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You too can crawl down a toilet and go on an adventure that may nor may not be worth going on, friend, in the demo for surreal point-and-click game Endacopia. It's a game filled with surreal, offbeat humor that at any time threatens to verge into violent, dark, traumatic horror. Endacopia is packed with some pretty unique animation in a style some ancient, dusty people may remember is decidedly influenced by the early days of great internet flash animation. By the time I was done with the demo I'd evaded several tentacles, fistfought a clock with razor claws, done what can only be described as electrical engineering for toddlers, and used a plunger on several things. It's the kind of adventure game that's all the more fun for its emphasis on absurd solutions to abstract puzzles, some of which aren't intuitive at first but are certainly funny by the end—or at least mildly bemusing for the most cynical among us. Here's how Endacopia describes itself: "You will be required to guide a lost child through a world that operates on foreign rules. The child’s name is “Mellow” and he doesn’t know much about anything other than the fact that he has a strong gut instinct. With a little help from his guardian angel (You!), Mellow will be able to overcome many obstacles in the way of him finding a place he can call “home”… wherever that may be." You can find a free demo for Endacopia on itch.io, and a Kickstarter for a more complete version is running now. If you try the demo and want more, well, I'd suggest that route. Endacopia is made by YouTube animator AndyLand, the working name of one Andrés Guerrero, and has music composed by Packtion. AndyLand made a little video announcing it on YouTube which probably makes sense if you have watched AndyLand's other videos and animations but if you're just me is unnerving and strange. I'll embed that below. View the full article

An Amsterdam hotel is displeased with its ersatz inclusion in the latest Call of Duty, and Dutch media reports it's considering legal action against developer and publisher Activision Blizzard. Though the Conservatorium Hotel appears under the name "Breenbergh" in-game, it's undeniably the same building. "We have taken note of the fact that the Conservatorium Hotel is undesirably the scene of the new Call of Duty," hotel manager Roy Tomassen told de Volksrant. "More generally, we don't support games that seem to encourage the use of violence. The game in no way reflects our core values and we regret our apparent and unwanted involvement." de Volksrant reports that the hotel is still considering what steps to take next. It's clear from the phrasing, however, that the hotel has not ruled out legal action. The Conservatorium stand-in Breenbergh appears in both the singleplayer mode and as a map in multiplayer. A quick look at images of the luxury hotel's interior and the Call of Duty map confirm that the Breenbergh hotel in-game is based on the real life Conservatorium, a bank building from the 1800s redesigned in an extremely distinctive glass-and-steel style for use as a five-star hotel by an Italian architect. The lawsuit may seem flippant to many, but architecture is copyrightable under both European and American law. As a five-star luxury hotel, it's possible that the owners and manager of the Conservatorium desire absolute control over their business' depiction. American law has sided with Activision in the past over depictions of the real world—notably the HMMV used by the American military—but laws in Europe are far less clear-cut on similar issues. The depiction of a hotel as setting for a shooting match is far more debatable legally, and under various fair-use doctrines, than the depiction of an iconic military vehicle in a military game. The closest thing I can remember was the depiction of Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man back in 2006—but that was a far more famous building, represented for historical reasons, in another country. That incident ended with an official apology from Sony to the Church of England, which is frankly a very funny sentence. We'll keep our eye out in case the hotel takes legal action against Activision. It's not like their lawyers aren't busy enough these days. Thanks for reporting, NL Times. View the full article

The Doom engine's flexibility is legendary at this point, with source ports like GZDoom facilitating ambitious FPS campaigns like Selaco or The Golden Souls. Solo developer Sanditio Bayu is throwing his hat in the ring with a new total conversion of Doom, Mala Petaka, first spotted by Alpha Beta Gamer. I was immediately won over by Mala Petaka's visual style⁠—it almost reminds me of Futurama with its right colors and silly, one-eyed aliens. The demo features three different levels, each visually distinct from one another. My favorite is the first, a satellite base with a fantastic deep space skybox and some surprising visual effects, like a room near the end that's just suspended in the void like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The music here is top notch as well, with developer Bayu shouting out "Indonesian Chiptunes veterans" like Remedmatika, Shakaboyd, and Son of a Bit. I still don't know much about Indonesia's chiptune scene, but the tracks are absolutely killer, really upbeat and cheerful in a classic Sega kind of vein, and they pair well with Mala Petaka's visuals. Mala Petaka also distinguishes itself with its portals, which render their destination in real time like the ones from, well, Portal. I audibly hooted the first time I saw one, moved to its side, and realized there was nothing behind it⁠—it's an extremely cool rendering and design gimmick to see in action. For the most part, these are just used to transition between different portions of each level, but there is one boss fight where the four walls of the arena are each a portal, and they connect to each other, creating this infinite fractal space to do battle with the difficult dual boss. Once the bad guy goes down, the portals shut down, revealing how small the room actually was. I'd love to see Mala Petaka lean into this feature even further in the full game, in the same way They Came From Dimension X is playing around with gravity. Mala Petaka's visual and level design is on point, but its enemies could definitely use some tweaking ahead of its full release. Standard foes match on to classic Doom archetypes, but they drop like flies and I didn't feel particularly challenged by them on normal difficulty. The singular boss-tier enemy on the other hand, who gets repeated a few times in the demo, is an absolute bullet sponge and I found myself getting frustrated in those encounters. Mala Petaka's currently in development with no set release date, but you can wishlist it on Steam and check out its free demo, which took me about an hour to complete. Image 1 of 4 (Image credit: Sanditio Bayu)Image 2 of 4 (Image credit: Sanditio Bayu)Image 3 of 4 (Image credit: Sanditio Bayu)Image 4 of 4 (Image credit: Sanditio Bayu) View the full article

Dota 2 has announced a new hero at world championship The International 11, with the revenant gunslinger Muerta set to bring the moba's hero total up to 124 early next year. She's a black-and-gold creature, maybe some kind of automaton, that wields a pistol and deals in travel between life and death. For now, all we've got is a trailer, but that trailer's packed with some neat details. "An enduring revenant reveals herself with promises of a ruinous reckoning to follow. Pierce the veil between the living and the damned as a new hero — Muerta — arrives to haunt the lanes in early 2023," says the official description. With a flowery aesthetic that blends the aesthetic skulls of Mexico's day of the dead with a profoundly video-gamey neon, and Spanish-speaking players are already sounding off in video comments with excitement and requests for a Spanish-language voice pack for her. Muerta promises to be a hero that has a lot in common with the current Dota 2 stable—at least lorewise. Because it turns out she's been teased since at least February, when the Revenant's Brooch item was added to Dota with the description "The cursed brooch of a fallen guardian who stalks forever between the veil of life and death." In the trailer, what is presumably Muerta's portrait on a candle-lit altar is wearing the Revenant's Brooch. Given the focus of that item on attack damage and speed, and Muerta's wielding a gun, my money's on an auto-attacking Carry-role hero that can use or make use of ethereal effects. Muerta's design, coloration, and visual effects have a lot in common with Death Prophet and Wraith King, two other spirit-themed characters who regularly return from the dead. Also, I think she's the first normal-human-sized hero to use a gun? The others are all little Keenfolk like Sniper, Gyrocopter, and Snapfire. Last year's new hero was Primal Beast, a big angry crocodile thing. In other Dota 2 news, Valve has announced in a deeply and profoundly strange video that there's an announcer pack on the way for Portal 2's Cave Johnson, the strangely upbeat CEO of Aperture Laboratories played by J.K. Simmons. You can watch it on YouTube but I'll embed it below. View the full article

