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Following a low-key initial announcement in 2020, a remaster of classic '90s FPS Rise of the Triad has finally been detailed. It's a collaboration between original developer Apogee Entertainment, remaster specialists Nightdive, and retro shooter fanatics New Blood Interactive, and it'll be out early next year.
Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition will include all the original episodes and expansion packs, including the fan-made Return of the Triad, as well as a new episode. It'll be in modern resolutions with increased and adjustable FOV, an updated HUD and UI, and the original sprites and textures. A level editor and Steam Workshop support will be included, as will new netcode for the multiplayer, restored content including assets from the period during development when it was a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D, and the option to choose between the original music or Andrew Hulshult's soundtrack for the 2013 reboot, which was one of the only good things about it.
A ridiculous gory good time, Rise of the Triad was truly the juiciest shooter of the 1990s. It's also a historically significant game to bring back in a souped-up form and a modern engine—specifically Nightdive's KEX engine, as seen in remasters like Quake, Blood, and Doom 64. Rise of the Triad's multiplayer went up to 11 players and debuted the first capture-the-flag mode. Plus, its LUDICROUS GIBS! message accompanying the red detonations of its enemies is how the word "gibs", an abbreviation of giblets in Apogee's studio slang, became part of the gamer vocabulary.
Rise of the Triad was also an innovator in destructibility, with fragile level furniture and walls that could be marked by bulletholes. Its levels were notable for their use of elevation, with jump pads launching the player to higher ledges and platforms, as well as the density of their secret rooms. Beyond all that, it was super fun to play, with power-ups like dog mode (god mode but you're an invulnerable dog), elasto mode (which takes away all friction, turning you into a kind of bouncy pinball that cannons off walls), and shrooms mode (which transforms your view into a psychedelic haze).
The 2013 reboot, while it didn't capture the original's sense of humor or fun, was also significant since it helped bring together the developers who would be responsible for much of today's retro shooter revival. Dave Oshry, principal director on the Rise of the Triad reboot, became CEO of New Blood, and David Szymanski was enough of a fan of the reboot to send Oshry a demo of a game he was working on. New Blood would eventually publish that game as Dusk in 2018.
Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition will be available on Steam and GOG in early 2023.
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Newly-appointed lair architect to the evil mastermind, your job is to build the best lair. The competition? The... other minions of the evil mastermind. Whoever builds the best lair wins. That's the setup to Chambers of Devious Design, a recently-released indie puzzler that has you plopping down tiles to delight the boss and destroy the competition.
It wears its inspirations on its sleeve, taking from the world board games in the same way that something like Hearthstone takes from competitive card games. I'm always on the lookout for things that remind me of tile-placement board game Castles of Mad King Ludwig, so I was quite intrigued when this one fell into my inbox.
I bring up Hearthstone because it does things with its digital form that you just can't do on tabletop. Randomized piles of weird rooms to choose from, fidgety placement that'd get wrecked on a table, and perhaps most delightful of all: Full-on PVP combat in a tile placement game.
See, among your many tiles are cannons, lightning guns, lasers, and just straight-up rooms full of dynamite. Placing these lets you target other players' complexes, all built on the same grid as yours, demolishing their rooms and knocking down their score point by point. Finally, a tile placement game where you can loose a barrage of cannon fire to knock pieces out of the other player's perfect combo.
Placing rooms perfectly also gives you all manner of activated one-shot powers and abilities, many of which are the kind of things that'd be cumbersome or annoying on tabletop. Why do I compare to tabletop? Because if it was just doable as a board game I'd be here asking why it's not just a board game.
This is definitely a game I'm glad to have in my pocket for local multiplayer nights, and it's remote play together enabled so you can shell out for a single copy and bring along three friends to build weird bases together. Chambers of Devious Design also has a full campaign and AI to play against, too.
You can find Chambers of Devious Design on Steam, from Redbeak Games, for $12. Redbeak Games previously developed strategy game Mortal Glory, a gladiator management sim combined with tactical combat.
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The coolest part of Insomniac's recently ported to PC 2018 Spider-Man game is its web slinging. Expanding on the system from Treyarch's classic Spider-Man 2 movie tie-in, swinging through Insomniac's open world is exhilarating.
Modder jedijosh920 is looking to up the thrill factor at the expense of your stomach with a first person mod for the game. In a video demonstration uploaded to YouTube, Josh shows Spidey swinging around Manhattan from the new perspective. It's already pretty intense in video form—I got that sense of my stomach dropping that's usually reserved for roller coasters or downhill biking gopro footage.
I'm also surprised at just how well it seems to work. The movement is still legible and I didn't feel confused or turned around at any point while watching. Spidey's animations translate really well to first person too. I especially like how his hands look while climbing or the way his legs come into view at the top of a swing.
The trailer doesn't feature any combat, which I have to imagine would be extra tricky given the game's zippy, Arkham-esque battling. An ideal solution might be the ability to toggle between first and third person depending on gameplay demands, though Jedijosh already got the swinging working despite my expectations.
Jedijosh920 hasn't released the project for download yet, but when he does you can likely find it on his NexusMods page. You can also follow the creator on YouTube.
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Carlos Rodriguez, the CEO of esports organization G2, has apologized and temporarily stepped down from his position after sharing a video of himself partying with right wing social media personality Andrew Tate.
Tate is under investigation by Romanian police in connection to rape and human trafficking charges. According to Romanian newspaper Gândul, Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan's villa was raided by Romanian police in April. Police for the county of Ilfov were notified by the American Embassy that a US citizen may have been detained by the brothers. No arrests have been made, and Tate claims that the raid was a swatting incident. The case seems to remain open, and the Romanian police do not appear to have corroborated the swatting claim.
Tate is perhaps more famous for his "manosphere" social media presence, which was recently moderated off most social media platforms, as well as "Hustler's University," a paid collection of online courses on making money. According to The Guardian, one piece of advice included in a Hustler's University class on social media advised "What you ideally want is a mix of 60-70% fans and 40-30% haters. You want arguments, you want war."
On September 17, Rodriguez shared a phone camera video to Twitter of a celebration for G2's League of Legends team qualifying for worlds. A circle of individuals can be seen passing champagne bottles and sparklers, including Tate, clearly visible in the center of the group.
The post drew attention and controversy. Rodriguez initially doubled down, tweeting that "nobody will ever be able to police my friendships, I draw my line here". The CEO concluded by saying "I party with whoever the 'frell' I want."
That attitude did not last. On September 18, Rodriguez shared a two-part apology on Twitter, claiming that he wishes to stand for "absolute equality of opportunity regardless of who you are or where you come from," and that these ideals are "what gaming is all about." The executive went on to acknowledge that he "failed to read this room right."
A half hour later, the official G2 Esports Twitter account put out an apology addressed to the "G2 Army." The organization revealed that it would have Rodriguez take eight weeks of unpaid leave in response to the controversy.
It's unclear how the move substantially addresses the situation, but it will give online communities time to cool off and get mad about something else in the intervening weeks. Rodriguez, who Forbes estimates to be worth $105 million, seems to be getting a two-month vacation. After that time, the highly successful esports organization will once again be led by someone willing to associate with an alleged human trafficker, noted misogynist, and someone who, according to the Daily Beast, publicly stated that "40%" of the reason he relocated to Romania was because he believed the Romanian police were less likely to pursue accusations of sexual assault.
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"Welp, the Cyberpunk 2077 anime made me want to give the game another shot," said our Wes Fenlon just this week. He wasn't alone, as tens of thousands have returned to CD Projekt Red's 2020 RPG shooter following the release of Studio Trigger's Cyberpunk Edgerunners anime.
Sites like SteamDB put Cyberpunk 2077's peak concurrent player count—on Steam alone—at over 85,000 in the last 24 hours. Those are player numbers it hasn't seen since January of 2021, with daily highs of something more like 10-15K more normal. Not surprising, given that its launch could be politely termed a disaster.
It's a sizable boost for a game that claims the highest all-time concurrent player count for a singleplayer game on Steam at 1,054,388. It's also the data point I needed to say that, combined with a timely sale, the Netflix player bump is very real.
We saw it last December when Arcane caused League of Legends' player count to boost by nearly 50%. Dota 2 saw boosts after the release of Dragon's Blood seasons 1 and 2. Heck, CD Projekt Red's own The Witcher beat its launch day numbers after the release of its Netflix series.
So, yeah, you could say that Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a bit of a second launch at the moment, with numbers that put most gaming debuts to shame. It's all very clearly orchestrated and marketed, much like a launch as CP2077 just got its 1.6 Edgerunner update.
