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Building an extreme gaming PC is about designing a rig that crushes any and every game you throw at it. If you're unsure when it comes to pairing parts, this list will give you the framework for a monster machine. This beast will run Elden Ring at 4K on max settings, without flinching, and will likely keep even the games of tomorrow running smoothly. Putting together a gaming PC with the best CPU for gaming and the best graphics card is the best way to future proof your gaming setup. All that will cost you, however. With this exact build you're looking at around $4,000. If that number made your wallet shrivel up, the more fiscally responsible PC gamers among you can check out our high-end PC build guide. Otherwise, a smaller SSD or a RAM downgrade can shave off a few hundred dollars from the overall cost. The final price doesn't include accessories or peripherals either, so don't forget to pick up the best gaming mouse, and best gaming keyboard combo. And if you're going all-in on 4K gaming, you should pick yourself up a quality gaming monitor that'll make the most out of your GPU. Don't bottleneck your high-powered components with a super out-of-date gaming panel, people. Over the years, myself and my colleagues have tested more components than your could shake a stick at, and here's where we've collated all the most powerful PC components that work together. It's a true monster of a gaming PC with little to no care about cost. It really is the PC of our dreams. Extreme gaming PC build CPU CPU: Intel Core i9 12900K (Image credit: Intel) Intel Core i9 12900K The new enthusiast processor to beat Cores: 8+8 | Threads: 24 | Base Clock: 3.2GHz P-core, 2.4GHz E-core | Boost Clock : 5.2GHz P-core, 3.9GHz E-core | Overclocking: Yes | L3 Cache (smart): 30MB | L2 Cache: 14MB | MTP: 241W | PCIe 5.0 lanes: 16 Incredible single-threaded performanceMuch improved multithreaded abilityTop performance requires powerSome games don't play nicely with Alder Lake yet The Core i9 12900K represents the very best in Intel's desktop 12th Generation processors, and the fastest chip out there today. That said, AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D does give it a run for its money in gaming performance, but we're looking at a more holistic chip in the 12th Gen unit. Its hybrid Core architecture, characterised by Intel's addition of Performance Cores (P-Cores) and Efficient Cores (E-Cores), gives it an edge—the P-Cores especially when it comes to gaming. It's second on our best CPUs for gaming list only because it's a little ridiculous, and can get pretty pricey as a result, so it's the perfect recommendation for an intense build like this. You'll need a decent motherboard, some serious cooling, and a powerful PSU to get the most from it, but that's what this build is all about. Read our full Intel Core i9 12900K review. Motherboard Motherboard: Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Pro (Image credit: Gigabyte) Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Pro An extreme motherboard for an extreme build Chipset: Z690 | Memory: 4x DIMM, 128GB, DDR5-6200 (OC) | Expansion slots: 4x M.2 PCIe, 2x PCIe 3.0 x4, 1x PCIe 5.0 x16, 6x SATA 6GB/s | Video ports: 1x DisplayPort 1.4 | USB ports: 20x | Storage: 4x M.2; 6x SATA | Network: Intel Wi-Fi 6; Intel i225V 2.5G LAN | Lighting: 2x aRGB (3-pin), 2x RGB (4-pin) Four M.2 slots13 rear USB portsStrong VRMThe very grey design might not be to your tasteWiFi 6 only With DDR5 support, and space for up to four NVMe SSDs, the totally specced out Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Pro is perfect for an extreme build. It leaves hardly a thing to be desired, with 13 rear USB ports and strong VRM for delivering clean and consistent power to your components. And by limiting it to Wi-Fi 6, and 2.5G Intel wired networking connections, and eschewing such unnecessary luxuries as Thunderbolt 4 or another M.2 slot, Gigabyte has managed to keep the price at least relatively sensible. If you want more options, then check out our list of the best gaming motherboards. Read our full Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Pro review. CPU Cooling CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X62 (Image credit: NZXT) NZXT Kraken X62 Substantial cooling for your Core i9 processor Size: 280mm | Fan speed: 1,200rpm | Airflow: 55.4CFM | Noise level: 20.4dB(A) | Dimensions: 315 x 143 x 29mm | Socket support: LGA1700, LGA115x, LGA2011, LGA2066, AM2, AM3, AM4 Good cooling and softwareQuieter than previous revisionNot much more powerful than the Kraken X52 This rig has a beastly CPU, and yes, it loves some overclocking. Liquid cooling is highly recommended when you're trying to get the most out of Intel's unlocked enthusiast chips, and the 12th Gen Core i9 processors require it. The NZXT Kraken X62 is an impressive piece of kit and works with all major platforms. It's reasonably easy to install and features a large 280mm radiator with a pair of 140mm fans. Once everything is installed, having a small water block on your CPU instead of a massive air cooler makes things look much cleaner. You'll need a large case capable of housing the radiator, naturally, but we'll get to that shortly. But even with the X62, you may run into thermal limitations. If you're serious about pushing the i9 12900K to its limits, you'll want to consider going with a fully custom liquid cooling loop. That's beyond this buying guide's scope, but know that even a good AIO cooler likely won't allow maximum overclock with the i9 12900K. Graphics Card Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (Image credit: Nvidia) Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti The fastest graphics card for gaming on the cutting edge GPU Cores: 10,240 | Boost Clock: 1,665MHz | Memory: 12GB GDDR6X | Memory speed: 19Gbps | Memory Bandwidth: 912GB/s More or less an RTX 3090 in gamesBreezy 4K performanceMinimises ray tracing impactSlimmer VRAM than RTX 3090Significantly pricier than an RTX 3080Thirsty for power The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti essentially offers the same gaming performance as the RTX 3090 but costs $300 less. Even here, with our extreme build, we can't help but keep a vague eye on value for money, and with the release of the 3080 Ti, Nvidia has basically retired the RTX 3090 when it comes to gaming. The RTX 3080 Ti is still a $1,200 graphics card, and that's if you net the Founder's Edition and not a pricier third-party job. While it's one of the best graphics cards around, it's hardly a budget option. The only reason you might want to track down an RTX 3090 still is if you want to pair up your graphics cards. At least for Nvidia Ampere, the RTX 3090 and its even more pricier sibling, the RTX 3090 Ti, are your only options for dual-GPU action. Even with that installed, you'll still have to worry about whether the games you play will use both GPUs. Hint: most don't, and support is only dwindling further as time marches on. Speaking of the RTX 3090 Ti, that costs even more and makes even less sense for normal gaming—although if you dabble with more professional workloads, you may be able to make a case for it. Comparisons to the RTX 3090 cards aside, the key consideration for the RTX 3080 Ti is that it is a supremely capable card for 4K gaming. Even ray tracing is on the table, especially if you're happy to turn on the modern magic that is DLSS 2.0—framerates are smooth, and the final image quality stands up to scrutiny without issue. Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti review. Memory Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-6400 (Image credit: G.Skill) G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-6400 The best DDR5 memory you can buy Capacity: 32GB (2x 16GB) | Speed: 6400MHz | Timings: 32-39-39-102 | Voltage: 1.40V Strong performance in memory sensitive appsLovely designOverkill for 98% of users You could put more memory into this build (up to 64GB), but two sticks of 16GB DDR5-6400 RAM is more than sufficient for gaming. There are many memory options, and speed is more about bragging rights than actual performance, but we love the look of G.Skill's Trident Z5 RGB sticks. Sure DDR5 is blisteringly fast compared to yesterday's standard, but most importantly, the designs haven't shied away from including pretty lighting. Besides G.Skill, we recommend Corsair, Kingston, HyperX, Crucial, Adata, and Team as safe picks. RAM has reached the point where most modules work well, so it's often a question of price—and color, if that's your thing—rather than minuscule performance differences. Need other options? Here's the best RAM for gaming. Read our full G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB review. Storage Primary Storage: Sabrent Rocket Q 4TB (Image credit: Sabrent) Sabrent Rocket Q 4TB A tiny SSD with a whole lot of speedy storage space Capacity: 4,096GB | Interface: M.2 PCIe 3.0 | Sequential read/write speed: 3,200MB/s / 3,000MB/s | Random IOPS: 550K read / 680K write Huge capacityGenuine speedAlmost affordableLast-gen PCIe 3.0 throughput We've been pretty scathing about QLC SSDs in the past, even recently with Samsung's 870 QVO, but it seems that if you match the cheapest, slowest form of SSD memory with a high capacity and an M.2 interface, some magic happens. The Sabrent Rocket Q 4TB drive packs a huge amount of storage into an SSD the size of a stick of gum and still maintains performance on par with MLC drives. The Sabrent is not quite as bandwidth-friendly as some other PCIe 4.0 drives, but without platform-wide PCIe 4.0 support on our chosen combination of CPU and motherboard, that speed would only go to waste. The Sabrent's speed and capacity mean you can have a fast, capacious SSD boot drive without having to pick a slower option for data storage. If you're capturing a lot of footage or want to have all your games installed at any one point, the Sabrent Rocket Q is a genuinely impressive drive. And if you want to go all out, there's the similarly spectacular Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB drive too. Though that is around $1,400 for the privilege... These are the best SSD for gaming options right now. Read our full Sabrent Rocket Q 4TB review. Power Supply Power Supply: EVGA SuperNova 1000 G5 (Image credit: EVGA) EVGA SuperNova 1000 G5 Enough power for overclocking and then some Output: 1,000W | Efficiency: 80 Plus Gold | Connectors: 1x 24-Pin ATX, 2x 8-Pin (4+4) EPS12V, 8x 8-Pin (6+2) PCIe, 12x SATA, 4x Molex, 1x Floppy | Modular: Fully Gold efficiencyConnectors to spare10 year warrantyNoisyIncreased Vampire PowerPoor transient response A wise man once told us never to underestimate the power of the dark supply. Or something like that. The point is, you don't want a crappy PSU taking down the rest of your rig, and when you're putting together the best PC possible, that means getting an equally bodacious power supply. The EVGA SuperNova 1000 G5 is a great option to build an extreme rig around when it comes to power supplies. If the name hasn't given it away already, this sucker offers up 1000W of power for your extreme build to turn into super-smooth gaming experiences. And you'll need most of that, as the i9 12900K and Z690 motherboard can draw a hell of a lot of power under load, and the RTX 3080 Ti is no wallflower either—and power draw only goes up if you run the CPU and GPU overclocked, which is the point of an extreme build. If you only plan to run a more modest GPU, or a lower-tier CPU (like the i7 12700K), EVGA's SuperNOVA 850 T2 is a great alternative that will save some money. If you want to save even more, the SuperNOVA 850 P2 costs about $50 (£50) less and is every bit as good. But saving money isn't the objective here. Need more? Here are our best power supply units for PC. Case Image 1 of 6 Case: Corsair Obsidian 1000D (Image credit: newegg)Image 2 of 6 Case: Corsair Obsidian 1000D (Image credit: Newegg)Image 3 of 6 Case: Corsair Obsidian 1000D (Image credit: Newegg)Image 4 of 6 Case: Corsair Obsidian 1000D (Image credit: Newegg)Image 5 of 6 Case: Corsair Obsidian 1000D (Image credit: Newegg)Image 6 of 6 Case: Corsair Obsidian 1000D (Image credit: Newegg) Corsair Obsidian 1000D The best high-end PC case Form Factor: Super-tower | Motherboard Support: ATX, Extended ATX, Mini-ITX, SSI EEB, microATX | Dimensions: 27.4 x 12.1 x 27.3 inches (697 x 307 x 693 mm) | Weight: 65 lb (29.5 kg) | Radiator Support: 120 mm; 140 mm; 240 mm; 280 mm; 360 mm; 420 mm; 480 mm | I/O Ports: 1x Audio/Mic, 4x USB 3.0, 2x USB 3.1 Type-C | Drive Bays: 6x 2.5-inch, 5x 3.5-inch Supports just about any crazy buildCan house an E-ATX and Mini-ITX build at the same timeSupports dual 480mm front radiatorsNo FansNo power supply The Corsair Obsidian Series 1000D is a behemoth of a PC case ready to house the biggest and baddest systems. Standing tall at a staggering 27.3-inches, this "super-tower" boasts enough space to house 18 fans and up to four massive radiators installed simultaneously. Don't want to build? If PC building isn't part of your skillset, look at our guides for the best gaming PCs and best gaming laptops that can give you the most bang for your buck and save you a headache. The 1000D features a unique triple-chamber design with convenient French-door-styled storage compartments and telescoping radiator trays for easy installation in addition to the stellar cooling support. Of course, there is also an RGB lit front panel I/O with built-in smart lighting and fan control courtesy of Corsair's integrated Commander Pro controller. The Obsidian 900D has long been a top choice for massive, over-the-top builds, and it only fits that the 1000D was designed to knock it off its throne. Extreme Gaming PC - the full build Extreme gaming PC build FAQ Should I build my own extreme gaming PC?One thing to consider: With the component supply chain still recovering, CPU and graphics card stocks continue to fluctuate a bit. It's more common to find them in stock and at MSRP, but you can't count on it quite yet. You still might want to consider picking up a pre-built system if you're after the best gear. Otherwise, if you're determined to build it yourself, and manage to spot some available stock of a like-for-like product, go for it. Handling the high-end components of an extreme gaming PC can be daunting, especially if this is your first PC build. Have a look at our guide on how to build a gaming PC before you jump in to ease your worries. Is it cheaper/better to build my own gaming PC?Generally, manufacturers of pre-built gaming PCs will add an extra service charge on top of the cost of the components, but it's possible to find a good deal every now and then. Just make sure you double check, don't take their word that it's a good deal. We recommend building your own, though, for that feeling of ultimate satisfaction when the fans whirr to life and the splash screen seems to whisper "Good job, mate. You didn't mess it up." Of course, if you rush or botch the job, building your own PC could result in some expensive mishaps. Handle your components carefully, and it's sure to be a much more rewarding, intimate experience than just buying one someone else has put together. And you'll probably save some dollar, too. View the full article