Space, strategy, sandbox, and building nerds, have you seen Cosmoteer yet? It's a starship designer-simulator that puts you, or you and some friends, in a big universe to command an ever-growing custom built fleet against a variety of AI or player opponents. It's a cool loop, one where you defeat enemies, complete contract missions, and go mining to get resources, then use that loot to upgrade your ship so you can take on ever-harder tasks. You can do all that with buddies in co-op. You can also test your ship designs against players in PvP, and make wild ideas work before you invest in them via the creative mode. It's a pretty dang solid game for Early Access, probably because it's one of those cult classics that has been in development for a decade and was previously only available via the developer's website. That developer is indie outfit Walternate Realities, by the way, and the guy who runs it is Walter, and I'd like to congratulate him on a superb pun name. In the future of Early Access Cosmoteer intends to add carrier ships with drones and fighters, boarding enemy ships, hinged joints for transforming ships, as well as a variety of new weapons and ship modules. It'll also add new mission types for the singleplayer and cooperative mode, and additional modes for multiplayer PvP. Cosmoteer is a bit easier to get going on than some more complex 2D-space-constructor type games, which is nice for that cooperative angle. Once you get into the weeds of design, however, you get to do some neat stuff. Giant mid-century sci-fi spinal mount weapons are available for ships, requiring you to build the whole thing around one giant gun. There's also details like ships so large they have their own ammunition factories onboard, so you can gather resources and refine them into shot mid-mission. To me Cosmoteer is one of those titles that by all the logic of small game development should not have a functional multiplayer element, given the modular destruction and customizability and thousand other ways it could desync and break. But it does, in both cooperative and player versus player flavors, and that's definitely part of the charm. You can find Cosmoteer on Steam for $20, where it currently enjoys a somewhat-shocking 96% positive out of 1,113 reviews. View the full article

Hello koplayer077, 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. koplayer077 joined on the 10/30/2022. View Member

Whether you're too busy to play today and just need the answer to the Wordle of the day on a convenient plate or you've got the time to browse our helpful selection of tips and hints, you'll find everything you need to solve the October 30 (498) Wordle right here. Today's Wordle turned out to be a huge miss for me. I'd carefully eliminated so many useful letters over the course of my guesses but I still couldn't see the word I needed to find, even though there was little left to work with. Wordle hint A Wordle hint for Sunday, October 30 You'll need to dance your way to today's answer. This word is a specific kind of ballroom dance performed by a couple, and also a casually confident way of walking into a room. It's time to break out those underused consonants. 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. Today's Wordle answer (Image credit: Josh Wardle) What is the Wordle 498 answer? Let me give you a hand. The answer to the October 30 (498) Wordle is WALTZ. Previous answers Wordle archive: Which words have been used The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh. Here are some recent Wordle solutions: October 29: LIBELOctober 28: SNEAKOctober 27: CARRYOctober 26: FLOUTOctober 25: FOGGYOctober 24: FAULTOctober 23: MUMMYOctober 22: SPIELOctober 21: GROVEOctober 20: DENIM Learn more about Wordle Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them. You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns ️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. means you've got the right letter in the right spot. You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer. After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS). If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below. Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes. View the full article

A weird little game picking up some steam recently, Dave the Diver has players as Dave, a spearfisher by day, restauranteur by night who dives to fill out the menu at the sushi joint he runs alongside some friends. The restaurant sits on the side of the mysterious Blue Hole, a vast ocean pit alongside an island that has many mysteries to explore. It's a blend of action-spearfishing combat and exploration while you dive, looking for new creatures and ingredients for your meals. You also unravel the mystery of the blue hole, searching for new ecosystems and "mysterious ancient artifacts." It's also naturally rife with giant bosses to fight: Hermit crabs, huge lanternfish, immense squids. Meanwhile restaurant play is a twist on your classic tapper game, where customers sit and order and must be catered to fast enough—and correctly—to keep them happy. Doing well at this end of the game lets you have special customers visit. Steam user reviews for Dave the Diver are doing well, with 94% of reviews clocking as Positive. It might look like an indie, but it's not: This is the first release from Nexon's spinoff into smaller games publishing: Mintrocket. Nexon is the billion-dollar Korean-founded, Japanese-based publisher more known for its free-to-play MMOs and mobile games, and as the originator of popular early MMOs like MapleStory and Mabinogi, alongside recent releases like DNF Duel. I won't pretend I don't feel represented by Dave, a chubby beardy dude with a hobby at odds with his physical appearance. For Dave this is being a diver, for me this is being a gardener and woodsman. We are both majestic, in our own way. You can find Dave the Diver on Steam, where it's in early access for $20. It's currently on sale for 10% off until November 2nd. Image 1 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 2 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 3 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 4 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 5 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 6 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 7 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 8 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 9 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 10 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 11 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket)Image 12 of 12 (Image credit: Mintrocket) View the full article

CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer has said that his discussions with various regulators around the world have been "fair and honest" as pertains to the company's acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, the video game publisher responsible for titles as diverse as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush. “I would say the discussions have been very fair and honest. It is a big acquisition, there’s no doubt. Microsoft in its role in the tech industry, is a large tech company, and I do think the discussion around an acquisition of this size is warranted, and I’ve appreciated the time to go spend," he said. Spencer made the comments during an interview at the Wall Street Journal Tech Live event, as reported by VGC. Spencer has been flitting around the world, apparently, talking to regulators and approval authorities to secure the deal. Brazil has already approved it, but the UK's watchdog and the US' FTC are both looking into the deal, with another decision deadline set by Europe's CMA coming soon. Despite all the scrutiny, Spencer remains says that he thinks the acquisition will eventually be approved by regulators. "I’m confident in that. I was just in London last week, continue to have discussions with all the regulatory boards, and remain confident that we’ll get the deal approved," he said. Discourse within the video game industry focuses widely around Call of Duty, with recent headlines here at PC Gamer focusing on concepts like "what if Call of Duty sucked" and how an extant Sony deal with Activision has stopped Call of Duty from coming to Xbox's Game Pass. Spencer, however, has been clear for some time that most of Activision Blizzard King's value for Microsoft is in its overwhelming mobile revenue. We usually just call the corporate giant Activision Blizzard around here, but that King bit of the company focuses on King, part of the mobile gaming segment at the company that makes more money than both PC and console gaming combined. Spencer repeated a few other talking points in the interview, ensuring that Call of Duty will continue to release on PlayStation "as long as that makes sense" and that he'd like to see it released on platforms like Nintendo's Switch in the future. View the full article