You can get a cat in that, which rules. You can also get the Edgerunners jacket from the Anime.
There are other updates for CP2077 in the future, with the game director saying that its broken police will get a complete overhaul.
Amid all of this you might be forgiven for not noticing that Keanu Reeves is coming back for a whole Cyberpunk 2077 expansion called Phantom Liberty. Guess he actually wasn't put off by the sex mods.
I call this a second launch for Cyberpunk 2077, but Fraser Brown thinks that the expansion will be CP2077's chance at salvation. He says it'll need to be "beyond polished" because it could well be the last real shot at salvaging the game's reputation.
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I'm not sure I'll ever get jaded about the glowing 2.5D graphical style of Octopath Traveler, and there's no better argument for that than the 20 minutes of Octopath Traveler 2 gameplay that Square Enix showed off at Tokyo Game Show during yesterday's livestream. The JRPG sequel is primed to release on February 24th, 2023 via Steam for PC, as well as on PlayStations 4 and 5, and the Switch.
Octopath Traveler 2's world is a far cry from the first's medieval setting. The JRPG is set in a new world, one in the grips of an industrial revolution, where steamship ply the seas. The 20 minute look at the world, and a few locations in it, shows off a few towns and highlights the soundtrack, visuals, and day-night cycle.
Also shown are some new skills for the characters, like the swordsman Hikari, who can duel people you meet in the world to learn their skills. Path skills in Octopath Traveler are ways that main characters can interact with the NPCs you meet.
Some of the eight new travelers, the main characters, are shown off in the example party. There's a jazzy-looking new dancer with a dress like she's from the American Old West. There's a guy who's dressed a bit like Sherlock Holmes, but with a top hat and bow and arrow. There's the swordsman Hikari, with an Asian-style Magua tabard on. Finally, an assassin-looking woman with a curved shotel-style sword and a classy slit dress rounds out the group
We quite liked the first Octopath Traveller, which sold over 3 million copies as of this month. Reviewer Chris Schilling said that the "likeable JRPG tips its hat to its publisher's rich genre history while acknowledging technical advancements since Square’s 16-bit golden age" in the Octopath Traveler review.
By our reckoning, the original Octopath Traveler is one of the best JRPGs on PC.
You can find Octopath Traveler 2 on Steam, where it'll release for $60 on February 24th, 2023. There's no word yet on if it'll come to Game Pass, as the previous game did.
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A user on GTAForums by the name of 'teapotuberhacker' who say they were also behind a recent Uber hack has posted 90 videos they claim come from a test build of Grand Theft Auto 6, running with "GTA 5 and 6 source code and assets". Screenshots and clips from these videos are doing the rounds on YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and elsewhere, and they do seem to line up with details from the recent GTA 6 leak as well as an earlier one, both suggesting it will have multiple playable characters, one a woman, and be set in and around the Miami-esque Vice City.
In one video (YouTube, shorter version on Twitter), a player-character named Lucia robs a waffle restaurant with an accomplice named Jason, taking hostages like they're in Pulp Fiction. A meter counts down 'Time Until Cops Dispatched', and it all looks reminiscent of the robberies in Red Dead Redemption 2, in spite of the mannequin NPCs clipping through objects, placeholder dialogue text like "Jason: GENERIC_CURSE_TO_SELF", and a cop car that's been recycled from GTA 5 only with V.C.P.D. written on it.
More convincing is the footage showing a poolside conversation between a male player-character and a couple of redneck associates (YouTube, Twitter). Dialogue like, "Oh yeah, he's dead, is he? Just like there's a country called Finland," comes off as extremely Rockstar, and the voice-acting quality checks out.
There's plenty of other stuff here that smacks of Rockstar too. The notification saying "WhatUp! message received" during a sequence in a strip club (Twitter) suggests a parody of WhatsApp, which seems like an extremely Rockstar thing to do, as does setting entire scenes in a strip club complete with detailed pole dancing.
The previous GTA 6 leak claimed the game has been in development since 2014 and was originally codenamed 'Project Americas'. These files, which have the word "Americas" in their names and some of which show a version running on a PlayStation 4 dev kit, may well be several years old. Still, if they are legit they confirm the broad details of the previous leaks, which made it sound like a game that probably wouldn't be done until 2025. And who knows when a PC version would arrive. Basically, don't hold your breath.
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Tips to help your daily Wordle game improve, tailor-made clues for today's puzzle, and even the answer to the September 18 (456) Wordle if you need it—whatever Wordle help you're looking for, you'll find it here.
Today's Wordle must have realised it was the weekend because it seemed to be handing out yellows and greens with every guess. So although the internet's favourite word-based puzzle game may not have put up a fight today, it did make for a nice way to spend a few lazy Sunday morning minutes.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Sunday, September 18
There are a few common ways to use today's answer. The first is to describe something long and thin, such as a tree branch, a walking cane, or celery. Another uses the same word whenever two or more objects become fixed together (on purpose or otherwise), particularly with glue. There's just one vowel today.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
- A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
- A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- The solution may contain repeat letters.
There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank.
Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)What is the Wordle 456 answer?
Let me help you win your daily Wordle. The answer to the September 18 (456) Wordle is STICK.
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 17: CHUTE
- September 16: PARER
- September 15: DOUBT
- September 14: THYME
- September 13: ALPHA
- September 12: BOOZE
- September 11: TIBIA
- September 10: LOFTY
- September 9: THEME
- September 8: CLASS
- September 7: LEERY
Learn more about Wordle
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns
️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. 
means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 
means you've got the right letter in the right spot.You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer.
After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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Lost Ark Twitch drops are in-game rewards for the free-to-play MMO you can earn by watching participating streamers, usually those who are members of the Lost Ark creators program, via Twitch. (Or by having their streams open in another tab while you should be working, if that's how you roll. I'm not the boss of you.)
Those players you've probably seen zooming around Arkesia on the top of golden electric hoverboards while accompanied by pets that look like mystical foxes earned them from earlier Twitch drops given away to celebrate Lost Ark's launch. More items have been given away regularly since.
With this guide, you'll be able to score sweet free loot just just like those high-flying fancypants. You're welcome.
What Lost Ark Twitch drops are available?
The current Twitch drops promotion began on September 16. This one lets you earn a Beerhead Selection Chest, which contains a glass of beer you can wear as a hat. It's part of the current Arktoberfest celebration, which also includes a weekend fever-time event. It will end on October 3.
When you open the chest you can choose one of three varieties of Beer Headwear to keep, each of which buffs a different virtue stat. The lager gives + 15 to charisma, the ale gives +15 to kindness, and the stout gives +15 to courage. All three also give a +1% boost to your class's primary attribute, whether strength, dexterity, or intelligence.
(Image credit: Amazon Games)How to get Lost Ark Twitch drops
To activate Twitch drops, go to the Lost Ark website, sign into Twitch, link your Steam account, and finally click on the activate button. For this Twitch drop you'll need to watch four hours' worth of participating streams, though not all at once.
Explore Arkesia with these Lost Ark guides(Image credit: Amazon Games)Lost Ark tips: For beginners
Lost Ark classes: Which to choose
Lost Ark controls: How to change
Lost Ark servers: Check status
Lost Ark mokoko seeds: Find them
Lost Ark engravings: Understand themAs always, go to the Lost Ark category on Twitch and filter it by Drops Enabled to find them fastest. I like to scroll down and find a lesser-known streamer who could do with an extra view, but there are plenty of other tags to help you navigate.
Make sure to rack up your four hours before the Beerhead promotion ends on October 3.
When you've earned a drop, you'll get a notification in Twitch. (Notifications are up top, between whispers and Prime Gaming Loot.) That'll guide you to your Twitch inventory page, where you need to claim the drop. After that, it should show up in-game within 24 hours. Access it from the product inventory next to your mail.
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Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is an upcoming CRPG from Owlcat Games, whose previous games Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous both came with entertaining companions to recruit and sometimes romance. Who knows whether there will be room for the latter in the 41st millennium (where there is only war, as 40K's tagline goes), but there will definitely be some recruiting going on.
Over a series of blog posts Owlcat has detailed some of the companions your voidship captain will be able to choose from. Most recently there was Cassia Orsellio the navigator, a three-eyed mutant like all members of the noble navigator Great Houses, whose gift lets her perceive Warpspace without going mad. Also, if she flips up the tiara hiding her Warp Eye anyone who looks into it will die, so she's got that going for her. Then there's Pasqal Haneumann, Magos Explorator, a cyborg tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus who faces a schism among the faithful.
