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The USB Promoter Group has pre-announced the next USB version. USB4 version 2.0 promises to deliver speeds of up to 80Gbps. That’s double the 40Gbps speed of USB4 and Thunderbolt 4.
The technical details are still being worked on, but some of the key characteristics include the aforementioned 80Gbps support, type-c connectors, a higher power delivery spec, backwards compatibility with previous USB and Thunderbolt 3 standards, and support for the latest DisplayPort and PCIe specs.
In a welcome move, existing 40Gbps USB cables should support up to 80Gbps transfer rates, so a good quality 40Gbps USB cable should remain perfectly viable for many years to come.
Even more interesting is the claim that the new spec will allow USB 3.2 devices to potentially exceed 20Gbps. Details on how this will be accomplished aren't yet known. The cables themselves may not be the limiting factor but rather controllers or other components. USB 3.2 devices may also support 'latest versions of the DisplayPort and PCIe specifications.' Backward compatibility is a major strength of the protocol, but elevating the spec of older devices is quite something else. I look forward to seeing just how this comes to fruition, and what, if any limitations there are.
Peak Storage(Image credit: Future)
Best SSD for gaming: the best solid state drives around
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Best external SSDs: plug in upgrades for gaming laptops and consolesThe USB developers haven't settled on a naming scheme. USB 4.0 Version 2.0 is mercifully, just a placeholder name. It certainly isn’t as clunky a name as SuperSpeed USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, but why not just call it USB 5 or USB 80 Gbps? That would be entirely too logical I guess. Let’s hope it isn’t given some nonsensical branding or retroactively renamed to USB 4.2 Gen 2x4 80Gbps superduperludicrousspeed in the years ahead. It's confusing enough already.
Names aside, the adoption of faster USB connections is only a good thing. As external SSDs become more popular, the ability to transfer loads of data at faster speeds will definitely be welcome in my household.
Further technical details will be released at two USB developer days scheduled for November. With that in mind, its likely going to be a long time before we see the first USB 4.0 V2 devices on shelves. That leaves plenty of time for the USB group to come up with a ridiculous name for it.
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"Dungeons & Dragons in space" is a weird idea, and there's no way to approach it without embracing that weirdness. When the Spelljammer setting was originally written in the late 1980s, it threw together gun-loving hippo people, space hamsters, and a set of interplanetary physics based on 18th century pseudoscience. The end result is a kind of Jules Verne fantasy sci-fi where ships from the Age of Sail take jaunts beyond the atmosphere of their homes and find stranger ports of call beyond.
Does it get silly? When you're riding a giant space hamster as you leap onto the deck of a nautiloid, I guess it does. But it's the good kind of silly, somewhere between The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Guardians of the Galaxy. Plus, space pirates are just inherently cool.
(Image credit: James Oorloff Photography)The updated version of Spelljammer for D&D 5th edition comes as three slim hardcovers, 64 pages each, in a slipcase with a DM's screen. There's a bestiary, called Boo's Astral Menagerie, with stats for everything from barnacles that feed off ship magic then shoot it back out, to hyper-fashionable humanoids evolved from cephalopods who believe war is artistic expression. (A couple of creatures from another old setting sneak in too, the thri-kreen bug people and surran lizardfolk from the extremely 1990s world of Dark Sun.) There's also an adventure book, Light of Xaryxis, which presents a pulp mini-campaign designed to be run in 12 short sessions complete with cliffhanger endings. It's explicitly inspired by the 1980 Flash Gordon movie, which it even suggests watching in the intro.
Then there's the rulebook. The Astral Adventurer's Guide gets off to a strong start with player-character options like mechanical autognomes, the aforementioned thri-kreen, and stretchy ooze people called plasmoids. It sums up the differences between Wildspace (the gap between worlds, like space only warm and you automatically bring a bubble of oxygen and gravity when you enter it) and the Astral Sea (the space between systems, a heavenly realm of pure thought), and then deals with ship-to-ship combat in about half a page.
On certain corners of the internet this has been seen as an oversight of cruel proportions, a scam that sounds the death knell of D&D. Someone's probably burning their rulebooks on YouTube as we speak. But here's the thing: I've never seen an RPG with ship combat rules people actually liked. They're either a minigame you need figurines and an empty table to play out (maybe an empty floor, depending how they treat weapon ranges), or an abstraction that's tough to relate to what the PCs are actually doing. I guarantee that if Spelljammer came with an in-depth ship combat ruleset maybe one or two of my players would dig with it, and the rest would be split between not being engaged or just plain hating it.
Though there are rules for what happens when ships crash, as well as advice on starting distance and initiative, the intent is that you only have time to get off a shot with the ballista or mangonel to soften up your opponent, and then you close—either swinging across on ropes or preparing to repel boarders. Spelljammer assumes player-characters are about level 5 before they're ready to travel between worlds, and that means they've probably got a sheet full of abilities, feats, spells, and at least one uncommon magic item. Make the neat stuff you can already do the focus of your space battles, it says.
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)The absence that hits harder for me is the lack of setting information. Following a section on ship stats, the most detailed part of the book with full deck plans for 16 craft to swashbuckle across, comes a chapter on the Rock of Bral. This pirate haven hub for your adventures gets a fancy fold-out map, but its locations are summed up briefly, and the characters who live there get short shrift.
There's a great illustration of a friendly bar-owning beholder named Large Luigi, exactly the kind of larger-than-life NPC you want Spelljammer to be full of, but this section feels abbreviated, crammed into a tight page count. And if you want a broader history of the setting or its factions, you won't find that here either.
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Those gaps can be filled with info from the original version of Spelljammer, whether sourced from the Forgotten Realms wiki (one of the better fan-run collections of nerd knowledge, here's its section on Realmspace for instance), while pdfs of the old books from AD&D 2e like Rock of Bral are available too. You'll need to sift out stuff that references the more problematic aspects of ye olde D&D, most of which have been quietly ignored in the new books (though there was an unfortunate slip-up with the hadozee, which the publisher apologized for and removed).
It does feel like Spelljammer 5e was written with the assumption that people will just Google it when, for example, they want to know what an astral dominion is like. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)Something Spelljammer absolutely nails is the artwork, and that's vital. I remember being intrigued by the original books and then cracking them open to find pages and pages of dry text broken only occasionally by art that was as likely to be a picture of some rocks in space as it was something exciting. I gravitated to the more lavish-looking Planescape books instead because I'm shallow.
Even if you're not as shallow as me, art is important when you're trying to get across outré concepts like "space is a psychedelic swirl that fish swim in and sometimes asteroids are alive", and these three books are full of vivid imagery you'll want to show players. I just wish there were more pictures of NPCs. If there's a named character I want to see a headshot of them, gosh darn it
But I'm definitely not bothered by the lack of ship-to-ship combat subsystems. Minimizing the amount of new stuff everyone has to learn is for the best, and I'm glad to see they've dropped the rules for spellcasters losing spells when they pilot spelljammers, and clerics being restricted based on whether their god has enough influence in any given area of Wildspace. The absence of complex options encourages a loosey-goosey approach that's more in-line with how 5e works best—encouraging you to strategically ignore the rules when someone has an idea that's fun.
(Image credit: James Oorloff Photography)Playing a Spelljammer game recently, the first two things I did when our ship was ambushed from behind was convince the pilot to do a "Waterdeep drift" to get the forward-mounted ballista lined up, and then use one of my arcane archer's abilities on said ballista. The first act was pointless since by the rules a spelljammer ship can reorient to face any direction on its turn—they're magic after all—and the second was technically illegal since arcane shot is only supposed to work with shortbows or longbows. But the DM, bless him, said "yes, and" to both so I got to do a cool ridiculous thing. About 90% of D&D is letting players do cool ridiculous things.
