Andy Edser, hardware writer (Image credit: Future) This month I’ve been testing: Gaming laptops, headphones, and the odd mouse or two. I’ve also fallen back into the time sink that is Diablo 4, because the best way to test a gaming mouse is to hammer it repeatedly while swearing. Probably. One of the clichés you…
Modern technical advancements in gaming can feel a bit… underwhelming at times. Ray tracing only seems to exist so I can briefly admire an FPS-tanking reflection or puddle I would have otherwise walked straight past. Chromatic aberration is mostly there to be turned off. My once-spacious SSDs are quickly clogged up by multi-gig patches that…
In 2021, actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen were whiling away the Covid lockdowns in GTA Online when they had an idea: “Why not stage Hamlet inside the game?” They recorded hundreds of hours of in-game attempts to perform Shakespeare amid the chaos of GTA 5 and put together a feature-length documentary, Grand Theft Hamlet,…
And it can only get better. For the younger readers amongst you, I suspect that many 3D games from the ‘90s and ‘00s seem rather quaint at best and downright unplayable at worst. It was a period in which the medium was geting to grips with a completely new third dimension; couple this with the…
I could reel off a list of products all deserving of a nod in this year’s hardware awards. The ROG Strix X870-I Gaming Wifi and Ayaneo Flip DS, to name just two, are easy recommendations. But neither could have earned my recommendation come September. That was when I first got my hands on the Havn…
Metaphor: ReFantazio, the tale of a young outcast’s quest to end racism by clearing dungeon after dungeon of seemingly evil lesser species, is a great RPG and one of the best games of 2024. It’s also like $70, which represents half a year’s savings in games media. Clearly Atlus has become detached from the concerns…
Dredge is great. We called it “a fantastic fishing game with a sinister mystery lurking in its depths” in our 89% review, and also named it Best Setting in our 2023 Game of the Year Awards. And now, for the first time ever, you can pick it up for free from the Epic Games Store….
If you’re looking for something new to play over the holidays, allow me to direct your attention to Striden, and more specifically the new round of playtesting that’s now underway. The holiday playtest features a brand-new co-op PvE mode that sets teams of up to five players on a mission to fix their radio so…
Every game we scored 9/10 or higher. Nintendo of America has kicked off its ‘Hits for the Holidays‘ eShop sale, bringing a wave of beefy discounts to thousands of titles across the storefront until 5th January. There are so many to choose from, in fact, that it can be difficult to see the very best…
On the one hand, “score inflation” is a real concern we discuss. We think a game should have to be really special to receive a 90%, so when we start talking about a 94% or a 95%, the game in question ought to make us feel like the guy in the galaxy brain meme with…