They join two companions previously revealed, Abelard the Seneschal and Idira Tlass the unsanctioned psyker, who were both crewmates of your predecessor seen in the trailer. We haven't seen any more of the Space Wolf or the Sister of Battle from the key art, however.
Owlcat's most recent news summary also rounds up three of the backgrounds players can choose from for their own character: a commissar, an ex-criminal, and a naval officer with a wonderful mustache. Then it shows off some of the enemies you'll be facing. First up are the aeldari, 40K's space elves, and it seems like we'll have opportunity to fight both the drukhari (sadomasochistic dark elf bondage pirates) and the asuryani (hyper-specialized high elves who live on Craftworld spaceships after the loss of their homeworlds). The asuryani are noted as coming from a Craftworld of Owlcat's own creation rather than an existing one.
Chaos will be another foe, with daemonettes of Slaanesh and horrors of Tzeentch shown alongside mutated Chaos spawn. To help fight them, we'll apparently get cyberzombie servitors and Sicarian Ruststalkers, who are elite assassins provided by our friends in the Adeptus Mechanicus, as well as an arsenal of bolter, lasguns, plasma weapons, flamers, and chainswords. Which is nice.
Concept art of several locations also sneaks in, with the bridge of our voidship, overgrown statuary in aeldari ruins, a manufactorum, and the world of Footfall being depicted. Footfall is a waystation in the Segmentum Obscurus on the edge of the Koronus Expanse, which will be Rogue Trader's setting, and seems like a potential hub or tutorial area to launch an expedition from.
No release date for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader has been given yet, but there's an alpha planned for this year, with a beta following next year. If you'd like a 40K game to play in the meantime, here's every Warhammer 40,000 game, ranked.
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Need to know
What is it? A monster-taming RPG in the vein of Pokémon with a bustling shared online world.
Expect to pay: $45/£40
Release date: September 6, 2022
Developer: Crema
Publisher: Humble Games
Reviewed on: Windows 11, Nvidia 2080 Ti, Intel i9-9900k @ 4.9ghz, 32gb RAM
Multiplayer? Yes (cross-platform always-on multiplayer, co-op and PvP)
Link: Official siteLet's not beat around the long grass here: Temtem is a Pokémon clone by design. Small Spanish studio Crema aimed to make something immediately familiar and accessible to fans of Nintendo's monster-collecting JRPG series, while leaving room for some bold new ideas of their own. Since the developers assume you already know your pidgeys from your pikachus, I will too, making it easier to break down what Temtem does differently, for better or worse.
For starters, Temtem is an MMO. Kinda. You won't be stepping on other's toes while exploring as interaction with other players is limited to chat, emoting and challenging to battles, but the overworld is a bustling place filled with players and their pets. While geared for solo play, the entire story can be played cooperatively with a friend, and the endgame offers plenty of opportunity for groups to go dungeon-crawling together.
This makes Temtem's world of floating islands orbiting a magical pseudo-sun a lively place. The trade-off for this persistent shared world is monetization. On top of the sticker price, there's premium currency that can be spent on cosmetic goodies, or a seasonal battle pass that doles out dress-up items over time. Fortunately, money won't buy you success—for that, you'll have to invest time, effort and a lot of memorizing damage type charts.
I want to be the very best
Temtem's biggest divergence from Pokémon is its more complex combat, sitting between Pokémon's kid-friendly design and Shin Megami Tensei's hardcore dungeon-crawling. Temtem's battles against NPC tamers are frequently full 6v6 affairs, both sides deploying two creatures at a time. Between sharp AI and not skimping on enemy levels and stats, it's a surprisingly challenging campaign. For those used to sleepwalking through Pokémon, you might have to sit up and pay attention here.
Multiplayer battles (available via informal challenges in the overworld or level-scaled ranked play) are even more complex. Those familiar with DOTA competitive rules will be familiar with the format. Players bring squads of eight Temtem to the table, and take turns picking five to deploy while also banning two of the opponent's picks. It's an intimidating twist to get used to, but thankfully you can practice for this in singleplayer by challenging defeated Dojo leaders (the equivalent of Pokémon gym leaders) to a simulated competitive match.
Combat in Temtem is more nuanced than Pokémon, too. Temtems have both HP and a steadily recharging stamina pool, which attacks deplete. Lower-level creatures can be run ragged after just one big attack, making overspending easy to do. Any stamina debt will be deducted from that Temtem's health, and they'll not be able to attack next turn—though actions like tagging out and healing through items are allowed during this cooldown period, making it a viable tactical choice. Also 'Hold Techniques' are powerful attacks that don't become selectable until a Temtem has been in combat for several turns, further complicating things.
(Image credit: Humble)Never tell me the oddish
What Temtem removes from Pokémon is also interesting. Capture chances aside, there are no dice-rolls during combat. No critical hits, and status effects always stick. Everything is deterministic, but with ways to fudge the numbers. Every skill has a speed multiplier, letting a slow creature get in a quick poke against a faster creature with a heavier attack. Strategy plays a key role from the start, and while grinding to a higher level can work, playing smart is almost always better than brute force.
Between complex combat, 2v2 battles, 12 damage types (imagine playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with two hands and 12 different options), and further wrinkles like being able to change your Temtem's skill loadouts at any point outside of battle, Temtem is an almost intimidatingly involved game. As someone who lost interest in Pokémon early, that's exactly what I needed. On almost every mechanical level (aside from the number of creatures—there's only 164 at present), this is Pokémon: Advanced Edition. Familiar, yet satisfyingly complex.
Temtem used Charm! It's not very effective
Objectively, Temtem is an extremely well-tuned take on the genre. Subjectively, its aesthetics and world don't really do it for me. While your mileage may vary, many of the creature designs feel oddly generic, lacking the simple charm of Pokémon or the wild childish imagination of Digimon. I'd describe many of them as overly angular, stylized animals, and a lot of their names also have extremely poor mouthfeel. I understand that combining 'squirrel' and 'punch' makes sense for a brawny fighting rodent, but a skunch sounds more like a disease I'd rather avoid catching.
(Image credit: Humble)Similarly, the game's human cast (and most of their dialogue) falls a little short of Nintendo's punny charm, despite the occasional gag getting a chuckle out of me. The villains (the aristocratic Clan Belsoto) aren't a patch on Team Rocket either. There's a good range of costumes and character customization options for the player-characters and NPCs, but the basic character models feel a little more interchangeable than they should be. Temtem's world sometimes feels like it's populated by the same six people (masculine and feminine models for kids, teens/adults and elders) rapidly switching outfits to fit each region's role.
Still, while the creature and character art doesn't set my imagination alight, it's a fine-looking game on a technical level. Creatures are well animated, and while I wish there was an option to fast-forward battles, bigger attacks are often satisfying barrages of polygon and particle effects. The game also feels more at home on PC than consoles. Despite multiplayer being fully cross-platform, the mouse-and-keyboard controls felt best to me, with some nice quality-of-life features like being able to click and drag my squad composition around.
(Image credit: Humble)While I would have appreciated a few more in-game reference pieces (like a hotkey to bring up the dizzying damage-type matrix), Temtem puts most of the key info in sight, although players that commit everything to heart will have the advantage. If you want to be the very best, you'll have to learn them all. Even falling a little short in terms of charm, and with the battle pass feeling slightly out-of-place, Temtem is easy to recommend to fans of Pokémon wanting something a little tougher and meatier while still feeling familiar.
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As part of the 2022 Realms Deep digital event, developers Slipgate Ironworks and 2B Games have announced their collaborative project, Warpaws—a cartoony RTS about a theoretical 20th century conflict between humankind's beloved companions, cats and dogs. It presents itself as a tactics-first, more streamlined RTS with a "focus on unit management, with no resources or complicated base building."
That last claim immediately piqued my interest, as my neanderthal brain can barely process the demands of most RTSes and my actions per minute (APM) leaves a lot to be desired. Instead of hoarding resources, unlocking new units is tied to capturing objectives on the game map.
In addition to PvP, Warpaws will also have a "comprehensive" single player campaign and co-op. I definitely find myself wondering if there will be separate cat/dog campaigns a la the different races in Starcraft, or if it will focus on one side or even alternating factions. The reveal trailer certainly has a problematic dog-centric bias, in contravention of PC Gamer Executive Editor Tyler Wilde's treatise on cat superiority in videogames.