I hope that when the Planescape setting gets a similar treatment next year it's handled a little differently, though. Like Spelljammer, Planescape has a default hub to serve as a base for players, the interdimensional city of Sigil, and I'd love to get a comprehensive overview of that, complete with full write-ups of colorful NPCs, even if it means a shorter adventure and less monsters.
The old rules for magic items gradually weakening as they're taken away from their plane of origin can absolutely get in the bin, though.
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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.
Who's Who?
Steam page
Release: August 29
Developer: G1 Playground
Launch price: $5 | £4 | AU$7.50Here's a cheerful-looking online party game with a bit of a whiff of Among Us about it, albeit a little less complex. In Who's Who? you need to figure out who's real and who's an AI character, while simultaneously trying to pass off as an AI character yourself. This means you'll need to get really good at behaving like an NPC, while also finetuning your instinct for noticing the tells of "real person" behavior. If you suspect one of the roaming Funko Pop-like characters are real you have to attack them (what else?), but if you happen to attack a fake character it's game over for you. This central premise is spread across a handful of game modes, and you'll be able to customize your character as well—though presumably you'll want to avoid standing out too much.
Orx
Steam page
Release: August 31
Developer: johnbell
Launch price: $18 | £12.59 | AU$26.05Jonathan Bolding described Orx as "Carcassonne crossed with They Are Billions", which sounds pretty on the money to me. Launched into Early Access last week, it blends tower defense with deck building in a lengthy rogue-lite campaign featuring over 300 cards, all of which should help decimate "orx" as they blunder towards your base. This Early Access launch features two factions, over 30 enemies, and quite a few ways to optimize difficulty. The Early Access period is expected to last "about a year from now", and during that time it'll get a total of four factions, a "meta-progression" system and some other unspecified stuff. The art has a really inviting pixel-comic style that should please your eyes as you slay orcs, too.
World Fighting Soccer 22
(Image credit: Melko Game Club)Steam page
Release: August 31
Developer: Melko Game Club
Launch price: $6 | £4.34 | AU$8.62Here's a pleasantly simple and retro take on soccer. Played from a sidelong perspective, World Fighting Soccer 22 abides by the general rules of soccer—kick the ball into the goal to score—but it's presented in a way that almost resembles Smash Bros. or MultiVersus. Oh, and the soccer ball is on fire, for some reason (I suspect the reason is that it looks cool). This one looks great to play with friends on the couch, but there's also a single player campaign and a training mode, if you want to make sure your friends never get the edge over you.
Until The End
(Image credit: Red Sorel Games)Steam page
Release: September 1
Developer: Red Sorel Games
Launch price: $5 | £4.22 | AU$7Here's a fascinating looking game about working in a palliative care unit. Recent graduate Zoe has just started her first nursing job, so she's a little green, but that's ok because you—the player and thus the expert—are here to advise her on the best ways to care for her patients. It's a narrative-driven adventure game at heart, so your choices will matter, and it was written with the input of a real palliative care nurse, so it's probably the most authentic game about nursing on Steam (perhaps the only?). There are eight patients under your care, and how you interact with them and treat them will determine which of the "several endings" you'll see.
Kraino Origins
Steam page
Release: September 3
Developer: GameAtomic
Launch price: $10 | £7.19 | AU$14.50Kraino Origins is basically a Ghosts 'n Goblins clone, with an art style closer to the original than the recent (and pretty good) series reboot Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection. Across eight levels you'll be subjected to gruellingly exact platforming, enemies with predictable but infuriating movement patterns, and bosses that'll stump you for days. Yes, it will probably be incredibly painful to play, but the art is beautiful and the satisfaction for beating it immense. As old school as they come.
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Rumors that new Silent Hill games are in the works were all but confirmed when Konami issued a DMCA strike on a previous leak. That leak, which included concept art signed by the original games' art director Masahiro Ito, seemed to come from a new Silent Hill set in Britain. However, there have also been rumors of a Silent Hill 2 remake being developed by Bloober Team, the divisive studio behind The Medium, Blair Witch, and the Layers of Fear series.
Now a set of images purporting to come from a demo created by Bloober Team as part of an internal pitch to secure the remake have appeared. The low-resolution pictures show Silent Hill 2's protagonist James Sunderland exploring buildings from a third-person perspective, with the third depicting a bubble-head nurse—one of the game's iconic enemies.
The original Silent Hill 2 featured multiple camera angles, sometimes static, sometimes following James at a high angle, sometimes close and claustrophobic. The over-the-shoulder perspective of these screenshots suggests something more fixed, in the style of the recent remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3, which would be an obvious inspiration for a remake of a survival horror game of a similar vintage. Though it didn't make it into the final game, there was even a plan for Silent Hill 2 to include unscripted encounters with Pyramid Head, as with Resident Evil 2's Mr. X.
Another picture, allegedly of concept art for the remake, has also been doing the rounds. It depicts James holding a pistol and hiding from Pyramid Head, who is in the act of dismembering two mannequins. A reference to the infamous scene in Silent Hill 2's Wood Side Apartments, this version of Pyramid Head seems to be based on Figma's Red Pyramid Thing figurine, which has a bullet hole in its faceplate. Masahiro Ito has said that Pyramid Head isn't supposed to have a hole in its helmet, so this doesn't seem like his work. Also, once you've realized James isn't wearing socks it's hard to notice anything else. That doesn't rule it out from being early concept art, of course. Even if these images are genuine, if they're from an internal pitch there's no reason to believe the final game will end up resembling them.
Since Bloober Team worked with both Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka and singer Mary Elizabeth McGlynn on The Medium, it sure would be great to see them return for a remake. Right now, Bloober's working on a remake and compilation of the Layer of Fear games called Layers of Fears.
Meanwhile, Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama is currently heading Bokeh Game Studio, working on a new horror-adjacent game called Slitterhead that will definitely have Yamaoka handling the music.
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A group on ModDB is attempting to finish the in-progress build of Duke Nukem Forever that leaked online back in May. The DNF2001 Restoration Project team is taking the bones of that mythical 2001 build and filling in the gaps, extrapolating its story and direction while also looking to make it playable from start to finish with minimal hassle. The team recently released a "first slice" teaser trailer of their work so far, featuring previously unused DNF trailer music by Lee Jackson, a retired 3D Realms composer who wrote Duke's iconic theme, Grabbag.
Duke Nukem Forever has long been the shorthand for a troubled development cycle, with multiple reboots and years of silence culminating in an underwhelming Xbox 360 shooter. It didn't have to be this way though—Duke Nukem Forever's E3 2001 trailer long remained a glimpse at what could have been.
Maybe it's just the nostalgia talking, you say, or the enticing draw of the road not travelled, but when I saw the gameplay of that leaked '01 build, I couldn't help but think "Wait, this looks rad as hell." I was really tickled by the protracted "Duke on a Late Night Talk Show" bit whose dialogue remains in the game in text form, an idea that was only briefly touched on in the 2011 game. The FPS action looks great too, with more sprawling levels and Boomer Shootery gunplay than the final release. As Gloomwood creator Dillon Rogers pointed out, Duke Nukem Forever '01 might be right at home in the thriving retro shooter scene of 2022.
While extensive, the leaked DNF build is not yet a cohesive game, and still needs quite a bit of TLC to be playable from start to finish. According to the team, most of the work thus far has been on reconstructing the game's first chapter, with a visual comparison video showing off the changes they've made to the Las Vegas chapter. The team is also working on streamlining the engine and renderer in the hopes of having something that plays well with modern hardware.