With the pace of new hardware generations and the incentive to iteratively upgrade a PC, I find it easy to turn my nose up at "obsolete" hardware. That said, the more time passes, the more I get nostalgic for my rigs of old, and retro computing content creators like LGR certainly don't help the feeling. I turned to our staff and community to see if they're susceptible to the siren song of dual core CPUs and megabytes of VRAM, or if it's Core i9, RTX 4090 all the way. What's your favorite PC you've ever owned? Here are our answers, as well as some from our forum. Robin Valentine, Print Editor: I live a life free of petty nostalgia. My favourite PC is my current one, because it's the most powerful one I've ever owned. When I eventually get a new one, that'll be my new favourite. I crave only the most modern hardware for playing the most modern games. It doesn't help that I tend to run my PCs into the ground—most of my previous machines have been replaced out of necessity, getting so outdated and unreliable that by the end I resent them. A new PC is a relief, an old one is just a big heavy box that I now have to find a way of getting rid of. If this makes me sound like some kind of callous monster with no respect for his hardware, then... yes, that's basically accurate. Lauren Morton, Associate Editor: I am not immune to nostalgia. I have a soft spot for 3.5 floppy disks in rainbow, transparent plastic. I saw a TikTok gag about "how we turned on our PCs in the '00s" that was a person touching a power button with their big toe and smiled. But my current PC is definitely my favorite because it's the first time I've ever had one with an intentional aesthetic and not just everything I could afford slapped together. My first gaming PC was my mom's old home office Dell that I learned how to jam new RAM into to play Guild Wars and Fable on. After that finally did in I took whatever I could get off CyberPowerPC with $800 I scraped together during Black Friday in 2013. I was running that same mobo until 2019, I'm pretty sure, with every other part Frankenstein'd around it. So yeah, my current setup with its white case and glass wall and proper monitor arms is my favorite because it was finally, for once, on purpose. Lauren's personal gaming setup. (Image credit: Future) Fraser Brown, Online Editor: I see my PC more like an adversary. Sure, we have good times, but just when I'm like "This sure is a great PC", that's when it strikes. A BSOD. A weird grinding noise. Why is that light on the motherboard flashing? Over the last 20 years I have wasted so much time troubleshooting, repairing, returning and screaming obscenities at PC components. But I always get my revenge. Like that time I spilled a Pot Noodle on top of it. And my lax attitude to dusting. Which of course creates more problems, and the cycle continues. Given this combative relationship I don't really have a favourite one. But my current PC has a window that allows me to stare harefully at its guts, so that's cool I guess. Dave James, Hardware Lead: I don't actually have a favourite PC. And it's not some 'I love all my children equally' sort of thing, either. I have a complicated history with the PC, and mostly a job which has meant, for the past couple of decades, I've had no stable platform, just a Ship of Theseus that's constantly changing inside and out. That's meant I don't really have much of a soft spot for any of them specifically. My first was an SX-25 based machine, a gift born of my dad being made redundant, which had more impact as the machine I first spent time writing on rather than because it delivered anything in terms of gaming. I still went back to my Amiga 500 for that. Mostly because SX-25 meant a 486 chip that ran at 25MHz. It did, however, give me my first taste of upgrading when I visited a local computer fair to buy a DX4-100 chip. It was also my first taste of upgrade failure as I had no clue that I also needed to buy a heatsink, too. Then I built my first system from parts my brother bought. It was a nightmare of motherboard jumper switch trial and error and I was bug fixing the 'frell'er for years. Neither machine really has me that nostalgic for a past that was fraught with desperately trying to free up memory in DOS and battling to get a 3DFX system stable on a Cyrix chip. (Image credit: Dan Whittaker) Then I bought a laptop for university that put me at the limit of my overdraft from day one, a place my bank account would reside until long after I'd started my journalistic career. That was murdered by revellers at a particularly destructive house party in my third year. Sad times. After that came a PC I built for £150, which was unremarkably 'frack' and died from sogginess stored in a friend's basement while I lived on a boat. Then I upgraded my partner's old student PC with a second-hand Pentium III and shoddy ATI GPU, before finally dropping £500 on a gaming PC after I became staff writer on PC Format. Though it still had a dodgy graphics card, which eventually our then Tech Editor upgraded for me, and that started me on a path to my current PC. Through many iterations of CPU, GPU, motherboard platform, chassis, storage, and memory, that machine has over time transformed into the machine I run today. I guess that's my favourite PC, maybe just because it's the system I'm using all the time, and maybe because of its representation of the PC's constant evolution. Lauren Aitken, Guides Editor: I miss my previous PC. It wasn't as powerful as my current setup, but it had clear sides so I could see all my beautiful RGB lights. RIP, bb. Imogen Mellor, Features Producer: I've only ever had one PC, the one I own now. I admit, I've not always been a PC gamer, my parents bought into the Apple ecosystem before I even knew there was a difference between the computers. I remember going to Steam on my handed-down MacBook to see what I could play and found it shocking that there were only a handful of games available. I couldn't play anything on PC until I was at university and had a boyfriend with a gaming PC then. That's when my conversion started from console gamer to PC gamer and now, well, it's hands down my favourite platform. As soon as I left university I built the PC I'm still using today and it's a workhorse. It's a little... janky and I've had to upgrade the RAM to keep up with my needs but I love it all the same. Imogen's PC setup. (Image credit: Future) Jacob Ridley, Senior Hardware Editor: My favourite PC was from a company called Tiny Computers. If you know anything about British PC brands from the late '90s, you might be aware that Tiny Computers did not survive long into the '00s. Yet still I loved the PC my family purchased from the company. For the PC, sure, but mostly because of what came bundled with it. I was, I don't know, it's a blur, around six. It was 1998 or early 1999, anyways. My Dad was in the process of ordering us a PC for the house, which was very exciting. This was our first family PC, and up until now I'd not really had much time around computers. So, my Dad orders the PC over the phone, as you do in the '90s, but when he comes off the call he's clearly had a bad time of it. Turns out, when the call was wrapped up, the folks over at Tiny Computers hadn't actually hung up on him, and he had heard down the phone a bunch of swearing and general bad language, which may or may not have been at his expense. I genuinely don't remember. So he calls them back, tells them about it, and I'm going to guess some sort of backroom dealing took place. (Image credit: Core Design) Next thing we know, we receive our first PC. It's a lumbering box containing a tall tower. Now that would be exciting enough, but lo and behold my entire PC gaming hobby would also kickstart that day. Because also included with that PC were a handful of luminescent orange, green, and pink CD cases, and inside each one a PC game, including Tomb Raider and Motocross Madness. A sort of make-up gift from Tiny. Or more likely a way to bribe my Dad into not telling anyone more senior what went on. And I spent many hours trying to yeet my polygonal motocross bike up the side of a cliff in Motocross Madness thereafter. Time well spent, if you ask me. I'm sure my mum was thinking the PC was for homework or something, but fate brought PC gaming and me together. And that Tiny Computer became something extra special even if it wasn't actually very good. Tiny Computers went bust a few years later—maybe it was all the free games they were giving away. Joshua Wolens, News Writer: It's gotta be your first, right? Mine was a laptop: a slab of glowing plastic emblazoned with an Alienware logo that my dad managed to get cheap on eBay in 2009. It weighed like 50 pounds, vented heat like a Victorian steam engine, and at some point its tiny ATI GPU overheated and warped in such a way that the textures of any game I played would extrude haphazardly towards the centre of the screen. It sucked and I loved it. Sure, it was a struggle to use, but it also gave me my first shot to try out all the games people had been yammering about on the forums I'd haunted for most of my adolescence and childhood: Deus Ex, Planescape, Baldur's Gate, VtM: Bloodlines, and so on and so forth. No machine since has been as much of a commitment or as much of an eye-opener. A circa-2007 Alienware M9700 laptop, courtesy of TechRadar's review from the time. (Image credit: Alienware, Techradar) Alan Dexter, Senior Hardware Editor: My current PC is without question my favourite gaming system so far. It's nothing particularly special by most standards, but it's quiet and is plenty powerful for gaming. Although, not quite as stellar as it was just a couple of weeks ago when it packed an RTX 3080. Unfortunately, Dave needed to steal that from under my nose as his trusty Founders Edition died during a bout of benchmarking. Still, the RTX 2080 Ti I'm using in its stead is capable enough for most of my gaming library—Hearthstone, OW2, Magic Arena, and the odd return to Night City to see if there are any stones left unturned. It'll more than cope with WoW: Dragonflight swooping in to covet my time in the foreseeable future, too. I still have a soft spot for my first gaming PC though, a secondhand 486-DX50 system I bought in the mid-90s that required constant tinkering to get it actually gaming. It was a time when you needed to know your way around the config.sys file—I would spend far too much time trying to free up space to run the latest, greatest games and far too much money hunting down components that would only improve things by the smallest amounts. But I learned a thing or two, and it would eventually set me on the track to working for PC Gamer, so all those hours messing with components and yes, gaming, would eventually pay off. (Image credit: Valve) Andy Chalk, News Lead: I think I have to agree with Josh on this. For all practical purposes my current rig is my "favourite" because it's the biggest and best and all that, but the thrill of having my first PC (and my first PC games) is tough to beat. And I miss how much more tactile those old PCs were compared to new systems: The satisfying clunk of a 3.5" diskette popping in, the frightening grind of a 5.25", the incredibly loud keyboard clicks, that weird 'frack' the monitor would do every now and then that seemed to presage an explosion that never happened—all nostalgia, absolutely, and if pressed I'd have to admit that I wouldn't want to give up the convenience and bounty of the current day. But it was a great machine and it served me well, and if I'm picking a fave, that'd be it. Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor: I have really fond memories of my high school PC. My uncle built it for me as a birthday gift and I "helped" by passing him tools and listening as he explained what everything did. That thing fully transitioned me from playing half-and-half on Xbox 360 and the family PC, to being a PC gamer. I didn't even know what the components in it were until I did some research this year. I recognize the distinctive shroud of XFX's Radeon HD 6790 as my old PC's GPU, a more budget card that really clashes with my memories of that thing being so powerful! I do wish I still had that 6790 as a memento of all the hours of Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dragon Age: Origins it rendered for me. (Image credit: Obsidian) From our forum Kaamos_Llama: I had poor excuses for gaming machines before 2004 when I finally had enough of my own money to pick up a Dell XPS ( Pre Alienware buyout XPS was Dell's gaming range). One of these: (Image credit: Dell) I bloody loved this thing, even though it was a Pentium 4 540 (with HT!) at the time AMD were first pulling ahead of Intel. I initially had a Radeon X300 SE GPU in it because I had no idea that it was terrible when I was configuring it. Not too long after I replaced that with an ATI Radeon X800 GTO, which was unbelievable to me at the time. F.E.A.R, HL2, and Doom 3 looked great in SVGA on my huge 17" CRT. But am I nostalgic? Not really. Loved that machine but damn I have access to a more games and better hardware now. I'd still love to build retro machines from the time, always liked LGR and Clint, but I don't have space or time to do it. Alm: I think my current PC is my favourite. I like how powerful and convenient gaming PCs are these days. I have fond memories of the first PC I used (my Dad's 486 SX-25), and the first computer I bought with my own money in 2001. It had a Chieftec Dragon case that was later used by Alienware. Chieftec's early aughts "Dragon" case. (Image credit: Chieftec, Frindis on the PC Gamer Forums) Brian Boru: For its time, the first IBM PC I personally owned in 1990. I worked for Wang at the time, and put my name in for an in-house lottery sell-off of a few dozen PCs. Since we made the machine, I was able to get it juiced up above the norm Even with serious discount, it cost ~£3,000 which is roughly $8,000 today—which demonstrates the incredible value we get today from PCs. I remember I was able to get a 40MB HDD and 8MB of RAM, plus dual floppy drives! Oh, and a color monitor Of course a PC is only a doorstop by itself. That PC is wrapped up in my first big intro into the whole hardware & software world, outside and beyond the narrower confines of work PCs in the 80s. So that of course enhances its stature—you never forget your first, right? Image 1 of 2 A Wang-designed IBM-compatible PC. (Image credit: Brian Boru on the PC Gamer Forums)A Wang-designed IBM-compatible PC. Image 2 of 2 (Image credit: Brian Boru on the PC Gamer Forums) Frindis: My favorite has to be the first PC that introduced me to gaming - the Atari 520 ST. I had a big red joystick to go with the PC and used to play Beyond the Ice Palace, Ikari Warriors, Zenon, Arkanoid, Wizzball, and Buggy Boy, to mention some of the cool games. It was also a PC that I used to play with my family, especially through the Arkanoid game, so it was a fun way to get the whole family playing together and having fun. Krud: When I consider my ENTIRE computer gaming history (which I admitted wasn't doing when I first answered), in terms of bang-for-buck, lifechanging elements, and whatever else, my all-time "favorite" PC was the Packard Bell 286 I got in high school, arguably my first "real" PC (from a gaming perspective), on which I played some of my all-time favorite games, from Space Quest I and the Hitchhiker's Guide text adventure, to Sam & Max Hit The Road and the world's slowest version of X-Wing. (I used some sketchy shareware driver called EMM286 to make the game think I had EMS memory. I think I got it to run at 60 frames per minute. Yep, not a typo.) mainer: As others have stated, my current PC is my favorite, even though it's almost 3 1/2 years old now (July 2019), it still does everything I need it to do and run games at high/ultra settings (admittedly I play more older titles than new). The only upgrades I've done is a video card back in 2020. I don't miss my older PCs, especially back in the days of staring at a CRT monitor for hours (which often weighed 30lbs or more). Mainer's rig, shared with the PC Gamer forums. (Image credit: mainer on the PC Gamer forums) WoodenSaucer: My favorite of all time was my Commodore 64. It was my first experience in computing, and I ate it up. I started learning to program on Day One, and I ended up knowing that thing inside and out. My next favorite computer was probably my first Windows based PC, which came much later in 1995 because I was broke. But it was my re-entry into the PC world, and it was very exciting. It was a Packard Bell with a 75MHz Pentium, 8MB of RAM, and a 540MB hard drive. It had SVGA graphics, and I couldn't believe how great it was compared to my Commodore. It was so exciting. Obviously, I've had PCs and laptops since then that were much, much more capable than those. But they were all just incremental upgrades, and those two were the most exciting for me. (Image credit: Wikimedia commons) Johnway: if I had to pick one PC? I think it will be my Amiga 500. It had been my faithful companion when I was a 5 years old and had been playing it for nearly a decade. Made many good, happy memories playing the amiga. Whilst everyone at school had NES, SNES, Megadrive/Genesis, I was the Amiga kid and no one knew any of the games I played. In the end I had to ditch it in 1999 when the mouse on the amiga finally gave up the ghost. Plus I needed a Windows PC for school work and had to move with the times. Didn't make getting rid of it any easier, felt guilty for several days as if I had betrayed a good friend for personal reasons. I still occasionally find myself reminiscing about the Amiga and taking time to go to the Hall of Light Amiga database to read the old amiga magazines and reviews. View the full article

