‘A classic fake reflection where it’s just the same room under a glass floor’: I no longer trust my senses after reading this gamedev thread breaking down cost-effective graphical sorcery

If you’ve ever trundled around on the back of a Warthog in the original Halo, you’ll remember the way its tires seemed to melt into noisy blur as they got going. Turns out, there’s no actual blur effect being applied—the game just swaps out a normal tire texture with one that looks hazy whenever the…

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A GTA modder has got the 1997 original working perfectly on modern PCs and Steam Deck, and it’s a joy to behold: ‘I wanted pick up-and-play GTA on Windows with the best possible compatibility without classic installation’

In the most welcome of news, you can now play the original Grand Theft Auto—the 1997 top-down, chaos-in-a-shoebox crime simulator that started it all—on modern PCs and Steam Decks without cursing at your screen and tearing your hair out. As a long-suffering bald man, I’m not sure I can confidently pin my lack of follicle…

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You’ve had Skate Story, now get ready for Skate Style, a ‘next-gen skateboarding game’ that lets you customise your character’s animations

The skating game revival of the last few years has been an unexpected, but welcome surprise. Vicarious Visions’ remaster of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 heralded a new wave of aspiring skate sims, ranging from the ultra-authentic Session: Skate Sim to the abstract brilliance of Skate Story, with EA’s online playground Skate landing somewhere between…

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Terraria’s biggest mod manager will require months before it’s fully compatible with the 1.4.5 patch: ‘Updating tModLoader to major Terraria releases is a huge undertaking’

Terraria‘s long-awaited 1.4.5 update finally arrived in January, digging up a treasure trove of new features like an overhauled crafting interface, a new world seed, updated visuals, crossover items with Palworld and Dead Cells, and a vast array of new objects, mobs, and secrets to discover. It’s gone down a storm with Terraria’ community, but…

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Witcher 3 mod restores a darker ending for the Hearts of Stone expansion that was cut during development

Brothers in Arms is a mod for The Witcher 3 that combines bug fixes with restoration of cut content. It’s a frequently updated mod—last time we checked it restored a bunch of dialogue, including a Yennefer romance scene—but the most recent update is particularly substantial. The lengthy list of additions in version 3.1.0 includes the…

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In defense of Assassin’s Creed Unity

You’ve just completed one of Unity’s black box assassination missions, an infiltration with multiple diversions and entrances to find and exploit. The next mission has you meet up with Elise, your templar girlfriend, on the streets of revolutionary Paris. She’s being pursued by a mob of templar thugs—her faction aren’t fans of her or you…

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Train Sim World devs announce Thomas the Tank Engine game ‘powered by Train Sim World’ and the true train sickos are down: ‘It will make 9 trainzillion dollars’

If you were a child at one point, you may remember Thomas the Tank Engine. What started as a series of extremely British children’s books has turned into a venerable, extremely British fixture of pop culture thanks to the beloved TV show—and now, Thomas and co. are getting their very own train sim game from…

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Director Gore Verbinski said he ‘loved’ working on the BioShock movie and ‘was going to dive deeply into the Oedipal aspect’: ‘Every year I hear something about the project, but I’m not sure any studio is quite willing to go where I was headed’

Videogame adaptations to film and television are the new hotness—haven’t you heard? Markiplier’s Iron Lung flick just took the box office by storm, Yoshi’s laying eggs on the silver screen, and the best choice-driven fantasy RPG ever made is getting an HBO show that’ll do all the choosing for you. If you’re a videogame enjoyer…

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