect, really.
Trekkies?"You've pissed off the wrong people, rabbi," Joe informs Stone, pulling a knife. "I had no problem with you. But now I've got to kill you." And of course, he tries. Stone however uses his years of experience to turn the tide in his direction, hitting Joe with question after question to lower his defences. "How can you live with yourself?" "Why are you so angry?" "Are you hiding from someone?" You know the drill.
Faced with this calmness, Joe is thrown—not to the point where he has any plans to let Stone go, but allowing himself to be talked into disarming himself instead of fighting like a coward against the defenceless holy man. "I don't need a knife to take your sorry 'donkey'," he spits, laughing at the sight of Stone quietly raising his fists. "You think your God's going to help you out of this?"
"Perhaps... perhaps not..." considers Stone, dropping the questions in favour of delivering the beat-down of Joe's life with his bare fists and dangling his carcass over the platform edge in front of a train. "But my four years on the B'nai Brith Yesheva High School Boxing Team will even the odds!"
But since nobody seems to be watching right NOW... (kicks hard in ribs)Even with Joe's inevitable hasty confession, Stone doesn't quite have the leverage over Zelig that he needs—mostly because he just leaves Joe in a pile on the platform rather than frogmarching him down to the nearest police station to give a full account of himself on pain of Stone's shoes turning his little Italian sausage into pate. Zelig helps out though, kidnapping Lauder's wife for honestly no particularly good reason save to keep things humming along, and leaving his home address in a note for Stone.
Ah, what a nice villain. Admittedly, not a particularly smart villain, unless the New York police are so incompetent as to be confused by what's basically a written confession leading to a bound and gagged woman in a sinister-looking rabbi's apartment. Especially since Zelig himself admits that his only reason is that Joe didn't check in, which quite possibly means that he's just completely incriminated himself because Joe got drunk or hit by a car or something. Oh, and that if Stone hasn't already gone to the cops, he obviously has nothing that will stick. This approach to villainy is slightly less genre-savvy than trying to headbutt Jason Vorhees is what I'm saying. Still, at least it's efficient, getting Stone to his house a whole 10 minutes faster than if he'd had to, say, Google the address.
That sound you hear is all Zelig's time at villainy school getting pissed straight down a wall. Or possibly his kidnap victim alerting the cops with a sample of why her nickname is "Scream" Lauder.
P.S. If you could eat this letter and not call the police, I would deem it a great act of professional courtesy.On the other hand, while Stone has common sense and righteousness on his side, Zelig has 'a gun'. That evens things up a little bit. Possibly more than a little, especially when his plan is to use it to make Stone walk to his apartment balcony and jump right off. The evil genius! Truly, the only flaw with this plan is that... uh... it will draw the attention of the police right to his house, where the mysterious death of a murder suspect will inevitably be combined with the long trail of evidence Zelig has incompetently left behind, at the very least putting him in danger and quite possibly exposing his entire scheme. Also, his leverage for this is promising not to kill Lauder's wife, despite clearly not being able to leave her alive after hearing his villain speech, which means Stone has no reason not risk going for the gun and snapping the much weaker man like a twig without even needing his trusty boxing gloves, Sodom and Gomorrah.
Now I think about it, Zelig really sucks at this, doesn't he? He gets his villain card clipped further when Joe storms in, his previous 'donkey'-whooping having apparently sunk in. "Did anyone follow you?" Zelig demands, having forgotten that he himself practically left his business card at a crime scene. Then, when Joe angrily insists that he wants his money, he completely breaks villain protocol by replying "You want what you deserve? Fine!" and shooting him. No! Foul! The idiot minion has to say that.
Two strikes, Zelig. One more, and you're never going to get a spin-off about your start of darkness...
You first. Oh, wait, you already did. Zing!Zelig continues to embarrass villainy when, having shot Joe, he finally gets Stone out onto his balcony to force him to make his fateful jump. Stone doesn't, obviously, because that would be very mean to the hardworking New York street cleaners.
Instead, he goes for Zelig's gun, and gets shot in the arm. Then he goes for Zelig's gun again... and gets shot in the other arm. Zelig doesn't appear to spot what we might refer to as 'a bit of a pattern here', even with Stone now close enough to plant a kiss on his forehead and not apparently that bothered by what should have crippled both arms. He's not quite stupid enough to allow a third round of that silliness... but when Stone simply swings out onto the balcony and starts admiring the view, he is stupid enough to start sighing and agreeing "Yes. It is nice, isn't it?"