11 days ago South Korea issued an arrest warrant for Do Kwon, who is the co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs and one of the individuals most entwined in this year's widespread crypto crash. The Terra ecosystem's collapse was the domino that sent plenty of others tumbling, including the linked Luna token (fans of which termed themselves 'Lunatics'), and Do Kwon and five others involved have subsequently relocated to Singapore. This may have been because Singapore has no extradition treaty with South Korea, which could have meant a long and potentially tricky legal process. On the other hand, scratch that, because Interpol has now issued a red notice for Do Kwon. This essentially means that every police force in the world is being asked to locate and arrest him. A spokesperson for South Korean prosecutors confirmed the red notice to Techcrunch, which was issued following their request. Kwon meanwhile is tweeting out very innocent lines like "you have no business knowing my gps coordinates" to the world. "I am not 'on the run' or anything similar—for any government agency that has shown interest to communicate, we are in full cooperation and we don’t have anything to hide," Do Kwon wrote on September 17. Presumably while packing an overnight bag. "We are in the process of defending ourselves in multiple jurisdictions—we have held ourselves to an extremely high bar of integrity, and look forward to clarifying the truth over the next few months." No doubt Do Kwon will be handing himself in to the nearest police station as we speak. The interesting element to this, should Do Kwon be arrested and face trial, is what level of criminal liability he may or may not hold for a market crash that he had no real interest in—Do Kwon's life's work imploded more-or-less overnight and he went from lauded crypto king to being accused of being a scammer or worse. This is a pat summation but South Korean authorities will have to untangle whether Do Kwon is the fool, or those who followed him. The collapse of Do Kwon's TerraUSD, a so-called stablecoin, also took down the Luna token, which in turn led to the collapse of other crypto firms, because everything in crypto is interlinked. Estimates vary but Terra's collapse has been said to have wiped out and eye-watering $40 billion worth of value. If we avoid the temptation to dunk on Do Kwon as a comedy crypto villain for a moment and step back, it's worth asking whether a contagion like that can be pinned on one individual. As well as South Korea, the crypto collapse has attracted the attention of US regulators, so the fun is only just starting for Do Kwon and friends. The Interpol red notice is becoming something of a stock response to crypto types trying to flee the consequences of their actions: Interpol similarly issued one for Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder and CEO of the now-defunct crypto exchange Thodex, who had fled to Albania after a $2.5 billion rug-pull. Özer is now in Turkish jail awaiting trial with prosecutors asking for 40,564 years. On the bright side, with good behaviour he'll be out in half that. I have to admit that Do Kwon's currently pinned tweet does tempt a smile. He's not on the run, remember. "Tbh haven't gone running in a while, need to cut some calories." View the full article

You're now just a short scroll or click away from the answer to today's Wordle. If you'd like a little nudge in the right direction first I can also offer you a range of tips to get you going, as well as a tailor-made clue for the September 26 (464) challenge. Today was a real all-or-nothing Wordle for me—I either found a nice neat green in exactly the right spot, or I uncovered a grey letter to avoid forever. Luckily these odd results were enough to see me through, each guess just another step closer to the answer. Wordle hint Today's Wordle: A hint for Monday, September 26 Energetic and active are the keys to today's Wordle. This answer's a word often used to describe something moving at a good pace—a walk can be this, as can a business' performance. In a slight twist a pleasantly cold breeze can also be called this term too. 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 464 answer? Let's make sure you have the info you need. The answer to the September 26 (464) Wordle is BRISK. 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: September 25: ADMITSeptember 24: GRATESeptember 23: GLORYSeptember 22: SAINTSeptember 21: RECAPSeptember 20: ALIKESeptember 19: TRICESeptember 18: STICKSeptember 17: CHUTESeptember 16: PARER 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. View the full article