Netflix has announced via its official website that Henry Cavill is out as Geralt of Rivia, with Liam Hemsworth recast as The Witcher protagonist for the newly-announced Season 4 and (presumably) beyond. The Witcher's third season is set to debut this summer and it will be Cavill's last hurrah as Geralt of Rivia. "As with the greatest of literary characters, I pass the torch with reverence for the time spent embodying Geralt and enthusiasm to see Liam's take on this most fascinating and nuanced of men." Cavill said in a post shared to Instagram. "Liam, good sir, this character has such a wonderful depth to him, enjoy diving in and seeing what you can find," Henry Cavill, I'm low-stakes callin' you out: You said you were game for seven seasons of The Witcher if Netflix would let you. Explain yourself. The recasting will surely come as a disappointment for many fans. We like Henry Cavill over here at PC gamer because he's one of us, and he's done a pretty good job drawing out Geralt's emotional and intellectual complexity. Does Liam Hemsworth paint miniatures? Does he build gaming PCs? We don't know, and we are characteristically afraid of the unknown. It's not certain, but I'm willing to bet Cavill's departure from the Netflix show has something to do with him returning to Warner Bros' DC Comics movies as Superman. Cavill previously took a break from filming The Witcher Season 3 to make a cameo in the recently-released Black Adam. On Hemsworth's Instagram, meanwhile, the actor said that "As a Witcher fan I’m over the moon about the opportunity to play Geralt of Rivia." Hemsworth previously had roles in The Hunger Games series and Independence Day: Resurgence. The Witcher show was in headlines earlier this week with the revelation that some of the writers on the show 'actively disliked' the books and games. View the full article

The vast, decentralized social platform that is Discord posts quarterly safety reports, and tallying up this year's ban numbers gives a dizzying figure. Discord disabled 55,573,411 accounts and removed 68,379 servers from January to June of 2022. The accounts banned, which Discord calls "disabling," were overwhelmingly for "spam or spam-related offenses." When looking at offenses other than spam, the figure for accounts drops to 1,821,721. There's no matching figure for servers, since those can't be spammers under Discord's rules—spammy server behavior would presumably fall under more specific silos like unsolicited content, platform manipulation, or illegal activities. The non-spam server and account bans are broadly categorized, but the majority of them are for Child Safety reasons, followed up by Exploitative and Unsolicited Content. If you're confused as to how this works in the seemingly-private world of Discord, we've got an article for that: How private is your private Discord server? TL;DR: Discord has rules and moderators, but they're not watching your streams and reading your chat 24/7. Scrutiny of extremist and illegal activity on Discord has been high in the last few years, with child harm content and hate-promoting content in the spotlight. Earlier this year the New York State Attorney General announced an investigation into platforms used to spread hate, including Discord, following a mass shooting. By Discord's reckoning its bans are targeting the right people, as a very small percentage of appealed account bans are reinstated. A mere 2% of appeals in Q1 and 0.6% in Q2. That means of the 235,945 people who appealed a ban only 3,098 got their accounts back. Of secondary interest are Discord's statistics on the reports of violations that people submit. They acted on 24% of reports from January to March and 22% from April to June. Those report action stats don't include Discord's one-click reports for spam—we previously wrote about Discord's never-ending game of cat and mouse with spammers. Looking at Discord's spam stats is fascinating: The majority of spammers banned don't even get reported by users. Only 7,785,111 of the 27,733,948 accounts banned for spam in Q2 were reported by users—roughly 25%—so it seems like Discord's weeding out most of the spam before users even report it. You can read Discord's transparency reports dating back to 2019 on its website. View the full article