The DNF2001 RP team is also working on an "all-new story" for the game, one that can "bridge the gaps between what we know about the game and what we don't." That said, they're endeavoring to keep everything period-accurate to this pre-2003 vision of Duke. I'm reminded of the essential Sith Lords Restored Content Modification for Knights of the Old Republic 2, or the Plus Patch for Vampire: the Masquerade—Bloodlines: a bit of interpretive work is required when trying to reconstruct unused content like this.
I'm really excited for this project, and while it definitely won't be the retro shooter of 2022, perhaps the Duke curse is lifted and it will manage to be the retro shooter of 202X. The team has been sharing updates to YouTube and ModDB, and also has a community Discord.
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The delightful people at Elden Ring developer FromSoftware's parent company have decided that yes, we deserve a comic—well, Japanese Manga—adaptation of Elden Ring. That parent company is Kadokawa, one of the largest publishers of manga in the world.
So they've taken their vast stable of talent and decided to make... a comedy. A gag strip. A goof. A series of laughs. You can read the first two issues, for free, today, via comic-walker. The announcement was made on Famitsu.
If you've never read Japanese comics before, know that you start reading from top right to bottom left, and click the left side of the screen to advance pages. The first two issues are called "You Thought This'd Be Serious, Didn't You?" and "Probably Maiden."
Manga fans will be pleased to know that the joking adaptation will be done by Nikiichi Tobita, the creator of equally-goofy fantasy comic A Cursed Sword's Daily Life. If you've read any of that one, well, it's a perfect match: It's also a comic that turns a dark fantasy world into a comedy.
The debut issues are absolutely packed with gags both fourth wall breaking and in-game. "It's just a lot of new proper nouns here," says the confused protagonist at one point, perfectly mimicking the attitude of new FromSoft game players everywhere. (Of which, in Elden Ring's case, there are a lot.)
So if you're down for a comic about armored knights kicking some dimwit into orbit, or a horse that's into firm thighs, or a lady who's very frustrated at the limited selection of companions she's got available, or Elden Ring generally, go ahead and check it out over on comic-walker. The English releases will come alongside the Japanese, with the next issue set for September 19th.
In other Elden Ring news, there's 800-pages of official art books on the way. Those are Japanese only for now, but expect English eventually because Elden Ring is undeniably a massive, massive hit that'll prove influential for years to come. Our Tyler Colp is already saying that Elden Ring is the new Skyrim, citing developers who've talked about how the game has already changed their in-progress games.
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A pretty cool game with a pretty unwieldy title comes out on September 15th, as Despot's Game: Dystopian Army Builder bursts out of Early Access. The Steam demo was a highlight of Next Fest last year, and since it released last October its been pretty positively received.
In Despot's Game you organize a squad of "puny humans" who arrive in the toruture labyrinth of rogue AI d’Spot and have to face challenges and quests to escape. You organize them with weird weapons, like stale pretzels or cultist's robes, and place them as tactically as you can before they dive into autobattles.
It's basically I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream except you have no mouth and someone hands you a buster sword and dresses up the person next to you in a sailor moon outfit and then you fight a man-eating cabbage. It's absurd, irreverent, and entertaining.
For me Despot's Game is a real good bite-size strategy game. I can jump in and get a twenty or thirty minute slice of tactical goodness that doesn't require my brain to be working too well. I can make weird combos like refrigerator shield tanks that guard some cthulhu-summoning cultists, or TF2 Engineers laying down a barrage of fire while a bunch of wolverine wannabes close the distance.
There are a fat stack of weird equipment and mutations to give your puny humans, and it's all about finding weird combos and fun concepts to win. There's also a multiplayer mode where you can see your stupid and/or winning team ideas face off against others' stupid ideas in seasonal matches.
As it stands, the singleplayer might frustrate those who don't want to learn the mechanics or can't roll with a difficulty spike by changing their build. Balance changes, enemy reworks, new mutations, quests, mechanics, and a more traditional autobattler multiplayer are all slated for the 1.0 release later this month.
You can find more on official website despotsgame.com, or just jump right to Despot's Game on Steam, where it costs $15, though they say it'll increase once it releases from Early Access on September 15th.
Anyway, here's an extremely chaotic gif about the game.
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Torchlight Infinite, the latest game in the ARPG series after 2020's mixed bag, Torchlight 3, has entered a closed playtest on Steam ahead of a planned October release. Infinite is free-to-play, loot-focused, and also releasing on mobile.
I have fond memories of Torchlights 1 and 2, released in 2009 and 2012 respectively. Torchlight was one of the first entries of the 2010s revitalization of top-down, loot-heavy ARPGs like Diablo 3 and Path of Exile, and remains unique with its vibrant art style and simpler, easier to grasp build crafting. Developer Runic Games was shuttered by its owners, Perfect World, in 2017, with development on Torchlight 3 handed off to San Francisco-based Echtra Games.
We weren't enamored with Torchlight 3. In his review, Luke Winkie gave it a 60%, remarking midway through that "It was about the 12th time in a row that I found myself delving into a cookie-cutter dungeon in order to finish yet another uninspired quest that I began to notice what was missing was more than what was there."
Perfect World has now given the franchise to Shanghai-based XD Inc. In promo for Infinite, XD highlights the game's build and ability variety, loot grinding, and in-game auction house. On the game's monetization, XD describes Infinite as "burden-free gaming," and while "exclusive drops" can only be achieved via grinding, players can "Further [their] personal visions on builds and appearance from available microtransactions."
Infinite could very well wind up being a fun, fair take on the F2P loot-em-up. Even if it isn't, fellow PC ARPG convert Diablo Immortal proved that it's at least a very lucrative prospect. Either way, this doesn't exactly scream Torchlight to me. The "ultimate free market" and "grind to get it all" promised by Infinite seem as far as can be from the plucky, laid-back Diablolike I enjoyed back in 2009. If you're interested in Infinite, you can wishlist it on Steam and apply for the closed playtest.
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It might surprise you to learn that there are very many free games that don't fit the modern free-to-play model. I say that because every time somebody posts a link to some impressive, public, open-source game project that minutely recreates some abandoned classic people seem shocked.
So here's some of the best, the big fat lists of open source games and open source game clones. What do I mean when I say that?
I mean these are free public projects that produce games inspired by and using the mechanics of old classics, games like Rollercoaster or Transport Tycoon, Doom, XCOM, Red Alert, Civilization, and Sim City—not to mention the classic roguelikes like NetHack and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.
First off I'll point you at the Open Source Game List, or OSGL, a lovely list of these games. Specifically their Top 50 Open Source Games is an invaluable resource for people getting started on the cool old stuff. It'll point you at classics like OpenRCT2 and GZDoom, as well as impressively unique masterworks like Mindustry and Citybound.
My other go-to is osgameclones, which is a frankly overwhelming and vastly tagged list of games. It's a bit tricky to get the hang of, but has tags you can click on to understand what's going on: Tags like Clone, Official, and Remake help differentiate what's going on. For those who want to really wade in, I suggest the complete and playable tags as strong starting points.
Finally, you might enjoy libregamewiki, which is exactly what it sounds like: A big ol wiki of open source games.
These resources are not only cool adventures in programming, they're also lovely work that helps people gaming on low-end and low-spec systems. Lots of them are also workable on or have a Linux distribution, for all you newly-minted Linux users who've come to the OS via Steam Deck. I've got a real hankering to grab Freeciv and OpenXCOM now, frankly.
I'll see you later. Probably.
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The latest look at Homeworld 3 beats out past eyefuls of gameplay by about three minutes, which I like quite a bit. You know why? It has lots more nice sweeping space ships and gravelly radio comms chatter and ancient, arcane megastructures.
The trailer, called Kesura Oasis, outlines a conflict in the Homeworld 3 campaign where a force of enemy raiders ambushes a resource-collecting and repair mission headed up by a mothership. ("It's a new design, a sort of flat croissant rather than the huge upright banana of past motherships in the series," I said in our everything we know about Homeworld 3 piece.)