Warpaws definitely has a fun thing going with its art style, with very Pixar-y character design and exaggerated WWII kit on the critters. One screenshot has a canine aerial unit who looks like he's piloting a pedal-powered whirligig of some sort. Overall, I'm most reminded of the fantastic Advance Wars games over on the GBA.
All that fun and color belies the true horror of this cat/dog industrialized warfare. Why can't the feline and the pooch live together in harmony? Was war something they learned from humans, or, more troublingly, is conflict of this nature somehow inherent to sentience? I look forward to Warpaws' thoughtful answers to the philosophical conundrums it raises when it releases sometime in 2023.
Image 1 of 5(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks, 2B Games)Image 2 of 5(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks, 2B Games)Image 3 of 5(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks, 2B Games)Image 4 of 5(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks, 2B Games)Image 5 of 5(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks, 2B Games) -
THE PCG Q&A
Find 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?
- What do we want from Fallout 5?Did Euro Truck Simulator 2 improve your reverse trailer-parking? Can you build a PC thanks to PC Building Simulator, rattle off the NATO phonetic alphabet and read maps at light-speed thanks to Arma, or understand orbital mechanics thanks to Kerbal Space Program? Maybe you learned about actual programming from a Zachtronics game, in which case you're better at them than me.
Have you learned a real-world skill from a game?
Here are our answers, plus some from our forum.
Robin Valentine, Print Editor: Crusader Kings has genuinely taught me a lot about medieval politics, particularly succession laws. You never forget the first time your kingdom goes from running like clockwork to split in three and embroiled in chaos just because you didn't know what 'gavelkind' is. It's a very direct lesson in why there were so many succession crises in the period. And as you learn strategies to avoid it happening again, you realise they're the same strategies real rulers used—such as Christian kings sending troublesome sons off to the church, or Vikings constantly conquering to grab up enough land for inheritance. The series isn't perfectly accurate, but it includes enough real info to teach you about medieval religions, cultures, noble families, military forces, and more.
Phil Savage, Editor-in-Chief: Thanks to the Yakuza series, I now understand the rules of Mahjong. This, as yet, has not proved at all useful in my day-to-day life. But I am pretty good at Mahjong Handle, a Wordle-a-like about guessing a Mahjong hand.
Lauren Morton, Associate Editor: I can't handle games with hands so Mahjong was out, but the Yakuza games taught me how different darts games are actually scored. It's not exactly a miraculous real-world skill, but I did put it to use recently by coaching an acquaintance at a bar through the right targets to shoot for in a game of cricket darts. Wasn't my fault he was way too drunk to execute the win though. The strategic advice was totally solid.
(Image credit: SCS Software)Jody Macgregor, Weekend/AU Editor: I've learned a lot of theory I will absolutely never make practical use of from games. Sure, I know all about reverse-parking trucks thanks to Euro Truck Simulator 2, but I don't drive a car. I'm as likely to make use of that knowledge as I am the things I learned about BDSM from playing Ladykiller in a Bind.
The one undeniably useful skill I've picked up from PC gaming is just knowing my way around using a computer. Having to futz about to get games running, to get mods working, to fix things when they break? That's taught me an incredibly useful life skill and I owe it all to good ol' PC gaming.
From our forum
ToxicOffender: The Sims taught me everything about social interaction with other people and thanks to Hitman I also know how to get rid of them unnoticed.
Pifanjr: I've learned most of my English from video games. I started playing very young, so my brother had to translate for me a lot. He's always been fascinated by language, so he was a great teacher and video games were a great motivator to learn.
(Image credit: Red Dot Games)ZedClampet: I've learned a ton about cars by playing Car Mechanic Simulator games. I can now open the hood and tell you what all the parts are and what they do. I can also recognize the various types of farm equipment and know what they do from playing Farming Simulator games.
DXCHASE: Having long gaming sessions into the night when I was kid has helped me develop the ability to work overnight with ease and not feel tired at 4,5 or 6 in the morning.
WoodenSaucer: I learned how to secure a field and defuse bombs from playing Minesweeper. I also learned how to negotiate peace treaties between kings and queens of various nations and implement prisoner exchanges, by playing solitaire.
But come to think of it, I guess Solitaire is really kind of racist. You take a deck that is full of diversity and work as hard as you can to segregate the various suits/races back to where they supposedly belong.
(Image credit: Killhouse Games)Johnway: Doorkickers. The one game that made me actually go on the web and learn CQB tactics by swat teams. Namely breaching and entering and how to clear rooms etc. Ok, it was more a quick 30-1hr read on some website, but it was insightful and certainly something I tried to incorporate into the game itself and some other games. Didn't stop my team becoming swiss cheese in some missions though.
McStabStab: Back in 1999 when Counter-Strike released in its earliest form as a mod for Half-Life I was still not even in High School. My typing skills increased leaps and bounds because before voice communication was in games the only way to talk trash was to type it. I credit my quick typing ability to C:S.
Zloth: I learned a lot about the aviation in World War 2 from Air Warrior. Terms like split-S, immelmann, barrel roll.... We even had a convention in Washington D.C. to see the aircraft in museums. I don't know if you would call that a skill or just knowledge, but I'm glad of it.
(Image credit: Blizzard)Sarafan: This probably won't be the answer that was precisely intended by the Author of the question, but I actually learned from games how scripts in programming work. Many years ago I was a creator of maps for the first Starcraft and Operation Flashpoint (ARMA: Cold War Assault).
When I started my journey with modding, I had exactly no knowledge how the games work. I was dreaming about creating my own content, so started tackling with the editor for Starcraft 1. Step by step and thanks to the work of other modders I started to reverse engineer existing maps. This gave me an understanding that to make some action you need to assign them conditions and voila! The hardest thing to understand in making new maps became a piece of cake!
With Operation Flashpoint it was even more interesting. There's no way you can open existing developer made campaign maps without some serious tackling and I desperately needed to figure out scripts commands used in some of them. What did I do? I opened the campaign file in Notepad. Among some standard gibberish that you get when you open such files this way, there were beautiful fragments of standard text and among other this were the scripts that I was looking for. Now I just needed to scroll to the desired mission and find the script I was looking for or just automatically search the file, when I had some suspicions about the correct words that were used in it.
All in all this experience gave me a lot of knowledge about gaming editors. Although I never made a step forward and didn't start to play with something more powerful (like Creation Kit for Bethesda games for example), I still have some plans to make use of the things I learnt this way.(Image credit: Ubisoft)Frindis: I'm good at problem-solving and making stories and I believe some of that comes from countless hours solving puzzles in point & click games and being able to really delve into the lore of different games.
I have good eye-hand coordination with solid reflexes from countless hours in FPS games. It has definitely helped me in different sports, not to mention having better situational awareness overall.
I have no problem with public speaking. I'll produce a text and tell it to whomever without any problems, and bits of that trait I believe come from times in TeamSpeak and similar channels with different roles in MMO games, obviously with the motivational push from a friend or two.
Playing games has also made me more interested in audio/video editing, even if I have not gone as far as making any machinima video or similar. I am thinking of streaming though, so in that sense, gaming has opened a new way/idea for me to both play and perhaps also earn a living from doing it in the long term.
A more lust for learning I would most definitely say gaming has thought me. Right now I am playing Assasin Creed Valhalla (day 1) and I am looking forward to jumping on the educational section of the game and learning more from my own heritage as the game is set in Norway.
The great joy of playing with my nephews is one of the biggest ones and being able to educate them on how to play from the early age of maybe 6-7 years old and also learning from them while following their road to adulthood.
There is so much more I could have added. Seriously, I could probably write a book about just what gaming has done to my upbringing and how it still affects me deeply. The learning aspect and with it its skills are always evolving in that sense.
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Hello sweeperfloor,
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.
sweeperfloor joined on the 09/18/2022.
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From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the dice to bring random games back into the light. This week, a trip back in time to the days when we chose our own adventures.
Pardon my heresy, but I've been playing and enjoying Sorcery! on the iPad for the last couple of days—a really fun remake of Steve Jackson's text adventure of the same name, which is Sorcery! It keeps the adventure, but adds graphics, music, sound and spells to create something with the soul of the original, but the flavour of the new. It's worth checking out.
But, I thought, what about another classic slice of interactive fiction that gripped hearts in the '80s? Well, I told myself, only one way to found out.