On Thursday, SteamDB creator and regular dataminer Pavel Djundik tweeted a new discovery in Steam's code: a "peer content" client/server mode. His takeaway, soon confirmed by other programmers, was that "Valve is seemingly working on peer-to-peer Steam downloads on LAN." Peer-to-peer downloads may make you think of file-sharing software like Bittorrent, but this feature isn't actually about downloading games over the internet: it's the opposite. The "LAN" element focuses on your local network, meaning one peer might be your desktop PC and the other could be your laptop or Steam Deck. After launching the handheld gaming system, Valve is clearly interested in giving players a way to transfer their game libraries to it without redownloading them. If you're lucky enough to be on an unlimited gigabit internet connection, the LAN transfers won't matter a whole lot for you. But for players on slower connections or dealing with ISP-imposed bandwidth caps, it could be a real boon. Considering the storage hogs some games have become, you could potentially be saving hundreds of gigabytes of internet usage per month by copying games over your local network instead. That's a win for Valve, too: it means saving money on download server costs and at least slightly easing congestion. According to the programmers who've looked into the new feature, it actually works now—but unreliably. The only way to access it is to launch the beta build of Steam in developer mode by adding "-dev" to its shortcut, opening the console, and setting the "@PeerContentClientMode" variable on one device and "@PeerContentServerMode" variable on another. I confirmed the code was there, but didn't test an actual transfer; since the feature isn't accessible in Steam's UI yet, it's clearly not finished. (Image credit: Valve) "I have not gotten this to work reliably—the client/peer seem to not want to meet one another 100% of the time, or something," Twitter user Nouv told me. "Before you put in the work to get this working: uhhhhhh it's in a real early state (or something). I'm seeing it make connections occasionally but it gives up frequently and doesn't really seem too effective. Probably needs to mature a bit!" The feature is definitely new—until I updated to the latest Steam beta client, the code didn't appear in the console. So it's not some vestigial abandoned feature that's been kicking around Steam for years; hopefully that means Valve is actively tinkering with it, and that we could see support for it a few months down the road. If you own multiple PCs and have a house wired for 2.5 gig Ethernet: this is your cue for a maniacal laugh. View the full article

Modern Warfare 2 players are having a “blast” on Santa Seña Border Crossing, a new map centered around explosive close-quarters fighting on the US/Mexico border. While some pro gamers are confused by a map where everyone gets annihilated by explosions in the very first minute, Santa Seña has been welcomed by many players for its straightforward layout and tense gimmick. Santa Seña breaks away from the traditional 3-lane structure of CoD map design, channeling players through a maze of abandoned sedans and jack-knifed semi trucks. The dense traffic results in an absurd amount of explosive vehicles laid end to end in a more or less straight line, each one leaving behind a waist-high scrap pile to use as cover. (Image credit: Reddit) Each vehicle explosion not only deals lethal damage to anyone nearby, it also kicks up an obscuring cloud of dust and smoke, quickly transforming Santa Seña from a minivan minefield into a brutal, bumper-to-bumper shootout. But not everyone is ecstatic. Esports org FaZe clan mocked the map on Twitter: BREAKING: Call of Duty reveals designer of Santa Seña Border Crossing in #MW2 pic.twitter.com/9SQQELNT01October 28, 2022 See more Another popular COD Twitter account, TheGhostofHope, placed the map at the bottom of their day-one ranking. "I refuse to believe a level designer made this by choice," pro player Muddawg wrote on Twitter, saying that the map doesn't present players with interesting options of where to go. Even a passionate meteorologist dived in, calling it "the worst multiplayer map ever released in any game." Pushing back against this criticism, players were quick to counter that series favorites like Nuketown, Shipment, and Rust all deviated from the 3-lane design format. Reddit user CredDefensePost911 says “I’m having a blast on this map. In single-life modes the cars are a really fun mechanic, and in respawn modes they’re all blown up within a minute.” User MurfMan11 followed by saying that Santa Seña was “100% my favorite map that I played last night.” A few more enthusiastic comments that floated to the top of Modern Warfare 2's Reddit page: "I think this map is hilarious not every map needs to be serious. It’s very convenient for launcher challenges too lol" —rj2448"The map is actually really fun, i don’t really see the problem with the cars either since they’re all done exploding after the first minute." —antoza"I love this map, so hectic and all weapons are viable here. Snipers can go on top, shotty cab be used cqb etc. Everything has a place in this map" —fatedninjabunny"I like it because it has completely different gameplay. Not every map has to be small and 3 lane. One map that has completely wacky gameplay is fine." —danyaylol"Especially if you get the Javelin, thing is hilarious to randomly fire off at the start of a one life mode and see how many people you can kill." —Mazzanti Every map doesn't need to be some boring 3 lane competitive snoozefest.October 27, 2022 See more The discussion around Santa Seña highlights a divide between the casual and hardcore playerbases in expectations around map design, with many casual players welcoming the dynamic and unpredictable chaos of explosive car-to-car combat. So far, Santa Seña is an early PC Gamer favorite. Our very own Morgan Park noted that Santa Seña has a distinct flow compared to the other launch maps, forcing players to slow down and engage in prolonged gunfights. With limited avenues for flanking, and the ability to detonate the cover that your opponent is hiding behind, the eruptive opening salvos give way to a much slower and methodical pace. Ultimately, Santa Seña seems to have struck a chord with players who want more unique and interactive maps in the Modern Warfare 2 roster. Of the 10 6v6 maps in at launch, a few others also fit that bill: there's Crown Raceway, a box-shaped arena set during an active F1 race, and Zarqwa Hydroelectric, an urban battlefield with a network of underwater tunnels. View the full article

Whatever sort of help you want for your daily Wordle you'll find it right here. I can offer you a handy clue for today's puzzle, a wide range of tips and guides, and if you'd like to read the answer to the October 29 (497) challenge as quickly as possible you'll find that just a short scroll or click away. I had a little gap between a few greens today and none of the letters I had left seemed to fit. You'd think it'd be easy under those circumstances, but in truth having such a rigid gap only made finding the right letter more difficult. Wordle hint A Wordle hint for Saturday, October 29 Today's answer is serious business: this term is used to describe any publicly made false statement designed to damage another person's reputation and is usually brought out when the other party wishes to take legal action. There are two vowels to find today. Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success: A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants. A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.The solution may contain repeat letters. There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank. Today's Wordle answer (Image credit: Josh Wardle) What is the Wordle 497 answer? Need a hand? No problem. The answer to the October 29 (497) Wordle is LIBEL. Previous answers Wordle archive: Which words have been used The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh. Here are some recent Wordle solutions: October 28: SNEAKOctober 27: CARRYOctober 26: FLOUTOctober 25: FOGGYOctober 24: FAULTOctober 23: MUMMYOctober 22: SPIELOctober 21: GROVEOctober 20: DENIMOctober 19: QUIRK Learn more about Wordle Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them. You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns ️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. means you've got the right letter in the right spot. You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer. After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS). If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below. Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes. View the full article