And is then surprised when Stone rips the gun out of his hand and throws it off the balcony, hopefully not killing some poor passer-by who Rosangela Blackwell will have to spend the rest of the night convincing of their new post-mortem status. Oh, Zelig. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Go stand on the naughty step!
He fights well for a guy who took a bullet to both arms at point blank range.But! I promised an awesome take on Monkey Island's insult sword-fighting, and here it is. Two rabbis facing off, high in the Manhatten skyline. How do you think they'd fight? With fists, obviously. And indeed, they do. Anything else would be silly. However! What actually opens up opportunities for a punch is waging war with questions. Going a couple of rounds without scoring means taking a hit. Knocking Zelig off balance by forcing him to give a straight answer of his own means scoring one on his wrinkled carcass and pushing him closer and closer to the business end of the balcony edge himself. For example:
"You really call yourself a Jew?"
"You really call yourself a hero?"
Ooof! No opening there.
"Last chance. Do you want to give up?"
"No. Do you want to DIE?"
Eh. Partial credit, Zelig. Bit theatrical. Next?
"How can you live with yourself?"
"With power, respect and money."
Beep! Sorry. One punch in the face for you! And then another punch in the face! And so on, until Zelig is either over the balcony or out for the count, leaving just one anonymous tip to the police to make, and about $10,000 of no-longer-tainted blood money to spend. So, that was a good night's work.
Does it make him any happier though? Have his adventures helped him find his faith again? Oddly, no, not really. If he's come to a revelation, it's much more grounded than the usual Eureka moment.
"God might not seem fair," he begins his sermon, more confidently picking up on a theme that at the start of the game led him to simply walking off mid-flow. "We may not always feel connected to Him. That is, we may feel lonely, and often do. Yet the underlying reality of our lives is that we are ALWAYS connected, whether we feel it or not. Whether we accept or deny it, the connection is there. And since we are connected, we are responsible. Battling for goodness is how we give our lives meaning. Maybe there are no answers. Ultimately, we may never find that elusive truth. Yet ultimately, we may find something else: meaning, significance, and fulfilment. If so, that may be enough."
But in the safety of his head, he still has to add to himself: "Dear God, I hope that's enough."
Achievement Unlocked: Only Skim-Read Philosophy TextbookWhile the Kosher Edition of The Shivah polished up the graphics, it's the same base game that it always was: a short adventure to be sure, whose simplicity doesn't do a whole lot for the villain's credibility, but a wonderfully tight one. It does a lot with a little, while simultaneously being smart enough not to try and reach. It's a murder mystery, which gets to dip its toe into a couple of controversial subjects without actually getting swallowed up by them, but still getting deep enough that its religious trappings become part of the game's fabric rather than just the scenery.
The rabbinical fighting is the most obvious part there, but it also fleshes out Stone and gives him a purpose in a story that otherwise, honestly, he has no need to be in. A few early threats of the police swooping in can't cover up the fact that he has no motive nor reason to be suspected of Jack's death, and the money he receives at the end of the game would have arrived whether or not he'd pulled his best gumshoes on or simply sat and brooded.
Likewise, the fact that neither the cash nor the murder doesn't in itself teach him a lesson feels important; The Shivah is a journey that Stone sets himself on because he needs one, and his revelation merely the first step back on the path rather than anything searing. It's notable for instance that his congregation is still empty afterwards, and his approach entirely fatalistic. The debts will keep coming in. For now, much like his spiritual crisis, he has what he needs to cope. At some point though, he's going to need something more permanent to really keep both himself and his temple going. Will he find either? Not for us to know. And that's in the good ending. There's another, where his approach to problems is rather less merciful.
If you're curious about that, or to see the rest of the game in more detail, check out The Shivah: Kosher Edition. Of Wadjet Eye's other games, I highly recommend Unavowed and the Blackwell series, which starts out neat but super-janky in The Blackwell Legacy but quickly becomes excellent. As with Shivah, whether or not there should be a "The" on some of the episodes remains a mite enigmatic.
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THE PCG Q&A
Find all previous editions of the PCG Q&A here. Some highlights:
- What should boomer shooters be called?
- Do you check how long games take to finish before you play them?
- Have you learned a real-world skill from a game?Do you care how your character's clothes and armor look in MMOs? Have you ever spent hours getting the perfect clothes to complete your outfit, or used transmog to make sure you stay looking slick no matter what loot you find? Or do you just wear whatever mismatched jumble of accessories gives you the biggest bonuses?
How much time do you spend on MMO character fashion?
Here are our answers, plus some from our forum.