[Note: Since this article was first written, Steve Jackson's Sorcery! has been ported to PC. You can find the complete four-part collection on Steam. There has also been a newer Lone Wolf adaptation called Joe Dever's Lone Wolf HD Remastered, which is frankly not that good, though still probably better than the 2D game from 1991 that Richard Cobbett is about to take to task, as soon as I let him get on with it –Ed]
1
If you remember the series this is based on, turn to 30. As opposed to turning 30, which you have.
Specifically, if you remember the Lone Wolf books, click here.
Or if you have no idea what I'm talking about, head this way.
2
No, no really. See the underlining? That's magic internet technology called 'a hyperlink'. It goes to places. Unless you're on the mobile interface or in an RSS reader, in which case things might be a bit of a problem. Please go to the full page. And while you're there, why not enjoy some ads?
Return to the start to choose an option.
Or just scroll up a bit if you're not lazy.
5
You apologise loudly and profusely, much to the confusion of the gargoyle. There is no way to know whether or not the apology is accepted, or indeed, even perceived, but at least you tried.
To climb the ladder, turn to 68.
8
Well, the Kai did always say you were your own worst enemy. Weird. You thought it was because you were a jerk. Truly, they were wise people. Not wise enough to survive, obviously, which is why you're the last and by definition the best, but you don't want to be too smug about that. Not unless there's a proper audience.
To begin the epic mirror match, turn to 40.
To compare beauty tips, head for 18.
If you have the Dark Shard, go to 65.
10
Yeah, it doesn't seem to matter which way you go. Both ways lead to more ladders in this dark tower, both guarded by Death from Castlevania. He doesn't move to attack, demonstrating that even the Grim Reaper stops work now and again—probably for a Ploughman's Lunch—but that doesn't mean he skimps on the attacks.
To decide this is a pretty good point to draw this to a close, turn to 80.
To continue working through the entire game in this format, go to 54.
18
"I hope you don't mind me saying this, but you look great," you tell yourself. "What's your secret?"
Your doppelganger pauses. "I don't know," he admits. "Maybe I'm born with it. Maybe it's a ruptured spleen."
You glance down at the blade now sticking out of your gut.
"No Head & Shoulders?" you reply, sinking to the floor.
"As you wish," shrugs the doppelganger, obligingly swinging his sword.
THIS CRAPSHOOT IS OVER. YOUR DANDRUFF PROBLEM IS CURED.
19
You open your eyes to find yourself in an oddly brightly lit castle, and glance down to see that your mighty man-boobs have been covered up with a steel breastplate. Then you look down further, and sigh. Remembered the breastplate, forgot the trousers. Oh, Lone Wolf. When will you learn?
Almost immediately, danger strikes. A gargoyle on what looks like a ducking stool greats you by spitting at your face from one side, too high to actually hit. From behind, the spirit of Jacob Marley in the door spits into your back. You get an immediate sense that you are not welcome here, and it's probably not mystical Kai Training or anything doing it.
To take the moral high ground and set a good example, turn to 57.
To launch a devastating attack on the spitting gargoyle, turn to 24.
21
"Oh, look who's back!" gloats the ladder as you begin to climb again. "Wanker. Fool. Imbecile. Quest-monkey. Bard." You pause. So does the ladder. "I'm sorry," it says, "I went too far."
United, temporarily, by disdain for the crappiness of bards, you complete the climb and continue the quest.
22
Feeling a little wussy, like a mage or something, you consult the instructions. "You are the warrior Lone Wolf, last of the Kai Masters of Sommerlund, and sole survivor of the massacre that destroyed your kinsmen during a bitter war against your ancient enemies—the Darklords of Helga's Dad," it begins.
Ah, yes, that bastard. How you relished stabbing him through the...
Wait, what? "Helgedad." Damn scribes! You make a note to send Helga an apology card.
Anyway, it goes on like this. "Already your quest has taken you far from your northern homeland..." "You learn that one of the seven Lorestones can be found in Dessi, hidden high in a forbidding tower stronghold known as Kazan-Gor..." Something about an evil sorcerer called Gorazh. You quickly get the gist though. You're here to retrieve something called a Lorestone from a sealed tower, wherein is a mirror that both contains demons and is capable of reflecting the dark evil within a hero.
"Over the centuries many brave warriors and courageous magicians have sought to recover the Lorestone, but none has ever returned," warns the lore. "Those who had the sense to turn back at the last minute tell chilling tales about the mirror, of how it reflects a powerful magical entity, a being of pure evil that takes on the appearance of its opponent."
How convenient, you think to yourself, that this ancient avatar of ultimate evil should be so easily represented on-screen with palette swapping or something. Quite a timesaver for the artists.
To forget all this boring 'reading' stuff and charge into battle, go to 51.
To continue failing to be a MAN, ballet dance to 32.
24
You stride over and unleash the fury against the spitting gargoyle. It ignores it, much as you keep ignoring the poor ladder that just wants a chance to do its job. It could have been anything, you know. It got top marks at Ladder University, which it used to climb over all the other ladders to its pick of the placements. They all looked up at it and were all "Whoa. Meta."
And what did it choose? It chose to be here, at the very start of the game, to give adventurers like you a sporting chance in this epic tale. Where would you be without it, eh? Here. Forever. Being spat on by a gargoyle.
And you didn't even give it a second thought, did you? No. No, you didn't.
If you had the high moral ground, remove it from your inventory.
To apologise to the ladder, go to 5.
To climb the ladder to the next screen, go to 68.
30
You feel older than you have any right to, as you think back with warm nostalgia to the land of Magnamund, of wandering the land with the Sommerswerd, and of the surprisingly complicated mix of RPG elements that made things far more interesting than simply bouncing around a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You briefly wonder if those RPG elements will be putting in an appearance here. Check your inventory. If you do not have an inventory, take this as a hint. (You do not have an inventory.)
If you're interested in checking them out again, author Joe Dever made many available for free distribution after the series went out of print via Project Aon. (They've since been reprinted multiple times.)
As you glance around, you see a gnarled oak tree with a tempting looking hole in the side. Perhaps, you think, this shall contain fantastic gold or treasure with which to start your quest? But do you risk it? And by risk it, I mean risk it by doing something insanely stupid like sticking your head through it instead of poking in a stick to see if there's some kind of schmuck-baiting deathtrap going on.
If your memory is sufficiently refreshed, turn to 72.
If you embrace heroism and the unknown by sticking your head in the hole, turn to 45.
31
You emerge on the second screen and immediately a gargoyle spits in your face. A pattern doth emerge. You shrug and press forwards, realising that you must leap carefully if you are to avoid tumbling down the hole.
Roll a dice.
If you rolled 1-3, you fail to make the jump. Go to 36.
If you rolled 4-6, you successfully make the jump. Go to 47.
If you just muttered "It's called a die, moron," go to 49.
32
Secure in your own masculinity, even dressed like this, you show true inner strength by following your heart and using your brain. A particular section leaps out at you—Kai Skills. It appears that while Mirror Of Death doesn't make a big deal out of this, it's important to choose four of these before entering the game—out of eight. They include Psi Surge, its defensive counterpart Mindshield, Animal Kinship, Invisibility, and Healing. There is also Sixth Sense to point the way, Weapon Skills for... becoming... more skilled with weapons, obviously, and a couple more. All of them seem useful, and you have a worrying feeling that the only way to know which to use is already having psychic abilities of some kind.
Which isn't a million miles off the books at a number of points, so that's a mark in Mirror of Death's favour. You generously announce your confidence that there will be many, many more in the adventure to come.
Choose Four Skills: Psi Surge, Mindshield, Animal Kinship, Invisibility, Sixth Sense, Divinity, Weapon Skills, Healing. Pretend you have a character to sheet to write them on or something.
To uncross your fingers and enter the game proper, go to 19.
34
It does bugger all. What a waste of time that could have been spent learning other Kai skills, like being able to bite your own toenails. The Magnakai level lets you spit them out with the force of a bullet, though not the effectiveness of a bullet, on the grounds that they're toenails. Still, it's a good party piece. As long as you don't expect to be invited to many more parties.
Go to 52 to continue being beaten up by fecking birds.
36
You tumble back to the first screen, straight into more gargoyle spit. On the plus side, you're not going to need hair gel for a while. Unfortunately, this realisation comes with a side of searing pain. Oh well.
If you have previously lost the moral high ground, go to 21.
If not, go to 47 to make the jump this time.
40
You begin the epic fight between equals. To your surprise, while your doppelganger is initially happy to let you beat him in the face, it's not long before he decides he's had enough and you have to start changing up the moves a little. Not much, but a bit. He's got a lot of life too, so it takes a while. Soon though, his body lies at your feet, and you have a sad realisation of the briefness of life and your small place in the universe. It is a moment of existential dread unlike any you have ever experienced. No loot though. Cheap bastard. Well, on with the adventure!