In the trailer we're shown maneuvering around terrain, and how that can give ships an advantage against their supposed counters. There's also spotlights on the importance of gathering resources to build new ships, as well as using those same resource extractors to capture and convert disabled enemy vessels.
The big centerpiece of the trailer is all about showing off a conflict between the mothership and a raider carrier with escorts. The carrier jumps in, launching waves of enemies and threatening with its larger escort frigates. In response, the mothership has to deploy more fighters to screen their resource income while bombers and assault frigates are produced to take out the larger enemy ships.
Our Phil Savage recently got his hands on Homeworld 3, and his impression was that it was a space RTS all about terrain.
"The environmental artistry that Homeworld is known for—the grandeur of space, its asteroid fields and derelict ships, is no longer just part of the skybox. It's now an active part of each mission—an aspect of terrain to strategise around," he said.
Homeworld 3 will be released in 2023, following a delay in June. For more, check out everything we know about Homeworld 3 which I know I linked earlier but am absolutely going to link again for those people who read the first and last paragraphs exclusively.
You can find Homeworld 3 on official website homeworlduniverse.com, and you can see its Epic Games Store or Steam page ahead of release. It'll be the latest in the space RTS series that first brought three dimensional combat to the genre—the first mainline release since Homeworld 2 released in 2003, and seven years since spinoff Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak released in 2016.
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Soulstone Survivors is an upcoming action roguelike that just dropped a demo last month, a free prologue where you can check out the blend of wildly over-the-top builds and classes that power the bullet heaven. You know, a reverse bullet hell where you're the hell.
It comes off something like a blend of Risk of Rain and Vampire Survivors, with character classes that have their own unique abilities allowing complex builds when blended with a broad suite of generic powers. At the same time it has the core conceit of Vampire Survivors: You don't control when your abilities fire off, they just do.
Soulstone Survivors shares both games' penchant for big nasty bosses and waves of enemies, but they're more like Risk of Rain in that the varieties of baddies have their own powers to unleash on you. The bosses have special moves too, often four or five of them, and learning to dodge what's coming is a big part of play.
The demo available on Steam has three character classes, the Barbarian, the Pyromancer, and the Houndmaster. Each has their own playstyle and an unlockable secondary weapon, which starts them with a different ability and set of stats. For my part, I really loved the pyromancer, who got big buffs to damage and ability area of effect. Buffed up with speed it became an uncatchable meteor-tossing monster.
You can also customize each character with a tree of permanent, passive buffs like experience pick-up range, health, attack speed, and more like you'd expect. The clutch add to the formula, for me, was the addition of a single activated ability: A dodge. It's great for jumping out of an enemy AoE and adds just that little bit of control over the situation that I so often crave in Vampire Survivors.
I find it hard to dislike singleplayer games that are all about building some wildly broken combination of abilities and shattering the game with them. There's something about knowing that the developers want me to go absolutely hog wild that I really love.
You can find Soulstone Survivors on Steam, where it'll release this year. You can also find the free demo, Soulstone Survivors: Prologue, on Steam. It's developed and self-published by indie studio Game Smithing Limited.
(Image credit: Game Smithing Limited)(Image credit: Game Smithing Limited)(Image credit: Game Smithing Limited) -
Hello ZeArdilani,
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.
ZeArdilani joined on the 09/04/2022.
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Whether you just want a quick clue for today's Wordle or you'd like the answer to the September 4 (442) challenge handed out as quickly as possible, you'll find all you need and plenty more just below.
Finding four yellows in an opening guess surely means I'm just a short hop away from success—and it would have been, if I didn't manage to get four yellows in the follow-up too. Transforming that mess into four greens felt like the turnaround of the century, even though in many ways I had most of the answer in front of me.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Sunday, September 4
On its own today's answer is used to describe placing a dead body into the ground, however it's more often seen as a prefix, meaning "between" in some way. Between nations, districts, departments, cultures, and more. You'll need to find two different 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 442 answer?
Some days those greens just don't appear in time. The answer to the September 4 (442) Wordle is INTER
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 3: GULLY
- September 2: CHARM
- September 1: FUNGI
- August 31: PRIZE
- August 30: ONSET
- August 29: CHIEF
- August 28: GAUZE
- August 27: RUDER
- August 26: IRONY
- August 25: CLOWN
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 August, Wizards of the Coast published Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, an updated version of a Dungeons & Dragons setting released in the 1980s that blends science fiction with fantasy. This week, its description of flying monkey-people called hadozee was criticized online for resembling various racist stereotypes. Portrayals of Black people as monkeys or apes have a long history and are the source of things like the monkey chanting regularly directed at Black players during football and cricket matches around the world, so similarities between the hadozee and aspects of real-world bigotry were bound to be closely scrutinized.
Wizards of the Coast, which previously announced its intent to move D&D away from racial stereotypes by doing away with biological essentialism, removing text that echoes real-world stereotypes, and working with sensitivity readers, has now apologized. The full text of its statement is below:
We wanted to acknowledge and own the inclusion of offensive material within our recent Spelljammer: Adventures in Space content. We failed you, our players and our fans, and we are truly sorry.
The campaign includes a people called Hadozee which first appeared in 1982. Regrettably, not all portions of the content relating to the Hadozee were properly vetted before appearing in our most recent release. As we continue to learn and grow through every situation, we recognize that to live our values, we have to do better.
Throughout the 50-year history of Dungeons & Dragons, some of the characters in the game have been monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world groups have been and continue to be denigrated. We understand the urgency of changing how we work to better ensure a more inclusive game.
Effective immediately, we will remove the offensive content about Hadozee in our digital versions – and these will no longer be included in future reprints of the book. Our priority is to make things right when we make mistakes. In addition, we’ve initiated a thorough internal review of the situation and will take the necessary actions as a result of that review.
We are eternally grateful for the ongoing dialog with the D&D community, and we look forward to introducing new, engaging and inclusive content to D&D for generations to come. D&D teaches that diversity is strength, for only a diverse group of adventurers can overcome the many challenges a D&D story presents. In that spirit, we are committed to making D&D as welcome and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.
The revised Spelljammer text removes a description of the hadozees' progenitors as "timid" mammals. It also deletes their origin as uplifted experiments created by a wizard to make enhanced warriors, who were then liberated by the wizard's apprentices. The removed backstory's unfortunate similarity to white savior myths of missionaries lifting Black people out of "savagery", and of slaves depending on outsiders to free them, seem like a consequence of drawing inspiration from the rebooted Planet of the Apes movies. (Spelljammer also includes analoges of other science fiction media like the vulcans from Star Trek and energy vampires from Lifeforce.)
So wait. You mean to tell me that Wizards of the Coasts took a race of Monkey people called the Hazodee that were originally free roaming and nomadic in 3.5, and turned them into Ex Slaves, bred specifically for slavery, with a higher pain tolerance than others? The 'frell'?August 31, 2022
See moreSome of the criticism of the hadozee on Twitter conflated their new incarnation with information from a fan wiki summarizing their treatment in previous editions of D&D, in which they were described as "fang-baring, and snarling" as well as happily working for elves, despite the elves not respecting them. This portrayal was already absent from the recent Spelljammer book, however, having been replaced by the story of their origin as liberated experiments. The new Spelljammer also ignores problematic parts of the original background like the aperusa (a race of travelers inspired by the Romani people), and a series of racially motivated conflicts called the Unhuman Wars.
An updated version of D&D's core rules is currently being playtested. Among the changes so far are allowing players to choose which ability scores to add bonuses to during character creation rather than having them being tied to their choice of race, and replacing the entries for half-elves and half-orcs with rules that let you play the child of any two kinds of humanoid.