Robin Valentine, Print Editor: When it comes to MMO armour, I actually kind of enjoy just being a victim of the loot tables. By just equipping whatever I find that has a higher number, no matter how incongruous it makes me look, I get to see my character constantly evolving visually in this organic way. Even in very different genres, whenever I have access to any kind of clothing system or anything like that, I like to find ways of gradually changing appearance over the course of the story in some slightly random way, just to see what weird looks come up and to feel like my character is going about their life rather than designing themselves the perfect hero costume.
Lauren Morton, Associate Editor: Mate, fashion is the only reason I'm here. I mean sure, I'll prioritize the critical path quests or sometimes map completion (my other obsession), but my motivation for what to do next is always fashion rewards.
I chose which dungeon in Guild Wars 2 to run daily (Citadel of Flame) because I wanted the complete armor set. I joined the Thieves Guild in The Elder Scrolls Online because, well, I always join the Thieves Guild in Scrolls games, but also I really wanted the leather armor. Even when I'm not actually sitting at a dye station choosing between two identical shades of black dye, I'm still technically spending time on my fashion.
(Image credit: Amazon Games)Jody Macgregor, Weekend/AU Editor: I usually wore whatever gave the most pluses in Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, The Old Republic, Elder Scrolls Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and all the other MMOs I've flitted in and out of over the years. Only Lost Ark has made me start to think about putting together a lewk. And even there I haven't got into dying outfits and all the other stuff real fashionistas do.
Instead, I've just been collecting cosmetics and the ridiculous accessories given away in Lost Ark's Twitch drops, which you earn by watching a streamer for four hours. And that's why my sorceress basically looks like a pear and my artillerist is rocking a pair of 8-bit sunglasses.
(Image credit: Square Enix)Mollie Taylor, News Writer: Huehue, this is my time to shine. I'm a chronic Final Fantasy 14 player and as any Eorzea dweller knows, glamour is the true endgame. I've spent hundreds of hours grinding relic weapons, armour, and paying excessive amounts for the latest glamour item. The chest piece on my Paladin probably took the longest—Stormblood's relic armour is a long and arduous journey, especially if you're grinding it alone. Thankfully I wasn't!
Final Fantasy 14 has a really nice mixture of both casual and immersive clothing items, and I tend to flip-flop between the two depending on my mood. Then I either have AFK in Limsa Lominsa to show off my sweet new getup or, of course, jump straight into /gpose and spend forever taking screenshots for the validation of my friends and guildmates. Fashion grinding is such a big part of Final Fantasy 14 that there's even an entire lookbook website dedicated to it called Eorzea Collection. It's my go-to when I'm itching for a new outfit but stuck for inspiration.
Tyler Colp, Associate Editor: Final Fantasy 14 is the only MMO I've played that prompted me to care about what I wear. My bunny girl changes outfits depending on the situation and season. I hit the glamour dresser up whenever the main story takes me to a new location. I started playing FF14 after years of time in World of Warcraft where I wore whatever the newest raid sets were and never thought about it again. Now, I have a FF14 OC that I didn't know I wanted and it's all because of how stunning the fashion is in that game and how easy it is to get into it.
From our forum
Zloth: Just whatever gives the best bonuses, which could be a mess:
(Image credit: EA)City of Heroes/Villains was a breath of fresh air. You didn't get armor, so you wore whatever you liked.
(Image credit: NCSOFT)ZedClampet: The MMO I used to play let you transfer the stats of any equipment onto any other equipment, so you could be wearing the best armor in the game, but have it look like any other piece of clothes that you liked.
I did spend a decent amount of time doing that. I had friends and family playing the game, so I thought it was fun to create nice outfits. I would travel to venders in different worlds and buy what I needed or grind for crafting materials to make what I needed.
It wasn't a main focus of mine, but when I got tired of grinding for money and breeding pets and farming bosses, I needed to have something to do.
Pifanjr: Stats above style every time.
Frindis: I like to use some time to make myself look fabulous. Here is a picture from Runescape where I am at the Deep Sea Fishing hub with my water lycan pup. I do like to have different bonuses on my character and I'll override those items with better-looking clothes so I can still have the bonuses while looking good.
(Image credit: Jagex)DXCHASE: If there is a transmog system...hours, if its just a generic build at the beginning... a couple of minutes.
Sarafan: The only MMO in which I spent a decent amount of time in the last years is The Elder Scrolls Online. The game has this characteristic that most outfits look quite aesthetic, so I don't have a problem that characterized Cyberpunk 2077 (yeah, it's not an MMO) where there was a challenge to find good-looking clothes. Of course there are better and worse looking armors in TESO, but I usually go for the statistics. It's nice to have a good looking hero, but it's even better to have a hero who has chances to survive encounters with enemies.