Video codecs are one of those things that everyone uses, but few understand. For many users, codec support is little more than a frustration, such as when your software player tells you an audio or video format is not supported. Anger ensues. Current video codecs include H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC), but there’s another one gaining traction. AV1. AV1 is developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOM), which is a consortium made up of a who’s who of tech companies. The signs point towards AV1 becoming the dominant internet video format. It’s gaining widespread support from major content providers, hardware and infrastructure companies, game streamers and creators. The aim of AV1 is to deliver equal video quality at a lower bitrate (with a resulting smaller file size), or higher quality at an equivalent bitrate to the likes of a HEVC video. This means it’s able to stream 4K and future 8K content more efficiently than older codecs, delivering bandwidth savings as well as lowering the demands on network Infrastructure. The second key feature of AV1 is that unlike HEVC and AVC, it’s open source and royalty free. This makes it much easier for developers to integrate it into their systems with lower costs that don't end up being passed on to consumers. But will it be widely adopted? Let’s look at the long list of companies throwing their weight behind AV1, starting with content providers. There’s Google (YouTube), Amazon (Prime, Twitch), Netflix and Meta (Facebook). Add to that Microsoft, Tencent and Vimeo among others and you’ve got the support of the streaming industry. It’s in their financial interest to save bandwidth wherever possible. The list of hardware supporters is equally impressive. Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Apple, Arm Cisco, Broadcom, Mediatek, and many others combine to make up a list that has enough influence to ensure the success of AV1, though whether they all push for it equally is an open question. Note that there is one major exclusion from that list. Qualcomm. However, its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 due in 2023 will reportedly include AV1 decoding support. (Image credit: Alliance for Open Media) According to Phoronix (via Tom’s Hardware) Google released an update that reduces encoding times by up to 34%. This, along with AV1 encoding support on Nvidia’s new RTX 40 series and Intel Arc GPUs is a major step towards widespread adoption. It’s almost certain that AMD’s upcoming RDNA 3 GPUs will also support encoding. Note that RDNA2 (except the 6500 XT and lower), RTX 30 and many mobile SoC’s already feature AV1 decode support. 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 rest Now that content and hardware support is locked in, it’s only a matter of time before adoption accelerates. It’s not a change that will happen overnight. But, if you do happen to have one of the aforementioned AV1 decode supporting products, you can use AV1 now. Go to your YouTube settings, playback and performance and select always prefer AV1. So, AV1 ticks just about every box from both a provider and consumer perspective. It’s royalty free and requires less bandwidth. Both are strong incentives for providers to adopt it as it means lower costs. For end users it means either smaller downloads or higher video quality, and its open source nature should lead to universal software support. Look out for a lot more AV1 content in the months and years ahead. View the full article

Here at PC Gamer we tend to like playing games on PC. Many of us are open minded enough to find fun in other places, like on consoles and the likes, but we still like our PCs. We like our PCs so much we get excited when we can play non PC games on them. Every time Sony decides to release something like God of War, or Spider-Man on our beloved platform we go nuts with celebratory mods. These huge ultra impressive games finally coming to PC is always cause for excitement, but what about potentially hundreds of little ones? As of today, Google has officially launched its Google Play Games for PC beta across Australia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. This means that users with Google Play accounts from those regions, will be able check out some Android gaming titles on their PC. The application can be downloaded straight from Google's site, and there may even be a prompt for it at the bottom of your welcome screen when loading your browser. Installing the app gives you access to browse, download, and play the mobile games on offer. Right now Google is boasting over 40 games are available on the platform, which is a fair start for a beta offering. Looking through the games there's not much there that peaks my interest, as someone who's not really into mobile gaming. Potentially more intensive games like Genshin Impact with it's huge character list are nowhere to be seen yet, but given Android still doesn't have controller support that's not too surprising. Instead, the catalogue contains mostly established mobile titles like Idle Heroes, Cookie Run, and those cursed looking Garden and Homescapes games. Perfect peripherals (Image credit: Colorwave)Best gaming mouse: the top rodents for gaming Best gaming keyboard: your PC's best friend... Best gaming headset: don't ignore in-game audio It's hard to say if games like these will really benefit from a PC interface, given they're all very mobile optimized titles. Still a mouse and keyboard can often lead to a clear advantage, especially as more games come out. Regardless, it's nice to have the option to play these games on a big screen, and not run down your phone battery without need. To get Google Play Games for PC Beta running you may also need to take a quick trip to your bios and enable hardware virtualisation. Sometimes this is called other things, like SVM or Secure Virtual Machine on AMD units. This will allow your computer to run Google's game emulations, though it does make us wonder what other Android uses this could potentially have. After that, it's all fairly easy especially as Google has trimmed down the minimum requirements to run this new application. It only requires Windows 10, rather than 11 and it's pretty mild on the hardware side too. 8 GB of RAM combined with an Intel UHD Graphics 630 GPU equivalent and a 4 core CPU. The only slightly demanding requirement is an SSD with 10GB of free space, we have some suggestions if you're out. Most PCs you have laying around could fairly easily become a Google Play Machine with these lite requirements. View the full article

One of the biggest booms of 2022 in gaming has been for portable PCs. Sure, gaming laptops are getting more powerful every year, but they're also expensive machines that take up space. If all you want to do on a portable monster is game, you can save money and hassle by going for a machine that's purpose-built for games like the new and ever-more-popular Switch-like handheld PCs. While rumours around the Steam Deck 2 are circulating, there's not much concrete. We don't even know when to expect the new handheld PC/console hybrid, and Valve is still getting through the backlog of current orders. It's still a little shaky whether or not you'd get your hands on one, but other companies are more than happy to fill the gap. One such is OneXPlayer. This company has been pumping out handheld PCs for quite a while now and they come in a fair variety of builds featuring AMD- and Intel-based designs. Now the latest line of AMD units, the 7-inch OneXPlayer Mini Pro, is up for preorder, and it comes with a discount and some bonuses for those ready to put down a deposit. The new handheld is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, potentially like the AOKZOE AI, s another competitor that's still up for preorder. Though the AOKZOE has been up for preorder for a while, this new one from OneXPlayer feels like a fairer bet, given OneXPlayer already has a decent track record for these machines, like the One-Net Netbook OneXPlayer Mini we reviewed. Steam in your hands (Image credit: Future, FromSoftware)Steam Deck review: Our verdict on Valve's handheld PC. Steam Deck availability: How to get one. Steam Deck battery life: What's the real battery life of the new device? How loud is the Steam Deck? And will it pass the Significant Other test? Steam Deck - The emulation dream machine: Using Valve's handheld hardware as the ultimate emulator. The similarities don't stop there, as like the unreleased AOKZOE these new units from OneXPlayer are boasting a Radeon 680M graphics card with the hot new-gen LPDDR5 RAM. These tell the story of very strong AMD handhelds coming in the near future, with claims that the OneXPlayer Mini Pro boasts 200% framerate increase over previous units. Paired with a 1920x1200 HD 323 PPI panel, these could be beautiful little machines. But of course, they're by no means cheap. The OneXPlayer Mini Pro is set to retail for $1199 but if you're happy to drop $50 on a deposit first, it's well worth it for the perks. Preordering unlocks a 23% discount bringing the total price down to $919, plus a bonus docking and protection bag to go with it. With its own updated software, and the potential down the line to maybe run Steam Deck software, it could be a great little handheld. If you're already sold it makes sense to get a preorder in for the bonus goodies. View the full article

An anime adaptation of the open world philosophical-robot genre-mash Nier Automata was announced in February, and now we finally have some details about it. The anime, which will be called Nier Automata Ver 1.1a, is being directed by Ryoji Masuyama (director of Blend S, key animator on Arietty), and will see the return of voice actors Yui Ishikawa and Natsuki Hanae as 2B and 9S. It'll be released in January, 2023. An eight-and-a-half-minute video was shown as part of Aniplex Online Fest, containing character trailers for both 2B and 9S, footage of the voice actors discussing the anime (seeing them react to their characters in anime form on first seeing them is cute), as well as a conversation between Masuyama and original game director Yoko Taro. Taro explains the adaptation's name by saying, "The anime title has the affix 'Ver 1.1a' because the title 'NieR:Automata' was a story we created to be a game, so copying it as is wouldn't make an interesting story for an anime. So I brought up the idea of changing things around." Masuyama is quick to downplay changes in the adaptation, and later says that, "The game movies themselves are very beautiful and complete as is, so there was a part of me that didn't want to change it up that much. So it's not exactly porting it into anime plus filling in the gaps so to say, but to get it close to the movie scenes including all the places where we made changes…" Taro, meanwhile, is happy to lightly troll fans by summing up the behind-the-scenes process as, "The original creator was trying to destroy the original story, and the anime staff is desperately stopping that…" Eventually he explains that, despite changes being made to the anime version, he hopes that players of the game watch it as well. "I often see fans who worry that creators are going through their creative process with a complete disregard for the original game. But in this case, those worries have no grounds. The fact that the anime side, starting with the director, really respected the game struck a chord with me. And I'm the one going around and breaking things for them, so if anyone is dissatisfied, it's likely to be my fault." Nier Automata recently made the news thanks to a hoax in which a team of modders pretended their creation was a secret area that had just been discovered. Thanks to the devotion of Nier's fan community, what began as a promotional stunt rapidly "got out of hand", as the modders told us. (That mod, the secret church, is now playable. It's an hour-long tribute to Nier: Replicant and Drakengard 3.) Let's hope their reaction to the anime is a little calmer, for Yoko Taro's sake. Read more: Best anime games on PC View the full article