54
You glance up at the many, many rooms of this tower, thinking of all the adventures you'll have. The Kai powers you'll use. The mirror matches yet to fight. The jumping puzzles that will stretch every heroic sinew to their absolute limit. You see it now. Your triumphant exit from this dark place, with the threat of the Mirror of Death forever vanquished. The adoration of your peers. The lamentation of evil. All will bow before you, and you will accept it with the heroic grace of one who knows that the fight against evil is never truly over while its spark continues to flicker in the hearts of men everywhere. For you are the champion. You are Lone Wolf—the last of the Kai, the one hope for Magnamund, the greatest hero ever to wield the Sommerswerd, and it is the darkness that will learn to fear you.
Then you sneeze so hard that your skull flies out and smashes against the wall. 'frelling' dust allergies.
THIS CRAPSHOOT IS OVER. WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.
43
OK. That hyperlink went somewhere. Congratulations. Can we get started now, Stanley?
Return to the start to choose an option.
Stay right here, going nowhere.
45
You stride confidently over to the giant hole and ram your head inside with heroic purpose. There is no treasure inside it, merely a sleeping golden rattlesnake. You breathe with relief at this rare stroke of luck, taking it as a sign from the gods that your purpose is noble and holy and just. Then a lightning bolt spears down, strikes the tree, and it falls on your head. You open your eyes, surprised to be able to do anything but begin your career as a slowly festering corpse, to see that in a second million-to-one shot, the hole was at exactly the right height for your head to slip in, saving you from any harm. You're not even scratched!
"Blimey. Definite bit of luck, that," agrees the rattlesnake, lunging.
THIS CRAPSHOOT IS OVER. MUCH EARLIER THAN USUAL.
47
You emerge onto the next floor, confirming your suspicions that things are going to get very repetitive after a while. Instead of a spitting gargoyle though, a bird flies towards you on a mission of death or death-related activity. Oh no!
If you have Animal Kinship, go to 34.
If not, go to 52. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200 gold pieces.
49
Oh, sorry, maybe you wanted two dies? Sorry. All out. You just get to die.
THIS CRAPSHOOT IS OVER.
50
You pause in the introductory clearing, your eyes briefly landing on a suspiciously mentioned-in-the-narrative gnarled tree against the back wall, with a big head-sized hole on the side. As you decide that it's probably nothing, you suddenly become aware of an incredibly cut-down-because-this-is-taking-long-enough précis of this fine series.
Originally published in 1984, the Lone Wolf series was the story of a hero called Silent Wolf, an initiate at a monastery for a group of monks, the Kai, devoted to fighting evil in all of its forms, but mostly the kind with names likes "Darklords". As the only survivor of an attack that obliterates the Kai Monks, Silent Wolf renames himself Lone Wolf and sets out on a whole range of adventures that ranged from retrieving the legendary blade Sommerswerd to destroying the Darklords.
It's fairly stock fantasy stuff, but where Choose Your Own Adventure books were... well... a bit like this, the RPG elements carried the character from book to book and made for an epic continuing story.
If you're interested in checking them out, author Joe Dever made many available for free distribution after the series went out of print via Project Aon, and they've since been reprinted more than once.
If you feel you are ready to continue, turn to 60.
If you want to put your head into the hole in the tree, turn to 45.
51
You're right, balls to that. Who wants to read in a Lone Wolf game of all things? You know who read books? Hitler. Hell, he even wrote one. To adventure! To glory! To... one second, let me look it up...
52
You glance around to see that everything has become incredibly stupid, with a half-hearted reboot from sillies who think it's a good idea to do things like recruit talent by holding contests to draw naked Harley Quinn committing suicide. Ah, wait, I see the problem. Sorry, you've ended up in the festering New 52. You wanted regular 52. It's over there. Try again.
Continue being beaten up by fecking birds.
57
Wiping the painful spit from your face, you fold your arms sternly and stare at the rude gargoyle in the hope of shaming it into treating you with the respect you clearly deserve. Five minutes later, you look like you've spent the morning on the lowest rung of the Japanese porn scene, and it's still not out of slobbering ammo. Nor is the door behind you.
Add the moral high ground to the intangible concepts section of your character sheet.
As you decide that this probably won't work, a heavy pot falls down from the ceiling and hits you on the head, adding injury to the already unpleasant cocktail of insult and injury that has been your quest so far. You decide that as philosophically valid as this passive approach is, it's probably time for some actual action.
To launch a brutal attack on the gargoyle, turn to 24.
To just get away and climb that ladder, turn to 31.
60
None of that actually matters, however, because this 1991 videogame spin-off has very little to do with the books. Sorry for wasting your time there. Its full title is Mirror of Death, and it's an arcade platformer instead of something good.
To begin the epic quest, turn to 72.
To declare your independence from binary choices, turn to 72.
52
Being beaten up by fecking birds sucks. This is not what you signed up for when you became a hero, nor something you feel you should have to put up with now. Still, you did, so you do. They join the spitting gargoyles, the spinning things on the walls and vast amounts of other stuff in their own quest to make you fall as far down the tower as possible. When you fall, you get no air control. Luckily, this time, you don't fall. Because this is already getting ludicrously long.
Go to 8 in the hope of encountering someone worth your time.
63
Despite your best intentions, you find yourself whisked away to a mysterious land known only as 63. It is dark here. You are eaten by a grue. If it helps, your smart arse gives it indigestion.
THIS CRAPSHOOT IS OVER.
65
You hold up the Dark Shard. "You cheating 'frack'!" spits your mirror image. "I'm your evil counterpart, and even I'm disgusted by this flagrancy! I bet you've been using the Back button too!"
"Sorry," you mumble.
"Sorry?" Your shadow-self stares back. "Wolfy, are you kidding? If I'd known you started your day with two Weetabix, we'd have given you a job offer years ago. How about it? Dental, two weeks vacation every year, an asbestos umbrella for when the fire rain starts? What do you say? Partners?"
"PSYCH!" screams your dark doppelganger, stabbing you straight through your open mouth.
THIS CRAPSHOOT IS OVER. EVEN EVIL HAS STANDARDS.
68
"Arsehole," mutters the ladder, as your boots press down onto its rungs. "Jerk," it continues as you begin your ascent. "Long-haired ponce..." You are relieved when you get to the top, and don't feel quite as bad.
To progress to the next screen, go to 31.
72
You stand at the edge of your adventure, wielding your mighty sword of power, your shield of strength, and somewhat unfortunately, your sister's Halloween costume. This is what happens when you get dressed in the dark. As you shiver and realise the tactical error of heading into battle with all vital organs completely exposed, you feel a newfound sympathy for female adventurers and the trials they face. On the plus side though, your boobs look great.
Your spirits are further lowered by the generic music playing in the background, and the realisation that when people say that the greatest graphics card is the human brain, they're thinking "Because it's sure as hell not EGA." A world of green and yellow opens out in front of you, and even for the time, a disappointing one. Far from the sprawling fantasy world of the books, this is simply going to be a journey through a tower. Probably a Tower of Death. But even a seemingly simple quest can have subtleties.
If you resolve to read the manual, turn to 22.
To charge straight into battle, turn to 51.
80
Wise. You pretend fight valiantly, but Death has a lot of practice at this kind of thing, and soon wipes you out with a speed that surprises even his not-actually-that-impressive self. As your endurance expires, you collapse to the ground, with just one wish—that as much of an abhorration as this game is, it has the good grace to end with dignity instead of, say, some kind of awful pun to rub a little salt and iodine into your fatal wound.
Yes, it does say 'Kai' Score Table.Well, 'frack'.
Still, you can't help but wonder... what if. What if you'd continued the quest to its bitter end? What if you'd been successful, and actually emerged from this adventure the hero that you thought and everyone hoped you could be? What if? What if, what if, what if?
In your last moments, you see a vision. A vision of a possible future, its crappy graphics no doubt the result of some kind of psychic interference that makes everything look like it's on a ZX Spectrum.
You nod weakly, as life and light ebbs away. "Totally not worth it," you croak to yourself.
Good to know, at least.
THIS CRAPSHOOT IS OVER.
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Numerous users on the subreddit of the 2008 youth-oriented MMO Wizard101 shared screenshots of official server messages pushed to players that contained jokes, profanity, and complaints of poor pay at developer KingsIsle.
