Category: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

While Rishi Sunak bundles nerds into Bletchley Park, we at the Electronic Wireless Show podcast are investigating the real danger of AI: somewhat rubbish text-to-speech voicelines making The Finals less fun. We discuss the arrival of AI voices in big-name games, the disappointingly businessy thinking behind it, and whether we can think up some uses for AI-generated material that we can actually get behind. All sparked by voice actor Gianni Matragrano’s video compilation of the lines in question, which you should probably watch before listening to this episode, or there’ll be a bit where Nate appears to bellow “THE KING FISH” for no reason. Well, maybe not no reason. It’s still Nate.

Plus! We talk about what we’ve been playing this week, which coincidentally for me was The Finals, while Nate’s been digging deeper into the Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor demo. I also recount the teeth-based controversy surrounding Cities: Skyline 2, in turn begging the question: what are they going to do with all those teeth?

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The android is unresponsive, standing frozen mid-step with one foot off the ground. I hold its metal head in my hands, tilting it this way and that as I stare into its cold red eye. It offers no resistance to my pushes and pulls, as though I was a hairdresser directing a patron’s head. Based on Stanisław Lem’s 1964 novel of the same name, The Invincible’s Firewatch-like first-person adventure is intent on exploring how machines will come to shape humanity’s future. Over the course of its ten-hour story, where you step into the Soviet-styled space boots of biologist Yasna, you will take on her desperate search for the missing crew of her research ship, The Dragonfly, lost somewhere on the rocky, sandstorm-whipped world of Regis III.

Using a logbook filled with hand-drawn maps and scrawled notes, I’ve tracked Yasna’s crew to a makeshift game to the east of where they originally landed. Instead of humans, I find the lifeless robot. I want the android to give me answers, to tell me where my crew mates are, to explain what happened on Regis III, and why I can’t remember anything before I woke up in the desert with my possessions scattered around me.

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Stand RoboCop: Rogue City next to other FPS games in a police line-up, and you’ll quickly notice the difference. This big guy is clunky, boxy, and has insane system requirements devoted to creating dazzling reflections. However, stand it next to other RoboCop games (maybe even the movies?) and it suddenly looks like a masterpiece in chrome. This is a filmic and faithful adaptation that’s likely to get instant fan approval, but didn’t leave my shooty thumbs that impressed.

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There comes a point when adding yet another behemothic RPG to your collection of unfinished, behemothic RPGs ceases to be a mark of eccentricity and becomes an act of manifest self-hatred. I, for instance, have just activated a beta code for 100-hour levelling fest Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader even as I make a mental note that really, I’ve got to make some proper headway in Baldur’s Gate 3 this evening.

For The King 2, at least, seems pretty trim and digestible at a reported 30 hours in length. Released out of early access today, it’s a blend of fantasy table-top gaming and roguelite, in which you lead a party of adventurers across a hexagonal map to quash an evil Queen in grid, dice and turn-based combat.

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First there was “JASON!“, a martyred child whose name cracked a thousand lips, rawed a thousand throats, blistered a thousand fingers. Then came “FENTON!“, a hunter-trickster spirit forsaken by Christ. Perhaps next will be “ROY!” The upcoming first-person survival horror game Rotten Flesh will invite you to shout the name of your lost dog into your microphone, hoping that Roy will bark back to let you know where he is. Fun fact: other, nondog things will hear you shouting too. Have a peek in the announcement trailer below.

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Larian have released a new Baldur’s Gate 3 update, Patch 4, which applies 1000 fixes and changes to the indecently expansive fantasy RPG – far too many to list on Steam. The most significant additions are accessibility settings for colour-blind people, the ability to visually customise hirelings upon recruitment, and the ability to clean up party members using sponges and soap, rather than lobbing bottles of water at them. No more rocking up to cutscenes looking like Sweeney Todd on his lunchbreak! Well, unless that’s your vibe.

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Last time, you decided that blink teleports are better than summoning spectral animals. I’m wholly unsurprised but I am glad that the fleeting beasties still earned a respectable share of science votes. This Halloween week, with eggs drying on your house and Snickers-sweet vomit running in the gutters, let’s consider death. What’s better: ghosts walking through walls, or soulslike bloodstains?

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Pinocchio Soulslike Lies of P – aka Bloodborne for PC players – will be getting a sequel in the future, the game’s director has revealed. In the meantime, the well-received action-RPG has plenty on the way in the form of a patch out this month including gameplay tweaks, free cosmetics, a soundtrack release, and DLC.

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(Formerly) indie developers System Era, known for planet-exploring space sandbox Astroneer, have been acquired by Devolver Digital, known for putting out that offbeat indie game you like, probably.

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Will it ever be The Day Of for much-delayed and gossip-laden zombie MMO The Day Before? We’ll apparently find out in just over a month, as The Day Before’s release date has now been announced as December 5th following yet another slide back from its previous date of November 10th. That’s after developers Fntastic previously promised that there wouldn’t be any more delays – something its latest ‘Final Trailer’ presumably vows once again.

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