If you haven't noticed, all of our hearts over at PC Gamer have turned trombone shaped over Trombone Champ. This indie is just oozing charm with its trombone rhythm action, bum notes, and plenty of baboons. These oddities have delivered a fun tromboning experience with laugh out loud moments that skyrocketed the game to viral fame. It's always great to see an indie capture the attention of so many. We even got to have a chat with the brains behind this one to find out the important questions, like why, and also why, and what's with the Baboons. While overall excellent this game has always had a slight problem – it would be perfect for VR. To play the game, you move the mouse forward and backwards to mimic moving the slide of a trombone. Depending on the position of the slide, you'll make different notes so you want to line these up with the incoming prompts. It's essentially a rhythm game, but the lack of precise options and the trombone's natural hilarity as an instrument make it extra special. As someone who toyed with the bone in high school, it's actually not that different to a real trombone. It doesn't have the same positions, lacks the need for mouth input, and you can't dump your spit valve out on the guy one seat in front of you in the band. So of course, it's also not the same, but it's close enough, especially for this fun video game. This becomes even more apparent with this excellent looking VR mod. 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 VR Raicuparta on Twitter is a self-confessed big fan of bringing VR to games that never asked for it, and has recently turned their talents to Trombone Champ. For this one example, I'd just like to say we were all asking this time, and thank you. In a video posted to Raicuparta's Twitter account you can see them playing the game with the VR controllers, using the slide by moving the controllers further from the face. Their grip could absolutely use some work, but otherwise Trombone Champ is looking excellent in the new digs. Though a VR trombone controller would make it even better, and maybe have a go at Megalovania from Undertale modded in while you're at it. Trombone Champ by @HolyWowStudios is even more immersive in VR. You really *feel* like trombone champ.#VR #TromboneChamp pic.twitter.com/3wgtLgwPoaSeptember 25, 2022 See more Holy Wow, the developer behind Trombone Champ even retweeted the video to its account. "One of the amazing things from the past week is seeing people do in a few days what would probably have taken me months!" the tweet reads, which gives us the sense that this video is likely a legit mod. It also further fuels the flames of hope towards an official VR version of Trombone Champ we can all have a go at, somewhere down the line. Hopefully someone will slide into our DMs and toot us a little message if they do. View the full article

While Duke Nukem 3D may have been the loud-mouthed posterboy for the Build engine, it was also behind several other shooters of the day. Like Blood, a horror-themed FPS with a Dark Carnival level that let you throw dynamite at mimes. A few years ago Blood received the obligatory Nightdive remaster as Blood: Fresh Supply, but it also served as the inspiration for a new game: Cultic, which is being developed by Jasozz Games and published by 3D Realms. The release date announcement trailer for Cultic shows such throwback delights as cultists being gibbed by a double-barreled shotgun, booted down a hole with a Mighty Foot, decapitated with a thrown hatchet, shot with a Sten gun and a Mauser, and set alight as well as detonated for good measure by sticks of dynamite—just like those carnival mimes. Cultic casts you as a detective who rises from the grave to take on a gang of zealots with a variety of 20th century firearms and a dash move. It seems like a potential classic of the fast-paced yet old-fashioned subgenre we're definitely not calling the boomer shooter. Chapter one of Cultic will be available on Steam from October 13, and will include 10 environments across the American Northwest for you to flense cultists in. While not a fully episodic release, it will be followed by a second chapter that concludes its story and will be added as a free update after launch. After that? "Future story content will just depend on interest from the community!" View the full article

On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that's a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we've gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2022 games that are launching this year. The Outbound Ghost Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌ Release:‌ September 21 Developer:‌ Conradical Games Launch price:‌ ‌$16 |‌ ‌£12.39 ‌|‌ ‌AU$23.16 The Outbound Ghost is a Paper Mario-style RPG about freeing ghosts from the meatspace plane. In other words, the ghosts you'll encounter in The Outbound Ghost are all stuck in a literal ghost town due to "unresolved earthly issues", mostly regret for how they lived their now-finished lives. You need to help these ghosts come to terms with their regrets, which feeds into the turn-based combat where you'll wield party members based on the full gamut of human emotion. Oh, and you're a ghost as well, which means in addition to helping other ghosts on their way to the afterlife, you'll need to contend with your own problems, too. The Outbound Ghost has a gorgeous 2.5D art style, and has a setting unlike any you've probably seen before. SpiderHeck Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌ Release:‌ September 23 Developer:‌ Neverjam Launch price:‌ ‌$13.49 |‌ ‌£11.69 ‌|‌ ‌AU$17.95 The most salient line in the Steam description for SpiderHeck is "spiders with laser swords". The trailer shows exactly that: spiders with laser swords, moving around artfully minimal 2D arenas, attacking and being attacked. Because they're spiders, they're able to crawl up, down and around surfaces in any direction, all the better to slice other spiders to bits with their laser swords. SpiderHeck seems to excel as a couch (or online) PvP game, but there's also a cooperative horde mode, and a single-player component. And don't worry: while the spiders are best known for having lasers, they can also have other weapons like shotguns, mines and rocket launchers, the latter all the better to enjoy the game's comedic take on physics. No Place for Bravery Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌ Release:‌ September 22 Developer:‌ Glitch Factory Launch price:‌ ‌$20 |‌ ‌£18 ‌|‌ ‌AU$30 No Place for Bravery is a pixel art action RPG about Thorn, an ex-soldier, now making a living as an innkeeper. When the figure responsible for the disappearance of his daughter re-emerges, Thorn is dragged back into violence, resulting in a narrative that "examines the role and duties of father figures and the consequences of their choices in a troubled world". As far as top down isometric pixel art goes this is an incredibly rich and detailed world, dripping with atmosphere. Expect a lot of dextrous combat, but also expect exploration and some light puzzling: this ain't Diablo, but rather something a little closer to the Zelda series. Room 301 No.6 Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌ Release:‌ ‌September 21 Developer:‌ Inter Frame Studio Launch price:‌ ‌$4 |‌ ‌£2.89 |‌ ‌AU$5.95 Here's a puzzle game that strives to put the player in the role of an Alzheimer's patient. I'm not sure whether the game has any success in that pursuit, but on its own terms Room 301 No.6 looks interesting. With two perspectives, the player navigates a maze on one side, while that movement is traced along a more detailed image on the other. Your field-of-vision is limited (all the better, apparently, to simulate the cognitive impairment associated with Alzheimer's), but you can find medicine throughout the environments to gradually expand it. As you navigate these mazes, and explore their associated environments, you'll find belongings which can be discussed with your daughter, all the better to remember. Employee of The Month Steam‌ ‌page‌ ‌ Release:‌ September 22 Developer:‌ Projeckt Skeleton Launch price:‌ ‌$10 |‌ ‌£8.50 |‌ ‌AU$14.50 I counted at least three new PS1-inspired retro horror games on Steam last week, and the sub-genre is quickly reaching the point of oversaturation. But... I can't get enough of this style, and Employee of the Month looks to be the most interesting among this week's crop. You're a night worker in a rural convenience store known for its friendliness, but as you can probably guess, this being a horror game, not everything is as it seems (things, as it turns out, are actually really effed up). Played from a first-person perspective, you'll carry out a number of retail-oriented duties, but don't expect to be restocking toilet paper baskets and cleaning spills for the whole duration of the game. Expect to probably die. View the full article

File this one under "headlines I did not ever expect to write," folks. Dungeons & Dragons makers Wizards of the Coast have celebrated their recent release of Spelljammer, a sci-fi inflected setting for D&D by sending one of the game's iconic twenty-sided dice to space. In a moment you couldn't predict nor fake, the die rolls with its 20 and 1 sides pointing to the camera during pivotal moments in the video. Safely ensconced in a plastic bubble on the deck of a (scale model) Star Moth spelljammer on a balloon, a two hour video shows the die's journey past the clouds to where the curvature of the earth is obvious. It's all set to the beats of the album Wizards made for their release, called Spelljams, which is a synth-heavy journey through fantasy space. The video, which to everyone's chagrin is titled "Launching a Dice to Space" because you can't say the actual singular (die) on YouTube or their algorithm hates you, was posted by Wizards to their channel over there. Miraculously, just after release the die jostles in such a way that the 20, the critical hit, the big success, points towards the camera. It's not technically the face rolled... but it sure does feel like that. Later in the video as the craft approaches its top height it flips around again, showing the 1 to the viewers... then all hell breaks loose. High winds flip the thing every which way, culminating in the craft getting ripped from the frame and thrown into the distance. It's a wild ride. I'd suggest watching the start and finish segments, but be sure to stop in at about the 30-40 minute marks for some really lovely fluffy clouds above the rich blue desert skies. View the full article