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Hello Quewisorest,
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.
Quewisorest joined on the 09/04/2022.
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THE PCG Q&A
Find all previous editions of the PCG Q&A here. Some highlights:
- What should boomer shooters be called?
- How long do you spend in character creators?
- What do we want from Fallout 5?Thanks to HenrykForkbeard, who posed this question on the PC Gamer forum, asking. "If you were a video game, what genre/type of game would you be and why? (Extra credit for a story/character description)." It's definitely a much more interesting query than "what kind of tree would you be", a question that only rarely lets you know which people are messy dating sims.
If you were a videogame, what kind of game would you be and why?
Here are our answers, plus some from our forum.
Lauren Morton, Associate Editor: An open world RPG with no limit on how many things you can keep active in your quest log. All the quests sound cool. I want to finish all of them but I can't choose which to do first—the closest? The biggest? The main questline? My favorite companion's personal quest? All I know is I'm going to pick up every single quest I can find, get halfway through most of them, complete the least consequential, and ignore the main quest as long as I'm allowed, all while stuffing my inventory with crafting materials I've hoarded even though I can't remember what they were for.
Robin Valentine, Print Editor: I'd be a classic point-and-click adventure game where the protagonist wanders slowly around offering half-baked quips about things when you click on them. One of those ones where you’re constantly getting stuck and just bashing random objects together hoping they combine into a solution.
Jody Macgregor, Weekend/AU Editor: I'd be a stealth game. I'm just over here quietly doing my thing on a low-chaos Clean Hands playthrough. (In this game the healing items are cups of tea.)
(Image credit: Creative Assembly)Sean Martin, Guides Writer: I'd likely be a Total War game, but specifically that advisor you can't work out how to turn off. You know, the one who pops up at random times to shout stuff like "YOU ARE AT WAR WITH THE ETRUSCAN LEAGUE!" or chooses inopportune moments to ramble about the minute differences between spearmen.
Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor: I am too clever by half and will make you feel bad for your choices no matter what they are. I am Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords.
(Image credit: Guerilla Games)Imogen Mellor, Features Producer: I'd be an action-RPG about a woman with a bow. As an archer in real life, I always pick archery builds when they're available and so I'd ideally be a game where the archery was both good, and fairly accurate while being fun. I'm still waiting for any improvement from Wii Sports Resort.
Rich Stanton, News Editor: My game would be half survival sim where you maintain a base, then half a Katamari-esque physics sim where feral children screw it all up as you flop uselessly around trying to contain the mess.
Andy Chalk, US News Lead: I'm an idle game. Leave me alone and I'll do what I do.
(Image credit: Steel City Interactive)Tyler Wilde, Executive Editor: I took up amateur boxing a year ago, so I guess I'd be a fighting game. I haven't actually competed, though, so we'll say it's in early access, and only includes a training stage right now. Also, I injured my wrist earlier this year and had some pretty unhealthy habits prior to my mid-30s, so you're using a creaky old controller with a sticky D-pad, and sometimes your preferred character appears to wince during their idle animation, which is weird. Still, you're pretty sure you'll be good when the full game releases. Your character gets winded quickly, but their hubris stat is maxed out, which you assume is good.
Lauren Aitken, Deputy Guides Editor: I'm definitely either a narrative-driven RPG, with lots of choices and romance and drama, or a chaotic management sim.
From our forum
HenrykForkbeard: I think I'd be an RPG with a roller coaster of emotions story line that is distinctly like Dark Souls in terms of its annoyance and difficulty. The story would be based around 8 individual characters that you'd follow through on a journey to find out in the end, it's really only one character that existed with split personalities and lots of loot.
(Image credit: Microsoft)WoodenSaucer: I was thinking of Solitaire... because I just want to be alone, but everybody plays me for a cheap thrill.
Pifanjr: One of those edutainment games that teaches you programming. It has a story to tie all the programming assignments together, but it's pretty weak.
Kaamos_Llama: Something that ends up in development hell because all the creatives have totally different ideas, and then it never gets released.
(Image credit: Rockstar)Frindis: I'd be an annoying John McClane with a headache type of character in a detective point-and-click FPS game set in a neo-noir looking world. I'd work at night getting a slight tan from all the burning neon lights feeding on my headache which will make me even more eager to end the night and finish my mission. The missions will come from my Boss, Mr. Biggles, a sad creature with a pointy tail wearing an ugly-looking hat from the mid-80s. The kind of hat you think makes you look cool but in reality, you look like somebody stomped your face in a puddle of Melvin the mop guy and made that your hat.
Biggles would always give me those annoying phone calls just as you are going to bed, telling me that YOU are the only one he had on his list and who can do the job. In reality, you know that he hates your guts and hope you slip up on the job, killing somebody. I'll always give him the "Yes, sir" then I slam the phone, drink acid on the rocks, and scream the way down to my rusty old sleeper bike.
I'll put on my snakeskin helmet, slam the pedal down and ooze down the bright lanes of hell while listening to the only music a sane person in this poopoo world would listen to - A catatonic deep bass punk music by the Great Warheads.
(Image credit: InXile)mainer: An open world, party-based (4-6 companions) RPG. Either a fantasy or sci-fi theme, or maybe post-apocalyptic. Companions and NPCs would have real in-depth personalities and have advanced AI, so that they feel like living, breathing people (no more repeating the same dialog over and over). Lots of dialog and banter. Conversations and choices made would always have some affect in the game whether large or small. Exploration and discovery would be key features. Perspective would probably be 3rd person, though I'm not opposed to 1st person or even isometric.
ZedClampet: My game would be Napping and Video Games Simulator because I'm about to retire. The main character would be an old guy who sees a young guy when he looks in a mirror.
(Image credit: Osprey Games)Brian Boru: After the incredible success of my board game, I've been inundated with requests to bring it to the video game world. The clincher was when Gabe offered to release it as the B side of Half Life 3—so design is well under way, working title Brian's Saga.
You play as me, of course. Starting as a young prince of Thomond, the game begins in 976 after the death of your older brother and your first action is to drive the Vikings from Limerick city and secure it.
After that tutorial-like prologue comes Act 1, expansion until dominating the southern province of Munster by 978. Act 2 continues the expansion until achieving domination over the southern half of the island by 996—this will be the toughest part of the game, with many shifting alliances and strong opposition.
Act 3 is securing the High Kingship of Ireland by 1002, mainly by defeating the previously dominant O'Neills. Rather than the previous clan v clan battles and skirmishes, this period will feature full-on major campaigns and conflicts.
Act 4 is the final one, dealing with various rebellions, but mainly culminating in the final epic Battle of Clontarf in 1014, where you lead your army against a Norse-Irish defense of Dublin—and finally end the Vikings as a military force on the island.
Only 4 acts, but 50-100 scenes all told, just fleshing out some at the moment. Only sure one is the game's final scene, the big duel where you cleave SilkBeard in two, thereby making him ForkBeard…
So there you have it. While the outline sounds like one long bloodbath—and it is!—there will be a major diplomatic game going on beside the military one. If you don't bring the right guys onside, if you don't marry the right woman, if you don't give the right gift, if your daughter doesn't accept the right proposal… you get the idea, things will quickly go south on the battlefield. Which clearly isn't good, since most of your push is northwards
I haven't decided yet, but seems natural for combined turn-based strategic and diplomatic phases interspersed with tactical resource claiming and military action. Perhaps dynamic, switching to tactical only when there are opposing strategic moves into the same region.
There will be an easy difficulty level where you don't have to meet the 'by year' targets, and I'll probably take some liberties with the map to enable more naval tactics—navy was a big part of BB's success.
Anyway, early days yet, Gabe says I have a bit of time to flesh it all out.