According to an official support account from the developer on Twitter, the game's servers were taken offline Friday night before coming back on early Saturday morning. The messages are of a shocking character, very NSFW, and readers of delicate sensibilities may wish to look away.
Someone fetch my fainting couch. (Image credit: KingsIsle, user yellowvitt on Reddit)Wow, harrowing stuff. That one comes courtesy of user yellowvitt on r/Wizard101. Several of the other messages are similarly brief and direct. "This game is 'frack'," another message shared by user jakeofsteel reads.
Others speak to an employee's deeply compromised relationship with KingsIsle management. User scumfolry shared a collection of server messages complaining of the pay and working environment at KingsIsle. My favorite is, "The next world is my boss's 'wookie'." Incredible poetry to that one. "BRADLEY COME DOWN TO THE OFFICE THIS INSTANT -the ceo" from Disco_Potato_Go is also quite good.
Some of the messages are relatively nonsensical trolling. A fan favorite of the subreddit seems to be a snippet of dialogue from Walter White in Breaking Bad shared by lidikgurl. Another one advises players of a nonexistent payout of ingame currency.
Clearly, someone employed or until very recently employed by KingsIsle had a bad week. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if this could be some aggressive form of guerilla marketing for the game—we probably wouldn't be reporting on it at PC Gamer otherwise, for example.
Write this in gasoline and blood outside the Whirling-In-Rags cafeteria and light it on fire. (Image credit: KingsIsle, user scumfoldry on Reddit)Indeed, how do we ever know anything for certain in our post-post-truth society? I still haven't recovered from the secret NieR Automata church saga. The server down time leads me to believe this really was one employee (Bradley's?) Sisyphean rebellion. Of course, that's just what a marketing person would want me to think. I have reached out to KingsIsle for comment, and will update this story if we hear back.
Whatever the reality of the situation, the messages themselves are a delight. There's something particularly desolate about seeing them in Wizard101's house font, Comic Sans. Hating on the infamous font is a bit gauche in the year of our Lord 2022, but it still really adds to the effect here for me.
The forceful simplicity of "dick and balls" would be my favorite of the lot, were it not for the haunting despair of "The next world is my boss's 'wookie'." That one feels like graffiti from Disco Elysium. To the rogue employee/deep cover viral marketing associate of KingsIsle, I wish you well in your job hunt/sizable quarterly bonus.
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Hello stomdood,
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.
stomdood joined on the 09/18/2022.
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Valve's got some official Steam Deck docks at Tokyo Game Show, and is using them to charge their demo models. We've only had a look at renders so far, but the Dock looks pretty much precisely as it was supposed to be.
Eagle-eyed Reddit user ElderberryLarge9104 snapped some photos of the dock, one with deck entire and another of just the ports.
the_official_dock_is_casually_being_shown_off_at from r/SteamDeck
clear_look_at_the_back_of_the_official_steam_deck from r/SteamDeck
The official Steam Deck Docking Station was advertised on the Steam Deck page from its inception. It was originally to come some time this year, but was delayed in June due to "parts shortages and COVID closures at our manufacturing facilities." Their estimate is that it'll show up in late spring, hopefully they mean 2023.
We don't really know that much about the Steam Deck Docking Station, or what functionality it might have beyond the purely obvious, which I wouldn't expect it to have but you never know. Two years ago I wouldn't have said that Valve was making a handheld PC but here we are. Me writing, you reading.
Valve's description says that the dock "props up your Steam Deck while connecting to external displays, wired networking, USB peripherals, and power." Which, yep, that's about precisely what those ports on the pictures do.
Valve's dock did get beat to the market by a dock from Jsaux, which our Katie Wickens called "sturdy and practical" despite some "frustrating limitations" in the PC Gamer review. You can also just buy a powered USB-C hub, but it won't have a little tray to sit your deck in.
Valve's booth at Tokyo Game Show is pretty cool, to be honest. Amid conventions still being cancelled due to COVID and supply constraints causing delays, the Steam Deck didn't get the big in-person preview treatment that past hardware releases from Valve did. On Twitter, Valve designer Lawrence Yang did a quickie walkthrough of how their booth works.
Quick walkthrough of the Steam Deck booth experience at #TGS2022 - Walk in, get a swag bag- Watch a quick video- Grab a Steam Deck off the wall- Find a seat, have fun! pic.twitter.com/IATLKrOMitSeptember 16, 2022
See moreBeyond that look at the booth, Valve released a cool booklet about the Deck's development. We also got a look at a bunch of Steam Deck's in-progress development models, and even got to see how Half-Life 2 ran on a Steam Deck prototype.
Anyway, great spot on the dock post, NME.
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Sega is officially killing off the Yakuza name and will call the series Like a Dragon going forward. That means 2020's Yakuza: Like a Dragon will, ironically and appropriately, be the last game with Yakuza in the name.
This follows on the announcement of Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name and a look at the Like a Dragon 8 trailer this week at Tokyo Games Show. The series had been called Yakuza in English releases since 2006.
The clarification was made by Sega to Kotaku's Luke Plunkett, who told him that the name would "more closely align with the Japanese name."
That makes sense: In Japan, the series has always been called Ryu Ga Gotoku, which means... Like a Dragon. The studio that makes the series is also called Ryu Ga Gotoku. The branding, then, only changes in future Western releases. Still, expect to see the series referred to as Yakuza intermittently while we all get used to the swap.
No idea what all of us in the games press are going to do about that change, though. Telling you the trivia that it was called Ryu Ga Gotoku in Japan was always good for a free sentence in any article about the series.
The series formerly known as Yakuza has seen unprecedented success in the past few years, even selling 2.8 million copies on PC alone. It's one that Sega didn't advertise in the West that much during past years, but has started to treat as a big release. For Sega's boss, that's because it commits to its authentically Japanese vision.
That Japanese vision is also probably why we're getting a remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin!, the samurai-era Yakuza spinoff. Also why it's only getting subtitles, not dubs: Gotta stick to that vision.
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Elden Ring is getting a board game adaptation from Steamforged Games, the serial Bandai Namco board game adaptation collaborator behind the prior Dark Souls and Monster Hunter: World board games.
In a news release on their website, Steamforged announced the Elden Ring board game will be sold via a Kickstarter campaign. The announcement was accompanied by a render for a miniature of infamous early-game boss Margit, the Fell Omen.
"The video game’s characteristically challenging fights will be recreated by intelligent dice-free combat, requiring players to strategise and adapt their plans during each encounter," said the release.
“Our mission is always to deliver authentic tabletop adaptations that capture the essence of what fans know and love about the IP. Fans should expect a dark, richly-realised tabletop world of mystery and peril, with satisfying combat and rewarding exploration. Prepare to lose hours to this game, and to be glad about it,” said Mat Hart, the co-founder and chief creative officer at Steamforged.
None of that particularly describes what the game will be like, though. Diceless combat is more promising, as it's often a key to more functional, balanced, deterministic fights like those seen in Gloomhaven or even Into the Breach. I'm most interested in the idea that Steamforged might try to adapt or echo some of Elden Ring's open world spirit.
You can sign up for notifications about the Kickstarter campaign on the Elden Ring board game's pre-launch page over there. The time span before launch is "months," however.
Will it be a good board game? Well, that means it's opinion time, but given Steamforged Games' history it'll be a very ok game. The miniatures will probably be gorgeous, as has been true with all the Steamforged adaptations so far.
Rules-wise? None of Steamforged's adaptations have reached beyond functional into interesting, inspired, or truly great territory. They're functional if over-complex. Its release of the Dark Souls RPG earlier this year, however, was riddled with amateurish errors and—frankly—so lackluster that I wouldn't even recommend it to fans of the series.
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As part of 3d Realms' Realms Deep digital event, the publisher announced Phantom Fury, a sequel to 2019's Build engine FPS, Ion Fury. Replacing Voidpoint LLC in the driver's seat is Slipgate Ironworks, a Danish studio that helped co-develop the great Cyborg Ninja FPS, Ghostrunner.
While we had some misgivings about Ion Fury, we ultimately enjoyed and highly recommend the game. PC Gamer Editor-in-Chief Evan Lahti wrote in his review that "The whole world feels like it's been marinating in its own juices since 1996, and almost every corner feels hand-crafted."
Ion Fury and its upcoming DLC, Aftershock, were both developed by Voidpoint LLC on a modified version of the classic Build engine used in games like Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and Shadow Warrior. Slipgate Ironworks is going in a completely different direction aesthetically creating something that almost looks "PS2+" in its technology level, anachronistically mixing and matching graphical features. The chunkier models and dithered textures scream 2002, but the lighting is 100% 2022.