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Some developers working on projects for Google's soon-to-be shut down Stadia cloud gaming platform have had the rug pulled out from under them. Plenty of gamers are losing save progress and a go-to platform. Arguably no one has been more punked than YouTuber and TikTok creator Colour, who, as reported by GamesRadar, has over 6,000 hours on the Stadia version of Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption Online 2. All that rootin' tootin' cowboy fun is about to be lost to time, like tears in rain.
6,000 hours is an utterly staggering amount of time to spend on anything. This isn't your usual "spent too much time on a game," this is 250 days. I've been an avid barbell and kettlebell lifter for five years, reaching a point I'd comfortably call "intermediate to advanced." Back of the napkin math puts me at 1,500-2,000 hours actively pursuing one of my main hobbies in that time.
Further manic, frenzied calculations lead me to conclude that 6,000 hours of RDR Online 2 since its Stadia release in November 2018 has Colour averaging over four hours a day. If you allow for a weekend, it's closer to six hours. Granted, Colour does do a lot of content creation for RDR Online 2, being the "RDR Online 2 on Stadia person" is kind of their thing, but I still find this to be an utterly maddening amount of gameplay! This is my Pepe Sylvia.
Forget the logistics of it all though, Colour's time investment in Red Dead Online is in grave danger of becoming one of those Libraries of Alexandria that's constantly burned down on the internet every day. It doesn't have to be this way.
No you don't understand how seriously pissed off I am pic.twitter.com/UZ157WLmruSeptember 29, 2022
See moreThere are methods to transfer single player progress from RDR2 on Stadia to PC, just not the multiplayer transfer Colour requires. Other developers with Stadia ports like IO Interactive and Bungie are actively working on methods to allow players to transfer their data to another platform.
Colour, for their part, is hoping for a "one-time character transfer" to save their progress from the jaws of oblivion. We've reached out to Rockstar for comment, and will update this story if we hear back.
I may not be able to wrap my head around Colour's investment of time and psyche into Read Dead Redemption Online 2 on Stadia, but I can admire the devotion. I hope Rockstar is able to help them before the winds of fate blow Colour's progress away like some digital sand mandala.
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Hello DaveB,
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A Mega Man documentary has been deemed too sexy by YouTube's baffling content rules
in Gaming News
Posted
If there's one thing most of us can just about agree on, it's that there's plenty of stuff on YouTube that's in dire need of moderation. Whether it's crypto scams, dodgy politics, or any of the countless videos featuring Spider-Man and Elsa for some reason, there's a lot of content on that website that we're better off not seeing. I'm not sure a lengthy Mega Man 2 documentary falls into that category, though.
As reported by Ars Technica, a 78 minute video from popular retro-game speedrunning documentarian Summoning Salt has recently fallen victim to a series of strange—and seemingly contradictory—content restriction decisions from YouTube's moderation staff. About four days after Salt's Mega Man video went live, it was "age-restricted" by YouTube's moderation system for "excessive swearing," presumably owing to clips featured in the video of streamers cursing in frustration.
Age-restricted videos are only able to receive limited ads on YouTube, drastically curtailing their ability to generate income for their creators, and it suppresses affected videos in YouTube's recommendation engine. In short, it's something you really, really want to avoid if you're trying to make a living off your YouTube output, and especially if—like Summoning Salt—your videos are high-effort affairs that release infrequently.
The restriction on Salt's Mega Man documentary would be a fair but draconian measure by YouTube if the rule were applied equally, but Salt's own investigation turned up videos with far more cursing that weren't age restricted at all. Even more bizarre, YouTube straight-up admitted that it "made a mistake" with the restriction in a discussion on Twitter and repealed the decision. The video was then age restricted again a week later.
The debacle has shone a light on the confusing and contradictory nature of YouTube's rules and how it applies them. Even after YouTube staff said the decision was an error on Twitter, a different YouTube spokesperson told Ars Technica that the original restriction had been applied "correctly". It feels like the company's left hand doesn't know what its right hand is doing, and it leads to confusion for content creators and audience members both. If you're just a hobbyist video maker, it's an irritation, but if you're trying to make a living on YouTube's platform, this lack of clarity can threaten your entire livelihood.
Summoning Salt appealed the second restriction last Friday. The appeal was rejected, this time because the video—a documentary on Mega Man 2 world records, remember—violated YouTube's "sex and nudity policy".
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