(Image credit: Hello Games)ruzuyu: I'd probably be No Man's Sky at launch...
SWard: Am.... Am I candy crush?
I asked PCG Lauren and she suggested I'm probably Jackbox, cause it's loud and interactive. She's achingly right.
Krud: Probably The Stanley Parable.
[Krud looked carefully at his answer. He knew that some might read more into this choice than he intended, and wasn't sure whether to stick with it, but ultimately decided it was as good an answer as any. He then returned to pushing buttons at his desk.]
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Cloudflare, a high-profile online service and security company, has taken the largely unprecedented step of blocking access to its customer, the forum Kiwi Farms. Kiwi Farms, a chan-adjacent forum linked to multiple harassment campaigns, suicides, and the 2019 Christchurch shooting in New Zealand, has most recently played host to a concerted, life-threatening harassment campaign against the left-wing Twitch streamer Clara 'Keffals' Sorrenti that has forced her to flee her native Canada.
Sorrenti was swatted at the beginning of August, with the police of London, Ontario, coming to her home on August 5 in response to a fraudulent mass shooting threat made in Sorrenti's name. Sorrenti moved to a hotel, where stalkers were able to identify her location by comparing the bedsheets in an image shared to Twitter against promotional images of hotels online.
Sorrenti then flew to Northern Ireland, where Kiwi Farms users ascertained her location once more and shared an image of her lodgings with a threatening message online. This entire time, Sorrenti has remained outspoken in defiance of the threat to her life, and initiated a campaign to pressure Cloudflare to terminate its client relationship to Kiwi Farms.
While Cloudflare does not host Kiwi Farms, its security services are still essential to the site's operation. Until September 3, the company maintained that it would not end its services to Kiwi Farms, asserting that intersession by law enforcement would be the proper way to end the site's activities, and outlining its abuse policy.
That changed on September 3, when Cloudflare blocked access to Kiwi Farms, with pages on the domain instead loading to a block page and a link to a blog post by Cloudflare president Matthew Prince. Prince stated that the move was not in response to the pressure campaign and increased public scrutiny, but rather an "imminent and emergency threat to human life which continues to escalate."
Prince asserts that this is an extraordinary measure, and one that he does not want to become a precedent for the company. Both Prince, in his blog post, and Sorrenti, in a public statement shared to Twitter, acknowledged that the site could find an alternate security provider and come back online. Sorrenti concluded her statement by saying: "We should celebrate all of our hard work. We did what no one else could. However, this is not the end. If we want to see the end of Kiwi Farms and communities like theirs, we must continue fighting." Sorrenti has a GoFundMe active to aid with the costs associated with this sequence of events.
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Amid a pretty good year for games in that nebulous puzzle-platformer genre the metroidvania you might have been forgiven for missing the release of Haak, stylized as HAAK, a stylish example of it that dropped a little over a week ago on Steam. Haak's vibe is a kind of cyberpunk world that's gone to absolute apocalyptic wasteland trash.
The real draw is the blend of pixel art environments with hand-drawn characters and action. It looks great in motion, with the main character dashing and countering enemies smoothly while executing energy attacks and ranged beams.
Haak first released in 2020, when we put it out there as a game you might have missed on Steam. That was Early Access, and its come quite a long way to release and maintained 88% positive Steam reviews along the road.
In Haak you're the eponymous Haak, an explorer crossing "the vast cyber-wasteland" on a quest to find your brother. The environments are a nice draw, very compelling, and there are a few interesting characters to boot. They range in variety from cities to metro tunnels, expressways, and rocky wilderness. Along the way you find new powers, using hooks and dashes to traverse, as well as fighting some neat bosses.
Haak's real draw is that freedom of movement, going fluidly from surface to surface. You jump fluidly, a vital feeling for the genre. You dash, for a quick move, or charge slash for more oomph. I like the hook, which doubles as weapon and traversal, letting you swap between floaty air combos and fast movement between targets.
It's a good one to check out if you've already chewed through your log of other metroidvanias, which have had a few releases this year but have overall been pretty slow. I've not played too much of it, but I did quite like the number of secrets and hidden things I was finding—always the highlight of the genre, to me.
You can find HAAK on Steam for $18, or 20% off until September 7th.
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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, Gotham City calls out for a hero, a champion. But since Christopher Nolan is busy...
BATMAN: Urgh. Head... spinning. What... happened?
RIDDLER: Riddle me this, Caped Crusader. How do you get to a green question mark when it has been placed somewhere slightly inconvenient? Heeheee! Oh, what fun we shall have tonight.
BATMAN: Not this again. It's been multiple Arkham games, Edward. Don't tell me you still need to be told the difference between 'riddles' and 'wasting everyone's time'. Wait. This isn't Arkham. It's all bright and colourful, not dark and gritty. It doesn't smell like a sewer, even. Where... are we?
RIDDLER: Where? Oh, World's Greatest Detective, wrong question! When! "When?" is the question, and the answer... I would hate to waste my talent devising a convoluted way of leading you to it, so I shall merely state it outright! You thought you were returning to the scene of one of your triumphs in Arkham Origins. Instead, my associate and I have brought you here, to the eve of your greatest humiliation.
BATMAN: You can't mean...
RIDDLER: Yes! Welcome back to Joel Schumacher hell!
BATMAN: This does explain the Bat Nipples.
TWO FACE: Nothing can explain the Bat Nipples.
Putting tons of crap in the foreground was a brave design decision. Brave like headbutting a wasp nest.RIDDLER: Yes, it is a sidescrolling beat-em-up! Would you care for a keyboard, or a gamepad?
TWO FACE: Fate, and my coin will decide. Scratched side. Keyboard.
BATMAN: I am not entirely shocked.
RIDDLER: Oh, but you shall be, Batman! Let the torture commence.
BATMAN: Just tell me it's not by LJN.
TWO FACE: What? No! God no, of course not. We're not complete monsters.
RIDDLER: It's from Acclaim.
BATMAN: Ugh. And my parents dying just became the third worst thing to happen to me.
TWO FACE: Including that time Bane snapped your back like a twig?
BATMAN: Good point. Fourth.
That ripping sound you can hear is every muscle in Batman's leg.TWO FACE: I will take it as a personal insult if the Batman is defeated by some guy named Phil.
RIDDLER: Tell me, Batman. Why did you not play as Robin?
BATMAN: I'm Batman.
RIDDLER: I know, but why did you not play as Robin?
BATMAN: I'm Batman.
RIDDLER: I know, but why did you not play as Robin?
BATMAN: I'm Batman.
RIDDLER: I know, but why did you—
TWO FACE: The next person to speak gets the other's testicles shoved down their throat.
'Well,' thought Batman, 'This is awkward'.RIDDLER: Feeling a little uncreative today, are we, Crappy Crusader? Batman! Batman! Does whatever a Spider-Man can! Only not as well, obviously. And Utility Belt or not, don't think I didn't notice your grappling hook coming out of your Bat Crotch.
BATMAN: It's harder than it looks.
RIDDLER: That's what she— No. No, too easy. Too easy by half!
BATMAN: The controls of this game are beyond terrible, and not Batman Beyond, because that was quite a good show even after being renamed Batman of the Future by idiots somewhere. I can shoot my grapple to the top left and upper right, but not straight up through the... wait a minute, since when did Arkham Asylum have giant holes in its floors instead of stairs?
TWO FACE: Please. If Arkham wasn't full of holes, it wouldn't be Arkham.
RIDDLER: Assholes, mostly. And a point goes to Riddler.
BATMAN: I don't understand. I press the grappling hook button, but it doesn't stick to anything. Or if it does, it's the side of a hole, and I just keep swinging from it. Fine. You win, Riddler. You've wanted to prove you were smarter than me all these years, here's your chance. How does the grappling hook work?
