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Dbrand has launched a new “Big Short” sale that includes sizable discounts on its Killswitch cases and more for the Steam Deck and other devices.
Dbrand’s Big Short sale has dropped the best Steam Deck case to just $50
Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun
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Doom: The Dark Ages doesn’t run badly on PC, but enforced ray tracing slows the pace
I’m liking Doom: The Dark Ages more than local reviewist Nic does, possibly because spending most of 2024 remoulding my brain to learn Elden Ring has unduly engorged the part that appreciates a good parry-and-riposte. C’est la vie demons, and colleague. There is one issue that bothers me, though: why, of all the games on Bethesda’s production lines, was this chosen to be the next game that follows Indiana Jones and the Great Circle in making ray tracing effects compulsory?
Europa Universalis 5 is so complex its developers will let you automate half the game
I am rewriting the history of Korea, and there are blotty ink stains everywhere. Europa Universalis 5 was announced yesterday, the official unveiling of a grand strategy game that has been an open secret since April last year, thanks to a long-running dev diary. As reveals go, it was less a cloak and dagger ambush and more an elephant charge that everyone in Europe could see coming from fifteen countries away. Still, elephants are always nice. I got some hands-on time with an early build of the map-happy historical simulation, and I’m delighted to report that the kingdom of Korea is struggling. After instituting many new laws, the leader of the nation has passed away. He was steely, noble, robust, and will be remembered as much for his kindness as his strength. He died of the common cold.
It’s okay, the computer will clean all this up.
Knights Of The Crusades is a busy, bloody, villainous grand strategy RTS
I’ve been meaning to research the Crusades for a while. A series of vicious medieval religious wars for control of the Holy Land, initiated by the Latin Christian Church following the conquest of Jerusalem by the Rashidun Caliphate, they’ve become a collection of memes bandied around by today’s armchair fascists. See also, “deus vult”. I’ve explored them indirectly in articles about the cultural inheritance of Warhammer 40,000, but never really dipped into any history books or crusader fiction save for ailing 2004 action game Knights Of The Temple: Infernal Crusade, in which Sir Spamalot Go Bonk against a majestic sunset.
One place to start the R&D rollout might be Knights Of The Crusades, a grand strategy 4X game in which players re-enact the period from the perspective of Christian and Muslim factions.
Alien: Rogue Incursion gets a non-VR “Evolved” edition this year, with prettier, deadlier xenomorphs
Alien: Rogue Incursion will get a non-VR release on PC later this year, allowing would-be Colonial Marines access to its Weyland-Yutani black site without first requiring you to force your head inside a pair of microscopic televisions. Subtitled “Evolved Edition” – which feels like a real elbow in the kidneys for VR evangelists – it will sport “even deadlier Xenomorphs and enhanced visuals”. Hopefully, that’ll be enough to juice the VR version’s current Mixed user review consensus on Steam.
Chrono Trigger writer is “starting to contemplate” a remake after all
Rumours of a Chrono Trigger remake briefly bubbled up before being swiftly pin-popped last week, following a mistranslation of the JRPG‘s writer, Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii at a panel. The potion-swilling public were understandably chuffed (you still can’t Google Horii’s name without being served videos of pog-faced excite-os screaming “Chrono Trigger Remake Confirmed!!!”), but it soon turned out that no such remake was actually planned.
Based on a recent interview with Gamereactor at the same event, it sounds like Horii has been considering doing something with Chrono Trigger after all, which isn’t too surprising after Square Enix said they planned to celebrate the game’s 30th anniversary with “various projects” back in March. From Gamereactor:
Europa Universalis 5 won’t launch with a subscription – but it might get one later
Grand strategy country crusher Europa Universalis 5 was announced yesterday, revealing a complex century-spanning historical sim. But one thing we still don’t know is the price or how it’ll be sold. If you want to buy the previous game in the series, Europa Universalis 4, you’ll find a slew of subscription models and a big library of DLC alongside the base game. Which might cause some fans to worry that the sequel will launch with some sort of similar subscription model. But this won’t be the case, say developers Paradox Tinto. They’re going to sell it normally. At least for now.
Eric Barone, the guy who can’t stop updating Stardew Valley, says the words “I might eventually make a Stardew Valley 2”
Did you know that Stardew Valley is the 21st best-selling game of all time? It’s sold more than Skyrim! At least by the numbers we currently have, anyway. I don’t care all that much about sales figures, but if creator Eric Barone cared more about money, I can only imagine that a sequel would be all but guaranteed. As it turns out though, the developer could actually see himself making a sequel to the beloved farming sim.
Doloc Town is a self-described cosy post-apocalyptic farming sim platformer, and it’s out in early access now
I’m not sure if the words cosy and apocalypse are generally ones that go hand in hand together, but Doloc Town is positioning itself as just that. Specifically, it’s a quite lovely looking pixel-art farming sim set in a post-apocalypse, and it just launched in early access today. Like in many farming sims before it, there’s the usual thing of tending to and growing your crops, cooking them up, fishing, that sort of thing. Where it differs is it’s all on a 2D plane, obviously meaning you’ll have to think about space quite differently.
Helldiver 2’s next warbond will let you look even more fascist than normal, adds in a literal sword
Helldivers 2 is, very obviously, a game where you roleplay as space fascists. Like, the game explicitly treats you as fodder for a war against various supposedly evil species all in the name of colonising other planets. It’s not subtle! But it’s also silly as hell, so the shooter more or less gets away with it. Arrowhead just announced a new warbond though, and I’ll be honest: the new outfits are probably the most fascist looking yet.