S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 test footage has leaked online after “a year and a half” of hacker attacks

The Ukrainian studio working on S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart Of Chernobyl, GSC Game World, have confirmed that early development materials from the game have been leaked online, following “about a year and a half” worth of attacks from a Russian hacking group. GSC say that the materials aren’t “release-ready,” but looking at the leaked clips may “ruin your experience of exploring the Zone.”

Read more

Ubisoft Forward 2023 confirms fresh looks at Avatar, Assassin’s Creed, and new mystery game

The season of big video game announcements – otherwise known as NotE3 season – is in full swing and Ubisoft have decided to join the trailer festivities by teasing their own showcase. The Ubisoft Forward show will be broadcast live from Los Angeles on June 12th at 6pm BST/10am PDT, with a pre-show starting 15 minutes earlier. The publisher also released a small clip to confirm that AssCreed, Avatar, and The Crew: Motorfest will all make an appearance, alongside a non-descript mystery game. Take a peek below.

Read more

The EPOS Sennheiser GSP 600 is down to $54.99 in the US

EPOS make some of the best gaming headsets in the business, so it’s great to see a deep discount on one of their best Sennheiser co-creations. The GSP 600 offers extremely good build quality, great audio and incredible noise isolation too.

Its list price is a faintly ridiculous $219, but right now you can pick up a brand new set of these headphones for $54.99 at Woot. That’s a solid $15 off the same set on Amazon, and a great price for headphones of this level of quality.

Read more

Intel’s Core i5 13400F is down to $165 after a $50 Best Buy discount

Intel’s mid-range Core i5 processors have long been some of the best choices for gaming PCs, versus Core i7 and Core i9 models that require much more cooling while not providing much more performance in GPU-limited scenarios. Their 13th-gen models are a particular favourite, and today we have a US deal on perhaps the best value gaming CPU in that lineup: the Core i5 13400F is now down to $164.99 at Best Buy following a $50 discount.

Read more

RPS GOTY Revisited: 2013’s Kentucky Route Zero goes nowhere fast, and that’s why we love it

When RPS awarded Kentucky Route Zero the title of Game Of The Year in 2013, only two episodes out of an eventual five had been released. If this sounds like a bland statement of fact, just think about it for a second. I can’t recall any other time an episodic adventure game has received GOTY-level praise before it was even concluded, let alone only 40% done.

Episodes three through five arrived sporadically: in spring 2014, summer 2016, and — after what must have been an agonising hiatus — the start of 2020. Having bypassed this wait to play the game for the first time only recently, I feel wistfully as though I’ll never share quite the same fond feelings for it as contemporary fans (like our own reviews ranger Rachel, who recently named KRZ one of her all-time favourite indie games). But I’m also quite relieved that I didn’t have to exercise that kind of patience. I mean, I’m very good at neglecting to carry on with games for years at a time despite thoroughly enjoying what I’ve played so far. But I like doing it on my terms, you know?

I initially attempted to do something a bit clever with this retrospective. I wanted to play the first two episodes that earned KRZ our GOTY nod in 2013, and write up on them as a discrete entity as far as possible. Only then did I plan to carry on the game and add some follow-up impressions, perhaps assessing whether I thought RPS would still award the big chocolate medal to the full game as it finally came to be in 2020. But, after sitting with my feelings about Episodes 1-2 for a couple of weeks, any intelligent observations I might have made were drowned out by an increasingly loud, insistent voice in the back of my head howling: “I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS.” Actually, that might be a good impression to just let stand on its own merits.

Read more

Steam Deck vs Asus ROG Ally: a handheld head-to-head

Mere spec sheets? Old news, friend. This Steam Deck vs Asus ROG Ally comparison is new and improved with actual testing results, both hard data (I may even borrow some benchmark graphs from the ROG Ally review) and those of the observational/anecdotal/downright take-y variety. Hopefully, by the end of it, these will give you a far better idea of which handheld gaming PC will suit your travelling needs, performance preferences, or even specific games to play on the go.

Read more

Creative Assembly have “absolutely no plans” to bring ancient Egyptian mythology to Total War: Pharaoh

Despite all the fun that could obviously be had unleashing rampaging sphynxs and hippo-headed warriors on the battlefields of Total War: Pharaoh, Creative Assembly Sofia are currently steadfast in keeping their latest historical release firmly in the realm of history, with “absolutely no plans” to release a similar expansion to Troy’s Mythos, which added magic and minotaurs to the otherwise relatively grounded Aegean setting.

Read more

Indiescovery Episode 11: Our favourite indie games of 2023 so far

Somehow it’s June already, which means it’s time for the Indiescovery crew to suppress our existential dread at the fleetingness of existence and take a look at our favourite indie games from the first (almost) half of 2023! Don’t worry, we very quickly realise that June has such a slammed line-up we can probably give it a best-games episode all of its own to make up for the fact that we tackled this topic a bit early.

Listen and subscribe via your podcast provider of choice! Find us on RSS feed, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Deezer, and YouTube.

Read more

Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged ups the chaos and vehicular destruction this year

Arcade racer Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged is speeding our way on October 19th, developer Milestone have announced. Like the first surprisingly great game, you’ll race over 130 toy cars through real-world locations, zooming past dinner tables, out of windows, and across gardens. Seems like more good fun, whether you’re a five-year-old or a five-year-old stuck in an adult’s body.

Read more