Peripherals manufacturer Jsaux has announced it is delaying and redesigning its planned RGB Steam Deck dock, as reported by Gaming on Linux. Jsaux alleges that its manufacturing partner leaked its design to a rival company, and that this rival company co-opting its design led to the decision to pull the product. Valve has its in-house Steam Deck dock available for purchase, but with the long delay before it was released and a $90 price tag, it's a bit of a tall order. Meanwhile, any old USB-C hub will work for connecting a Deck to external peripherals, and manufacturers like Jsaux have stepped in to offer cheaper alternatives to Valve's docking station. We're fans of the company's standard Deck dock, though we recommend shelling out the extra $10 for its HB0603 model. Jsaux had already sent out preview samples of its next Steam Deck product, a variation on the HB0603 with an RGB ring around the base and further cosmetic, gaming laptop-y flourishes on the sides, when it announced the product's redesign and delay. In the post from Jsaux, the company shares a screenshotted tweet with the account name blacked out, allegedly from its competitor. The tweet includes video footage of a hardware peripheral with RGB lighting and tags a number of Steam Deck-focused influencers with the caption, "Newest Steam deck dock with flash lights. Coming soon!!" Jsaux then shares a series of screenshots from its CAD software showing design drafts of its RGB dock, dating the designs to July. The company states it filed a patent on the design in August. Jsaux alleges that its competitor acquired this design through its partner manufacturer, and stated that it will be using a different factory to produce its products in the future. The competitor's alleged knockoff. (Image credit: Jsaux) At this time it's unclear who Jsaux's unnamed competitor is. I can't find any trace of the tweet via Twitter search or the tagged influencers' activity history. I also cannot find the knockoff dock on sale on Amazon or AliExpress, though there are certainly other outlets it could be sold through. Steam Deck HQ, one of the outlets tagged in the tweet, stated that they know the identity of the rival company through this connection, but are keeping that information confidential in line with what seem to be Jsaux's wishes on the matter. It's certainly a tangled little yarn of gaming peripheral corporate espionage, like a super low stakes version of a William Gibson story. It's unclear to me why Jsaux is pulling its product when it seems to be the wounded party, one with a patent on the design. Jsaux is based in China and I would presume that its manufacturing partner and rival are as well, potentially eliding the difficulties of an international copyright dispute, but I'm hardly an expert on Chinese copyright law. Whatever the case, Jsaux intends to go back to the drawing board and return with a new design for an RGB deck, predicting that it will have something to bring to market after a few months' delay. Jsaux's dock on its own, showing the similar layout and cosmetic features. (Image credit: Jsaux) View the full article

The Store is Closed is an in-development survival game with a fun premise: You're stuck inside an "infinite furniture store," the mutant staff is trying to kill you, and the only way to stay alive is to explore the aisles and use the furniture to craft weapons and fortifications. If that description makes you think of Ikea, the famed Swedish purveyor of assemble-your-own furniture and oddly popular meatballs, you're not alone: In fact, creator Jacob Shaw referred to it as "an infinite Ikea game" on Reddit, as have some sites and streamers reporting on the project. Unfortunately for Shaw, the project came to the attention of the real-life Ikea, and its legal representatives have sent him a letter demanding that the game be changed, and threatening a lawsuit if it's not. "Our client has learned that you are developing a video game, The Store is Closed, which uses, without our client’s authorization, indicia associated with the famous Ikea stores," the letter, shared with PC Gamer by Shaw, states. "Your game uses a blue and yellow sign with a Scandinavian name on the store, a blue box-like building, yellow vertical striped shirts identical to those worn by Ikea personnel, a gray path on the floor, furniture that looks like Ikea furniture, and product signage that looks like Ikea signage. All the foregoing immediately suggest that the game takes place in an Ikea store." The letter also notes that multiple press reports on the project "make an explicit connection with Ikea," as do many comments made by readers. And you can certainly understand why: There's no mistaking the Ikea-inspired touches seen in the announcement trailer, like the big yellow Styr sign on the blue building, or the "Swedish meat" poster on the cafeteria wall. The good news for Shaw is that Ikea's lawyers aren't demanding that the project be halted, just that it be changed so that it doesn't look like, "or suggest," an Ikea store. "You can easily make changes to your game to avoid these problems, especially since you do not plan to release the game until 2024," the letter states. The bad news is that he's not perfectly clear on how to do that. Some aspects of the project, like blue and yellow colors, seem clearly inspired by Ikea, but he's not sure what to do about "furniture that looks like Ikea furniture," for instance. "I bought generic furniture asset packs to make this game," Shaw told Kotaku. "I don’t know what that means." Speaking to PC Gamer, Shaw said he's going to comply with the demands because he'd "really rather not get sued," but reiterated his uncertainty about what exactly will satisfy Ikea: "Their requests are a little vague. Like, 'furniture that looks like Ikea furniture,' that's not particularly specific." His solution for now is "basically just ripping out anything that is blue or yellow and adding some garish red everywhere," he said. "Removing all the Scandinavian furniture, changing all the posters, probably remove the path [from the floor]." As for the furniture, he said some of the items in the furniture packs he purchased have Scandinavian names, so he's going to start with removing those. Shaw shared a couple images showcasing a quick take on the potential new look: (Image credit: Ziggy) (Image credit: Ziggy) But even if he's able to change the game to Ikea's satisfaction, the legal threat has left him with other worries. "It makes me very nervous of changing the colour scheme to something else," he said. "What if Target sues me for using red?" Despite this surprise legal headache, Shaw is going ahead with development on The Store is Closed, although his plan for the final week of its ongoing (and very successful) Kickstarter campaign has changed: Instead of a new game update to prepare for alpha testing, he's working on the visual overhaul instead. And it shouldn't make a "huge difference" to the overall development schedule, he said: "Just more stress." View the full article

If you haven't yet updated to the latest Nvidia graphics driver, you might want to hold off: Nvidia has confirmed that there is a bug in the driver that's causing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 crashes. Word of the issue initially came to our attention by way of Beenox, the lead studio on the PC version of Modern Warfare 2. "We've noticed some stability issues with the latest NVIDIA drivers 526.47 on Call of Duty #MWII," the studio tweeted. "For now we'd suggest you keep the 516.59, or 522.25 drivers. We've noticed some stability issues with the latest NVIDIA drivers 526.47 on Call of Duty #MWII. For now we'd suggest you keep the 516.59, or 522.25 drivers.October 27, 2022 See more Nvidia later confirmed a problem in an email sent to PC Gamer. "Yes, there is a bug filed for this game and we are working on a hotfix," a representative wrote. "This is specifically why our latest Game Ready Driver wasn't promoted or recommended for this title in the first place." Ironically, several people posting about problems on Reddit say they've updated to the latest drivers in order to address crash problems. One redditor, for instance, describes Steam requiring a lengthy download after a crash before it will allow the game to launch again (even though it's not actually downloading anything), a problem I've run into myself a few times. Updating graphics drivers is a standard early step when it comes to troubleshooting, yet in this case it apparently just makes the problem worse. Nvidia didn't provide a time frame on when the hotfix will be available, but the current Game Ready Driver is still listed as 526.47—the broken one—so for now the best thing to do is just stick with what you've got, even if it's a little wonky. If you've already updated and want to roll back, instructions for doing so are up at nvidia.com. View the full article

Overwatch 2's next patch will target some of the strongest heroes currently in the game. In a post on the Blizzard forums, Overwatch 2 community manager Andy "AndyB" Belford outlined a selection of nerfs set to take effect on November 15. The changes target Sombra, Genji, Zarya, D.Va, and the new ninja-themed support, Kiriko. The full list of changes is as follows: Sombra Hack ability lockout duration reduced from 1.75 to 1.5 secondsHacked enemies are no longer valid targets for hacking for the duration of the effectHacked damage multiplier reduced from 40 to 25% Genji Maximum ammo reduced from 30 to 24Shuriken damage reduced from 29 to 27 Zarya Barrier duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 secondsBarrier cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds D.va Fusion Cannon spread increased from 3.5 to 3.75Boosters impact damage reduced from 25 to 15 Kiriko Swift Step invulnerability duration reduced from 0.4 to 0.25 seconds We've previously covered how all the best tanks in North America have been playing Zarya. With Overwatch 2's shift to a single tank meta, many feared damage-oriented secondary tanks like the Russian weightlifter would be left behind. It seems Blizzard overcorrected, as her new double bubbles have let her become a bit of a raid boss with near-constant invulnerability. The uptime reduction seems like a smart shift to tone her down without undermining that fantasy. D.Va, meanwhile, retains her new and improved defensive matrix while simply having her damage and accuracy taken down a peg. Support slayer Genji thoroughly benefitted from the shift to a single tank meta, so needing more shurikens to kill and having fewer of them in a clip (magazine? forearm?) could strike a better balance with the freer hand he has in the backline now. Sombra, similarly, will now have less potential as a solo assassin, especially with that massive hacking damage nerf (40% to 25%). New heroes always need at least a little tuning after getting introduced, and Kirkio's reduced invulnerability window will attach greater risk to wanton teleporting. These all seem like sensible changes to balance a hero shooter that, despite some progression and monetization issues, is still the game we've loved since 2016 at heart. While we're here, if Blizzard is taking balance comments, I would like to suggest some changes for Cassidy: Doubled Peacemaker body shot damage, tripled headshot damageReintroduced flashbang alongside Magnetic Grenade, he gets both nowDeadeye locks on instantaneouslyNo one is allowed to be mean to me in team chat anymore View the full article

