I romanced a hunky British man with a shotgun for a head in a game that lets me have ‘US government approved pronouns’ like Jamestown, grits, and freedom

Developer Scope Creeps warns me as I boot up gun dating simulator Polyarmory: High Calibre Love that it is a team very much dedicated to the bit, and I didn’t have to go any further than its options menu to figure that out. For starters, there’s a toggle for BDSM clowns—much appreciated for those of…

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Dutch police have arrested a man for reportedly refusing to relinquish files they sent him: ‘He would only comply if he received something in return’

A 40-year old man from Ridderkerk in the Netherlands has been arrested for reportedly downloading files accidentally sent to him by the police, then apparently refusing to send them back unless he received a reward. That’s according to the Dutch National Police’s report on the incident (via BitDefender). The report (machine translated) says the man…

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Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling beats AMD’s FSR and plain old native rendering at 4K in a poll of over 1,000 gamers

German website ComputerBase.de has conducted a blind comparison test pitting AMD’s and Nvidia’s latest AI-based upscaling technologies against native rendering at 4K in a poll of over 1,000 gamers. Across six different games, Nvidia DLSS came out on top as the stated preference of gamers, beating not only AMD FSR but also native 4K rendering….

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New research suggests folks are relying on ‘outdated visual cues’ to identify AI-generated faces—but I did get 14/20 on the test

I like to think I’m pretty good at spotting the tell-tale signs of AI-generated images: weirdly soft lighting, blurry background details, accessories or smaller details that simply disappear into nothing. Unfortunately, every ‘real or fake’ test I’ve taken thus far has been immediately humbling. The latest ‘real or AI-generated’ test I’ve stumbled across comes from…

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WoW’s classes were pruned for Midnight because many were ‘built in a world’ where its devs assumed they’d be using addons

World of Warcraft recently embarked on the massive undertaking of redesigning all of its many specialisations to work without the assistance of UI mods (addons) for Midnight—mods which previously automated a ton of the complexity of its classes. As an outlaw rogue, for instance, I had an addon which told me when I should cast…

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Obsidian was ‘surprised’ that Avowed players bounced off one of the RPG’s most important systems: ‘That frustration came through loud and clear’

There are very few good examples of RPG crafting systems. I’ll make an exception for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which makes alchemy and blacksmithing tactile and engaging. Otherwise? Get outta here with your busywork. And it looks like a lot of Avowed players feel the same way. Avowed’s upgrade system caught a lot of flak…

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Avowed’s massive anniversary update adds new playable races, but they don’t get any unique dialogue because there were ‘no dedicated narrative people available’

Avowed’s 2.0 update, also known as the anniversary update, is a meaty one. New stat bonuses, custom difficulty modifiers, NG+, the new staff weapon type, a photo mode—it’s a lot. The most significant new addition, though, is undoubtedly the arrival of three new playable races. If you’ve not played Avowed yet, you might be surprised…

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