When Yakuza spin-off Judgment was released in Japan, where it's known as Judge Eyes, the voice and facial capture for Kyohei Hamura—the captain of the Matsugane family, and an important character in its crime thriller story—were provided by singer and actor Pierre Taki. Three months later Judgment was withdrawn from sale, then re-released scrubbed clean of Taki's involvement. Hamura's face was remodeled, and his voice re-recorded by a different actor, Miō Tanaka. The scandal that saw Taki put in the memory bin may seem tame by our standards: he was arrested for cocaine use. Japan's zero-tolerance attitude toward drug use is serious business, however, and cocaine possession can result in a seven-year sentence, though Taki was eventually given a suspended sentence of 18 months. He was dropped by his label, Sony, who removed all his band's music from both stores and streaming services, and Disney withdrew Japanese DVDs of Frozen—in which he voiced the snowman Olaf—from sale. Taki also voiced Olaf in Kingdom Hearts 3, which he was also removed from in a patch. The Judgment Pierre Taki Restoration Patch is a mod that brings back both Taki's likeness and, if you're playing with Japanese audio, his voice. Originally made for the PlayStation 4 version, it's been reconfigured for the PC port released earlier this month. It's already the most popular Judgment mod on NexusMods. To install the restoration patch, you'll first need to download the Ryu Mod Manager, which lets you install mods for the Steam versions of all the Yakuza and Judgment games. Here are the full instructions for how to get it up and running. While you're at it, check out other Judgment mods like Straight to Menu JE for skipping the intro logos, Proper Ultrawide to get rid of the letterboxing in cutscenes, and DLSS 2.0 Mod to swap Judgment's FSR 2.1 preset for DLSS if you've got an RTX GPU and think it could look a little better. View the full article

Call me old fashioned, but I'm happiest with cyberpunk as a genre when it's about a diverse crew of marginalized people fighting back from under the oppressive boot of an authoritarian corporate regime. You know, when it's both cyber and punk. I'm pretty glad to see Solace State, then, a visual novel with a unique style that dives into a cyberpunk world where biotech has been militarized and used to control society. The player is Chloe, a hacker who lives in a neighborhood that's under intense watch by private police amid a crackdown in the wider city. Solace State is made and published by indie studio Visual Foundry Corp, and is set to release in 2022. The player will make choices that affect Chloe's relationships with her friends: Local hacker Torrent, ex-lover and corporate sellout Alden, and community healthcare director Sueli. Those dramas are set against a broader story about protecting the community so that it has a future worth living for. The most striking thing about Solace State is that its scenes are like 3D dioramas, and as text moves and choices get made the camera slides around, showing different perspectives on action and dialogue. They're also colored in a style somewhere between watery inks and digital shaders. Solace State was featured in this year's Game Devs of Color expo, and there's a bit about it you can watch below, where designer Tanya Khan talks about it and how she sees the different choices Chloe makes affecting her world. Solace State is set to release this year, and you can find Solace State on Steam and at its official website, solacestategame.com. View the full article

I'm a sucker for a nice main menu gag, especially one where you transition right into a cutscene with no loading (looking at you, Spec Ops: the Line). The demo for the upcoming retro FPS, Coven, kills it here by having the main menu overlaid on a scene of a crowd of medieval peasants staring at you. Starting a new game sees a priest come forward and light your pyre aflame, condemning you to a gruesome death. The first level then begins with you digging out of your own grave to get revenge. Coven (first spotted by Alpha Beta Gamer) definitely had me feeling a little queasy at times with its overpoweringly grim content, but the low-fi throwback graphics (strongly reminiscent of New Blood's Dusk) helped maintain some welcome psychic distance there, and its fast paced FPS combat is too fun to stay scared for long. Coven's weapon selection is solid, with a couple standard FPS offerings getting shown up by two stars. The "axe pistols" do not live up to their bad 'donkey' name for me. There's not a lot mechanically separating them from other FPS pea shooters, but the sound effect for their retort is so wimpy, it just harshes my buzz. Ditto for the standard shotgun, though the boomer shooter de rigueur super shotgun was definitely fun enough for me to use regularly. The default melee weapon, an axe and shield combo, is where the party's at. It works similarly to the broadsword weapon in Dusk, with a short charge up swing insta killing most enemies on normal difficulty. Coupled with the block function, you get this fun little dance of weaving in and out of crowds of enemies, insta gibbing them one at a time (and the insta gibbing never stops being extremely satisfying). Coven's crossbow is similarly sick, though you don't get it until fairly late in the demo. It's a one hit kill on headshots, and bolts will completely decapitate enemies, pinning their heads to the next wall. It's an absolutely gnarly effect, and similar to the axe combat never gets old. I'd also be remiss if I failed to bring up my favorite little detail in the game: its flashlight. In Coven you get a little clip-on hand lantern like the one in Bloodborne or, I guess, actual history. It cheekily hangs from the upper left corner of your screen, jostles around with your movement, and I just really, really dig it. You can also eat up enemy corpses for health regen a la Cruelty Squad, an hp-restoring mechanic that's equally gross-yet-hilarious in Coven. Developer Gator Shins is also working on magic spells to round out your arsenal and really sell the "witchy" thing, but for the moment the only one available is a sort of "witch vision" for some light puzzle solving. The demo's levels are very distinct from one another, with the first, a romp through an autumnal medieval village, starkly contrasting with the second, where you go deep underground into some pagan catacombs. They're both solid, well-designed shooter levels with ample secrets and backtracking, though the first one set in the village is definitely my favorite. Coven's demo is well-worth checking out, and you can wishlist it on Steam in anticipation of its planned 2023 early access release. Realms Deep 2022 was a real smorgasbord of killer throwback shooter demos (my favorite remains Fortune's Run), and the Coven demo is a perfect little romp to get you into that Halloween spirit. Image 1 of 6 (Image credit: Gator Shins)Image 2 of 6 (Image credit: Gator Shins)Image 3 of 6 (Image credit: Gator Shins)Image 4 of 6 (Image credit: Gator Shins)Image 5 of 6 (Image credit: Gator Shins)Image 6 of 6 (Image credit: Gator Shins) View the full article

Hello Footloose, 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. Footloose joined on the 09/24/2022. View Member

A pretty cute little life sim released this week: Potion Permit, which casts you as the new chemist in town, responsible for treating illnesses among the citizens of remote village Moonbury. Your job is to diagnose diseases, gather ingredients, and then brew them into cures as you make friends among the townsfolk and settle into local life. See, the locals are wary of modern medicine and technology, preferring to rely on traditional methods. When they call for help fromt he Medical Association, they send you, their star pupil, to serve as the chemist and convince the locals of how effective modern alchemy is at curing ills. It's an adorable spin on a fantasy world, and a cute departure from the usual farming-focused crafts featured in most life sims. I've spent a few hours with Potion Permit and it's very much the kind of game you'll like if you enjoy the grind of optimizing your crafting in Stardew Valley or Graveyard Keeper. It's also rife with minigames, from rhythm-based diagnosis to combining ingredients in the puzzle of your alchemic pressure-cooker. At the same time it has all the life sim stuff you want: You get a dog, and it's a good dog. You can meet the neighbors, make friends with them, and learn their stories. You'll also go roving in the woods for ingredients, fight monsters, and improve public buildings to update the town. Oh, and decorate your house. You can find Potion Permit for $20 on Epic, Humble, Steam, GOG, and probably some other places I didn't spot. Potion released earlier this week, on September 22nd, 2022. PC Gamer's Lauren Morton noticed that a heck of a lot of games revolving around potions are brewing right now. "They're all about cauldrons and brewing magic elixirs to some extent, but they're all slightly different simulation subgenres, too," she says, "I've been following a couple of these for years and I still manage to mix them up." TO that end, she wrote you a nice guide to all the new and upcoming potion-making games. View the full article

Hello morph33x, 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. morph33x joined on the 09/25/2022. View Member

Each of Gotham Knights' four characters will take their own path through the story: If you want to see everything it'll take multiple playthroughs. Each character has their own perspective on the events any given mission, which while similar will contain unique content and subtle differences. This comes via an interview with WB Games Montreal's game director Geoff Ellenor and cinematics director Wilson Mui in the latest issue of PLAY Magazine. (They also talk about Nightwing's butt, a vital subject to be sure.) "We actually made four [stories], not just one!" said Mui. Ellenor followed up by saying that "You will not see all of it in a single playthrough. Just because there’s so much content that is unique to the hero’s perception of what’s going on and what’s happened." As the cinematic director, Mui was certainly involved in making each mission distinct for each hero. "Structurally, we’re gonna have a very similar scene that overall falls in the flow for each character, but each character has their own version of that," he said. A character's version will differ because they move, speak, and act differently, and have their own history with different characters they meet. "If you were to look and play Batgirl, you’re gonna get Batgirl’s version," said Mui, "but if you play Robin, you’re gonna get Robin’s version of that same scene. Some of them are very similar in how they do it, but they’re gonna have little subtle differences." Gotham Knights is a cooperative action game set in the Batman universe, but with no Batman to be found—he's dead. That means the vigilante justice in Gotham gets doled out by his successors: A team of bat-family sidekicks made up of Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood, and Robin. It's definitely a story about side characters, and though we've seen Harley Quinn the developers have confirmed that neither Batman nor Joker will appear. It's a novel approach for the open-world action games that WB has produced about Batman in the past. It's not a sequel to the Arkham games, but a kind of spiritual cousin, most notably because of that cooperative option and four separate playable characters. Those characters will all level up at the same rate, so you can freely move between them. Between that and the separate stories, this one's probably ripe for a New Game+ mode. You can check out everything we know about Gotham Knights right here on PC Gamer. View the full article