RIDDLER: Hahaha! Oh, Defective, I would never make things so easy. In fact, I shall taunt you with your own pitiful ignorance! Behold, my most soul-destroying riddle of ALL TIME!
To beat the game, don't play it more. Just reach for salvation; Alt-F4.BATMAN: You don't know, do you?
RIDDLER: Uh-huh, no clues! Sugar? Have you seen the manual? Just for Bats, of course.
TWO FACE: This article's budget isn't high enough for a Drew Barrymore cameo.
RIDDLER: But... but she was in Beverly Hills Chihuahua!
BATMAN: Found it. You have to press the grappling hook and then immediately press up, despite that being only slightly less inconvenient than having to slam yourself in the balls with a hammer.
RIDDLER: Seriously? That's really dumb... as I knew all along, of course!
BATMAN: Of course you did.
TWO FACE: Don't look at me. I wanted to do a villain team-up with King Tut.
RIDDLER: I heard he's rolling in it these days. What's he been running?
TWO FACE: Pyramid scheme.
The inmates come in two-by-two, hurrah, hurrah. It's Noah's Arkham Asylum.TWO FACE: Batman, I have two personalities, and both of them are bored with you. WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG FOR YOU TO BEAT PEOPLE UP? THIS IS WHAT YOU DO! IT'S YOUR THING!
RIDDLER: And what's with the jiggling around and rapid-punches like you're in Mortal Kombat?
BATMAN: This is Mortal Kombat, only without fatalities! Punches, uppercuts, everything. They've given me six buttons worth of moves, and normally, I would approve. But they've also given regular mooks big health bars, so Bat-fighting still takes forever even when Bat-delivering Bat-punches.
TWO FACE: Has anyone ever told you not everything you do, say, or make needs to be Bat-branded? We know who you are. And this is the guy who gets tailored suits to match his scar telling you this.
RIDDLER: How does a developer spend so much time on controls, and yet suck so hard at the basics of getting from one level to another with a grappling hook?
BATMAN: I—
RIDDLER: That wasn't a riddle. I was just agreeing it was stupid.
TWO FACE: My second thoughts are having second thoughts about our plan, Riddler. How long is this terrible game? I can't be here all night, I have two crimes to pull off before dawn. Appearances, you know.
RIDDLER: Eight levels, it says here. From Arkham Asylum to the Batcave to the Gotham sewers.
BATMAN: Sewer levels. My god.
RIDDLER: All the way to a final boss fight with me, in which I'm a steroid-pumped monster for a while. That sounds good. I don't usually get to be a badass, or even remembered as anything other than "And Riddler was there too." I'll play a tape of it so Brucie here can see the horrors he has to look forward to.
TWO FACE: Wait, what did you just say?
RIDDLER: Batman. I said Batman, obviously.
TWO FACE: How far did we get?
RIDDLER: ...seven minutes. Wow, that was boring.
BATMAN: I expect the ending is good. The part where both of you are defeated. By me.
RIDDLER: Bet you it's just a text scroll.
TWO FACE: Enough! Riddler, remove the game! Eat the game!
RIDDLER: What?
TWO FACE: This was your imbecilic plan! EAT THE GAME!
BATMAN: Well, thank you gentlemen. I particularly enjoyed the part where Nigma here gave himself an accidental tonsillectomy with a broken CD. However, if you have had your fun, I do believe it is time for me to escape, beat you up, and—
TWO FACE: Not so fast, Batman! You forget who you are talking... two.
BATMAN: No, it's pretty easy to remember. The clue is the two faces.
TWO FACE: No, see, I pronounced it with a 'w' in it. It was a pun. You'd have picked up on that, if I wrote it down rather than simply saying it.
BATMAN: But you didn't.
TWO FACE: I thought you'd get the idea. Should I have made little quote marks in the air for you? It's not like my schtick is complicated. Do you have to ask the Mad Hatter, "Hey, man, what's with the hat?"
RIDDLER: I got it first time!
TWO FACE: Shut up! Honestly, that guy.
BATMAN: Tell me about it.
TWO FACE: Anyway, as I was saying—SURPRISE! Batman Forever: The Arcade Game!
You start outside a VCR store. For young readers, that's what daddy watched the porn that helped make you on!BATMAN: Another side-scrolling beat-em-up. Of course.
RIDDLER: I'm sorry, what was that? I was distracted by the GIANT LOGO. And I'm the guy who put a big question mark in the clouds! Feeling unrecognised, Batman? Or should I say Fatman? Dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner...
BATMAN: Never heard that one before. It's important that criminal scum like you know who to fear.
TWO FACE: Quite. We'd never know who the guy dressed as a bat was if not for the GIANT LOGO. That doesn't actually look much like a bat, now I come to look at it properly.
RIDDLER: Not very aerodynamic. Looks more like a splat on a windscreen.
TWO FACE: Splat-Man!
BATMAN: Also not original.
Martial Arts Tips for Men: Always hold your opponent up in prime ball-kicking positions.RIDDLER: I think you've messed up, Harvey. This one looks much better than the last one. At least he's able to kick and punch people... and by people, I mean 'my goons', so thanks for that. Thanks so much.
TWO FACE: Yes, this does look a lot like... oh, what was that arcade game?
RIDDLER: Every single arcade machine in the '90s that wasn't a rail shooter or Street Fighter 2?
TWO FACE: That's it. Teenage Mutant Whatever Turtles, X-Men, The Simpsons...
BATMAN: If it helps, it's worse than all of them.
RIDDLER: It does, a little. Thank you.
TWO FACE: What's wrong with it? It looks fine from here.
BATMAN: Enemies stun lock and beat me up constantly, but fighting back is a mess of arms and legs and bouncing pick-up icons and everything jumping around that means never getting a proper rhythm going. At least some of my attacks are pretty cool. Like this one:
BOOOOOOM!RIDDLER: Holy 'frack'! Whatever happened to no killing?!
BATMAN: It's a stun grenade.
RIDDLER: IT'S A THERMAL DETONATOR!
BATMAN: Set to stun.
TWO FACE: Joker was right to wonder. Where DO you get these wonderful toys?
BATMAN: I just pick them up from the ground. Batarang, stun grenade, grappling hook—
Run away! If he hits us, his boots'll go right into our colons!RIDDLER: Still not working for you, Bats. You just look like you're about to go "WheeEEEEEEEEE!"
TWO FACE: There's something deeply cathartic about watching Batman be repeatedly killed, come back to life, and killed again. Especially by one of those ladies in green mini-skirts who look a bit like a guy crossplaying Rogue from the X-Men. Even if he does get up again afterwards, the spoilsport.
BATMAN: The war against crime is never-ending.
RIDDLER: See how that goes after three Continues. Boom!
TWO FACE: Also, is it my imagination, or are those goons you're kicking about half your height? Not very sporting, Batman. I approve.
BATMAN: It's a random power-up. Sometimes I look down and it's me who's mysteriously shrunk.
RIDDLER: Yes, Catwoman mentioned you liked to use that excuse.
BATMAN: That was a really cold night. Shut up.
TWO FACE: So, Batman! You have finished the game! Do you feel your soul broken? Does your pitiful life scream for release in the knowledge that never again will you know true joy?
BATMAN: Not really. It just wasn't very good. At all.
RIDDLER: Is that it? There was this guy on YouTube who sounded like it killed his parents.
BATMAN: Hardly. That, a moment of pure despair that can only be temporarily assuaged by dressing up as the ultimate S&M club patron and punching the mentally ill. This, a pair of crappy '90s brawlers. I think I know the difference, and not just because my parents are dead. By the way, my parents are dead.
TWO FACE: I told you we should have just shot him.
RIDDLER: But how will anyone take us seriously if we don't do it with a gimmick?