Crossplay: Some people like it, some people don't. It's always nice having more people to play with, but console players will sometimes switch it off to avoid being mauled by the speed and accuracy of mouse and keyboard (or, you know, cheats); likewise, PC players sometimes prefer to avoid the accuracy-boosting aim assist offered by console shooters. But for Xbox and PC players on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, that is literally not an option. According to multiple complaints on Reddit, there is simply no option to disable Modern Warfare 2 crossplay on Xbox or PC. I can't speak for the Xbox, but I checked the game on PC and it's true: There's no toggle to turn it on or off. What makes the situation really strange, though, is that multiple redditors say the PlayStation 5 version of the game does have a crossplay toggle. Eurogamer verified that the PS5 menu option is present. It is possible to turn off crossplay on Xbox consoles by disabling it completely through the console's privacy settings, but that's a hassle for anyone who wants crossplay enabled in other games, just not Modern Warfare 2. And of course it does no good for PC players, who are stuck with crossplay enabled. It's a weird situation. It'd be one thing if Activision made crossplay mandatory for everyone—not necessarily a good thing, but at least understandable. But to make it an option on one console but not the other (and not PC) is a bizarre decision—assuming it's not a bug, of course. Some players on the Modern Warfare 2 subreddit have theorized that the call was actually made by Microsoft because it wants to combine Xbox and PC into a single ecosystem, but I think that's very unlikely: At its core, removing the crossplay toggle is a denial of basic functionality, and that's not going to make anyone happy no matter what the intent. PS5 network settings, with crossplay toggles at the top: (Image credit: Activision) PC network settings—note the absence of crossplay options: (Image credit: Activision) I've reached out to Activision to ask why crossplay cannot be disabled on PC and Xbox, and will update if I receive a reply. View the full article

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, the farm and life simulation that I originally sold my soul to as a child, is being remade as Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. And now, thank goodness, it's confirmed to be coming to PC too. The remake of A Wonderful Life was originally announced during a Nintendo Direct in September but did not specify whether it would also be launching on any PC stores. Surely it has to, I thought, after other recent Story of Seasons games made it to PC. I immediately reached out to publisher Marvelous to check, trust me, but I didn't get an answer right away. A new trailer today broke the news. A Wonderful Life is hardly the first Harvest Moon game, mind, but it's the first that so many people around my age got to know back on the GameCube and PlayStation 2. As is tradition, your main character moves out to Forget-Me-Not Valley (Forgotten Valley in the remake, funnily) to take over a farm from his (or hers or theirs, now) deceased father, eventually marrying and having a child while purchasing new crops and animals for the property. It was the first game of the series where your child would grow up and choose their own career too. "This remake of a beloved classic features plenty of new events, enhanced festivals, more recipes to cook, and a cornucopia of never-before-seen crops," Marvelous says of the remake. "With the option to play as a male, female, or non-binary protagonist, as well as all eligible marriage candidates available for romance regardless of that choice, you can truly be who you want to be." In the remake's trailer you can spot a proper character creator with choices between two outfits, a variety of skin colors, hairstyles, and a few faces. Like the name of the valley, marriage candidates and other characters have had their names changed too. That's likely the effect of the rat's nest of rights and licensing in the transition from the Harvest Moon to Story of Seasons name. Rest assured though that the jaunty main melody of the game sounds the same. Music really sets the mood in the valley. I did actually haul out my childhood GameCube to play some of A Wonderful Life several years ago and, yeah, the thing's clunky to control and otherwise lacking in the same modern conveniences of the many, many games like Stardew Valley (which was itself inspired by Harvest Moon, of course) that we now have on PC. (Image credit: Marvelous Inc, Xseed Games) The A Wonderful Life remake looks quite fresh though, more so than the recent Story of Seasons remake of the 2003 Game Boy game Friends of Mineral Town. I'm a sucker for nostalgia, but the attention to a proper character creator, new crops, and open marriage candidates smells to me like a good sign that this Story of Seasons game could be a genuinely S-grade remake. Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life doesn't yet have a release date, but is expected to launch summer 2023 on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series X/S. View the full article

With the death of Miniclip, I got a little nostalgic for browser games. My favourite flavour of games of that era were the restaurant games where you single-handedly ran a stand for passers by. You'd have to manage the orders of a bunch of people at one time and correctly put ingredients together for hot dogs, burgers, and other meals with several components. They were repetitive and fun and after the death of one of the biggest flash sites, I desired that repetitiveness once again. So I headed over to Itch.io and found An Average Day at the Cat Cafe which is a suitably strange yet adorable restaurant sim. You're the owner of a cafe with just one cat, actually, but the clients you serve are more like Tamogotchis than they are people. The team behind An Average Day at the Cat Cafe is made up of just three people, so the game is pretty small in scope, which lines up how I remember all these restaurant games in the past. You scurry from place to place in your little cafe kitchen to create some adorable meals and beverages for your patrons who are… ducks and cats and other animals. (Image credit: Alex Rose, Angela He, Atmospherium) The art style of An Average Day at the Cat Cafe is made up of light lines and pastel colours. It reminds me of watercolour paintings I've seen of people's little cosy homes, riverside plants or cute animals. It's very sweet and fresh while your singular little cat lives snoozing in the bottom left of your screen. The cute theme of the game doesn't hold back the chaos though. One wrong move after a while and there's no saving the customer from turning and walking right out that door annoyed, huffing and puffing about your terrible service. The ingredients and the order you must put them together in is precise and individual. There is also no telling how long a customer is willing to wait as there isn't a timer above their heads—you just have to do your best to give them exactly what they want. But even in their fury it's fun to see these faces come and go. From frogs with walking sticks to a little bear with the most chiselled chin you could ever imagine, there is something Toby Fox-esque or Tamogotchi-like about most of the customers you encounter. (Image credit: Alex Rose, Angela He, Atmospherium) Though the sweet premise, the cute art style, and the normal mutant duck things are enough to be getting on with, there are a few other things you might encounter that make An Average Day at the Cat Cafe slightly unsettling. The game doesn't prepare you for the odd requests of the clients you meet at night, if you could even call them clients. Though it's a cat cafe, and I would have assumed you'd shut your doors at a sensible five or six pm, you stay open way into the night and encounter an altogether creepier clientele with less common cafe orders. There are monsters that walk backwards with butts protruding forth and all they want is toilet paper. So, of course, that's what you give them. With the limited animation of An Average Day at the Cat Cafe, I don't know if they eat it, or they need it to wipe, or maybe they just like holding onto tissue in case of emergencies, but hey at least I don't need to make another damned boba tea. (Image credit: Alex Rose, Angela He, Atmospherium) I don't want to ruin the other requests you get in the night because one of them is hilariously dark tonally and I'm pretty sure some of the things you meet are demons. It's unsettling in the smallest of ways but it does compel you to try out each day hoping to understand what sort of world all of this is happening in. The game isn't super complex or detailed but it's exactly what I wanted when craving those old restaurant sims I played as a kid. With Halloween just around the corner, its slightly unsettling situation makes it a great game for someone like me that doesn't like intensely scary stuff. Best bit is that it's a browser game and free, so why not have a little break and try it out as an evening treat or lunch time adventure? View the full article