I've got clues for today's Wordle, more hints and tips than you can shake a stick at, and if that's still not enough then don't worry, the answer to the September 25 (463) Wordle is on this page too. Anything and everything you need to make your daily puzzling as enjoyable as possible is right here. There's nothing particularly special about my Wordle-ing today—it just turned out to be a nice solid puzzle with enough clues to successfully see me through to the end while still retaining enough uncertainty to make it exciting. Thinking about it, I suppose that's the perfect Wordle. Wordle hint Today's Wordle: A hint for Sunday, September 25 The answer to today's Wordle is often used when someone accepts or confesses something is true, or to accept they are to blame for something. This term is also used when someone is allowed to enter a place such as a museum, concert, or other ticketed event, with the number of people usually printed on the ticket alongside this word. 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 463 answer? Let's end the weekend with a win too. The answer to the September 25 (463) Wordle is ADMIT. 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: September 24: GRATESeptember 23: GLORYSeptember 22: SAINTSeptember 21: RECAPSeptember 20: ALIKESeptember 19: TRICESeptember 18: STICKSeptember 17: CHUTESeptember 16: PARERSeptember 15: DOUBT 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. View the full article

Hello Amogusgus, 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. Amogusgus joined on the 09/24/2022. View Member

Night School Studio has delayed its "What's going on with that radio?" spook-em-up Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals. Originally announced with a release date of fall 2021, then pushed into 2022, it's now been delayed into next year. "Seeing your fan art, reading your excited comments, and connecting with you fuels our ambition to make this our best game yet", Night School said on Twitter. "To make OXENFREE II truly special and add more localizations, we're moving our release window to 2023." The original Oxenfree made our list of the best horror games thanks to its eerie atmosphere, clever twist on the stranded-teenagers subgenre, and excellent dialogue. In his Oxenfree review, Andy Kelly wrote, "Often, conversations in videogames sound like two people taking turns to read out lines. But in Oxenfree the lines flow together seamlessly, and you can respond at any time by selecting one of three answers. The characters will even react to your silence if you don’t answer them, or if you decide to walk away and ignore them. This, combined with fantastic writing and voice acting, makes Oxenfree one of the best virtual recreations of real humans talking to each other—which is lucky, because the dialogue is almost non-stop." Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals will star a new protagonist who returns to her hometown, a coastal community called Camena, and finds it besieged by unnatural electromagnetic phenomena. Like the original it promises to have choices that matter and an in-depth dialogue system, with a new mechanic that lets you use your walkie-talkie to start a conversation on your own time wherever you are. Night School released a comedy game called Afterparty in 2019, which didn't make quite as big a splash as its innovative debut. The indie studio was then bought by Netflix in 2021, and released a mobile edition of Oxenfree through them—Netflix remains dedicated to mobile games, meaning that even though its library includes games like Into the Breach, Moonlighter, and Oxenfree you can't play them on the laptop you probably watch Netflix on. Oxenfree 2 will still come out on PC, however, and will be available on Steam next year. View the full article