TWO FACE: Oh, get a clue yourself for once. We're villains. We can lie.
BATMAN: Uh-huh. In semi-related news, I just broke free of my bonds and am now going to punch both of you until you start wishing I didn't have a no killing rule.
RIDDLER: Eeep.
BATMAN: It's okay. You'll be in traction for a few months, but my good friend Bruce Wayne will make sure you have a TV in your private room at Gotham General. Oh, and while we're at it, boys, how about you riddle me this: how will you be enjoying your autographed copies of Batman and Robin during your stay?
TWO FACE: On... DVD?
RIDDLER: On VHS?
BATMAN: On a loop. It may not be Batman Forever... but I guarantee it'll feel like it.
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Alliance of the Sacred Suns is a space-y blend of 4X and Grand Strategy RPG percolating out there in game land, and its developers have shared some interesting news about big changes to the core game ahead of its Early Access launch this year. They've revamped the in-game encyclopedia and tutorial functions, and beefed up the tooltips, to make the overall user experience better.
Thrilling, I know, but this is the kind of stuff us strategy gamers live for. Alliance of the Sacred Suns is a promising-looking game, one where you're the newly-minted ruler of a crumbling space empire who has to hold its byzantine politics at bay in time to save galactic civilization.
Their latest development diary also reveals new mechanics for exploring and connecting new worlds to the Empire. Explorers must find them, then constructors must develop them, but the most interesting part is that the worlds are then auctioned off among the powerful imperial houses. It's a 4X where sometimes you don't get to keep the things you explore, which is neat.
Rick Lane called it "Dune meets Crusader Kings" when he looked at it last year, and I can't help but agree that there's a very Dune and Book of the New Sun vibe here. "Initially, you’ll only control one or two planets directly, known as your holdings. While you can acquire more, and it can be prudent to do so, that isn’t really the point of Alliance," said Rick. "Your ultimate objective is the integrity of the Empire as a whole, achieving which requires a more nuanced approach than making naked land grabs for personal gain."
You can find Alliance of the Sacred Suns on Steam, where there's also a demo that at last check is about six months old. It's developed by KatHawk Studios, published by Hooded Horse, and set to release some time this year.
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There's surely been some corks popping on celebratory beverages and clinking of glasses at Respawn Entertainment this past month, as Apex Legends continues its steady climb among the peaks of gaming. The release on Season 14 last month saw the popular battle royale push to a new peak player count of 511,676 concurrent players, an approximately 47% increase over the prior month.
More subtle, but perhaps more important, the minimum and average daily peak players have grown significantly as well. That's not always true with peak player record breaking months, and a subtle look at this year's numbers for Apex show a steady trend. Apex Legends is now averaging a minimum of over 300,000 players at any given time—329,041 in August.
These are all numbers retrieved by SteamDB, so they don't include anyone playing Apex through the EA app on Windows Store, nor the undoubtedly larger number of people playing on consoles. I'd bet my hat these numbers are going up on other major platforms as well.
A look at those minimum daily peak players numbers outlines a real success story for Apex Legends. They're gaining more players in most months than many games on Steam sell copies, ever. Even after a series of months that net a decline in numbers, like September to December 2021, the following months reverse and more than make up for that trend. Apex is gaining 10,000 or more daily players every month.
In other Apex news, the battle royale that famously added self-revive is doing away with it after player complaints. There's also a hilarious but extremely frustrating bug that was swapping players' kits, making one character have the moveset of another. Gibalkyrie or Pathwraith, anyone?
Cheers to PCGamesN for the spot.
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GrayHoodRedFace joined on the 09/03/2022.
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According to a press release from DreadXP and its parent company, Epic Pictures Group, The Mortuary Assistant is being made into a movie. The first-person indie horror game where you play the part of an employee at a haunted funeral home blew up after its August 2 release thanks to its unique premise and atmosphere, as well as attention from streamers and YouTubers.
The project will be helmed by director Jeremiah Kipp, who stated that he wants to create a "companion piece" to the game, continuing, "I want to retain the minimalist setting in and around the mortuary, the fascination with the process of embalming, and the nerve shredding terror of the gameplay."
The Mortuary Assistant's creator, Brian Clarke, stated that "Movies have always been the main inspiration for the style of my games. I'm always trying to create story, dialogue, and moments that feel filmic." Clarke continued, "An opportunity to bring this project full circle is making a dream of mine a reality."
We reached out to DreadXP head of production Ted Hentschke to ask a few questions about the project. On the topic of dealing with the Mortuary Assistant's focus on nightly runs and repetition, Hentschke mused, "It's really hard to reflect mechanics in film, and the replay is more a mechanical device that we utilize in the narrative than a strict narrative device."
Hentschke went on, "The film story is going to focus more on the overall narrative and the themes of the game and weave that five-part story into one."
When asked about production and how long this move has been in the works, Hentschke indicated that the plans for a film adaptation preceded The Mortuary Assistant's explosive success: "We decided to move forward on the movie before the release."
Hentschke further explained that DreadXP would be considering more adaptations of its games down the line: "It's actually part of how we want to do our publishing in the future, to give both film and game support to indie devs like the bigger studios might do."
That initiative won't exactly be starting from scratch: DreadXP's parent company, the Epic Pictures Group, has a pretty big catalogue of genre movie productions under its belt. I wouldn't exactly read this as an immediate commitment to a DreadXP Cinematic Universe or anything though—my beautiful dream for the Dread Delusion anime will likely have to wait.
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Legend turns C64 into a theremin, otherwise known as that weird sci-fi instrument
in Gaming News
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Everybody just be quiet and look at this for a second. Absolute madman and legend Linus Åkesson has turned a Commodore 64 computer into an actual functioning theremin, and I'm losing my goddamn mind over how cool it is.
To be fair on the excitement, I'm a bit of a theremin fan, and yes we do exist, and hello to any others out there. To everyone else, I welcome you on your journey to enjoying one of the first electronic instruments ever to be invented. If you're after a C64 that games instead of plays wonderous music, check out these prebuilds on offer.
As Linus Åkesson explains in his video, the theremin was invented back in 1920 by Leon Theremin and became widely known as that thing that makes sci-fi noises. This was because it was so unique and wildly alien compared to other sounds of the time. Think of that high pitch alien wobbly sound mimicked in things like the Dr Who intro or and you're on the right track. It quickly became associated with the extraterrestrial and paranormal for films.
Which is very fair because the theremins themselves are pretty supernatural. You don't even touch them to play and instead they work by generating electromagnetic fields between two antenna points that are then manipulated in the air by the player to change the pitch and volume. It's the ultimate in look mum no hands, of weird sci fi sounds.
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Or it was until it got taken that one step further by being made out of a freaking Commodore 64. Of course this C64 theremin sounds a bit different to the usual open wailing as it's using the C64's lead sound to make noise. Åkesso explains that he used the C64 in conjunction with two 555s, four resistors, a spoon, and a clamp to create this amazing machine. He also includes a complete explanation for how the project works, including a bunch of the interesting science behind it.
His YouTube video above also gives a more in depth explanation, along with a performance of the device playing alongside a piano. Åkesso notes that it's quite difficult to play but also says "Still, it's a very special feeling to hold a tone in front of you in the air."
Sadly, for many of us theremin lovers (DOZENS OF US) the instrument doesn't get nearly enough love or use, especially in modern music. Now that synthesisers are commonplace the creepy tones are simply easier to achieve through other methods, with more precise keyboards and software. GarageBand for example, has a 50's sci-fi alchemy synth keyboard that approximates a theremin nicely, which you can hear in my ambient sci-fi podcast, but no actual direct theremin comparison. Here's hoping someone adds a C64 theremin sound ASAP.
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