Have you ever wanted to explore the inside of a smartphone? Now you can in Backfirewall_, a brand new first person narrative puzzle adventure with fun puzzles and satire from indie developer Naraven Games, published by All in! Games. Go inside a smartphone as the Update Assistant and fight back against the Update threatening to delete the old operating system and you in the process! WIth the help of OS9, the old operating system, gamers navigate a beautiful, quirky environment inside the smartphone, which feels sort of like a retro-futuristic office complex, complete with a nightclub. In order to save the operating system from deletion, players will need to solve clever puzzles like terminal errors in the RAM, have fun in the Speakers nightclub, and explore all the different areas of the smartphone. (Image credit: All in! Games) Stopping the update means generating havoc and chaos inside the phone by creating bugs, discovering errors, and deleting data using cheat codes scattered throughout the world. Newly released gameplay footage shows off this fun, byte-sized universe and the quirky characters that can either offer mini side quests or some sassy conversation. Either way, it’s worth interacting with as many side characters as you can find. (Image credit: All in! Games) Along with solving the puzzles and defeating the software update, you’ll be able to gather data like emails and text conversations to uncover as much as you can about the parallel story of the phone's user. You never know what you will discover! Of course, throughout the adventure, gamers are treated to plenty of unproductive, useless, but always entertaining humor. Expect fourth-wall breaks, sarcasm and satire to keep you laughing. Backfirewall_ promises hours of endless fun for fans of quirky puzzlers looking for a relaxing, yet entertaining puzzle game with loads of goofy humor. Check out the website to learn more and add it to your Steam wishlist today and be sure to check out the game when it launches for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch next year. The fate of the System is in your hands! View the full article

On October 27, Ebb Software put out Scorn's first major patch since release, version 1.1.8.0. Among a swathe of quality of life changes, Ebb also tweaked Scorn's checkpoint and save system, fixing the biggest flaw of what is otherwise a fantastic survival horror game. I love Scorn, I really, really dig it, enough to give it an 80% in my review. This body horror adventure makes the most of its advanced graphics tech, looking like no other game I've played, and it manages to tell an unsettling sci-fi story reminiscent of the mid-20th century masters like Philip K. Dick or Harlan Ellison without any words. And yet it almost burnt through all my goodwill with its horrendous checkpoint system. Scorn doesn't let you save on demand, instead having rolling checkpoints and chapter/half-chapter hard saves. On release, you could only load a checkpoint on death, meaning that if you quit the game and came back, you could only access the far less forgiving chapter saves to get back into things. In addition to being pretty user-unfriendly on its own, this system absolutely bit me in the 'donkey' when I encountered a progress-blocking bug. I glitched out 3/4s of the way through a particularly climactic chapter with no way of triggering a death and going back to a checkpoint. I had to reload a chapter save (this one didn't have a halfway mark either!) and redo the whole thing from the beginning, leaving one of my last impressions of Scorn a frustrating runback of what was otherwise my favorite part of the game. Now? No more! The patch allows you to access your latest checkpoint from the load menu. I checked this by hopping back into my endgame save and, wouldn't you know it, my last checkpoint was right before that part I glitched out at in my first run. With this QoL fix secured, I can heartily recommend Scorn for any spooky gaming needs you have this Halloween season. The patch also includes other bug fixes and QoL changes, and we've got the list in full here: Fixed Bugs A player can get stuck in the hurt machineA player can get stuck in the collision after performing a glory killAfter killing the Boss in Act V, players are unable to pick up the dropped itemA player might die by falling through the floor at certain positions Fixed Issues German localization issuesSpanish localization issuesFOV issues on ultrawide screensPosition of the ammo/heal container when a player uses healCapsule blockers on a bridgeAct V loading issueCrash when exiting the gameOccasional NPC freezesVarious collisions causing issues Updates and Additions Removed the Continue option after a player finishes the gameRemoved the Load and the Quit game options from the death screenAdded safety check for a corrupted save slotAdded Load last checkpoint optionAdded Act III-II hard saveUpdated checkpoint positionsUpdated list of the Kickstarter backersUpdated CreditsUpdated FSR 2.0 label in the Options menuUpdated positions of certain assets View the full article

One of the most ambitious new games of 2022 is Warhaven, a vicious medieval fantasy action game with brutal 16v16 melee battles. Similar to other titles in the genre, Warhaven is all about brawling in close-quarters to control important map objectives. However, it also features several unique elements and design philosophies, including a strong focus on approachable, easy-to-learn gameplay mechanics, a distinct emphasis on squad-based teamplay, and the ability to transform into a powerful Immortal hero unit that can have a massive impact on the state of the battleground. Overall, Warhaven sounds like a perfect fit for players interested in approachable and strategic hack-and-slash multiplayer. Here’s a deeper look at everything it has to offer to fans of chaotic sword and sorcery-based combat. Chaotic fun for everyone (Image credit: NEXON) Compared to other games in the medieval melee genre that tend to focus on complex combat mechanics with lots of intricacies, Warhaven is designed to be easy to pick up and play. The game’s simple control scheme and ability-driven mechanics make it very approachable regardless of your mechanical skill level. Because of this, strategic concepts like ability timing and proper positioning are the biggest keys to victory. Additionally, the inclusion of both rapid respawns and the ability to revive teammates means that you’ll never have to wait long to get back into the fray. This ensures that death isn’t overly punishing, and ultimately makes learning and trying to improve less frustrating than it often is in other melee combat games. Squad-based mayhem (Image credit: NEXON) Teamwork is important in any team-based multiplayer experience, but it’s especially valuable in Warhaven. At the start of each match, each 16-player team is divided into squads of four. Within these squads, players are strongly encouraged to stick with their allies and help them fight opponents while also assaulting, defending, and using valuable pieces of equipment like cannons, ballistas, siege engines, and more. Effective teamplay, including the use of complementary characters, weapons, abilities, and magical skills, will turn your squad into a devastating force to be reckoned with. Whether you’re holding the frontline, softening up the enemy with ranged attacks from a high ground position, or supporting allies by reflecting deadly projectiles or healing them with restorative magic, it’s important for squad members to fight together as one. Throughout Warhaven’s attractive and varied medieval fantasy combat arenas, coordination with your allies is also crucial for dominating important objectives. Onslaught maps feature capturable flags and frontline footholds that can be pushed back and overrun, while Skirmish features bases that give your team additional sandbox tools to use when controlled. Finally, there’s Arms Race, the game’s core attack/defense mode with massive war machines that slowly encroach on the other team’s defensive positions. Transform into powerful Immortals (Image credit: NEXON) Whether players are supporting their teammates from afar with arrows and magic or hacking enemies down on the frontline, they’ll have the opportunity to earn a chance to temporarily transform into one of Warhaven’s fantastical Immortal characters. These are powerful hero-style warriors with wholly unique skills and abilities, and when used well, each one can change the tide of a battle. For instance, Martyr is an extremely agile fighter with earthshattering melee attacks, while Raven can fry her enemies to a crisp with her crow’s ranged area-of-effect fire damage. Hoet provides invaluable support with magical long-range revives and protective barriers, and Darkgale can blitz through the map quickly to ambush and assassinate unsuspecting soldiers. Immortals are extremely powerful, and learning how to use each one is a blast. With that said, they’re not impossible to take down, and players working together with their team can overcome their strengths with enough coordination and strategy. Notably, successfully defeating an Immortal will help you transform into one soon, greatly rewarding your skill. Test your metal in the Warhaven Global Beta, available now (Image credit: NEXON) Warhaven offers a unique and interesting twist on medieval hack-and-slash combat, and if you’re interested in checking it out, you’re in luck. The game’s Global Beta is available to play from now until November 2, and all you have to do to get access to it is select the “Request Access” button next to the beta listing on Warhaven’s Steam page. You’ll then be able to download and play it, reveling in its visceral battles and blood-soaked battlegrounds. For more on Warhaven, also make sure you follow the game’s Twitter and Facebook pages, as well as its official YouTube and Twitch channels, Discord server, and website. View the full article