THE PCG Q&AFind all previous editions of the PCG Q&A here. Some highlights: - What should boomer shooters be called? - How soon before release should a game be revealed? - Have you learned a real-world skill from a game? HowLongToBeat.com will tell you how much time it'll take to finish any given game, though the number for "Main Story" seems to assume a cutscene-skipping speedrunner's pace. HowLongToBeat's figures are pulled into both Augmented Steam and the Xbox App on PC, but do you actually look at how long games are ahead of time, whether because you're trying to figure out if they're worth the cost, or to figure out if they're short enough that you'll have time to make it to the end? Do you check how long games take to finish before you play them? Here are our answers, plus some from our forum. Tim Clark, Brand Director: Not usually, unless it's a huge RPG and I'm looking for a ballpark figure of the kind of commitment I'm taking on. It's also encouraging to read a review for a more snacky game, like Immortality, and learn that it's only going to run to about eight hours before you see the credits. Makes me more inclined to pick it up. At the other end of the spectrum, someone probably ought to have warned me that I'd sail past the [redacted, but several thousand] hours mark in Destiny 2 without 'completing' it.' I believe it's called an intervention. (Image credit: Bethesda) Rich Stanton, News Editor: I'm more likely to be attracted by a short runtime than put off by a longer one, if that makes sense. I don't have all the free time I once did to indulge my love of RPGs and enormous open world games, but when something takes my fancy I'll happily snack away at it over months, and I'm also pretty comfortable leaving games unfinished. So when someone says Starfield is gonna be four times the size of Skyrim and take hundreds of hours to explore fully or whatever it doesn't make any difference, because I know I can play Starfield for 20 hours and I'll have fun. I do find the way players talk about runtimes more generally to be kinda nonsensical, especially when we're talking about unreleased games. Games aren't movies and the whole point is that if you love a particular world you can spend as much time in it as you like: Dark Souls probably takes 30-40 hours to complete, but I spent thousands in Lordran. What matters about Starfield isn't how long you can feasibly go from the start to the end, but whether you actually want to be in this place. And much like Tim, I do have a sharper eye nowadays for stuff that I can be done with after an evening or two. We all love the epics, but these days a four-hour game is just as attractive to me. (Image credit: FromSoftware) Robin Valentine, Print Editor: I definitely like to know how much of a commitment I'm in for before I start a new game. Partly that's just because I only have limited free time these days—if something's 100 hours long I've got to seriously consider if it's worth even starting, and if it's more like four then that's appealingly achievable. But I do also find that knowing how long a game is as I'm playing it can have a pretty big impact on my experience. I think we've all run into situations where you felt like a game was just getting started and then abruptly ended, or seemed like it was getting towards the end only to stretch out for another 20 hours. Having clearer expectations can help me take a game more on its own terms in those cases, and avoid disappointment. Phil Savage, Editor-in-Chief: I'm the opposite of Tim. If I'm settling in for a big RPG, I already know what to expect. I'm taking on a project that will likely take me many months. I have already done the necessary mental preparation to deal with that, and, if I enjoy a game enough that I want to keep going to the end, it doesn't really matter if that takes 50 or 200 hours. I'm more likely to look it up for more linear games—singleplayer shooters or third-person action affairs. The calculation here is more: is this doing enough to justify the time I'm spending with it? If I'm only mildly enjoying myself, it's good to know whether I'm fast approaching a conclusion or still have another 10+ hours to go. Because if it's the latter, I'm out. (Image credit: CD Projekt) Chris Livingston, Features Producer: I don't think I ever specifically check. I'll be honest, I don't really complete most big games anyway (I never did the final mission for Cyberpunk 2077, for example) so it doesn't particularly matter how long it is. I'll play until I feel like stopping. Sometimes it's useful to know before buying something like a puzzle game, and Steam reviewers often mention how long it took them to complete. But otherwise, I don't really remember needing to know how long or short a game it was before playing. As long as I enjoy the time I spend it doesn't matter if it's one hour or a hundred. Lauren Morton: Like Chris, I'll check out timing on puzzle and adventure games. It's good to know that Tunic is about a 12-hour game and A Short Hike is about four. The trouble is that I spend most of my time with RPGs and, despite not being a completionist, I routinely blow through even the most forgiving time estimates. HowLongToBeat estimates a completionist run of Yakuza: Like A Dragon takes 102 hours. I rolled credits at 120. A main story run of Divinity: Original Sin 2 allegedly takes 60 hours, but I played 150 without seeing the end. I spent 90 hours on my first Oblivion save file without ever touching the main story. Shockingly, my first Disco Elysium playthrough did clock in pretty average at about 23 hours. Estimates can't help me when I already know I'm slower than sin. (Image credit: Half Mermaid) Morgan Park, Staff Writer: I don't check how long games are, but I'm usually glad when I find out. Better to know a game I'm really digging is going to end a bit earlier than I'd prefer. Recently I've had the opposite problem. I'm on an incompletionist streak. Can't seem to finish anything! I boot up a game I haven't played in a while or install a new thing on Game Pass, mess around for a few hours, then completely fall off. How does Immortality end? I may never know. Andy Chalk, NA News Lead: I don't bother. I usually have a general idea about a game's length before I get into it. Far: Changing Tides is short, Elden Ring is long, that sort of thing—and that's good enough for me. And like Lauren, length estimates are pretty much meaningless to me anyway. I can screw a ridiculous amount of time into a game if there's dicking around to be done. (Image credit: Colossal Order) Katie Wickens, Hardware Writer: I've never checked, because inevitably I'll get distracted by side quests and never finish the game anyhow. And for someone whose main focus is sim games in which there's hardly ever a clear win state, there would be no point. How long does it take to beat Cities: Skylines, I wonder? Jody Macgregor, Weekend/AU Editor: I usually check because I like to know how much story is left. When I'm reading a book and I feel the number of pages on my right thumb getting smaller, it's like a sense of acceleration. I get more immersed when I know the climax is coming. (I have an e-reader that shows your progress as a bar at the bottom of the screen, and it has the same effect.) Knowing I'm about seven hours away from wrapping up a visual novel is like realizing there's less than a quarter of a book left to go—we're on the home stretch, so best buckle in because this is when the wild &#39;frack&#39; usually goes down. From our forum WoodenSaucer: No, that's pretty low on the priority list for me. I care about a lot of other things before that. But I'm a slow gamer, so whenever I do check how long it takes, I usually double what they say. Haha. Brian Boru: I will take note of comments in reviews about length. Too long doesn't bother me, as fully finishing a game is not a priority—but too short could make it not worth my while, especially if there's a learning curve. Poor RoI :) SleepingDog: I don't check but note it if it is mentioned in reviews. Generally we get told if the game is short (<20 hours??) so I will take that in to account regarding what I am willing to pay, but since I wait at least 12 months or longer it generally isn't an issue. (Image credit: SNEG) Kaamos_Llama: I do out of curiosity, if it's a sort of actiony singleplayer non-fully open world game with a campaign I'll check sometimes to see roughly how far I have left to go. It never affects my decision to buy a game though, I don't believe in any kind of dollars-per-hour metric to justify a game purchase. I'd rather have a fantastic 10 hours than a humdrum 100 for the same price. In 4x or party RPGs I don't usually check as its not really as relevant because there's more chance that it will be played more than once. Zloth: Yeah, I'll check the time if I think it might be under 40 hours. If the game is going to cost more than $1/hr, it better be a really good! Pifanjr: I don't check specific numbers of hours. The genre usually indicates the amount of time you can spend on a game pretty well and I do my research into the content of a game before buying/playing it, so I'll have a good idea of how many hours I'll be able to get out of it. (Image credit: Ubisoft) McStabStab: Absolutely. My job and my kids usually occupy around 16 hours of my day. If I'm going to commit to a game purchase I gotta make sure I'm willing to commit to the time it takes to finish it as well. Often times I'll chip away at games like Assassins Creed: Odyssey over a long period of time. I purchased AC:O at the end of 2019 and didn't finish it until May of 2022. That's over TWO YEARS to complete the storyline of one game! Mind you I jump around to different tiles throughout, but if I'm going to commit to a lengthy title I want to know it first. ZedClampet: As if I'm going to finish a game. The only time I check "how long to beat" is when I think, "Jebus, how much longer is this going to go on?" Most of the games I play don't have endings, anyway. Colif: No. The games I play are understood to go a long time... but they aren't story-driven, they are character-driven... the game doesn't end just because the story does. You just play the story again with same character but evolved. I am more likely to be disappointed if it does just end. (Image credit: PaulR0013) mainer: As I mentioned in another post in the PCG Forum, I've always been more of a "slow-runner" than a "speed-runner". The types of games I play are mainly RPGs or RPGish in nature (like some immersive sims), and those games, overall, take a longer time to complete from start to finish. However, I do appreciate, and make a mental note of, the time it took the author of a review article to finish the game. Such as, "it took me about 40 hours to complete the game and most of the side quests". I can take that number and double or triple it and know that it would take me at least 80-120 hours for a complete game. But there are also many variables involved depending upon the game. Open world games, such as the Elder Scrolls or Fallout games from Bethesda, have so much to do, so many places to explore, so many quests & factions, that those games can literally be never ending. Throw in a detailed crafting system, an expansive home or settlement building system and my hours can run into the hundreds. Other variables that can affect my hours played include detailed mini games (Caravan from FONV or Gwent from Witcher 3), complex character interactions & relationships (Mass Effects & Dragon Ages), or the flexibility to mod a given game. The reviewers time to complete a game, and I do appreciate that base number, rarely has any effect on my game purchases or playing time. Foxhood: I do try to avoid very long games. Balance my time between games and working on my other hobbies. This had lead to some long games having ended up ditched and never completed sometimes. Unfortunate, but hey. I had my fill of fun and that is all that matters in the end. That said. If I encounter one of those games that successfully bring out that little voice that goes "Just one more turn/run/day..". I and my other hobbies: be doomed... (Image credit: Focus) invader: Sometimes. Specially since GamePass, when there is a game that I wanted to play but its about to leave the service, to see if I can squish enough time until its removed to finish it (I did that with a Plague Tale recently... I had to take a sick day at job but worth it ) TheHuntingHorn: Yep, I like statistics and knowing how much time I'm likely to get out of a game, and also cataloguing how long it takes me to play games. I've been using HLTB for a year or so now for both purposes, also to gather my thoughts about finished games there in the form of reviews. Also good to be able to look up when I finished which game. Sort of the Goodreads of the gaming world. If anyone's interested in starting to catalogue game times and completions for their own games, I can recommend Playnite on PC as a launcher that automatically tracks your time played across all sorts of launchers/storefronts, so you don't have to manually time playthroughs of games that don't have their own ingame counter. View the full article

An upcoming strategy game will cast you as the first AI and ask you to choose whether to become Skynet, save the world, or something in between. Heart of the Machine is set to release in 2023, and it's a heck of a game concept. Having awakened in a world where nobody knows you exist, you as an AI will set your own goals in a vast cityscape in the far future. It's set up like a colony or city sim game, with a focus on story rather than victory conditions, but with the twist that the big procedurally generated society has already been made and you're dropped into it to cause havoc as you will. You'll be able to take control of humans and machines that you've brought to your side in real-time tactical combat. The game hopes to be pretty simple to play, though the world itself will be complex. "The metagame runs deep, but you're meant to be up and running with the basics of the game in five minutes," says the developer. Developer Arcen Games has experience with AI, in fact, their most famous games are about it: AI War: Fleet Command and AI War 2 are both strategy titles infamous for their customizability, depth, difficulty, and, yes, the skill of their enemy AI programming. I'm interested in what they do with this one for that exact reason: The simulated human society will probably react proportionally and fairly reasonably to the existence of your rogue AI. A playground ethos really does point towards the appeal of Heart of the Machine's concept. Arcen lists play ideas like overthrowing the reigning human autocracy in favor of democracy, installing yourself at the head of the government as AI overlord, developing a space program to send yourself into the stars, or just going "full AI overlord" with a nuclear apocalypse. You can find Heart of the Machine on Steam. The publisher Hooded Horse is something of a rising star in strategy games right now, collecting an impressive array of in-development and formerly-indie games under one publishing label. You might have heard about a game they published earlier this week, the mind-bogglingly-scoped alien invasion simulator Terra Invicta, which was made by the developers of XCOM's Long War mod. View the full article

As reported by Alpha Beta Gamer, the retro-style FPS Wizordum recently got its first playable demo as part of the 2022 Realm's Deep event. This fantasy-themed boomer shooter takes its cues from Raven Software's Heretic and Hexen, and has you fling fireballs at goblins in an overrun medieval town. Wizordum's ace in the hole is definitely its art style. The game has a really colorful, cartoony sort of look, almost like developer Emberheart Games covered Hexen in frosting. It almost reminds me of those Doom WADs or CounterStrike maps people make of the Simpsons House or Bikini Bottom. I find the effect really refreshing, and the demo's two levels are fun to spend some time in. Wizordum doesn't demand too much of the player, though only the second easiest of four planned difficulty levels is currently available. None of the scraps in the demo have more than a handful of goblins in play, and they stick to some pretty standard shooter archetypes. You've got melee goblins, beefy melee goblins, and ranged wizard goblins. That's not necessarily a dig on Wizordum though. I would expect Emberheart to introduce more enemy variety as the game approaches full release, and I found it quite nice to play something a little more chill compared to the rest of the genre. There's enough variety in arena layout and the demo's three weapons (mace, fireball, and icicle machinegun staff) feel good to use. The shooting engages me enough, and makes for a nice counterpoint to Wizordum's exploration. The two levels have optional areas, some light puzzling, and a bit of key hunting and backtracking just complex enough to make me think, but which never killed my forward momentum through the level. Wizordum's levels are like a nice, light snack version of Raven's sprawling, sixth dimensional tesseract levels. The shooter's bright aesthetic, easygoing shooting, and chill exploration were like a palette cleanser for me compared to the hardcore combat and grimdark looks you get in a lot of boomer shooters. If you're interested in Wizordum, you can wishlist the game and check out the demo on Steam, or even support Emberheart Games on Patreon. Image 1 of 7 (Image credit: Emberheart Games)Image 2 of 7 (Image credit: Emberheart Games)Image 3 of 7 (Image credit: Emberheart Games)Image 4 of 7 (Image credit: Emberheart Games)Image 5 of 7 (Image credit: Emberheart Games)Image 6 of 7 (Image credit: Emberheart Games)Image 7 of 7 (Image credit: Emberheart Games) View the full article

