Posts

2021 marks the second year running that Summer Games Done Quick is going online-only - traditionally, shows have been ticketed real-world events, with all speedrunning showcases being streamed online - and the precautions established last year will remain in place to “ensure the continued safety of our attendees, runners, volunteers, and staff”, according to organisers. Even without the live-event element, there’s still plenty to look forward to, with this year’s show offering a full seven days of speedrunning, from Sunday, 4th July, to 11th July....

Not that being different is wrong, of course. Sometimes taking an alternate road or looking at something through a new lens helps, of course; particularly when it comes to a twenty-something-year-old franchise in one of the most oversaturated genres in gaming. And that’s what makes Rainbow Six Extraction so thrilling, I guess. Though the gunplay and stealthy tactics will feel wonderfully familiar to those who’ve spent time in Rainbow Six’s annals - as will its roster of series stalwarts - Extraction is just different enough to stand out not only from its predecessors, but from the FPS genre more generally, too....

Really. Hanx101 is a trivia game due out exclusively on Apple Arcade this Friday, 2nd September. “Can you complete the Hanx 101 challenge?” asks the official blurb. Expect to test your knowledge in everything from maths to geography. The “Hanx101 mode” poses 101 trivia questions. “Tom Hanks is challenging you to Hanx101 Trivia!” the blurb continues. Remarkably, this isn’t Tom Hanks’ first dabble with downloads. Donlan (who else?) wrote about Hanks’ typewriter app, the wonderfully-named Hanx Writer, back in 2016....

The group, named GWA Albany, has said it is pushing for fairer pay, improved healthcare benefits and more transparency in addressing workplace issues. Addressing crunch is another key demand, with staff asking for the establishment of “reasonable protocols” to address times when they are asked to work extended hours. This is the second planned unionisation within Activision Blizzard as a whole following the recent, long-running and ultimately successful push by Call of Duty studio Raven Software to win unionisation for QA staff there....

The famous toy shop chain, which sold video games, toppled into administration in March 2018, closing 100 stores in the UK and 800 stores in the US, and putting thousands of people out of a job. According to Kidscreen, current brand owner WHP Global has signed a long-term exclusive licensing agreement with Australia’s Toys “R” Us ANZ to launch digital and physical retail stores in the UK. The deal covers both the Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us brands....

Earlier today, reddit user sadfutago - behind all the videos so far - posted a link to a Twitch stream that revealed all behind the previously unseen secret church area and its use of Nier: Replicant assets. The stream showed various assets from the game and the secret church area, before admitting all was done through an in-game mod, which will be made available publicly. The VOD wasn’t saved but you can still watch clips of the broadcast....

The streaming platform has previously run awareness campaigns for diverse communities, including Pride Month, Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month. However, Twitch has never highlighted disability in the same way. Streamers want that to change. A new post on the UserVoice forum from streamer QueerlyBee states the lack of a front page feature for disabled creators is “a big missed opportunity”. “Being a content creator as a disabled person adds a whole host of additional challenges, such as navigating algorithms that favour consistency with inconsistent bodies....

Speaking to Axios, Ubisoft chief people officer Anika Grant acknowledged its initial response to the ongoing workplace misconduct scandal since mid-2020 was flawed. “At the beginning of the crisis, we spent a lot of time making sure that we had the right process in place, that we were able to very quickly and efficiently run an investigation and get to some outcomes,” she said. “What I think we missed, though, is the employee experience through that....

The impressive Unification mod for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War expansion Soulstorm makes a huge number of quality of life changes to Relic’s 2004 real-time strategy classic, but most exciting of all is the addition of 17 new races, all playable in multiplayer and against the AI. Unification is the work of the Thudmeizer Mod Team. It’s an advanced combiner mod that lets you seamlessly combine almost all community-created races....

Admittedly, “interactive tutorial” sounds neither riveting nor sexy, which is probably why Valve is referring to its new Steam Deck experience as a “free playable short”. But what actually is it?, you may be wondering. Well, in much the same way as Valve returned to the Portal universe for its entirely endearing Steam VR performance test a few years back, Aperture Desk Job is designed to walk Steam Deck owners through their new handheld’s controls and features, “while not being nearly as boring as that sounds....