The throwback FPS combat certainly looks intact, and the trailer also showed off set pieces where you pilot a submarine and a fighter jet. The whole thing kinda smacks of being Ion Fury's own take on Duke Nukem Forever (2001), with the city and canyon environments, as well as the character art all reminding me of that lost game (which is currently being rebuilt by a group of modders.)
Also, I gotta say, as a Chicago boy, I love the inclusion of our iconic Marina City towers in the trailer. The Chicago PD cars visible at the end also prove this isn't a "The Dark Knight" situation with the city's locales just standing in for someplace fictional. Looking forward to seeing a dithered, low-poly Italian Beef wet with extra sweet peppers.
This is also something of a homecoming for Slipgate. Under its original name "Interceptor Entertainment," the developer released the top down, Unreal Engine 3 isometric shooter Bombshell in 2016. This was apparently originally supposed to be a Duke Nukem spinoff, one that the license holder Gearbox nipped in the bud. Interceptor instead introduced new protagonist Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison, who then went on to star in Ion Fury and now Phantom Fury.
The developer certainly seems to have come a long way since that unfortunate shooter, which we rated a 30% in our review all those years ago. Phantom Fury is currently set to release sometime in 2023, and you can wishlist it on Steam.
Image 1 of 6(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks)Image 2 of 6(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks)Image 3 of 6(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks)Image 4 of 6(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks)Image 5 of 6(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks)Image 6 of 6(Image credit: Slipgate Ironworks) -
You'll find a hint for today's Wordle just below, enough to nudge you in the right direction without giving the answer away. Don't worry if you would like someone to give away though—you'll find the solution to the September 17 (455) Wordle just a little further down the page.
Finding today's answer was more a process of elimination than anything. I always had just enough breadcrumbs to have some idea of where I was going, but in practice I got there more by noticing what I'd ruled out, rather than what I had. A bit like working out the shape of something from its shadow.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Saturday, September 17
Sometimes practical, always fun when you get to use them for yourself, these slopes and slides are found just about everywhere. They can be used to transport goods and materials from a higher location to a lower one, including laundry and household waste. You'll need to find two vowels today.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
- A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
- A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- The solution may contain repeat letters.
There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank.
Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)What is the Wordle 455 answer?
Some days you just need to know. The answer to the September 17 (455) Wordle is CHUTE.
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 16: PARER
- September 15: DOUBT
- September 14: THYME
- September 13: ALPHA
- September 12: BOOZE
- September 11: TIBIA
- September 10: LOFTY
- September 9: THEME
- September 8: CLASS
- September 7: LEERY
Learn more about Wordle
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns
️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. means you've got the right letter in the right spot.You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer.
After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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In a recent interview with Squawk Asia, a markets-focused vertical of CNBC, Xbox head Phil Spencer would not rule out future game studio acquisitions, even as the publisher continues to finalize its mammoth $75 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard.
In response to a question on whether the company will "remain acquisitive" or take a pause before future purchases, Spencer had this to say:
"This is such a competitive market, I don't think we get to press pause on anything. Tencent is the largest gaming company on the planet today, and they continue to heavily invest in gaming content and game creators."
Spencer continued, "Sony is a larger business than we are in gaming today, and they continue to invest. It's a highly, highly competitive market." The executive concluded, "We strive to be a major player. We want to deliver great content for our players, and we're going to remain active."
This certainly struck me as a likely scenario, even before Spencer directly confirmed it here. We seem to have entered a new paradigm of consolidation in the games industry, with corporations like Sony, the Embracer Group, Tencent, and Microsoft making one titanic acquisition after another in the past few years.
In further conversation with Squawk, Spencer insisted that the company did not have an interest in acquiring Discord, noting that he was very satisfied with the two companies' more collaborative relationship thus far.
Spencer seemed more amenable to Microsoft making moves in the JRPG space. This interview came while Spencer was in Japan for the Tokyo Game Show, and the executive observed that JRPGs remain the "home field" for Sony and Nintendo, while Microsoft has had a tougher time finding success in the Japanese market.
Spencer went on to describe holding extensive meetings with Japanese developers focused on building working relationships and meeting their needs. The Xbox head finished the interview by stating that Microsoft currently has no plans to raise the price of Xbox consoles in the wake of Sony's recent PS5 price hike announcement across most of the globe sans America.
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Yakuza fan site and forum Tojo Dojo recently shared translated portions of an interview with series producer Masayoshi Yokoyama where the developer revealed that the upcoming remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin! would only have Japanese voice acting with localized subtitles. Most of the series has held to this format, though the first game in the series on the PS2, as well as its most recent entry, Yakuza 7, both featured alternative English voice acting.
Yokoyama begins by describing how improved technology allowed the studio to alter facial animations to fit the different dubs of Yakuza 7, and also expressed that he believed English-speaking audiences generally prefer dubs to subtitled work.
That being said, Yokoyama noted that Yakuza 0, one of the most successful games in the series and the progenitor of its explosive success on PC, exclusively had Japanese voice acting. That ready success was not the only motivation for this decision: Yokoyama also noted that the unique dialect of Ishin's pre-Meiji era setting could also present complications.
"The specialized vocabulary and the way people talked during the Bakumatsu era would make the lines incredibly long, so it just wouldn't work." Yokoyama stated, according to Tojo Dojo's translation. "This time we're doing subtitles."
Yakuza 0 was certainly my entry point for the series, and for my own consumption I generally prefer subtitled foreign language media to dubs—with some exceptions. You won't see me insisting on the original Polish for the Witcher games, for example.
I can also easily see a more archaic dialect of Japanese making it much more difficult to match up lip syncing and cutscene timing, as Yokoyama seems to allude to in the interview. Additionally, from a stylistic standpoint, I'd find Bakumatsu-era samurai speaking in neutral-accented English to be especially incongruous.
I'm sympathetic that this won't be great for gamers with vision issues or possibly older, lower-resolution displays, but the move broadly makes sense. Yokoyama also doesn't necessarily preclude dubs in future games—I'd still expect to see the feature in the next mainline game, Like a Dragon 8.
MSI teases its next-gen Z790 motherboards
in Gaming News
Posted
It's an exciting time to be a PC hardware enthusiast. After a quiet 2022 so far, we're about to be inundated with product launches and upgrade options, including AMD's Ryzen 7000 series, Nvidia's RTX 40 GPUs and of course, Intel's 13th Gen series of CPUs and motherboards.
13th Gen CPUs will launch alongside Z790 motherboards. MSI has begun teasing its Z790 boards ahead of a virtual reveal event scheduled to take place on September 27. The event is expected to coincide with the launch of Intel's 13th Gen 'K' series of CPUs.
MSI's tweet teases several boards. It's expected MSI will stick with its product current branding, dividing its range into three broad segments. These are the high-end MEG series, the mid-range MPG series and the lower-tier MAG series. The MEG range includes models such as the Godlike, Unify, and Ace. The MPG series includes models such as the Carbon and Edge, while the MAG series includes the popular and highly regarded Tomahawk boards.
Z790 motherboards are expected to bring evolutionary upgrades over current Z690 boards. The chipset is expected to offer a higher I/O lane count, but the CPU PCIe 5.0 lane count will remain the same, meaning AMD will gain an advantage by offering dedicated PCIe 5.0 lanes for an SSD. Board makers have the option to split 13th Gen's 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes between the primary GPU slot and M.2 slots though.
Z790 boards and 13th Gen CPUs will offer native DDR5-5600 support. That's a nice increase over 12th Gen's base 4800MHz support, though it's no surprise given that 12th Gen CPUs and 600 series boards happily chug along at speeds of 6000MHz or more.
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
Users with a set of DDR4 will be pleased to know that vendors will offer select Z790 boards with DDR4 support. This gives Intel and advantage in total platform cost, whereas Ryzen 7000 series buyers are required to use more expensive DDR5.
If you don't want to buy a new motherboard, but do want to upgrade to a new CPU, you can. Vendors have already released BIOS updates for 600 series motherboards that add support for 13th Gen CPUs.
If you want to watch MSI's virtual event you'll need to register, but even if you're not set on buying an MSI board, tuning in could help you make a more informed choice, no matter which brand you end up going with.
PC Gamer will have a series of Z690 (and X670 and B650) reviews over the coming weeks and months, so keep an eye out for those.
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