From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the dice to bring random games back into the light. This week, a sexier take on the game of kings that stops somewhat short of descending into hardcore pawn. (Though the king, in check, can get a little matey.) What's the funniest game ever made? If you're thinking Twister in a poorly maintained nitrous oxide bottling plant, you're wrong. Strip Tickle Jenga? Uh, pretty sure that doesn't exist. You might want to consider whether you're more gullible than you think, and prove you're not by sending me all your money. As far as National Lampoon was concerned in the '90s though, no game had more potential for fun and frolics than chess. And they'd know! After all, they only put their names on the finest interactive comedy products. Like... uh... this! And, uh, Blind Date, which we may be getting to next Valentine's Day. And absolutely nothing else I'm aware of, which surely almost probably guarantees they brought their A material. Right? I see no reason to be a Doubting Debbie about this. None whatsoever! How cruel, Death. At least let her have a scythe of relief at the end of a long day. Essentially, this is of course Battle Chess, only played more for laughs. Battle Chess, first released in 1988, probably wasn't the first game to wonder what chess would be like if the little pieces were actual people fighting for dominance in a cruel, unforgiving checkerboard nightmare, but was the first PC game to try and bring the game to life. All the rules remained the same. When one unit took another though, we got to see exactly how pawn took bishop and king took queen, the answer in both cases being 'roughly'. Knights would get bombs thrown into their armour, Queens would deploy sorcerous power, and so on and so forth. Both waiting for the animations and watching them play out made play a billion, zillion times slower than regular chess, but if you wanted regular chess, you probably weren't playing Battle Chess and trying to find a way to make a pawn take a queen. So that was OK! People are still making this kind of game today, up to and including the porny Love Chess, which promises "an exciting combination of sex and chess" in post-apocalyptic wasteland and Egyptian flavours. Chess Maniac 5 Billion and 1 pretended to land somewhere in the middle, shamelessly ripping off Battle Chess in "Bawdy" style, though in fact without much bawdiness, as well as parodying the long-running Chessmaster series that was up to Chessmaster 5000 at the time. I'd joke that this is quite a large number, but Chess Maniac already has. In the title. Still, 4,999 sequels presumably left plenty of stuff to parody, right? Thing, you cheater! Someone give it a slap on the wrist, if you ever find it. While I can't say that Chess Maniac is exactly hilarious, or really even 'funny' most of the time, it does at least try hard, and that's more than you can say for most parody games. The chess engine is, I'm told, OK, though I have no way of confirming this with my pitiful skills. The main reason I never went into the evil overlord business is that at some point you're guaranteed to be expected to play chess with a rival to prove your intellectual dominance, and I'm told it's rude to either a) cheat with your iPhone while pretending you're just getting a lot of very complicated texts, or b) demonstrate that chess as a method of warfare simulation is predicated on both sides being willing to follow the rules by simply shooting your opponent and taking their stuff while they drown in both indignation and their own blood. I can say that Chess Maniac is apparently immune to Kasparov's "Sod It" gambit, based on throwing units cack-handedly into the meat grinder in the hope that it will be seen as unpredictable and persuade the opponent to just give up rather than mentally process the stupidity. So that's a point against it. Depends. Is it a sexy goat? Details matter! As a parody though, it starts early, in the manual, by promising customer support on America Online. Hilarious! You're also warned outright "So, you bought the ad copy. You bought the hype. And now you done screwed up and bought the game. It's too late, you know." (Little could Chess Maniac know that it was inadvertently predicting American McGee's family crest, translated from the original Latin.) It then steps through a slightly sarcastic explanation of chess rules, like how castling works, with tongue in cheek and a fair amount of its own terminology like "playmating" (the King being taken by the Queen and so being legally forced to switch to Playmate magazine instead). Stuff like that. It also lists a powerful set of potential openings, including the Bird Opening—moving the pawn of Queen's Bishop while giving the finger to your opponent. "Bobby Fischer was able to gain an advantage over the Soviets who were confused as to the meaning of the Bird. The Chess Maniac has used this opening with big effects, especially when wearing the full body costume of a large yellow canary," it informs. Ah, the "make the board so messy that nobody can concentrate" gambit. Crafty. The game itself plays out a little like a war between whoever wrote the serious chess engine, and whoever had to try and make it funny. Chess Maniac starts early, with a fake crash to DOS and comedy copy protection that soon enough ends with "No, seriously, get your manual," questions, and a few throw-in gags. Difficulties for instance range from "Beginner's Luck" to "Tie Me Up And Whip Me", along with the option to play Strip Chess instead. This being a PC game from 1996 though, you can probably guess the result of that one... Unless your dreams involve Freddy Krueger trying to kill you, in which case not. Chess Maniac 5 Billion and 1 is a battle between Medieval and Persian forces, which doesn't seem particularly bawdy if you discount that it was a relatively shelf-friendly way to have the facing pawns be busty ladies in their bras and call culture if anyone complained. Convincing harem girls, they are not. Their Medieval equivalents are jesters, which doesn't seem bawdy, because it's not. Some of the capture moves are very slightly rude, including the harem girls dancing around a knight until they get an erection in their armour, and around a jester until they get... an erection in their soft slacks. Far more often, pieces are dealt with using distinctly unbawdy methods, including the Queen bonking someone on the head with a frying pan, or just straight up violent ones. The Grim Reaper for instance, standing in for the Rook, just straight-up stabs people. The King, faced with a seductive pawn, reacts to her dance rather differently to most, pulling out a golf-club and hitting a ball into her mouth. An experience not entirely unknown to her, no doubt, and depending on his choice of club, possibly he did get wood. Still, not exactly super-bawdy, even in comparison to... oh... let's say Prince of Persia 3D's gratuitous jigglybutt intro. It does at least look quite good though, for the time, with digitised sprites and all the custom animations you'd expect. In fact, more. Part of Chess Maniac's charm was that it blatantly cheated —and not by complicated computer tricks, but with things like having a giant hand randomly steal pieces, wobbling in a sexy opponent on the other side of the board as a distraction, sending dancers across the front while you play, running sharks through the board—who will eat your pieces if not stopped—and deploying the most cutting sarcasm since the last time a computer voice gravelled out "That move really sucked." Looking back, it sounds a bit like the Lexx having a sarcastic day. It's rare for these to really get in the way though, since even the distractions that steal your pieces take forever to actually do it. You can't walk away from the game while it runs without getting back to find that your Rook has been spirited away, though—at least unless you pause or deploy the Boss Key. What's a Boss Key? Before Windows, there was no multitasking, so a number of games offered a way for sneaky employees playing games on their company PCs to quickly hide all evidence of the fact when they saw their boss coming. At least, in theory. In practice, maybe three games ever actually did that, doing something like throwing up a basic C:> prompt. 99.9% however just did a gag, usually popping up something like this. The joke is that this was a real text editor in the day. Which people used. Willingly. A game called Chess Maniac is probably not the best choice of confidante in any event, given how much it loathes, hates and despises you. Or at least, how much it pretends to. In practice, while actually playing it soon becomes fairly torturous, it was a surprisingly decent attempt to do the Battle Chess thing that knew when to take itself seriously. The fact that you were only likely to get a few games out of it before moving away from the digitised people to a chessboard where it's possible to actually see where everything is hardly matters. Anyone who wanted a serious chess game bought Chessmaster anyway, safe in the knowledge that this was a short-term distraction for publisher Microprose, traditionally known for extremely serious simulations, and that their reputation for maturity and quality game design would never be tarnished by a brief jaunt into silliness and mild sleaze. At least until 2013, when for no apparent reason the name was dusted off and put on bloody Girl Fight. Still confused about that. While you'd probably expect this 'make chess more marketable' approach to be stuck in the '80s and '90s, it's actually not. Ignoring the Love Chess thing, Interplay was bothered enough by the idea of someone ripping off its concept to try stomping on the oddly named "Battle vs. Chess", which ended in a settlement, and there was a modern version called Battle Chess: Game of Kings. What of other games though? Why should chess have all the fun? Why not extend the same concept to a game of Tiddlywinks where each counter has a deep backstory and lists its charitable donations proudly. You may score a point, but at what cost? Or how about a version of Ludo that explores issues of segregation through the adventures of its little pieces? Well, because it would be stupid. Obviously. But in a universe where actually sentient people sit down and make a Saturday morning cartoon about Frogger, it's probably doable. Scary, really. Very scary. View the full article