The giveaway will take placed on 9th December (UK time) and is open to entrants from countries where the handheld system is sold, namely US, Canada, UK, and the EU. “In celebration of The Game Awards, Steam Deck now being in stock, and gaming in general, we will be giving away one 512GB Steam Deck every minute during the live airing of The Game Awards,” the company announced on the official website....

Offshoring is legal in many countries, but is widely regarded as a dirty trick, denying the society that supports you an appropriate share of your earnings - and in a moment of blunt poetic justice, Michael, Franklin and Trevor proceed to “offshore” Weston by rolling the car over a cliff into the Pacific Ocean. It’s typical of Rockstar’s brand of social satire, clownish and macabre and, in this case, spiced with hypocrisy....

This is a peculiar weapon. While it’s part of the pistol category, it’s undeniably a sawed off double barrel shotgun. If you were waiting for a new secondary option to fool around in Team Deathmatch playlists or Plunder, this could be the one. This page will cover how to unlock the Marshal in the swiftest way possible, and the best Marshal loadout and Marshal class recommendations to make the most of it....

The new Warzone content comes under the title of Mercenaries of Fortune, heralding the new Fortune’s Keep map, and a bunch of updates to Caldera. To keep you in the loop, this page has been updated with everything you need to know about the new season. You’ll find the Warzone Season 4 release date, details on the new map, and other updates to expect at launch. On this page:...

The Battle of Steeltown DLC releases 3rd June on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, inXile said. The trailer is below: Here’s the official blurb: “The towering factory complex of Steeltown manufactures all the tech that keeps Colorado running and the Patriarch in power - trucks, armour, weapons, and robots. But deliveries from Steeltown have stopped cold, and all the Patriarch is getting from Abigail Markham - Steeltown’s leader - are excuses....

According to an investigation by Kotaku, staff at Ubisoft Singapore, which is home to around 500 staff and is current working on the troubled Skull & Bones, allegedly suffered from sexual harassment, racial pay disparities and bullying by managers, as well as “bad projects” and “toxic leaders”. Now, in a report by The Straits Times, an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore, the national watchdog for fair employment practices has launched an investigation into Ubisoft Singapore over the claims....

While there is convergence in technologies - in terms of AMD CPU and GPU architecture at least - the last-gen consoles were still a novelty in their own way. The AMD Jaguar CPU cores were originally targeting low power laptops and tablets, only reaching the desktop PC market in a quad-core configuration with the AM1 ‘Kabini’ platform, designed for basic tasks and even more basic gaming. Faced with a lack of CPU options that would work within a console, Microsoft and Sony adapted the same solution - strapping two of those quad-core CPU complexes together....

Anyone who’s played a Halo game online will probably have been teabagged. For the uninitiated, it involves repeatedly pressing the crouch button so your Spartan character squats up and down on your enemy’s corpse. Halo players have been teabagging each other since Halo: Combat Evolved came out in 2001, to rub it in, to frustrate and annoy. In the online world of Halo, teabagging is very much human behaviour. So we come to the upcoming Halo Infinite which has, for the first time in the series, bots....

This week Sony confirmed God of War: Ragnarok, which was originally announced for a PlayStation 5 release in 2021, is delayed into next year, and will now also launch on PlayStation 4. That’s not all! Polyphony’s hotly-anticipated Gran Turismo 7, which Sony had said was a PS5 exclusive, is also coming to PS4. As you’d expect, these announcements sparked a vociferous debate, with many picking out PlayStation boss Jim Ryan’s prior “… we believe in generations” quote as evidence of Sony’s hypocrisy....

For the uninitiated, the aim of Wordle is to work out a daily five-letter word within six guesses. The fewer the guesses, the better - and if you fail to guess it at all, you’ll break your streak. The latter is why working out today’s Wordle answer is such a priority, as players pride themselves on keeping their streak going. So why gamble on a risky final guess when you can learn a few clues and, failing that, get the definitive answer?...